Blue 28, Red 7: Dreams

[bookblather]

Author: Kat
Title: Dreams
Story: In the Heart -- Fairy Tales AU
Colors: Blue 28 (blueprint), red 7 (in the red).
Supplies and Materials: Canvas, eraser (fairy tales AU), brush (zoomorphic), stain ("The gaze of dogs who don't understand and who don't know that they may be right not to understand." -- Italo Calvino), oils (dream a little dream), yarn (this picture), glue (You're focused on healing an old emotional wound now since the important work is inside your head. Pay attention to how you react to what's happening, because you can learn a lot about yourself in the process.), glitter (this one)
Word Count: 245.
Rating: G.
Summary: Sometimes, Lars dreams that he is human.
Warnings: none.
Notes: A little taste of Lars's part of the Fairy Tale AU.


Sometimes, Lars dreams that he is human.

Apart from that, they are not very strange dreams. He is wrapped tight in a woman's arms as she rocks back and forth before a blazing fire. He can see a burly, bearded man on a bench before them, bouncing another child on his knee. Two little girls sit on the rug, their heads bent demurely to play with their dolls. The light shimmers off the man's armor and axe hanging on the wall, and he knows, in his sleepy small way, that soon he must don them and go to war.

But not yet, not now while the snow drifts down outside their snug house, falling down the chimney and hissing in the fire. For now, they are all together.

When he wakes from these dreams, he lifts his head from his paws and moves closer to his mother, whose warm white bulk is always comforting beside him. "Mama," he says, "you would tell me if I was not a bear."

"Of course I would," his mama says, "but that is silly. You're my son, and as I am a bear, so must you be. Now go back to sleep."

"Yes, Mama," he says, obediently, turns around three times like she has taught him, and settles close to her, snuggled into her warm fur, staring up at the cloud-swirled sky of stars while he waits for sleep to come.

He still feels, sometimes, that he's lost something.

Comments

[shipwreck_light]

One would expect the phrase, "you would tell me if I was not a bear" to be hilarious by default.

You.

You broke the default into little pieces and ATE THEM.

This was touching and very visual and I was happy to read it.

[bookblather]

NOM NOM NOM DEFAULT

Thank you. :D

[shadowsong26]

This is wonderful. I really like the detail about turning around three times--especially because threes tend to be very important in fairy tales. I don't know if that's a world detail or a bear detail (I don't know much about bears), but either way, very nice. ^^

[bookblather]

Hahaha I will pretend I meant that. Mostly I just thought it was a nice detail. That and I was watching Rufus do it. So, uh. World detail. Yes. Trufax.

Thank you. <3

[isana]

Oh, that's so sad, but so lovely at the same time--the distant memories and the lingering emptiness inside.

[bookblather]

Yeah. It's this very faint thing that he can't quite remember.

Which is not to say that he isn't happy. He is. He just needs to know the truths.

Thank you!

[ysonesse]

That strange sense of remembering(?) one existence yet waking up as something entirely different...wow, this is lovely. Simple, understated, and lovely.

[bookblather]

Yes, remembering. "Am I a man dreaming he is a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he is a man?"

Thank you.

[kay_brooke]

I love the underlying sadness in this piece, the melancholy that Lars doesn't quite understand. It's heartbreaking in its way.

[bookblather]

Yes, that was exactly what I was going for. There's a lie underpinning his whole life, and he needs to find it before he can really be happy.

Thank you.

[settecorvi]

I absolutely adore your use of language; without any loaded words to create an obvious source of tension, this is so lovely and so sad.

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I absolutely adore your use of language; without any loaded words to create an obvious source of tension, this is so lovely and so sad. <user="kay_brooke"> hit the nail on the head with "melancholy," and there's a creeping sense of unease below the surface.

[bookblather]

Aww, thank you so much. I'm glad all the undercurrents came through well enough.

[sarcasticsra]

Oh, this is great. I feel for Lars, and I hope he figures it out.

Well done.

[bookblather]

He does, eventually. And I think he manages to forgive his parents, too, eventually.

Thank you!

[clare_dragonfly]

Oh, that was lovely. Poor Lars. I suspect that his mother is, indeed, hiding something from him.

And I'm having fun coming up with the different fairy tale bears he could be!

[bookblather]

Oh, she very much is. He's not... any fairy tale bear in particular, his fairy tale is rather different. But he's definitely a bear. Most of the time, anyway.