The Silent Princess

Even with Elixabete's interruption to her day, Isilla slept with a smile on her face and her courtyard echoed her joy. Flowers burst forth as she sang and danced with Ilun, the animal happy with her happiness.

"Haribit is here! She's here! She's real! And today was such a nice day," she sang collapsing onto the animal who moved to catch her, a soft woof as their bodies collided. She stared up at the lavender sky.

"What do you think of Arren?" she asked Ilun. "Wasn't he strange today? Hasn't he been strange since he kissed me on the couch? It's been a week, I think, since then and he's been so different," she touched her lips, remembering his kiss, the way he held her, his body pressed so close. A heat spread through her at the memory and she sighed, shaking her head to clear it away.

"He is," she said slowly, "Very complicated."

Ilun stared at her but offered no answers.

"I should get to know him better," she decided. "There's time, as he said. I will speak with him about it tomorrow."

Decided she moved on to her other issue. "I have to do something about Elixabete," she said. "She's very dangerous. If Haribit had been just a little weaker or Elixabete a bit stronger, we could have been hurt today or worse. Her actions are so violent. It seems odd for someone of her stature. She was supposed to marry Arren. I don't think they would allow someone like that to marry a prince or maybe Arren is strong enough so that she isn't a threat."

Isilla stood and stretched. I'll go into her dream, maybe I can altar it. But I have to be careful, I don't want to change her memories. She has magic, can I make dreams real with her too, she wondered, as she passed through her gate with Ilun at her side into the first dream.

Lost in her own thoughts, she wondered through the dreams, shedding and absorbing energy, changing them subtly as she by passed dreamers. There was time yet before she would meet Arren.

Will he kiss me again, she thought suddenly, a tremor running through her before she pushed the feeling away. A kiss here means nothing, it is only a dream.

But, she paused staring up at the rainy sky as it shifted and cleared, that time did he really mean to kiss me? He didn't seem to remember the dream so maybe he doesn't know either.

Sighing she passed into another dream as she forced herself to focus on Elixabete and what to do about her. I need to change her, calm her down, but how?

She moved the energy of the dream she stood in, her eyes closed, feeling the flow of it without any of the details. It didn't matter how the scene changed, or even what it was, Isilla concerned herself with the energy, on old skill, the first thing learned by instinct as a dreamweaver. She plucked the cords of the dream, shifting it to something nicer, more firm in the dreamers mind.

This is how I have to do things, she thought, to be sure that I am safe and not revealed to her. A bit every night to calm her, it will be fine.


Decided she lifted herself above the dream and sorted through the dreamers until she found the right one, Elixabete's energy familiar to her after so many meetings. Sighing she dropped down, directly into the dream, as the shade had done when she took control of her body.

Something's wrong, she thought, her body tense, Ilun growling beside her.

The space, dark and broken, surrounded her. Wooden slats made the floor under her feet, some missing showing dark, churning water below. Nets and traps sat in piles all around. Thick, green moss grew everywhere and on everything.

"This is off, the energy is being," she paused, feeling for it as it slipped through her fingers, "pulled."

She crossed the space following a faint sound of crying. It grew louder, filling her ears until she could see Elixabete, crying on the floor. She crouched, her head in her hands. Here, no pregnancy stopped her body from folding in on itself, to keep her from becoming small.

Isilla had little attention for the woman as something else grabbed her focus. Next to Elixabete another crouched, their arm thrown over her shoulders, their face low, next to hers. Under the crying, Isilla could faintly make out the sound of whispered words.

Ilun growled and the other looked up, surprised.

"Who are you?" Isilla asked slowly, approaching the figure.

The person, a woman, stood slowly, curiously. Her hair, blonde and tangled hung long, past her waist, partially obscuring her body which appeared thin, far thinner than it should be to be healthy. Her face, pale, held soft lips and a small nose under large, copper colored eyes that had no pupils.

The word came to her, a faint almost memory. "Darkteller," Isilla breathed into the space between them.

The woman tilted her head, "Dreamweaver."

Isilla shifted the energy, changing the space quickly, letting it form on it's own. The darkteller closed her eyes, the energy swirling around her in massive amounts. Isilla felt it pull from her as it moved towards the woman who ate it in her way, returning darkness to the world undoing all the things that Isilla had done.

The part of Isilla that worked the threads of energy twisted them tighter, pulling more, wrapping them around the woman, the intruder, her original purpose for coming to this specific dream almost forgotten, a dark memory surfacing.

A blood memory, she thought, her voice the voice of the shade. "I'm to take you over," she said softly, lifting her arm sending the heavy ropes of light to the woman. "I'm to make you mine."

The darkteller's eyes widened as the power sprung to her.

"Too much!" she said jumping away from it, attempting to avoid the trap.

Ilun moved, leaping as he had earlier to end Elixabete, this time Isilla did not stop him, the memory telling her that she needed to stop the other, to hold her.

He caught her hair in his massive jaws, pulling her down and back, screaming and howling as he growled, dragging her to his mistress. Thick coils of light wrapped around her and she sunk the through the dream and into another space.

She's in my courtyard, Isilla thought as her light moved, shifting the space that had been occupied by the other, changing it into something else.

"Huh?" Elixabete asked as she looked up at the light streaming into the building from behind her, the wall destroyed to reveal a beautiful beach. Without a word, the woman ran for the freedom of it, laughing.

Isilla came to, fully. "Did the shade take over my body again?" she asked the empty room.

No, she thought looking down at her empty hands, this was different. I was me. I was like, when I was young. When my body just knew how to do things.

Frowning, she stepped into a hole in the floorboards, falling back into her own courtyard with Ilun by her side.

The girl stood in her rags and long hair staring at the sky Isilla had made.

She turned her copper eyes to her, "What are you going to do with me?"

Isilla tilted her head to the side, shaking it gently. "I don't know. What were you doing, in that dream?"

The girl frowned, "What they told me to do. I'm supposed to stay with her."

"Who told you do that?" Isilla asked. "Are there more of your kind here? The king seemed to think that you had all been killed."

The girl hugged herself shaking he head, "The men who hold me told me to."

She's like me, Isilla thought, but not. Nightmares instead of dreams. "Are you in trouble?" she asked slowly.

The girl shook her head, "Things are the way they have always been. In the waking time, is the sky really that color?"

Isilla shook her head and shifted the world, "The sky is this color."

"Oh! Is it really that blue?" the girl asked, sitting on the ground. "I can't leave, I tried and I can't. Why can't I leave? I don't want to be trapped here too. Please."

"Leave that woman alone," she said.

The girl nodded, "I won't bother her anymore."

Isilla breathed out, letting the faint memory guide her. The lines of light unraveled revealing a single strand that reached into the girls back, wrapping around something inside of her, anchoring her to the space.

The girl touched her chest. "What did you do?"

Isilla shook her head, "I don't know exactly but I'm sure you can leave now. It's just, I think that's so I can find you."

"Why," the girl asked.

"I don't know," she answered honestly. "What's your name?"

"Mireia," the girl said softly.

"That's a very pretty name. You can go now, if you want, just walk out of the gate," Isilla said.

The girl nodded and moved swiftly, pushing the gate open and disappearing though it. Isilla closed her eyes and felt along the threads of the Veil, finding the one connected to Mireia quickly.

She released it and sat on a bench. Someone sent that girl to Elixabete, but why, she thought as Ilun settled next to her. And why did I feel such a need to catch her? The shade said that a darkteller could help move some of this energy, to keep it from becoming overwhelming. Are there other ones like her? Should I find them.

She sat alone on her bench, attempting to make sense of what she had found and plot her next course of action.