Cloud Hopping

The air and atmosphere turned different as soon as Cleo got a sense of her surroundings. "I'm dreaming." She muttered out loud. How so? Had she been so distracted at her teacher's explanations that she'd fallen asleep on her table? No, that couldn't be it. She could remember turning a corridor, chasing someone, before she was put here. Had it been another dream? Cleo couldn't tell. 

Either way, the pouflon felt a familiar sensation when she put her eyes on the landscape before her. A multitude of purples, pinks and baby blues colored her vision. 

It was as if someone had liked Goldfair County so much they decided to make a whole world based off of it, except it was made of cotton candy the color of a galaxy. Soft lilac ground supported her hooves, and the bluish grass blended seamlessly with the whimsical earth. Lifting her gaze, Cleo could spot several cottages, much like the ones she'd find at Goldfair. A few meters away, a water (?) fountain spewed a colorful pink liquid Cleo could only guess would taste so sweet I'd be cloying. The fountain stood in the middle of a small fair, composed of various cotton candy tents and stalls, in which a multitude of cotton candy lons soundlessly sold their cotton candy produce. Thick and fluffy looking clouds hung above her. Overall, it was like she'd been transported into a moving painting on which the painter hadn't been too generous when choosing a palette. The whole scenery was accompanied by a lack of texture, as if everything was made from the same material. It did not come to her mind to try and taste it. 

What did come to her mind, however, was the fact the lon had seen that place before, and not very long ago, even if she'd never exactly been there as she was now.  By looking up, she was reminded of the ceiling of that dainty little cottage she'd been invited in before. Ah, yes! Someone had beckoned her to go in, and that lon was whoever she'd been following around the rustic academy corridors. Cleo dragged her eyes on the cotton candy county again, this time pointedly searching for something. She found nothing of the sort she'd been inspecting for.

Dreams have that thing about them in which you don't quite recognize how it all starts before you're being thrown into insane situations, much faster than you can account for. There's usually a sense of purpose that doesn't often accompany real life situations, as if you just have to keep walking the road that dream has paved for you before you can leave. It was very plausible she'd been thrown here for a reason, then. Yes, she must watch what her mind had reserved for her, and everything would likely turn out fine, like it always had - whatever the story, she'd always end up awake and safe in her bed. 

A few figures from the fair approached her as soon as she hit that conclusion. They strangely looked like normal lons, without that candied appearance everything and everyone else seemed to possess. 

"We've been waiting for you." One of them, a grey pouflon with bright eyes, revealed. Another lon, a copper colored ursuki with a striped tail, nodded, then continued: 

"The fair has been really cool, but we should get going." They explained. A third lon, a vespire with tones of straw and white, agreed as well, then completed: 

"There's that problem we gotta solve." The three of them talked to her as if they'd known her for long, but Cleo had never met them in her whole life. She was convinced she knew them, though, as contradictory as it might have seemed, and just nodded along. More often than not, dreams like to complement characters and worlds with a story. In a mere instant, you find yourself being reminded of memories you've never had, and that is very fine.

 

They unconcernedly walked, passing beside the fair - which was now normally colored, not a cotton candy in sight, thank you - and went through purple landscapes at a speed much higher than it should be possible. The forests and meadows stretched beautifully around them, belonging to a world of their own, as whimsical as the rest of it. There were blurs of bioluminescent foliage on the forest’s floor, bright blues and purples that accented the rest of the setting very beautifully. “Wood” tree trunks went by the corners of her vision in flashes, colored in darker accents of the usual tones.  

Cleo looked down, and realized they were flying - or maybe hopping with very little considerations to any physics, she couldn’t tell. Whichever it was, it felt seamless and carefree, without the usual body weight one had to sustain with their wings. It felt lucid - as when one chooses to simply move faster in order to escape a nightmare monster, instead of not being able to move from their spot. In the former alternative, however, the monster always seems to be right at your feet, and any slower than that would result in you being caught - what follows is an inevitable conjecture of desperation and pursuit that may make you as helpless as if you were merely frozen in your spot.  

When everything had gone by in a blur and they had finally arrived, Cleo couldn’t be sure if the three lons that had led her looked the same as they once did, but that mere detail could be perfectly ignored. There was a simple cause to the great majority of the weird and unnatural things she’d been witnessing - she was dreaming, and that was that. 

“What’s the problem, by the way?” She had a mind to ask one of them. 

“The being.” The ursuki simply responded, not bothered by the fact she didn’t seem to remember what they were going to face. 

“What’s the being?” Cleo questioned with a slight tone of apprehension. 

“You’ll see.” The pouflon shrugged. “And you’ll deal with it.” Their tone was exceedingly creepy. 

“I’m supposed to fight it?!” She yelped, and the dense forest around them suddenly seemed a lot scarier. 

“We were waiting for you.” The vespire explained, raising an eyebrow, as if that explained everything. The light that peeked through the leaf coverage, previously an element of peacefulness that complemented the look of the place around them, abruptly did not seem luminous enough to make her feel safer. The forest started to feel eerily real and dark, and it wasn’t an enjoyable visit to a painting anymore. The tones of a dark woodland were established in the scenery as if they’d always been there, and it made her feel like it wouldn’t matter if she was dreaming or not.  

Cleo desperately tried to open her eyes, to wake herself up, as she sometimes would when she’d have nightmares, but to no avail. The lucidness from before did nothing to solve her situation now, it seemed. Dread filled her gut, and no amount of cotton candy could put it away. 

Something pushed her, and she was engulfed by darkness.