Arc 5 | Chapter 181: To Be Dragged About By A Dream

Emilia blinked into the world, breathing in the too strong scent of flowers churning through the darkness.

A dream, the pieces sliding together so fast that she couldn’t help but be a little proud of herself—she’d taken far too long to determine that half the dreams she’d had in the world were in fact dreams, okay? Gleaning that this was a dream—regardless of how different the world was from the raid—all but immediately was something to be proud about!

One step, two, Emilia quickly found herself moving down the quiet halls of the Dion Summer Palace, following the paths that she had spent an entire summer memorizing, so many decades ago. There were no guards, however, even the corners and alcoves they had often tucked themselves into, hoping for little fun during the bore of night shift, stood empty.

Once, every Dion palace had been armed to the teeth. During all the wars that had marred its history, sentries had patrolled in groups of five or six, entire villages emptied to supply soldiers to defend the royal family while leaving the military scant of bodies, women and children left to starve as they struggled to farm the land without their husbands and fathers.

It had been a bit like that, the second time Emilia had visited, in her 30s. Not the deprivation of soldiers from the active army or lack of support for the locals—the then-Emperor had been more sensible than some of his ancestors, thankfully—but there had been far more guards patrolling the palace than when she’d lived there as a teen.

Then the war had left it empty, even the royal family stepping onto the front to defend the world. The Emperor, dead. His child, too young to be expected to rule an entire, war-torn country—not that they’d had a choice in the matter.

These empty halls could be that palace, abandoned until its new ruler was ready to face the memories written into its walls. Emilia didn’t really think so, although she couldn’t say why, just that she had a feeling this world wasn’t as real as it seemed at first glance.

This wasn’t like the library she had met Simeon in, a perfect replica of a place she had spent countless hours studying and sleeping within, pulled straight from her memories in such detail it was nauseating. Everything in this place was perfect as well, at least, until she looked at it too close.

If she focused, the precise details of intricate designs etched into every surface of the palace seemed to fade away. Perhaps for someone else, that wouldn’t have been strange. So many people looked without actually

looking.

They took in details and facts, could describe the vague ideas and motifs of something without actually knowing or understanding them—not that she could claim she understood them the way Dionese scholars did or anything.

On the surface, Dion was dragons and phoenixes—strange, mythological creatures that came from stories that were long since burned out of existence—and juri. Dion was wood carvings, scratched over in reds and golds and a black lacquer so deep it ate the light. Dion was tradition, strict and unbending to everyone but the royal family and their inner circle. That was what most people saw, even if they were afforded the opportunity to see the minute, flawless details of Dionese tradition and culture. Most people saw the larger picture, their minds never pulling in the finer details.

This world was like that: filled with the proper details, without the precise beauty of them.

This world wasn’t from her memories, so exacting after hours of exploring the palace that she could draw you a map—impressive, when her navigation skills were generally shit—and sketch out perfect pictures of most every hall. As much as it would be easy to go from hall to hall and assume they were copies of each other, the images drawn and carved into every surface identical, they weren’t—not in real life, anyways.

These halls of dreams were nearly identical, and if not for the slight change in scenery visible through windows and the occasional doorway that led to a room she recognized, she might have assumed she was walking down an endless hallway.

She wasn’t, and yet she was.

Frowning, Emilia looked around at the starting area—at least, she thought it was the place she had started. There was no way she could have gotten so turned around, however, and for a moment, she figured that perhaps she might have simply ended up in a section of hallway that looked exactly the same as that first hallway had, but no. If she walked more, following the same path she had before, it

was

the same path, with its too slight difference from turn to turn.

Identical artwork, slightly different configurations of doors and windows and the outer world.

Emilia turned into a room she had avoided before, knowing the door on the opposite wall led to another hallway. Instead of opening to a front hallway, with huge windows that looked onto the outer courtyard where public celebrations were held, she was back at the start.

Well, fuck.

Some sort of maze? Something forcing her to follow a specific path to get her… somewhere?

Carefully, Emilia followed that first path, letting her feet lead her along the well trod path to the room she’d been heading for, until she was back at the start.

Again, she let her feet take her where they would, but this time, when she reached the hallway that would lead her back to the start, Emilia stopped. There were three possible paths, not including going back the way she’d come, and until she had tried and failed to get to a new room via all the new paths in a room, she wasn’t about to turn back.

The path she had been taking originally would have led to her to the training rooms—although there were many diverging paths she could have taken through other areas of the palace to get there—while the other two would lead in the general direction of the throne room and the outer courtyard. Figuring that her attempts to head towards the outer courtyard had already earned her a trip back to the start, Emilia headed towards the throne room.

Thus began her hours long expedition to make it through the hallways of dreams—because this definitely hadn’t hit the level of unpleasantness that most of her other nightmares within the raid had reached—

and

nightmares—because seriously? Whose memories were creating this atrociously bland copy of the Summer Palace!? The fact that all the beauty of it had been muted down to such an extent was horrific, and as much as Emilia wanted to assume it was just that whoever had created this travesty didn’t have an eye for detail, she’d heard enough people talking about Free Colony culture as

lesser

to know that sometimes, this erasure of culture was simply the result of ignorance and preconceived notions.

It was sad, and part of the reason her father had brought her along on his trips so often had definitely been so she’d see the beauty of other cultures before mainstream education and media warped her mind. Emilia wasn’t sure she’d ever thanked him for that, or told him about how her experiences through his kindness had allowed her to become a person who could bring together all the people of their unit—not that that had entirely been her, but her experiences and openness had definitely helped.

Emilia’s mind was wandering, idly, through memories of her friends and the conflicts that had sometimes risen between them during the war—some humorous, many more verging on ruining relationships—when she reached the end of her travels, probably.

The Royal Library—specifically, one of the sections she was definitely not supposed to go inside. Of course, terrible teenager with no boundaries as she’d been, she’d managed to sneak in a few times, bravely descending into the depths of the archives and hoping that no one would find her. A few people had, but the most they’d done was remove her and assign her extra training or studies for the next few days.

There was no one around to stop her now, and after a brief moment of wondering why she was here and where she should be going, Emilia decided to follow Carne’s advice and go down. Technically, it was the universe’s advice, maybe. Carne could have just as easily been fucking with her, not that his Ash-persona seemed to hold any animosity for her, just a vague disinterest.

Rolling up the carpet and heaving the hatch to the lower, hidden section of the library open, Emilia began to make her way into the earth. This part of the dream seemed both closer and further away from what she remembered, her own memories of the underground library burned over with stress that someone would find her and either kill her on sight or have her banned from the Free Colony.

So what she remembered was vaguer, more formless than her memories of the upper sections of the palace. Yet while so many of her memories lined up with the world that opened around her as she walked, so much about the library seemed off—different in a way that seemed correct and incorrect all at once. Had her only visits to this place been more than a few decades earlier—or the palace damaged during the war—she might have assumed this was a newer version of the place she had snuck into as a teen.

More likely, it was either an amalgamation of another, similar library and the Dionese Summer Palace’s, or—perhaps more likely—whoever these memories belonged to was far older than her, the memories broken by age, or the library renovated since they’d last visited.

That was… odd. So much about this dream was odd—wrong in a way that told Emilia this wasn’t something that belonged inside her head.

She was still going to go down, and where locks and secret mechanisms had previously been nearly impossible for her to open, they slid open as though by magic for her now.

Down, down, down she went, the rhythm of her steps and the flow of the world fading away as though she were falling into a trance. Floor after floor slid by, her mind barely registering all the ancient items tucked into the floors she passed.

This wasn’t where she was meant to be. Something told her she’d find her place soon, but not yet.

Not yet.

More floors, more objects she would have loved to stop and examine under other circumstances, disappearing from view. Useless. Meaningless. She could ask to see them later, visit Dion again, like she’d once promised to. She was only a decade late. Out of all the people who wouldn’t fault her for taking so long to visit, her Dionese friends certainly wouldn’t. Dion was careful and precise, inching along at its own pace. Some people saw them as slow—as behind in the times. In some ways, they were, and yet they had won every war they had fought for thousands of years, their contribution to alliances—including the one between Baalphoria and many of the Free Colonies during the last war—so substantial than everyone knew if Dion hadn’t supported those wars, they wouldn’t have been won.

Emilia knew, the moment she reached the floor, that this was the one she was meant to be on. Like many of the floors she had passed—several of which she had managed to explore during her youth—this one was relatively small, only about 15 by 20 feet. Bookcases lined the walls, low tables set into the middle, plush cushions set against a wall, patiently waiting for a scholar to set it next to a table for a long study session. Always tidy—everything in Dion was tidy and perfect, at least in public spaces, even one as private as this one.

Antiques decorated the shelves, and while some of the floors had featured a mixture of books, scrolls and tablets—as well as the occasional storage system that Emilia had otherwise only seen inside the Virtuosi System—these ones held only books, and few at that.

Oh well, that would make it easier to search for what she needed.

Needed?

That was a strange way to think of whatever item had called her here.

Called her here?

Emilia had been going under the assumption that dream logic was leading her way, and yet now that she’d thought of a specific item calling her down here…

Yes. It was certainly something specific that had brought her down here, as insane as that sounded, even within her dreaming mind.

Now, all she had to do was find it.