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5. At first it seems as though nothing has changed. And then you realize: the phantom wind is a real wind, stirring your fur. It blows harder and harder until you are pushed inexorably back towards the stone, and then into it. If you are not a Legendary, there is no pain this time, but there is definite and sudden blackness, and a lingering moment of consciousness before you sleep, heavily. If you are a Legendary, you are swallowed up in the memory of a foal in the sac or the egg or the womb, until you forget who you are.
You awaken where you'd fallen asleep, exactly there and nowhere else, before you'd found yourself far from home. The time you spent away is there, but the memories are strangely elusive, like snippets of a dream. You can, if you focus, call them back up, but some of them are distorted and strange.
So it was a dream, then, you think, and you rise, and are alarmed to find that your hooves ache, your legs burning (and perhaps you shed sand from your coat, or snow, or the petal of an alien flower--perhaps you feel a lingering ache where something attacked you in the dream, or taste for an instant on your own breath the foreign fruit you'd eaten), as though you have walked a long, long way...
You awaken where you'd fallen asleep, exactly there and nowhere else, before you'd found yourself far from home. The time you spent away is there, but the memories are strangely elusive, like snippets of a dream. You can, if you focus, call them back up, but some of them are distorted and strange.
So it was a dream, then, you think, and you rise, and are alarmed to find that your hooves ache, your legs burning (and perhaps you shed sand from your coat, or snow, or the petal of an alien flower--perhaps you feel a lingering ache where something attacked you in the dream, or taste for an instant on your own breath the foreign fruit you'd eaten), as though you have walked a long, long way...
Motes-In-Moonlight was surprised by the pause in his father's speech. He peered around the tower, curious about the uncharacteristic and sudden silence, and was shocked by what he saw. His father had collapsed where he stood, nose touching the tower, legs and ears twitching gently in dreamlike convulsions. The younger buck scrambled frantically around and pushed his father back away from the glowing, white edifice. In his hurry, however, he brushed the stone himself, and was at once wracked with a bone-deep, searing pain. He flinched away from it, leaping clumsily over his father. Without waiting for the pain to fade, he pushed his father farther back, careful now not to touch the ominous monolith, and checked him over for any sign of harm.Wildflower Breeze was, by all appearances, sleeping - though his dreams may have been troubled, if his movements and mutterings were anything to go by. He hadn't been awoken by any of the pushing or commotion, so presumably it was a deep sleep, too. If it is a sleep at all, Motes worried before he could check the impulse.
Motes stretched his shoulders and back, trying to shake the lingering ache of the tower's touch. His heart fluttered and his legs were tingling with it, and his skin felt strange, almost loose, unless maybe it was stretched too tight. But the pain and discomfort weren't urgent, so he gave himself a full-body shake and focused on waking up his father. He nudged, and pleaded, and even nipped his ears, but for the longest time, nothing seemed to work.
The first reaction of any kind Motes could get out of him was in response to the desperation creeping into his whispers, but it was only an enigmatic, gravelly grumble; "Battle ain't til evening - lemme rest, lamb." After a few more similarly confusing mumblings in voices not like his own, he shot up like a bird from the underbrush, and started to wail in a panic, "Don't tell me I missed -" before he stopped, a stranger's expression of confusion on his face. "Wait. Something feels... wrong, he said, tilting his head. "Am I - was I dreaming?"As Breeze's voice and body language changed into something more familiar, Motes let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. "If it wasn't a dream, it was something like it, Motes sighed. "When you touched the tower, you just... collapsed, started half-running like a sleeping cat. It was a while ago - I've only just managed to wake you. What happened?"
"I think... those were memories," Breeze said slowly, "Only not mine. Not in any part mine," he repeated, his voice ringing with sudden conviction. "They weren't even kimeti."
Motes peered at Breeze with a great deal of confusion. "I'm a bit lost, father. Do you remember other kimeti's memories often?"
"Not as often as I've intended to," he replied distractedly, eying the tower warily. "I keep thinking I should try and remember Black Dog or someone, or other peoples' memories of them, but I just haven't gotten around to it. It's one of the perks of my new position, he added, providing a vague explanation as an afterthought.
If anything proves he's going to be fine, it'd be that, Motes thought wryly. He walked to his father's side and bumped their shoulders together with a quiet clatter. "So - gimme some details. Did you see anything interesting?
Breeze convincingly turned his surprised jump into a smug toss of his head. "Oh, birth, life, art, strife, death - all very ordinary and everyday things," he said airily, and pranced a half turn to face away from the tower.
Motes turned with him, grinning. "Since when do you dance, old man?"
"Since I woke up thinking I was an acha late for an important social event, apparently," he rejoined blandly. "I didn't think that would carry over as much as it has - I wonder if it will last? I have always been so embarrassed at not being able to dance. Since when do you call me 'old man'?"
Motes was saved having to come up with a response that suitably balanced respect and playfulness when the phantom wind that howled over the rocky plain suddenly became much more tangible.
(and you are saved from reading the rest of this until I finish writing it eventually!)
