“Happy!” Stirwin announced their return. For whatever reason, Nia didn’t come with him to the table but simply walked up to the edge of the pool and fell into the water like an out of balance pillar. Then she proceeded to float underneath the surface. A golden crocodile finding its way out of her arms.

John felt his hand twitch as the impulse to scratch the back of his head reflexively came up and was just as automatically suppressed. ‘It’s fine, John,’ he told himself and raised his hand to make the confused gesture with a slight delay. ‘You beat the habit, this is a perfectly appropriate time for a gesture like that.’

“What’s up with her?” Rave asked when he got closer to the group at large, eating ice cream while sitting in the jacuzzi. “And could ya have come back like 10 minutes later, we were in the middle of gossiping about ya.”

“It’s Nia, how should I know what exactly she is thinking?” John answered with another question. “And only nice things, I hope?”

“Nah, don’tcha act like ya don’t have flaws, mister big dick,” his girlfriend laughed at him. “Now get out that bowl, wanna see if I can chase ya away while acting like an angry housewife that caught her husband cheating or do some flattering to get on your good side again.”

John grumbled something about her always being on his good side and that being the only reason why she got away with stuff like this. Then he looked at her wide smile and grumbled some more about the fact that he loved her but that he would return the banter in kind in the near future.

For the moment he reached into the bowl and pulled out a name.

________________________________________________________________________

“AND DON’TCHA EVER DARE SHOWING YOUR STUPIDLY ATTRACTIVE FACE AROUND ME EVER AGAIN!” Rave shouted after her boyfriend and Aclysia as they walked down the little stairway to the public area. Then she broke out in a fit of laughter as all the normal people in hearing range looked at everyone involved in confusion.

John couldn’t help himself but laugh a little as well. This whole situation was just so ridiculous. Although the potential rumour machine was worrying him a bit. Then again, he was pretty sure that whatever the newspapers said about him could only be flattering after the storm that Lydia’s announcement had brought.

“Where are we going, John?” Aclysia asked as they made their way around the pool. Without Nia, it was a bit harder to navigate through a crowd, as people weren’t instinctively avoiding them anymore. And there were a lot of people at the public pool, as was natural as the heat rose to 28 degrees Celsius. According to the program it would peak tomorrow and then slowly cool off to 24 on the last day. Then there would be the final hour where the temperature would sink to whatever the actual climate in New York was right now.

“I don’t know, I don’t have a plan for our date,” John told her the truth. “I want you to make the decision.”

“Are you asking me to show independence again?” Aclysia asked in a disapproving tone. It wasn’t without merit to say that they had been through this game a few times already.

He hummed and then answered, “No, I wouldn’t say that; it’s just me paying you back by doing something that is mostly about you,” he held her hand and explained further. “If you want me to take control, then I will come up with something. We can do this whole date about me, but it would make me the happiest if we made it about you. If we don’t, my karma balance will become a vacuum one day with how much I rely on you.”

“So, I am supposed to make you happy by making me happy, which would be most effectively reached by making you happy, which…” Aclysia audible clenched her jaw shut before she could get herself stuck in a logic loop like last time they had a conversation like this. “I understand, please give me a moment to think. If I find something I would like to do, I will inform you.”

“Alright,” he agreed, and they just walked towards the public walkways and elevators that would bring them deeper into the ship. Eyes wandering over the people assembled, John wondered if it perhaps would have been smarter to reveal this to her over at the teleporter. Would have saved them some walking. He also spied Maximillian with Lala under his arm, talking to another woman in what was obvious flirting. Stef joined them. ‘Personality aside she does have nice tits,’ he thought; these three were walking around in their bathing equipment without worries. Aclysia wore her usual 2B dress, while he was running around in suit pants and white shirt. The enchantments kept him from feeling too hot, but he was still sweating a bit. Maybe he should be changing?

Aclysia looked at him; her pale red lips moved into a pout that reflected in her green irises. “Pay more attention to me, please,” she cutely pleaded. “That is the first thing that would make me very happy.”

“Sorry,” he said and planted a quick kiss on her lips. It was nice to be able to do that without bending down in any way; Aclysia was a mere centimetre shorter than him. “For the rest of this date, I will only have eyes for you. Although I will have to watch out to not walk into someone.”

That did warp her pout into a warm smile, and she kissed him back, with a lot more love, and it lasted for way longer. He made a point out of being the one who sent his happiness out to her spirit this time around. Their minds mingled, but only on the surface level as Aclysia was still thinking.

Finally, she presented an idea, still smiling her barely visible smile. “I do have an idea, although I am unsure how to realize it, but… can you make me dream?”

That was a weird question and one he wasn’t quite sure how to approach. Aclysia didn’t need sleep, and even when she did lay down to rest, that was more of a spiritual thing where she just shut out annoyances for a few hours to get her spirit in order. Traditionally this was done by cuddling with John and the wider harem for the night, but even then, she didn’t dream, she just partook in a time of little and ultimately only pleasant sensations.

‘So how to make a person who doesn’t sleep dream? I could have her partake in my dreams, theoretically, if I went to sleep and told her to keep in close contact with my mind, but that would be a second-hand experience at best and just an incoherent movie at worst,’ he pondered about this problem some more. ‘No, no, that would be a terrible date, this has to be about her. What is the closest thing I can do to making her dream… ah, I know!’ He had an epiphany, one that would rely on a skill he somewhat possessed and could only hope his increases in Wisdom, Intellect and Charisma had propelled it to at least acceptable levels. “Come with me, I might be able to bring you at least something like a dream.” They didn’t have to go far.

The nose of the boat was devoid of activity. No wonder, it was basically just a broad, curved walkway that had a pointy middle section, winding around the bridge, the crews lodge and the restaurant. On the third day of the cruise, everyone who wanted to stand there for a moment and relive Titanic had already done it. Outside of that there was nothing to do here but stare at the ocean, something that could be done more comfortably elsewhere.

Therefore, the seating there, a hip height protrusion of the wall behind them, was the perfect place for them to sit down and be alone for the moment. John gestured for Aclysia to wait for a second, then, once he was comfortable in a relaxed seating position, for her to sit down between his legs. She did and leaned against him, her head resting over his left shoulder. Calmly she waited, their hands, all four them, folded over her stomach.

“Close your eyes,” he told her, and she did. All sounds were distant, easily shushed away even by John’s softest whispers. “I am going to tell you a story, and I want you to just let your mind wander as my words reach your ears. It might have the… logical irrationality of a real dream, but if you just listen and imagine maybe, just maybe you will feel yourself falling for the illusion.”

“And at worst I will hear your soothing voice, John,” Aclysia’s soft spoken answer came with her soul touching his, as the two became as close to one as they could reliably be. “I am ready.”

John didn’t know if he was. He was a hobbyist storyteller, just a skill he had picked up at the side of playing that many RPG’s and spending bored hours making up backstories for characters. Could he really tell a story that would make someone dream?

He had decided to try, for Aclysia. He took a deep breath of her hair; the smell of oranges filled him. “Once, in a distant world…”

__________________________________________________________________

There was a blacksmith. He was a lone man in a world full of forests, but he knew how to work metals for some unknown reason. He had never even held a hammer, just known how to swing it, he had never even seen a sword, just known how to make it, and he had never even dreamed of cutting down a tree, yet he knew the axe’s shape.

Despite of what he knew and the fact that there was no food or drink that he could desire which the forests could not provide, the man felt that he was missing a piece. He roamed underneath the crowns of leaves above him. Green they were and golden and blue, red they were and silver and glass, black they were and bronze and grey. Under those black and bronze and grey leaves he found a voice crying out to him.

“You will never find what you seek, blacksmith, as long as you search above the ground.”

It was a crow, with white feathers and red eyes. A crow that was doubly so a harbinger of bad news. Yet still, that voice rang true with the blacksmith, even as the crow made a series of noises that sounded more like rats squeaking than a crow’s laughter.

“But searching underground would mean destroying the roots of these trees,” the blacksmith said. “Roots that provide a stable ground for all of us to tread upon.” The blacksmith knew, for he had once been the gardener that made this place. Once, when he hadn’t been himself, but someone else. Not in another life, but in another thought, he could have been the gardener, and in this world of endless forests, that made him the gardener.

“Those roots feed good trees that bring forth healthy fruits; given time, however, they will become inadequate for the animals they have to feed,” the crow spoke. “Then, when there are not enough healthy fruits, these roots will feed bad trees that can only bring forth bad fruits, for it is the blood of the current that will nurture them instead of the thoughts of the forerunners. Will you wait for the catastrophe or dispense with a piece of stability at your own? These roots are but a barrier between you and opportunity.”

With that the crow took off, breaking through the leaves above. It left a hole in the shifting ceiling, through which the beam of an unknown light fell. An object the blacksmith only knew from another’s memories, pictures on walls, a golden sphere, a myth, something that should not have been. He cast down his gaze, for only the spot on the floor was where he could watch the light without burning like deadwood. Where the sun hit the ground, the roots grew weak.

The blacksmith hesitated, but the crow’s words rang inside him, both true and as a temptation. A call to action that he heard. He used his hands to rip and dig, new ways that he hadn’t thought of before. He touched dirt, more dirt than he ever thought there could be, for he thought this world was made from roots below and leaves above. What he raised was a stone that was malleable. He took it with him.

As if in trance, the blacksmith transformed the stone by using the pile of dead branches he had found to make a fire and creating a pile of other, hard stones he found around it. With stones he formed the stone that began to glow, and glow it did, like the unspeakable thing between the leaves.

What he made through movements he had known, but not learned, from somewhere was the shape of a sword he had known, but not learned, from somewhere.

“Are you my creator?” the sword said, simple and grey as it was. The blacksmith could not answer, for he did not know if he had made the sword or the sword made him. He was no longer a blacksmith, he was a warrior, and he faced the world with different hands. The crow returned to watch him silently.

The warrior stood up to spread the wisdom he only did discover to whatever or whoever he ran across.

“This one will not see you for who you are, for he has accepted his lowest lot,” the crow whispered when the warrior approached a beggar under a tree whose fruits he couldn’t reach.

“Use me to cut down a younger tree and create a stool for this beggar,” the sword offered, “this way he can reach to places he wasn’t able to reach before.”

“Are you fine to be used like an axe?” the warrior asked.

“It does not concern me, for I am just your tool,” the sword answered, and so it was done.

“I am thankful,” the beggar held the fruits he could now gather in his arms. “I will travel like you and tell others what you showed me, oh great hero.”

The warrior nodded and moved on.

-

He met a young songstress, who used her voice to lure people into the woods where they got lost. Her voice also convinced the trees to grow, thus she was shackled.

“This one will not thank you, for she is vile and bitter,” the crow whispered.

“Use me to loosen her bindings,” the sword, dull, offered, “this way she can choose between good and evil.”

“Are you fine to be used like a pry?” the warrior asked.

“It does not concern me, for I am just your tool,” the sword answered, and so it was done. The warrior weakened every second link of the chains that held her.

“I do not hear you, but I doubt my life. Please leave me to myself for you have brought me nothing but a miserable uncertainty,” the songstress said.

The warrior nodded and moved on.

-

He met a cat stuck in vines. They were unbreakable and no matter how much the cat struggled, he only found himself deeper inside the net of green.

“This one will not stick with you, for he is too free to see the greater picture,” the crow whispered.

“Use me to cut down the vines,” the sword, dull, bent, offered.

“Are you fine to be used like a simple blade?” the warrior asked.

“It does not concern me, for I am just your tool,” the sword answered, and so it was done. The vines fell and with it the vitality in the trees surrounding them. Withered and dead.

“My life I owe you, but I will not stay here or with you, for I have my own path chosen,” the cat told the warrior.

The warrior nodded, and they both moved on.

-

He met a dragon of gigantic wisdom atop the only mountain he had ever seen.

“This one will hear you, for he is me and I am him,” the crow whispered and was devoured by the dragon. “And my problem is the forest and it needs to burn.”

Although the warrior had damaged the forest on his travels, he had left behind other things. Thus, the proposed destruction of his entire home appalled him.

“Use me to fend off his flames,” the sword, dull, bent and dirty, offered.

“Are you fine to be used like a shield?” the warrior asked.

“It does not concern me, for I am to protect you and now I can finally fulfil my service to you,” the sword said, and so it was done.

The dragon’s flames consumed the sword instead of the warrior or his forest. Enraged by this, the dragon’s flames continued on and on; it consumed itself in the flames that melted the blade until finally neither the dragon nor the sword were anymore.

Now less than a warrior and more than a blacksmith, the traveller climbed onto the peak of the mountain where he found a casket. It had a lid of patterns of stained glass. Green they were and golden and blue, red they were and silver and glass, black they were and bronze and grey. The blacksmith reached for the black and bronze and grey, and the lid shattered into new chaos that infested the world that so badly needed this sickness.

Inside he found a fair maiden whose story he did not know and who did not move. He placed the hilt of his companion inside the casket, ready to leave this place behind.

“I think I know you, whoever you are,” the fair maiden’s voice shook the traveller, for he heard the voice of his companion. “Did you slay the dragon?”

“It consumed itself, I only ever wielded the tool,” the traveller answered.

“A tool is nothing but the end of a former journey, after which you will find something you desire much more,” the maiden said. “Our journey should begin with a kiss.”

And that was a journey whose end the traveller never saw, but he enjoyed every step of it.

__________________________________________________________________________

John stopped as his creative nerves had come to an end. He had no idea what story he had just told or if it had been relevant in any way, shape or form. It felt like there was something in there, something that confused him deeply despite him being the one whose mind it stemmed from. ‘At least I managed to get one aspect of dreaming right,’ he thought to himself as Aclysia remained resting in his arms.

She wasn’t sleeping, but John could feel that she was seeing that whole journey, one he himself could not think off, before her eyes. Seconds flowing into years and years that felt like days. All spent together between the maiden and the blacksmith. He left her to it, holding her in his arms until she came back to reality with a smile so wide it spread onto his lips.

They just sat there together in perfect harmony.