The Kingdom of Dreams

Lycia stayed close to Pallavi, unsure if the girl wanted to be comforted or just listened to. Her eyes though sparkled with delight as the girl described her parents. She'd always loved hearing about people and places unfamiliar to her and clearly Pallavi's parents fell under that umbrella.

The girl giggled at the description of Pallavio's father's mustache. Mustaches weren't common where she came from but the men did usually have beards. Her own father's beard did have the sort of tickly feeling when he had kissed her on the forehead when she was younger, very much in the same way as Pallavi was describing her father. "He he, my father sometimes put me to bed like that too," she smiled and enjoyed similarly fond memories. Of course her father had stopped doing that when Lycia was about 7 so they were somewhat distant memories.

Lycia was very much distracted by the tear though. She watched in awe and sadness as the girl thought of something that made her tear up... and the tear floated in the air. It was tempting to try to touch the tear, to see how it would react. After struggling with whether or not that would bother Pallavi she did it anyway. One little finger reached out to gently poke at the tear.

However Pallavi's description of her mother was even more interesting than her father. A tail! And lots of jewelry! A significant portion of the things Pallavi was describing didn't translate quite so well, since Lycia didn't know what India was or what a reticulated python or Naga was like, but she was still fascinated. The girl stared at Pallavi with rapt attention. Her eyebrows raised and her lips pursed slightly in extreme curiosity as Pallavi started to say something but cut herself off. But before she could ask about it the girl had changed subjects.

"O-oh, yes! We can do fun things now," she chirped happily and offered Pallavi her hand to take. So they could run towards the pillow cart together. The cart which at this point seemed... wider. Like it had shifted to better accommodate two people instead of just one. Also just barely noticeable was the pillows now held more purple and greenish colors than they had before.

The Natau were still quietly grazing but spread out to give them a path towards the cart. Lycia was ready to run with Pallavi if she was willing or they could go separately. Personally she hoped Pallavi would run with her hand in hand because that seemed the most fun way to do it, but she was very flexible with things in the dream. Almost by necessity. The cart was a little high to jump into but... things had a way of working out despite any odd physics in the Dream.

The other girl seemed very hesitant to take her hand. Lycia was worried she'd done something wrong or made the girl uncomfortable. But then finally she had smiled and linked hands with her to run across the field. As they ran Lycia had a huge smile on her face again as she laughed and enjoyed the experience. Perhaps dragging Pallavi along a little in her enthusiasm.

There were a great many pillows, far more than would be reasonable to gather in the real world but fortunately that logic had no meaning here in the Dream. Lycia watched as Pallavi hurled herself up and over the side of the cart to plop into the pile of pillows and she cheered her on. For her part though she just kind of jumped and flew strangely high- enough to send her flopping down into the pillows a little ways next to Pallavi. "We can sleep if you want to I think," came the giggling voice of Lycia from down under a few pillows. She had sunk into them a little further than Pallavi had for some reason.

The girl brushed a few pillows aside and "swam" her way back up to lay next to Pallavi and also look up at the sky. "I hope you are enjoying the night here in the Dream. It is not always the same but it is always fun and exciting," she sighed happily and closed her eyes. Not exactly sleeping, just enjoying the comfort of the pillows and chatting with someone who might be a new friend. Or just a random dreamer passing through. She would be just as happy either way, though friends were fun outside the Dream as well as inside it. "Do you want to be my friend Pallavi?"

Lycia happily rolled over to lay there and take in the sky. Her feet kicked a little bit and one or two pillows bounced out of the wagon but it didn't matter. She shared the giggles with Pallavi about sleeping in a dream. It was a funny thing, but also completely possible there.

"I am really glad you like the Dream. I spend a lot of time here and I love it. Always adventures and fun," she agreed as the landscape around them started to shift again. It was subtle at first but before long the warm light from two stars began to redden and shadows lengthened as sunset approached.

Lycia hadn't had many friends outside of the Dream back home. Being a princess meant that her friendships had to be vetted by the guard... and by her parents first. And of course among the nobles she was regarded as the aloof spacey princess that was too adventurous for her own good.

So making friends on the island was an exciting thing for her. Her title didn't scare people off or make things harder. But she heard the hesitation in Pallavi's voice. Did she really just not want to be friends? That was kind of a depressing thought. If Pallavi was really paying attention she might have noticed a curtain of rain clouds starting to form on the horizon.

But then Pallavi expanded on why she wasn't sure about their friendship. She was afraid how she looked outside the dream would make Lycia run away. The girl sighed in relief that it wasn't something she was doing that was making the other girl hesitate. "Most people look different in the Dream. But... you can not scare me outside the dream with how you look," Lycia stated with absolute surety and lightly bopped her in the head with a soft pillow. "I'm blind. Out there I see only the souls." She didn't sound sad about her blindness. Her tone was that of someone who had accepted how things were.

Lycia looked confused at Pallavi's apology. "It is ok, you did not know. But it means I will remember you like this if that is what you want." Sure pallavi wouldn't feel the same if Lycia tried to hug her out there but honestly Lycia probably would have been more excited to learn about what Pallavi was than scared. The girl seemed nice enough.

She sat up and rested her back against the wooden side of the wagon while she spoke to Pallavi. "It is... not so easy to describe," Lycia began and scratched at her head. How did you describe seeing something that people normally couldn't see or comprehend naturally? "I see... they are like strings of light twisted inside a person. I do not know if I can see good or bad but I can see if the soul is hurt. Frayed edges and less glowing," she mused and held up a pillow with string tassels on it. To demonstrate she pulled a single string out and began unraveling it into tiny loos strands facing every which way. There was more than just a true visual component to sensing a soul but that was the best she could do.

There was one more important thing she almost forgot. Mostly because it had been a while since she last used that ability. "I can heal a hurt soul if I try very hard."

Without apparent rhyme or reason there was suddenly a small tabletop precariously balanced on some of the pillows with tea set for two and small light pastries with nuts and dried fruits baked in them. Manifest by the subconscious desire of either Lycia or Pallavi or a combination of the two.

Lycia nodded and smiled. She literally could not know what Pallavi looked like out in the real world unless someone showed her here in the Dream. She reached over to pour a cup of tea for herself and Pallavi and take one of the cookies for herself, nibbling the edge kind of like a mouse.

Her family had always been connected to soul magic from what she understood. The Dream had been given to her but the soul sight had been hers all along, it was just the blinding of her eyes that had made it more apparent. Like losing one sense to make the others stronger. Unfortunately actually healing a soul took a lot of power, much moreso than it took to damage one, in the experience of Lycia's people.

"It is ok, I like to talk with you. It is a strong gift to have even for my people," she replied as she sipped her tea. Unbothered by Pallavi's discomfort and indecision about how having her soul be seen would be.

She nodded at Pallavi, "I could do this, yes. It does make me very sleepy after though so we have to be careful where we do it." Lycia had to have sustained physical contact for hours to heal a soul and afterwards she usually had to sleep for a day or two straight just to be able to wake up again after the ordeal.