Dreams Become Reality And You Are Still Here

Sleep came easy for Terra that first night with Lotus, his warm, protective presence helping to lull her quickly into the realm where dreams rule. She drifts away, curled into a tight ball at his side, telling herself that, if she uncurled, it would make him uncomfortable and he would shift away from her. Yet, as slumber carries her away, the warmth of his body against her own has the girl’s brown form beginning to uncurl and spread out next to him, touching every piece of him that she can. And that protection that he offers, the silent strength that she needs follows the girl into the dreaming world.

Usually, when Terra dreams, they are nightmares, questions that her family left unanswered the day they dropped her off at that cave and left her to die. She had been too stubborn, or perhaps too stupid, to just fade away, finding ways to sustain her small body with the bugs that called her cave home. They too would fill her nightmares, crawling over her body, worming their way under her skin until she would wake up screaming. And, on the blessed nights that she did not dream (or that she did not remember dreaming), the earthen girl would wake up with tears staining her cheeks but np understanding as to why.

However, the first night spent next to Lotus finds only finds happy, warm dreams entering her sleeping mind. At one point, she even dreams of being held and, in the waking world, Terra presses back into Lotus a little more, her smaller frame a perfect fit against his taller, lankier one. Paws twitch, nose crinkles and the night passes, the sun eventually breaking over the horizon to paint the sky a beautiful masterpiece of colors after the stormy night before. She does not want to wake up, preferring to stay rooted in the warmth and happiness of her dreams because she does not realize that, when she does awake, she will not be alone.


"Terra Qilaq"