Dreams came few and far between for Mimsy. They stopped being pleasant after her first encounter with the shadows, and very nearly stopped entirely some years later. When she did dream, the worlds and stories crafted by her mind were gone as soon as she woke, stifled by the onslaught of thoughts dredged up from the night before.

She had no use for dreams.

A Mimsy from another world did not account for this, and seemed to grow more and more irritated with how long her doppelganger insisted on ignoring her. She snapped her fingers in front of her face, screamed, danced around, and finally, just before giving in, opted to pluck one of her own feathers and stuff it into the girl's nose.

She had her attention now.

After rubbing the feeling off of her nose, Mimsy regarded her with skepticism, leaning forward to get a better look at...herself? With wings and...right. A dream.

"I'm certainly not a dream," she grumbled, hands on her hips. "And I won't be anything soon, so you'll listen to me. This is important."

"I doubt that, and doubt that you're not a dream. Why would a dream admit such a thing? That is rhetorical, so please don't bother responding - they would not." She tried not to think about the reasons why she would be questioning her own bird-self in a dream.

"You are not any fun. I bet you don't even enjoy music," she muttered, rolling her eyes. Mimsy stiffened at the implication. "As I was saying: I'm not a dream. I'm a fragment of a memory of...sort of you from another world. Another universe. I'd say that my world is better than this one, but you would probably say the same, and I don't have time to argue."

Mimsy stayed silent, lips pressed together. She was right.

"I'm not sure of all the details, but I can tell you what I do know. I trust you with this, so please, don't be stupid with it."

"I could not be stupid if I tried," she snapped, gritting her teeth. Though the reaction amused the elf, she chose not to provoke her further. There was work to be done!

"Our kingdom was called Om, and we lived in a land of creativity and wonder. Our land was one of many lands, each within its own kingdom, but Om is where my story is. There were many kinds of people in Om, but I was one of a race of sky elves. We were known for our focus on intellect and academics. My focus was alchemy, and I was very good." Her chest puffed out and her feathers bristled. It seemed they shared a superiority on the subject of science.

"Just as I planned to further my study, however, I met a Bard outside a tavern. He was singing - the first time I'd really heard any song before. You do have singing, right?"

Eyes narrowed, Mimsy nodded. She took that as her cue to continue.

"It was beautiful. As if I'd never lived before! I left everything behind and followed him wherever he chose to go. Oh, I'd never seen someone so wonderful...perhaps he was a fragment of someone in your world, too? Green, with a companion named Song?"

Recoiling, Mimsy made a face, very, very tentatively murmuring, "...Lucky?" The elf's eyes brightened.

"Perhaps! I hope you love him just as much as I loved my Bard. I would have given anything for him! Done anything! I abandoned most of my studies to be by his side, and I regret not one single moment. Our world fell apart once when I was without him, but when we met again, and I was in his arms..." She sighed. "I kissed him for the first time, and a second, and third, and fourth, and so on, and there was not nearly enough time left in the world to make up for all I'd wanted to do to h--"

Mimsy choked out an incoherent string of words, smashing her palm into the other-Mimsy's face. "No, that's enough. If you have any more of this story, I don't want to hear it." She felt words trying to escape the alchemist's mouth beneath her hand, but she just pressed harder, panicking, face hot--

She woke with a strangled uuugh, stared at the wall for a very long time, and buried her face into her pillow. <******** alternative universes.