Opening Hope

- For the lady Hannah -

As Hunt-Lord Prime for more than half his life, and First Tracker to the Palaces' convoluted inner circle of convecting power blocks – few could compete, or would indeed contest his knowledge of amassed experience, not when it came to things his senses knew, or could interpret from the nuances he saw, within that which he picked up on.

Since even before the Sidhe Knight-Lords had battered their way up into the higher circles by force of arms, close to nine thousand cycles ago – moving from powerful roving clan, to become the entrenched dominators of Faery through strength of arms, a position furthered by marriage or treachery – he had met no living equal.

The former were of course greatly responsible for the latter – the Sidhe being only truly afraid of accomplished magic users, their own skills were too immature to contest the level reached by more refined practitioners.

So to keep his family lands and its castle safe from their fickle avariciousness, he had chosen to pander to their need for rough sport and games of combat skills, by making himself subtly indispensable as Master of the Noble Hunt – finding for them the sort of quarry that they could respect – and if that quarry tended to reduce their numbers on occasion during the hunt, then it was all for the better he felt.

Yet in time the Sidhe lords had begun to learn better graces, developingin situ as they were slowly absorbed by the more practised Clans in the greater circle of hierarchies that held immortal sway over the massed Fey – or at least those that deigned still to remain as a part of that greater whole.

Lately however, there were less of them in evidence on the many tracks and pathways of the interwoven worlds – and this apparent trend had begun to disturb him – fearing somehow that the Sidhe were reverting to their old ways, without his knowledge. Since this discovery, he had taken to tracking the lost ones quietly, whenever he could, and it had been while stalking carefully through a long-forgotten valley of steep, forest-choked ways through to the other places, that he caught the sorrow-scent – faint and tenuous on the upper breezes.

It halted him rigid, even if the apparent spoor was not one amongst the many he sought, therefore not from a member of the races he needed to speak with – its pattern was certainly old, and longer forgotten than those of these more recent truant players.

Standing there, letting his senses and skills tease at the pattern of information flowing bright through his mind – unravelling the separate skeins revealed – he traced the one he needed until he had a direction for its source. Location plotted in his mind, he began walking again – though slowly. The place had dangerous eddies of malignant emotion swirling and cruising through its air, so he kept clear of the shadows and took care with his every step – becoming absorbed in the tracking, and using that focus to bind any stray thoughts to him – loosing all sense of self, in case their signature rendered him visible to whatever lurked.

As expected, no physical being could be seen at the place where his senses took him – but a minor wound in the fabric between world-layers, acted as link between this place and that.

Human – his memory told him –a daughter of Eve, as they would call her – or less prosaically, a female of the species. Judging the scent further, he considered his next steps with care. There had been almost no contact with Humankind for over a thousand cycles – ever since it had become plain they were possessed of, and driven by a dangerous spirit, one lead by a mind-rationale that would win them no willing neighbours for some time.

Pack minds, flowing noisy with emotion, following the strongest for every turn of the way – yet this signature is of a lone and pained id, one in torment with its kind and itself.

This gave him further pause for thought, and he stood there a while longer, considering the point of resumed contact between their species, even at an individual level – the whole while, feeling his close fitting hunting-robes being bathed by the same faint and tricksome breeze that caught the scent of angst, spreading it in scattering across the small glade, then up through the tight-woven maze of branches grown close-by overhead.

Whether he should have chosen to stand clear of its influence, or not, was hardly an issue, as curiosity won the silent debate in the end. Reaching mentally for the link, he widened its aperture until he could step through – he needed to understand this apparent change, for himself.

The chamber was dark and under drapes against the night he felt pressing against the glass from outside. In its dimensions, he sensed a comfortably large space, yet comfortingly sparse in its number of furnishings and other objects – just a mirror-crowned table, two cunningly secreted cabinets, and a large bed with two occupants. It was from the human that the sorrow-stream predictably was coming – the cat just looked up and blinked sleepily at him.

Moving closer, with care, he let his senses find what was to be found from the female's unshielded thoughts, confident that he would glean his answers without resorting to the need for conversation. At the same time, he idly stroked the cat under its chin, keeping its contentment central in its mind.

The woman's life although full in many of its aspects, contained no mirror of the soul with which to share her days or moments of discovery, pain and pleasure with – it was a partner she craved, and from her mind's open broadcasting, he caught a confused image of what that partner should/must represent.

There was a bitterness of futility about her, even in sleep, and he looked down upon her with something like the pain a parent feels for seeing a sibling struggle for mastery with something it does not yet understand. Yet along with the sorrow, he felt something close to wonder, that these former savage beast-forms had developed to a point which may brook and warrant a re-opening of contact between their two places.

Turning his attention outwards, he overcame the sudden vertigo of realisation that he was currently some considerable distance above the ground, and stood in a tower of many such apartments, each mirroring its neighbour in design. Putting that disturbing discovery out of his mind, he cast his seeing-sense further afield, and began to absorb the underlying psyche-currents moving through the city and its environs.

He came back to himself, disappointed at what he'd learned –So far, and yet so similar to what they had been like in the older days. His sorrow for the lone sleeper, still oblivious of his presence, deepened – that she and a number of her kin, should be so surrounded by this mesa of insensitivity suspended over their heads made the sorrow emanating from her, more understandable.If allowed to blossom, what a flower she would be…

Then he straightened slowly with a smile, unconcerned as the cat trilled a quiet query as to why he had stopped stroking her. Opening his mind, and careful not to connect with the rift, he opened another link over the bed, expanding its dimensions to include himself, and guided it over them.

Emerging in the mellow light of a forested, late afternoon near one of his favourite meditation spots in one of the least frequented levels, he relaxed the link and let it close.

Seating himself in a dry bed of leaves, comfortably within view of the woman when she would wake, he settled and waited, accepting the cat into his lap with calm – it having decided that getting attention was better than not getting attention, and so had chosen to join him, although grudgingly of course.

As expected, the air and light-level change conspired to stir her early from sleep – he hoped she was at least rested enough.

She was not, her responses remaining painfully sluggish and expression uncomprehending.

‘Greetings good lady – I bid you welcome to this enchanted place, in absence of a host to do that for us. I am Arh'llae'rei, and I mean you no harm – indeed, I would consider it an honour if you would accept my protection for the duration of this interlude. May I in turn have the pleasure of knowing a name to call you?'

‘Who…?' She lifted herself a little on one elbow, frowning with a half squint into the filtered light slanting in on a low angle at her through the trees. ‘Where am I?'

‘A place of peace and beauty – like those in your dreams.' He had seen the images in her thoughts – attached to longings, and that had decided him on this place. It had interested him also, that such imagery existed still within the human psyche – especially so long after contact between the races had ceased, for their various reasons.

‘This is a dream?'

‘It is what you want to make of it – nothing more, or less.'

She continued to look around, while visibly pulling herself together better with each passing moment – then she returned her attention to Arh'llae'rei and her cat in his lap.

‘Well Joneses seems to trust you.'

He looked down at the cat purring shamelessly, its chin lifted high as he scratched her gently there: ‘Well at least I now have your feline's name, if not your own dear lady.'

‘Mmm, sorry – you asked that already, didn't you. Hope.'

He lifted both eyebrows with controlled grace. ‘I am to hope that you will honour me with your calling name?'

Unexpectedly, she laughed – the sound full and bright as the glade itself. ‘ No silly, my name is Hope…'

Now it was his turn to look perplexed: ‘Ah…a riddle. I do love them so…'

‘No-o – my name actually is, Hope. It's old-fashioned, I know – but I like it.'

Arh'llae'rei pursed his lips in a curious, thoughtful manner. ‘Then that is enough for me also. An auspicious name at that, I feel. There is much power in a name gifted.'

She looked at him thoughtfully: ‘And what about you? I can't call you that long babble of syllables – is there a more familiar name you go by?'

‘Ah, yes – but isn't it a little early in our acquaintanceship to be handing such to each other without a care? My clan name though is perhaps more conventional to your ears – call me Grey Tree, if you will.'

Sitting up in her bed suddenly, she gave him a long, vaguely mistrustful – yet curious look. ‘And where areyou from? I don't get your accent, and I've travelled a lot. Grey Tree would imply a North American Indian origin…but you look nothing like any I've seen, not with those ears…'

He smiled easily. ‘I can be from wherever I chose, or even from wherever you choose – I am your dream guide, remember?'

Hope nodded for a moment, still at a loss but looking less troubled – then she shrugged lightly as if it didn't really matter anyway.' Curiouser and curiouser.' He heard her say quietly – then she looked up with firm decision in her expression.

‘So you are my guide.' Settling into a more comfortable sitting position, she gathered the quilt around her – looking incongruous sat there, her hair stirring lightly to the gentle breeze's touch. ‘Tell me then, what are we going to do in this dream? I've read that they all have a purpose.'

‘M'lady, that would be entirely up to you – although I might suggest that the dream would be betterexperienced, than discussed. Perhaps a stroll through the woods might serve better, to bring you into contact with that which you need from this?'

She looked down at her night-clothing with a shake of the head. ‘Well, even if this is a dream – I'm hardly clothed for that.'

‘That is a matter with definite room for debate – arise from your bed, and let me judge more clearly.'

Moving the quilt aside with trepidation, she swung her legs down equally tentatively, frowning down at the drifts of dried leaves in all their various colours, broken by swathes of bright flowers like shoals of fish sailing through that leafy-sea. Amid a light crackling and rustling, she stood free of her link with the world she had left, self-consciously adjusting the loose dress of pale-lemon fabric, in an unsuccessful attempt to get it to cover her knees – a tricky task with the breeze catching its light fabric playfully, at each passing breath. Her nipples had hardened too, but he casually kept his eyes on her own.

‘Very suitable – light and airy as the atmosphere in which we find ourselves – but if you truly prefer, then I could clothe you however you wish – as a queen perhaps, or a lady in courting.'

A slight frown returned to her eyes. ‘Not the courting one – I haven't done that for a long time…'

He kept his silence, but watched her, ready for more.

‘It's not that I haven't had any offers,' she went back to looking distracted, ‘but none of them wanted to go out with me for the right reasons – not really. No one does anymore it seems – it's all just a ritual of quick dating, sex with no attachment or effort, and then onto the next in the line.' She shrugged to herself. ‘And bad sex at that – I think sometimes, that it is just a game of self-gratification, without the need to try, or ever have to cover up for their lacks, because they won't be around long enough to be confronted on their abilities as lovers – just another symptom of life now, and why we have all grown so cold.'

He looked at her throughout the quiet but clipped little speech from her soul, and understood the why of her sorrow – also the diversity he had felt between the sense of rising maturity, and stagnated growth elsewhere. At the same time, another part of him looked upon her and wondered, she was after all slender, still having all the natural beauty in her, gifted upon youth's ripening. She was graceful and would doubtless prove an interesting lover. He could not help it, when encountering people who were broken inside, where things did not apparently work – he just had to know why, and help fix that if he could.

She caught his look, head tilted slightly to one side. ‘Ah – I'm rambling again, on my favourite subject of hate.'

‘Perhaps this is the point of your dream…'

‘Maybe – but this is not like any dream I have ever had. I hate to sound so unoriginal and predictable, like in a bad book – but this feels all so real, even if I know it can't be. I mean…' she gestured at him, ‘…there you are, a tall, slender elf from my dreams – in my dream. Sorry, I'm probably not making any sense here.'

Curiously, her nipples having softened back during the words of sorrow, had begun to harden again. He hadn't noticed the breeze being any stronger during the intervening time.

‘I don't think I'd like to be treated as a queen either, not even for a day and by just one subject – that would be terrible to loose again afterwards – too much like my previous point, sort of.'

Her words caught him out, bringing him back from a surprising place, where he'd been contemplating something new as an option.

‘I would be happier in a long robe like yours though – if that's okay.'

These words surprised him even more, and he looked down at his own apparel, long and masking in its hang, a dark pattern, complex but not the fussy-ritualised stuff of court. He thought of it as practical, merely complementing the tighter hunt-clothing worn underneath.

‘…And it would be sort of neat to be dressed similar, don't you think?'

He returned his gaze to her, and despite the clear matter-of-fact manner with which he assessing the size of her frame in one up-and-down glance, she blushed lightly.

‘If that is your wish, then so be it…' He lifted his arms in acceptance, and from a briefly scintillating cloud of fading light-motes, a lighter version of the same style cloak appeared draped over them. He extended his arms further toward her.

The cat sensing an end to any further attention, jumped down from his lap and went to circle her mistress' ankles in the traditional morning ritual. Ignoring Joneses, she came forward and took the robe, draping it unfamiliarly around her shoulders.

‘It goes well I feel with the colour of your other garment.' He stood and adjusted how it sat on her shoulders, fingers carefully not quite coming into contact with the upper slopes of her breasts as he lifted the fabric forward, although he could plainly feel their heat from such close proximity, a mere finger's breadth away from those hard nipples that had him so fascinated. He delicately masked them with the cloth's fall, seeing her catch her breath at the sudden weighted contact against their sensitivity.

She laughed lightly: ‘I used to sleep nude, but not anymore – lucky really, or I would definitely be a lot more embarrassed now.'

‘You need not be, I am sure that nudity would become you as well as any apparel you choose to wear.'

She blushed again, covering it by bending to stroke her cat's head.

‘Thank you.' She offered in quiet return, after a moment.

With another gesture, he produced a slender garland of fresh flowers and put them delicately upon her head, their combined scent and properties would work as a mild but calming intoxicant – she needed the help.

For a while they walked, strolling the linked glades and finding windows onto open vistas, each of which delighted her – also he showed her the timid creatures from afar, and quiet places where time did not seem to matter very much.

Throughout, Hope relaxed totally, but he knew that the moment was approaching when he would need to bring her back to her own world, even though the time spent here would only be a fraction of that which had elapsed there, he did not want her to loose too much sleep as a result of his bringing her to this place. Unlike certain of his race-relatives, he did have sense of responsibilities for his own actions.

Somehow she must have sensed this, as when he brought her back to the glade with her bed in it, she turned and looked a little sad.

‘I suppose this is the end of my dream then?'

‘A dream though, which you may take back into your waking life – and one to gladden the harsher moments by the memory of what you have seen – this is my gift of ongoing healing to you.'

She tried to look less sad, brave even at the idea of having to leave: ‘It is such a shame, because it is just like all my other dreams of places like this, where I can never go back, or truly recapture what made me feel like it was truly happening.'

Looking up at him, she smiled. ‘It would be good to know I could visit here again…and to see you.'

He bowed his head slightly, eyes never leaving hers. ‘Well maybe you shall. It is but a heart's whim away – a call that I shall surely hear, coming from one so special.'

In a single step Hope was hugging him, the fear that his words were just that, evident in the tremours he felt under her skin. His own arms encircled her tenderly, and he held her like that for a moment while his mind made the changes of seeking the link, opening it and removing them and the bed back to where it and she belonged. Her cat was nowhere to be seen, but he found it and plucked it from whatever adventure it was embarked upon, drawing it with them.

Sensing the change in air and hardness of the floor, even through the light drift of leaves that had come with them, she pulled back slightly, but kept her arms around his waist, to look slowly around her room. ‘Now I know the dream is definitely over, even if you are still here. Except I don't want to believe that it was really a dream at all, and that I will see you again, from time to time.'

‘I will listen out for your call – that is my promise.' He gave her a gentle squeeze, and disengaged even more gently – stepping back two more paces, he faded from sight leaving her standing there, still in her cloak and wearing the garland of flowers he'd made for her.

After a moment, Hope stepped forward and vaguely waved her hand through the spot he'd occupied last, as if needing that final proof of his having really gone. Remaining stood like that for a moment, she sighed finally and turned back to her bed, as sad as she'd been before, but at least this was a different kind of sad – somehow more hopeful.