Dragon in the Dishwater
Chapter 14
copyright 2016, comidacomida

Eric was no stranger to falling asleep but the sensation of 'falling awake' was new to him.  There was no indication that he had drifted off to sleep and when he opened his eyes his room was exactly as he remembered it, including Hiraeth perched on his chest, though the dragon's gaze was no longer settled on him.  The young man watched the dragon, whose attention was given wholly over to the curtains strung across his window.

While most other rooms in the house had blinds Eric had always been a fan of curtains.  He wasn't able to place exactly where he'd gained that idiosyncrasy but it he always felt better when there was cloth between him and a window.  His attention remained on the window only long enough for Hiraeth to turn back to him, at which point the little dragon blinked its eyelids and membranes before speaking.  "You handled that well, Eric."

The young man sat up slowly, giving Hiraeth the opportunity to vacate his chest without falling off.  "Handled what well?"

The dragon's follow-up statement didn't exactly answer Eric's question.  "The first time Dwy entered The Dreaming she screamed."

Eric swung his feet around so he could set them on the floor; something about the sound of his bare feet touching down on the carpet sounded hollow.  No, he realized, it was the opposite of hollow-- it sounded almost over exaggerated... like the sound effects created by the Foley artists of early movie cinema.  Eric put two and two together.  "We're in The Dreaming?  This is the Dreaming?"

He glanced to where Hiraeth had been sitting on the bed and saw that the dragon had moved to the floor, and was once again the size of a big dog.  Hiraeth cocked his head to the side just a little, then glanced around the room before looking back to him.  "Yes... we are in The Dreaming.  Is it not what you expected, Eric?"

The young man shrugged in response.  "I guess I didn't know what to expect... but this just looks like my room is all-- not some magical realm of living legends or whatever."

Hiraeth stood up on his hind legs.  It wasn't like the previous times when he had sat up like a begging dog; the dragon actively stood, using his tail as a tri-pod for support as he balanced.  With talon extended toward Eric like some kind of romance story male lead Hiraeth looked to the window.  "Come.  I would very much like to show you something, Eric."

The teen didn't know why the gesture made him blush but he quickly shook the thought off and placed a hand in the offered talon.  "Uh... kay."

Hiraeth did surprisingly well walking across the room on two legs, tail half-slithering on the ground to continue aiding balance.  He stopped at the curtains and looked back to Eric.  "The locations within The Dreaming are comprised of scenes.  Much like a movie set you will see things that set a scene but if you look harder you will find that they hold little substance beyond your initial perception of them."

Eric's eyes went wide as the dragon used his free talon to brush the curtains aside, revealing the window behind it with a swirling pool of blackness beyond.  There was no drive way, no front yard, no street--- nothing.  The entire emptiness was punctuated only by faint, multicolored, glowing tendrils of what he could only describe as 'energy'.  "Oh my god..."

Hiraeth removed his talon from the curtains, allowing them to fall back into place before he reached for Eric's other hand.  Standing hands-in-talons with the dragon, the young man suddenly realized just how large Hiraeth was when he stood on his hind legs-- just a few inches shorter than Eric himself.  He found himself blushing again for some inexplicable reason, but that sensation passed quickly enough as Hiraeth disengaged, returning to all fours as he passed the human by.  "Welcome to The Dreaming, Eric... come along; we have much to explore."

The teen didn't bother objecting, following Hiraeth to his bedroom door.  The dragon stood beside it, nictitating membranes blinking as he watched Eric.  The casual observation from his companion gave the human a moment's pause.  "What?  What are you looking at?"

A soft smile slowly spread across Hiraeth's maw.  "You need to be the one to open the door, Eric.  Not me."

"Why NOT you?"

The dragon glanced to the door, then back to Eric.  "The Dreaming is a place of intent, Eric.  If I open the door then we will go where I decide.  This is YOUR journey, so the act of opening the door and changing our scene is best left up to you."

Not completely comprehending the difference, Eric shrugged and stepped forward to open the door.  Doing so was hardly the magical, supernatural experience the dragon had suggested; the usual hallway spread out beyond it in a most unspectacular manner.  He glanced to Hiraeth.  "Okay... so now what?"

The look on Hiraeth's muzzle would have been priceless if not for how confusing the expression of concern was for something so mundane.  The dragon recovered quickly however and his next comment was completely devoid of the same sense of stupification.  "I was suggesting something other than this hallway."

Eric stepped back as Hiraeth closed the door.  The dragon went up onto two legs and reached for the door knob as the young man asked for clarification.  "What do you mean?  What ELSE is supposed to be outside my roo--"

The words faded away unspoken as Eric's eyes gazed past the open door frame and fell upon a large, verdant clearing surrounded by tall, old growth trees and emerald foliage.  Hiraeth nodded to himself with all due relief, almost as if discovering a solution to some difficult problem.  "There.  This is much closer to correct."

The young man lingered in the doorway peering out of his room and into the grassy field.  "Closer to 'Correct'?  Since when does my bedroom door lead into the forest?"

The dragon chuckled good naturedly.  "Since it ceased being your bedroom door and instead became the concept of a threshold leading to somewhere else."

Hiraeth slid through the doorway, pushing past Eric's hip as he continued to grow in size.  The human could only stand there in awe as the dragon's body swelled and expanded... not in any gross or obscene way; it all seemed natural, as normal as Eric's fingers splaying when he opened his hand.  In a manner of seconds Hiraeth had grown to the size of a small aircraft-- one of those personal hobbyist four-seaters he'd always heard rich people were so fond of flying. The young man stood stunned, gazing, unable to think of anything but the question that came to his lips. "Is... is that your.... real size?"

The dragon circled around, graceful despite his large bulk.  Hiraeth pivoted on a hind leg, spreading his wings as he spun to face Eric almost as if it were a ballet move and when his second hind leg joined the first on the ground it was with no more sound than a man walking out onto a lawn.  With some strange newfound humor, Hiraeth lowered back down to all fours, crouching the front half of his body as he splayed his wings, and hovered his head to the ground in a surreal, four-legged bow. 

Hiraeth's voice came out as powerful as a rumble of thunder but accompanied by a tone that showed the same humor as his smile.  "Byddwn yn dweud bod 'go' iawn yn yr hyn yr ydych ei wneud ohono, Eric."

Out of everything the dragon had said, Eric only understood his own name.  "What's that supposed to mean?"

The dragon blinked, and spoke in English once again. "This is The Dreaming, Eric.  'Real' is only a point of view."

The young man took a step closer to Hiraeth, looking the large creature up and down.  The dragon still resembled Hiraeth in every way, only he was many times the human's size.  "You look a lot more like a dragon now."

One edge of Hiraeth's muzzle quirked upward slightly in humor.  "I am quite certain that I look the same."

"I mean you're bigger."

The second edge joined the first in a smile.  "Dragons do not have to be large, Eric.  Size matters little; I am still as I have always been: me."

Eric looked up at the dragon who, until recently had always been smaller than the human.  He was, in that moment truly able to appreciate how people who wrote about dragons could have felt so powerless.  The young man ahd always appreciated fantasy stories, especially Tolkein, and it seemed only fitting that a quote came to mind.  "My armor is like tenfold shields, my teeth are swords, my claws: spears, the shock of my tail: a thunderbolt, my wings: a hurricane and--"

Hiraeth gazed down at him through the monologue, but interrupted him at that point.  "--and my breath: death."

The human fell backwards, hands going to his ears as the dragon reared back up, clawing at the air with his fore talons, maw pointing skyward and he issued forth a roar that Eric could feel as much as hear.  A powerful conflagration easily thirty feet long seared across the sky, jetting forth from Hiraeth's open mouth like a flamethrower.  After what felt like forever the roar and fire came to an end... and the dragon eased back down onto all four legs. 

Hiraeth lowered his head so he could observe Eric and a long, black, sinewy tongue slid out from between his scaled lips to lick at the dribbling rivulets of flaming spittle that still clung to his chin.  "Is THAT 'dragon-like' enough for you, Eric?"

"....wow."

The dragon chuckled, shrinking down as smoothly as a small pool of water evaporating until he had returned ot the size of a large dog.  "Yes, Eric... 'wow' indeed... but we have barely begun to explore The Dreaming."

The human stood up, resting a hand on Hiraeth's shoulder right behind the dragon's neck and beneath his half-furled wing.  No truer an understatement had ever escaped his lips then in that moment.  "I can't wait to see what's next."

* * * * * *

'Next' turned out to be the living room in Eric's home.  Following along after Hiraeth with a hand resting on the dragon's flank, they headed for the trees.  His companion had maintained a great dane size and was loping lazily along beside him.  The transition from the forest clearing to the house was gradual, yet strangely immediate.  One moment Eric was pushing through foliage beside the dragon and in the next moment the branch in front of him was pushed aside and the scene beyond was familiar carpet, wall paper, and furniture. 

He couldn't remain quiet for long, turning slightly to speak at Hiraeth as they both stepped into the room.  "Okay... and this makes sense to you too?"

The Dragon arched his neck sideways so he could move his head back to regard Eric.  "Yes, it does."

The sliding door leading out to the house's small back yard had no blinds or covering, providing Eric a clear view of the swirling 'something' of nothingness beyond the room; the same view was visible between the slats in the vertical blinds over in the dining room.  The young man moved to take a seat on the sofa and Hiraeth sat down on the carpet in front of him, lowering his head until it rested in Eric's lap.  As if dealing with a large dog, the teen rested a hand atop the dragon's head.  "The only thing I can figure out is that there doesn't seem to be anything else existing other than where we are right now."

The edge of Hiraeth's scaled lips quirked up.  "That is not an unreasonable way to look at it, Eric-- not wholly accurate, but close enough."

The young man pulled his hand away from the dragon's head, a moment of indignation piercing his otherwise mystified admiration of the strange place that was The Dreaming.  "Close enough, huh?  Well how would YOU put it?"

Hiraeth remained on his haunches, lifting a hind talon to idly scratch behind one of his ear sails.  "This is The Dreaming-- there is no concept of time or location save that which you bring into it with you.  It is not that NOTHING exists here... it is that EVERYTHING exists here, but it takes the observation and will of an Awakened to give it substance in a way that can be understood."

It was an answer but, as usual, it did little to actually provide any real information and only brought about more questions.  Eric went for the most obvious of those.  "You and Dr. Marlowe mentioned the Awakened a few times now... What exactly IS an Awakened?  I mean-- he said he was Awakened...  Am *I* Awakened yet?"

Hiraeth chuckled, inching a little closer on the floor before hopping up.  A cry of alarm caught in Eric's throat; he didn't like the idea of a two-hundred-something pound dragon trying to sit in his lap but in the single, fluid leap Hiraeth was once again the size of a house cat and alighted adroitly on his leg.  The dragon circled once and then splayed out across his thigh.  "You are here in The Dreaming with me.  If you are not yet Awakened then it will not be long.  We will know for certain when you are able to influence the scene around you."

Eric looked down at the Dragon then peered across the room to the emptiness beyond the sliding glass door.  He thought several seconds before responding.  "Influence how?"

His companion splayed out in his lap, folding his wings around himself like a blanket.  "When you are able to pass from one setting to another then you will have mastered the first step of understanding The Dreaming, and, once you understand The Dreamscape your mind will be open to a greater level of comprehension."

The young man didn't know why it was so important to him but that faint pang of jealousy when he listened to Hiraeth and Dr. Marlowe discuss things he didn't understand clung to the back of his mind like a blister on a shoed foot's heel.  "And THEN I'll be Awakened?"

Hiraeth looked up at him.  "It will be a good first step, yes."

Eric took a deep breath and slowly stood up.  His companion clamored effortlessly up to his shoulder and perched there, tail wrapped loosely around the human's neck.  It was a half dozen steps across the room before Eric extended his fingers to grasp the handle of the sliding glass door.  "okay... so what do I have to do?"

The Dragon's next comment was so casual as to almost be insulting.  "First, I would suggest unlocking the door."

The teen rolled his eyes and did so.  "I mean, how do I get us to go through the door to somewhere other than the back yard?"

Hiraeth's explanation was both complex and simple at the same time.  "You are used to a passage from one location to another through a journey of in-betweens.  The Dreaming removes any place other than where you are and where you want to go.  At every moment within The Dreaming you are where you want to be.  There is no 'there'-- there is only 'here'."

Eric tried to wrangle the meaning into something less esoteric.  "So... basically I just concentrate on where I want to go when I'm stepping out the door?  I'll just pass through and be in a new place?"

The Dragon's answer didn't wholly help.  "Yes, and no."

The teen told his companion as much.  "That's not exactly helping."

Hiraeth's next comment wasn't any better.  "There is no way I can explain what is required to travel the Dreamscape until you are ready to understand it."

Eric turned his head to regard the Dragon as he unlocked the sliding door and opened it.  "I thought you said this place was called The Dreaming, not the Dreamscape.  You use them like, the same thing."

Hiraeth nodded, turning to regard the blackness.  "When we are in what you know and understand we are surrounded by the landscape... but we are not where you know and understand.  We are in The Dreaming, and that which surrounds us is The Dreamscape."

Unwilling and unable to argue any longer, Eric took a deep breath.  He continued gazing out at the spiraling combination of blackness and swirling color.  Holding that breath, the teen promised himself that when he stepped through into what would have been his back yard he wouldn't fall into an endless abyss.  He resolved to be able to be anywhere he wanted to be-- any location he could imagine in his minds eye would greet them when he passed through into the blackness that should have been a small concrete pad surrounded by semi-green grass.  Slowly exhaling, Eric closed his eyes and stepped.

There was no grand, mystical shift or supernatural sensation of going somewhere... or anywhere for that matter.  By the time Eric's breath came to an end his foot had touched solid ground-- solid concrete to be specific.  Opening his eyes the teen glanced around and saw that he and Hiraeth were, in fact, in his back yard.  The sky overhead churned in an endless swirl of black and glowing color but every other feature in his backyard was the same, right down to the old, rusty patio chairs and table situated off to his left.  "Well... at least I'm not falling into oblivion."

Hiraeth's gaze passed over everything and he nodded his head in confirmation.  "You stepped out of your home and into your back yard."

Eric scowled.  "I can see that."

Beyond the fence Eric could see that his back door neighbor's house did not exist; it was replaced by more of the swirling blackness and color.  To the left over the gate that led to the front yard was more of the same.  Turning around to look back through the sliding glass door it appeared as though the living room were also a thing of the past-- just more empty Dreamscape  met his gaze.  Hiraeth spoke quietly from his shoulder. "What were you attempting to accomplish by stepping through the threshold, Eric?"

The teen's frustration began to boil over.  "Something?  I dunno-- anything!  I just-- why can't I--  FUCK!  How is this even supposed to work?!?!"

Hiraeth rested a small talon atop his head. "Stop, Eric.  Stop and think."

Eric's response was explosive.  He stamped his foot on the concrete, creating a strange, hollow echo in the scene that was almost his backyard. "THAT'S WHAT I'VE BEEN DOING!"

The Dragon repeated himself.  "Stop and think.  If your first answer to my question was another question followed by 'I do not know' then you are not thinking clearly."

Hrumphing, Eric crossed his arms over his chest.  "Then tell me how to think clearly, Yoda.  Obviously the force is not strong with this one."

Whether Hiraeth understood the allusion to Star Wars or not Eric didn't know and didn't particularly care.  He was just starting to think of the whole 'Dreaming' thing as entirely lost to him but the Dragon didn't relent.  "I wish to take you somewhere while we are here... somewhere we should have started."

"Whatever."

The Dragon thwapped the young man's earlobe with the end of his tail.  "Not 'whatever'... you said you wanted to see The Dreaming.  This is your first time here; there is no reason to be upset that you need a guide."

Eric let out a deep, calming breath and slowly unfolded his arms.  "Okay... fine.  Sure.  So what do I have'ta do?"

Hiraeth remained calm and collected, responding to the question with a very real and very simple request.  "Eric, please turn around and step back through."

"Back through to the living room?"

The Dragon snorted; the young man could have sworn there was a hint of distain in it but the accompanying words held no judgment.  "No, Eric... I just want you to step back through.  We are not going to the living room."

Eric glanced to his companion and was about to object but he caught sight of Hiraeth's no-nonsense gaze and lost the will to talk back.  "Alright... but if we're going back through that'll just lead us back to--"

"No, it will not, Eric.  We are going somewhere else."

The teenager managed his incredulous stare but Hiraeth's own gaze was unyielding.  Eric ultimately relented with a sigh.  "Alright... but if I passed through it once and ended up in the back yard then the second time will--"

Hiraeth interrupted him as he stepped.  "--will take us to something I want you to see."

There was no sense of vertigo or shift of balance; one moment Eric was stepping through the sliding glass door from his back yard and the next moment his foot came down on hard rock instead of soft carpet.  A salty breeze struck his face and the sunset stretching out before him was echoed by a glimmering reflection from the ocean, creating the surreal impression of a completed sun-- half in the sky and half in the water.  Eric could only stare at the scene in wonder and amazement.

Hiraeth hopped nimbly off of his shoulder and by the time he reached the ground he had assumed a size equal to a small horse.  "Do not stare at the sun, Eric-- it will hurt your eyes."

The mundane request snapped the teen out of his trance and he looked back to his companion.  He did a double-take when he followed Hiraeth's gaze to a small thatched roof cottage situated near them on the cliff they occupied.  It didn't take long for Eric to realize what he was seeing, especially when a young woman just a few years older than he emerged from it.  She was exactly how he had seen her in his mind's eye.  "This-- this is the seaside cottage you took-- is that Dwy?"

Hiraeth glanced back at Eric and the Dragon's tail swung around to give him a light bop on the back of his head. "Eric-- it is customary to bow before a lady."

Eric remained standing where he was, not even registering the suggestion from the Dragon.  His hand arose to rub where the tail had tapped him.  The teen's attention was stuck on woman, her curly red hair bouncing slightly with each step.  Her smile was genuine, and vibrant; she seemed completely unafraid of Hiraeth and, in fact, went straight up to him and threw her arms around his head, pulling it close to her breast with all the familiarity of a friend or, he reminded himself, a lover.

The last thought stuck a cold knife in the depths of his stomach once again; Hiraeth was HIS friend... how could he have such closeness to anyone else?  The thought engulfed all his reasoning for several seconds until he realized that both the Dragon and the woman were staring at him.  He looked at Hiraeth first, and then to Dwy; she was perhaps three or four years his senior, and easily beautiful enough to give any of the cheerleaders at school a major confidence complex.  The Dragon's earlier suggestion via tail suddenly stuck and Eric found himself lowering his head forward a little in a clumsy bow.  "Uh... ma'am."

Dwy's laugh was musical, and full of levity.  It didn't leave him feeling insecure or self-conscious, rather, it left him the impression that she took his inexperience as good humored play rather than incompetence; he found himself not minding being laughed at.  "Hello, Eric Bradish... I am ever so happy to finally meet you."

The greeting caught the teen off-guard.  "You know me?  How do you know me?  Hiraeth, how does she know me?"

The Dragon exchanged a knowing-glance with the human woman who had his neck in a full body hug then looked back to Eric.  "This is The Dreaming, Eric-- there is no time in this place.  Dragons exist everywhere and at every time all at once, and The Dreaming is the framework that connects us with everyone and everything.  Dwy knows of you because I know of you, and she realizes how much you mean to me."

It was a simple, matter-of-fact statement but it echoed around in Eric's head.  "How much I mean to you?"

Dwy held out an inviting hand toward him.  "Come, Eric... you have much to learn about what it means to be a Dragon's Bonded and, perhaps, as you learn about that you may also learn more about yourself."

He didn't resist her invitation and he placed his hand in hers.  He couldn't help but feel clumsy compared to her, graceless, and a buffoon.  Despite the fact that her fingers were well worn and calloused they still seemed to hold endlessly greater refinement than his own, relatively unsullied digits.  Hiraeth didn't help the matters any.  "That is an English accent, Eric-- Dwy is Welsh."

The teen's attention was pulled from Dwy's hand by the comment. "Huh?"

Hiraeth elaborated.  "The accent you are hearing is wrong."

It took a moment for Eric to understand what the Dragon meant, and didn't fully appreciate it until Dwy spoke up again, opening the door for him.  "It is quite alright, Hiraeth.  There is a chance that he may never have heard the correct one."

True enough, Dwy sounded like a British princess.  How was that his fault?  Another question came to the forefront of his mind however.  "I thought you said everyone back then spoke Welsh, or whatever.  Why's she even speaking English?"

Hiraeth's response sounded tired, as if he'd been going round and round with a toddler who kept asking 'why?'.  "She is not speaking English, Eric-- you understand her because this is The Dreaming and everything is connected.  Language has no place here."

Dwy rubbed Hiraeth's wing calmingly and closed the door behind.  It only took a moment for Eric to realize that they were not in a cottage; the three of them stood in what looked like some grand stone hall in the middle of a huge castle.  There were two large, hardwood tables surrounded by wooden chairs.  Dwy motioned to one such table.  "Please, Eric, sit.  Perhaps I can help explain a few things."

Hiraeth spoke up again.  "Still the wrong accent, Eric."

Eric glanced at the Dragon.  "How can I even control an accent?  SHE'S the one speaking it!"

Dwy tittered, taking a seat for herself before speaking up in a rolling, softly accented tone that was decidedly different from the 'proper British' one he'd been hearing. "Aye... an' ye be th' one hearin' it, Eric."

The Dragon eased a chair out of the way with his tail and sat down on the floor; his size left him almost at equal height to the two seated humans.  "That is Scottish, Eric."

Both Hiraeth and Dwy laughed at the young man's wordless scream of frustration.  It should have made him angrier, but, in the end, he could only laugh at himself.  Things got far easier once he realized that he couldn't take himself seriously-- and that was also his first step toward understanding The Dreaming.