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rainbowfic2025-09-04 04:31 pm
paradoxcase) wrote in rainbowfic2025-09-04 04:31 pm
Light Black #21 [The Fulcrum]
Name: A Strange Dreamreading
Story: The Fulcrum
Colors: Light Black #21: Use
Styles and Supplies: Panorama, Modeling Clay (this prompt: Rufous)
Word Count: 1047
Rating: T
Warnings: Fantasy Drug (Ab)use
Characters: Setsiana, Qhoroali
In-Universe Date: 1912.3.2.1
Summary: Setsiana and Qhoroali view the dreamreading Setsiana created.
They had set the dreamreader up on Qhoroali’s desk in the living room, and each taken one of the two tiaras, and a bottle of qoire, and settled themselves into different chairs. Setsiana took the three drops that Qhoroali had told her was all she would need, doing her best to ignore the timelines that came into her view. Qhoroali approached the dreamreader and manipulated some buttons and switches.
As she had been told to expect, an image was projected onto the white back of the dreamreader’s lid — not an image of Sapfita as Setsiana had seen her, but of a shifting cloud laced through with silver veins, as the priestesses generally described. Unexpectedly, though, it was green, rather than blue, and the whole image seemed to be suffused with a faint green fog.
“Huh,” said Qhoroali. “Let me see…” she pushed some more buttons, and moved a slider. The image seemed to shift its perspective, rotating within the scene it presented, and the green tint faded. The Sapfita-cloud became blue, as expected, but Setsiana could see from the new position that there was also a shifting green cloud, which it appeared that the viewpoint had originally been inside. “Is that normally there?” she asked.
“No,” said Qhoroali. “Normally— normally the viewpoint starts out from the dreamer’s viewpoint. The dreamer generally just looks like themselves, and you can see them if you move the viewpoint around like this, although that’s not usually super useful. But instead of seeing you, we’re seeing this green thing, for some reason.” She shrugged. “Maybe the thing’s just getting old, or something. Let’s see what the recording shows us.” She pressed another button, and sat back into her chair.
The green cloud flashed, resolving itself into images in quick succession, faster than Setsiana was able to follow them. The blue and silver cloud flashed in return, even faster; she felt the images trigger the semantic connections to other things provided by the qoire, but they passed before her eyes too quickly for her to register them. She screwed up her eyes, focusing on the projection. “Does interpreting dreamreadings also require extensive practice?” she asked, wondering if this was also going to be as difficult as Guiding.
Qhoroali was frowning. “Not at all,” she said. “Usually it’s not like this. Usually the images stay for a while, like at least a minute, often longer. And usually the dreamer would be speaking in ordinary language. I wonder if there’s something up with the dreamreader.” She went back to the desk and pressed a button, bringing the flashing images to a stop. She manipulated several more controls, which cycled back and forth through what they’d already seen, at the same or faster speeds. “I don’t think it’s broken,” she said. “Did Sapfita say anything to you about it?”
“She did say it wasn’t broken,” Setsiana replied. “She also said this experiment wouldn’t be useful, but didn’t give a reason why.”
Qhoroali hesitated by the dreamreader a little longer, and then said, “Well, I can’t see what might be wrong with it, either, so let’s assume that She’s telling the truth about that, at least for the time being.” She pressed the button again, and the dreamreading continued.
More images flashed, too fast to focus on, from both of the clouds, until the green cloud began to turn yellow, then orange. Across the room from her, Qhoroali blinked. “Thought I saw myself in there for a moment,” she said. “Did you talk about me?”
Setsiana thought about whether she wanted to tell the truth. At the time, she’d been thinking that she wouldn’t mind if Qhoroali knew that she’d asked Sapfita about her; surely Qhoroali would have wanted to know the answer to the question of why she had never received a dream, as well. But now that it seemed unlikely that Qhoroali would be able to tell that they had discussed this, she wasn’t sure. Would Qhoroali actually appreciate the way she’d reacted to Sapfita’s first answer? Would she appreciate the true answer that Sapfita had eventually given?
She decided not to risk it. “No,” she replied.
Qhoroali shook her head, as if to clear it. “I must have imagined it,” she said. “This is going way too fast to follow.”
The formerly green cloud continued to change color, until it eventually became red and started pulsing, the images flashing in a sharp staccato. Qhoroali watched it intently. “Are you… angry? Are you yelling at Her?”
“Yes, I did, a little bit,” Setsiana admitted.
“What was it about?”
“I… nothing, really. It was kind of silly, in retrospect.”
Qhoroali looked across at her, searchingly, for a moment, and then back at the dreamreading, where the second cloud had cooled back down and now rested in a kind of turquoise range. “You must have a very interesting kind of relationship with Her,” she said. “I won’t pretend to understand it.”
They watched the last bits of the dreamreading, but that seemed to be it. The images stopped flashing, and eventually both clouds faded from view and the projection went dark. “Well, that was slightly disappointing,” said Qhoroali. “Usually they’re much longer, but with many fewer and more comprehensible images. It’s hard to really analyze this.” She paused, regarding the dreamreader again. “If there’s really nothing wrong with it… it’s almost like you were another god, speaking with Her fluently in whatever a god’s native language would be.”
Setsiana wondered if she should mention what Sapfita had told her about them having a direct mental connection. But even though she somewhat accepted that idea now, it still sounded ludicrous, and it would be incredibly presumptuous to claim to have such a connection with Her. And it still didn’t explain why Setsiana had appeared as a cloud, instead of as herself. So she simply shrugged. “I don’t know what makes these dreams possible, either,” she said, which wasn’t exactly a lie. “Based on what you’ve told me, they shouldn’t be.”
“But undeniably, they are,” said Qhoroali, looking back at the dreamreader. “The fact that the dreamreading even exists does prove that, at least. I wish we knew more.” She went back to the dreamreader, winding up the cord around her tiara as she went, and shut the lid.
Story: The Fulcrum
Colors: Light Black #21: Use
Styles and Supplies: Panorama, Modeling Clay (this prompt: Rufous)
Word Count: 1047
Rating: T
Warnings: Fantasy Drug (Ab)use
Characters: Setsiana, Qhoroali
In-Universe Date: 1912.3.2.1
Summary: Setsiana and Qhoroali view the dreamreading Setsiana created.
They had set the dreamreader up on Qhoroali’s desk in the living room, and each taken one of the two tiaras, and a bottle of qoire, and settled themselves into different chairs. Setsiana took the three drops that Qhoroali had told her was all she would need, doing her best to ignore the timelines that came into her view. Qhoroali approached the dreamreader and manipulated some buttons and switches.
As she had been told to expect, an image was projected onto the white back of the dreamreader’s lid — not an image of Sapfita as Setsiana had seen her, but of a shifting cloud laced through with silver veins, as the priestesses generally described. Unexpectedly, though, it was green, rather than blue, and the whole image seemed to be suffused with a faint green fog.
“Huh,” said Qhoroali. “Let me see…” she pushed some more buttons, and moved a slider. The image seemed to shift its perspective, rotating within the scene it presented, and the green tint faded. The Sapfita-cloud became blue, as expected, but Setsiana could see from the new position that there was also a shifting green cloud, which it appeared that the viewpoint had originally been inside. “Is that normally there?” she asked.
“No,” said Qhoroali. “Normally— normally the viewpoint starts out from the dreamer’s viewpoint. The dreamer generally just looks like themselves, and you can see them if you move the viewpoint around like this, although that’s not usually super useful. But instead of seeing you, we’re seeing this green thing, for some reason.” She shrugged. “Maybe the thing’s just getting old, or something. Let’s see what the recording shows us.” She pressed another button, and sat back into her chair.
The green cloud flashed, resolving itself into images in quick succession, faster than Setsiana was able to follow them. The blue and silver cloud flashed in return, even faster; she felt the images trigger the semantic connections to other things provided by the qoire, but they passed before her eyes too quickly for her to register them. She screwed up her eyes, focusing on the projection. “Does interpreting dreamreadings also require extensive practice?” she asked, wondering if this was also going to be as difficult as Guiding.
Qhoroali was frowning. “Not at all,” she said. “Usually it’s not like this. Usually the images stay for a while, like at least a minute, often longer. And usually the dreamer would be speaking in ordinary language. I wonder if there’s something up with the dreamreader.” She went back to the desk and pressed a button, bringing the flashing images to a stop. She manipulated several more controls, which cycled back and forth through what they’d already seen, at the same or faster speeds. “I don’t think it’s broken,” she said. “Did Sapfita say anything to you about it?”
“She did say it wasn’t broken,” Setsiana replied. “She also said this experiment wouldn’t be useful, but didn’t give a reason why.”
Qhoroali hesitated by the dreamreader a little longer, and then said, “Well, I can’t see what might be wrong with it, either, so let’s assume that She’s telling the truth about that, at least for the time being.” She pressed the button again, and the dreamreading continued.
More images flashed, too fast to focus on, from both of the clouds, until the green cloud began to turn yellow, then orange. Across the room from her, Qhoroali blinked. “Thought I saw myself in there for a moment,” she said. “Did you talk about me?”
Setsiana thought about whether she wanted to tell the truth. At the time, she’d been thinking that she wouldn’t mind if Qhoroali knew that she’d asked Sapfita about her; surely Qhoroali would have wanted to know the answer to the question of why she had never received a dream, as well. But now that it seemed unlikely that Qhoroali would be able to tell that they had discussed this, she wasn’t sure. Would Qhoroali actually appreciate the way she’d reacted to Sapfita’s first answer? Would she appreciate the true answer that Sapfita had eventually given?
She decided not to risk it. “No,” she replied.
Qhoroali shook her head, as if to clear it. “I must have imagined it,” she said. “This is going way too fast to follow.”
The formerly green cloud continued to change color, until it eventually became red and started pulsing, the images flashing in a sharp staccato. Qhoroali watched it intently. “Are you… angry? Are you yelling at Her?”
“Yes, I did, a little bit,” Setsiana admitted.
“What was it about?”
“I… nothing, really. It was kind of silly, in retrospect.”
Qhoroali looked across at her, searchingly, for a moment, and then back at the dreamreading, where the second cloud had cooled back down and now rested in a kind of turquoise range. “You must have a very interesting kind of relationship with Her,” she said. “I won’t pretend to understand it.”
They watched the last bits of the dreamreading, but that seemed to be it. The images stopped flashing, and eventually both clouds faded from view and the projection went dark. “Well, that was slightly disappointing,” said Qhoroali. “Usually they’re much longer, but with many fewer and more comprehensible images. It’s hard to really analyze this.” She paused, regarding the dreamreader again. “If there’s really nothing wrong with it… it’s almost like you were another god, speaking with Her fluently in whatever a god’s native language would be.”
Setsiana wondered if she should mention what Sapfita had told her about them having a direct mental connection. But even though she somewhat accepted that idea now, it still sounded ludicrous, and it would be incredibly presumptuous to claim to have such a connection with Her. And it still didn’t explain why Setsiana had appeared as a cloud, instead of as herself. So she simply shrugged. “I don’t know what makes these dreams possible, either,” she said, which wasn’t exactly a lie. “Based on what you’ve told me, they shouldn’t be.”
“But undeniably, they are,” said Qhoroali, looking back at the dreamreader. “The fact that the dreamreading even exists does prove that, at least. I wish we knew more.” She went back to the dreamreader, winding up the cord around her tiara as she went, and shut the lid.
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no subject
Thank you!
no subject
no subject
Thank you! It will take a while to get answers, but I hope they are satisfying when they come.