"From space, the world is blue."

I rose early and dressed. The moon was still up when I closed and locked the door to my little room, heading down the stairs to the hearth in the Library. Grrbrool crouched by the fire, its flames creating a halo behind him.

“Hello, Spirit Gal,” he grinned. “Rested and renewed? I kept tha…well, tha OTHER wolves from tha door.”

“Other wolves?” I laughed. I brushed my hair back over my shoulder, and went to his side, bending to kiss the top of his head.

Grr grinned again. “Keepin’ tha wolves from tha door, er, whilst ya slept. Watchin'.” I settled in beside him on the floor while he spoke. “I Watch, whilst ya sleep, I guard tha dark places whilst ya work… I am tha Watcher, tha Ferryman… tha Guide, but fer you, I just like ta Watch.” He leaned in and sniffed me all over, scenting me, and licking my hands.

“Beloved,” I smiled. I leaned back, enjoying the feel of his canine tongue against my skin, raising my hand to stroke the side of his face. “I had the strangest dream last night.” I bent my head to rub my cheek against his ruff, taking in the intense new scents that I slowly now was growing accustomed to.

“Dream?” Grr asked. “Was it a good dream? Or just strange?”

“It was... so vivid,” I replied. I pulled back slightly from him, my hand going to the silver flask held on its chain about my waist.

“Dream Walkin'? Was it like bein' -in- Dream? Or just a vivid dream?” Grr lowered his eyes to the flask and then touched it with one claw. “New power, new understandin’, can do things… not bad, but scary, if ya ain’t ready, or aware.”

I shook my head. “I was drifting... just ... drifting in a void of utter, perfect, boundless blue. It wasn't like being in Dream... but then again, it was... I mean... it was peaceful.”

“Floatin’ in tha sea? Or tha sky? Blue like that?”

I closed my eyes, remembering. “Shafts of light shone down on me from somewhere overhead.... more like the sea, I think. I could barely remember the surface... but I felt buoyed and surrounded... yet pulled deeper.” I smiled at him. “I wasn't afraid.”

Grr looked at me with a wary expression. “I like tha bay, but deep scares me if I can’t see bottom.”

“This was different, Grr,” I replied. “Deep, but... no fear. I felt myself descending willingly, settling with infinite slowness.” I laid one hand on his thigh and began stroking it absently. “You'd think I would have been afraid... but the pull... even when the light began to fade... I could feel the pressure of all the water around me, pressing me down... threatening to crush me from every imaginable point of contact, but…. “ I shook my head again. It puzzled me. “Somehow, Beloved, somehow I knew that wouldn't happen. That it wouldn’t be allowed to happen.”

“Ah.” Grr nodded as his eyes began to widen with understanding. “It is a vision from Nareth, maybe. She sleeps in tha deep.”

I glanced at the outer wall of the secret room behind the lab. “I'm not sure where she lies, anymore... nor with whom.” I felt a sudden, surprising stab of longing for Nareth. When I turned to look at Grr again, I could see in his face that he’d read me plainly.

I cleared my throat. “The thing is, Beloved... I knew I was safe.” I tried to meet his golden gaze.

“Do ya wanna go look over her restin’ spot?” Grr asked gently, laying one paw atop my hand. “I don’t mind. I keep ya both safe, when I can, when ya sleep.”

“Yes, please,” I whispered. With great warmth, Grr offered his paw to me. I took it in return and rose slowly, following him to the shelves that concealed the lab. I watched as he manipulated the books on the shelf randomly, opening the secret doorway. Hand in paw, we walked down the two stone steps into the darkness.

The stench was overpowering. As we drew nearer Nareth's resting place, the smell of rotting fish, a bone yard of crab skeletons, and the spray of turbid seawater assaulted us. Grr wrinkled his nose. “Fishy….”

We knelt on the floor beside the pit that was Nareth’s resting place. A dark, glistening membrane could be seen pulsing just beneath the surface of the hole.

“Beloved?”

“Mmm?” Grr murmured, swirling the water gently with a claw.

“I felt something... in my dream.” I grew quiet, lost in the memory of that place for a moment. When I looked up, I saw Grr studying me intently.

“You and Nareth,” Grr began hesitantly, “Yer bonded, aintcha? Tha smell… and taste….”

I had known this moment would come and I feared it. “Bonded,” I whispered, meeting his gaze. “Yes.” My eyes spoke the question to him that I could not.

Grr nodded slowly and smiled faintly, a little softly sad. “By blood and Family, Sister-Lover. Kin, Pack, Blood.”

I lay one hand upon his chest. “But Beloved, I am bonded to you... always. Always.”

Grr took my hand and held it close. “I ain’t jealous or nothin’, just wanna make sure yer safe, and free ta be you, how ever ya need, or wanna, be.”

I reached up to hold his face lightly. “Once together,” I said quietly, then closed my eyes, drew near to him, and touched my forehead against his.

Grr bumped his forehead against mine and smiled in the gloom and reek. “Always together.”

I burrowed into him, laying my head on his chest and gazing at the hole, watching the membrane pulse in the darkness.

“Whatever path ya walk,” he said, claw tips tracing through my hair. “I meant that, I still do.”

*****

From below (a direction that seemed to the girl even more infinite than above), cold tendrils of blackness rose to embrace her. Her long, white hair drifted about her as eel-like shadows caressed her pale body. She knew she was welcomed there, called down, and all the fear and pain and rejection that haunted her above began to dissolve like salt in the sea.

Her lips were no longer red, but blue as the light began to fade, as the light shifted, as all red vanished from the world and from her mind. She began whispering wordless prayers to Mother Hydra and Father Kraken, to Dagon and Great Cthulhu and nameless beings from Paleozoic depths, to the Urdines, and to the Nereids...

In reply, a greeting chant rose from below...

"There gathered round her every goddess, every Nereid that was in the deep salt sea. Glauce was there and Thaleia and Cymodoce; Nesaea, Speio, Thoe and ox-eyed Halie; Cymothoe, Actaee and Limnoreia; Melite, Iaera, Amphithoe and Agaue; Doto, Proto, Pherusa and Dynamene; Dexamene, Amphinome and Callianeira; Doris, Panope and far-sung Galatea; Nemertes, Apseudes and Callianassa. Clymene came too, with Ianeira, Ianassa, Maera, Oreithuia, Amatheia of the lovely locks, and other Nereids of the salt sea depths."

The girl sank, answering.


Dream Sequence, C. Kiernan