Drawing from a Dream

    The night sky was glittering as more stars were slowly revealed by heavy clouds vacating their space. Cool air pushing the large plush giants away from the moon which lit the night sky softly. Some night-owl Paralogos walking late at night were happy to have their path lit as the moon beams filtered down to the earth below. Some beams found themselves stuck in gnarled tree branches, creating intricate patterns on the ground for some artistic individuals to discover. However, more beams still were finding their way onto window sills, through window glass, and finally onto the forms of dreaming dinosaurs. 

     Arrietty lay still in her caretaker’s bed, cooled and relaxed by a nearby fan. She was fatigued after a day of floating through one of Lingua’s woods searching for something whimsical to investigate in order to discover stronger magic within herself. With any luck, a good night’s sleep would rejuvenate her body and mind and maybe she would have better luck tomorrow. 

     Something was ticking against the bedroom door. Arrietty groaned and rolled over in bed, pulling her blanket over her head but the ticking persisted. She sluggishly rolled out of bed and drifted toward the bed room door, her tail dragged on the floor while her legs hovered just above the floor boards. The tapping on the door did not stop. Arrietty mumbled a garbled “Fine, I’m coming” as she fiddled with the door knob and tried to heave the door open, realizing that floating did not make opening doors easier. Taking a moment to ground herself, she turned the knob and opened the door. She looked around the hallway but saw on one. At once something tapped her foot. Arrietty looked down to see who could possibly be tapping her foot but on the ground, there was only a rock. A seemingly ordinary grey stone lay on the wood floor, a trail of sand was dragged in behind it. Arrietty starred at the rock, feeling somewhat frustrated. After rubbing the sleepy dust away from her eyes, she examined the rock again, deciding to pick it up to understand it better. To her dismay, the rock would not yield. No matter how hard she pulled, the rock remained steadfast and unmoving on the ground. “This rock….?!” Arrietty mumbled to herself in frustration. The rock did not seem to be heavy, in fact it felt like it would be light to the touch, yet it behaved as if it were glued to the floor. 

     Arrietty sighed and let go of the sides of the stubborn stone, deciding that she’d be better off getting a shovel or spatula to unstick it from the ground. Walking past the stone and through the hallway she noticed how the moonlight ignited the sediment that lined the floor. The mixed sediment periodically sparkled as she headed toward the kitchen. It was almost enough to bring a smile to her face until she realized she’d have to clean up the mess. After groggily digging through kitchen drawers, Arrietty pulled a long shiny spatula out from under a pile of tongs and ladles. “No rock will best my sleep schedule,” she mused to herself triumphantly and started walked back to the hallway. “OK Mr. Rock, now you learn what happens to those who ruin my sleep time!” She exclaimed and glared at where the rock had been. Wait… Had been? To Arrietty’s confusion and dismay the rock was nowhere to be seen. Feeling perturbed she turned to return the spatula to its place in the drawer when she heard another tap tap on the bed room door. 

     Arrietty startled upward, finding a spatula tucked under a blanket on her pillow. She wearily looked at the nearby bedroom window, observing the moonlight streaming through the window and onto her skin. The starry sparkles on her cloudy patches softly twinkled as she pushed her blanket back, got out of bed and walked to the window. Looking outside the glass was less than revealing as all she could see was the dimly lit shape of Lingua’s countryside. Hearing the tapping sound again, she relented and stuck her fingers underneath the window’s lip, closed her eyes, and pulled upward, opening the window. The night air’s cool breeze was soothing, putting her at ease. She opened her sleepy eyes and looked out the window, curiously there was no night time to be seen. Arrietty balked as the green grass and trees of her backyard had been replaced by sunlight filtering through clouds which reflected off the spray of ocean water hitting a white sand beach. Arrietty hastily launched herself through the window, somehow able to fit her whole body through an opening half her size. However instead of feeling her feet pad on soft warm sand, she found herself plummeting through the air, suddenly miles above the ground and unable to float on command. She struggled a little, her arms flailing outward and her legs extending as if to mimic a parachute. At that moment she wondered to herself what a Paralogos with a “Parachute” word focus might look like. 

     Arrietty felt like she was falling for a long time, three times already she had neared the surface of the water only to find herself on land standing still, and then revert to the height of the sky and resume falling. On this round of air diving she looked to her right and saw another individual up in the air with her, he seemed strangely familiar, at least, she thought she knew him. The other logos in the sky seemed to speak something to her, but no matter how hard she tried, she could not hear him. When all of a suddenly she felt her tail, then her legs and finally her whole body dunk into the ocean that had been taunting her for what felt like forever. 

     Arrietty sat upright in bed, her blanket was shoved aside, and she squinted into the blackness of the room. Through sandy eyes she could have swore she saw another figure in the room shuffling around. She rubbed her eyes vigorously and sprang out of bed, barely catching a glimpse of a dark lumpy tail retreating into the darkest corner of the room. However, upon closer inspection, there was nobody there. Feeling thirsty, Arrietty shook her head and walked toward the door to get a glass of water. With a tired sigh she opened the door and stepped through it, landing on a bed of soft moss. Sunlight was filtering through the densely wooded trees that surrounded her. She turned around to look for the door she had passed through but found that a tree had grown through it. This seemed like a perfectly normal detail of course, the whole forest felt exceedingly familiar to Arrietty. Deciding it would be best to walk around the forest instead of staring at a tree, she turned around confidently and walked toward the oldest tree in the area. The ancient conifer’s roots had since erupted from the ground that confined it as if attempting to move its massively thick trunk and tall sprawling branches elsewhere. Truly, it was a magnificent tree. Arrietty placed her hand on the tree’s bark, admiring the texture of it and the small green ferns that grew beneath the cracks. Peering into the cracks of the bark and wood, Arrietty thought she could see something peculiar nestled inside. Her mind was flooded with ideas of what might be hidden, secrets of otherwise, in such an ancient and powerful tree like this. 

     “Hey, you’re not supposed to be here,” a gruff voice called out. Arrietty snapped out of her tree-fixated trance and turned to see Tomatsu in his muscular red glory walking toward her. His faced seemed riddled with concern and anxiety as he gestured toward the tree. “No one is allowed to touch this tree.” He stated flatly, glaring at Arrietty as his Bakeneko companion Tamao trotted behind him and leaped onto his shoulder, the cat in turn also glared at Arrietty. Arrietty stepped away from the conifer and rose her hands up in front of her chest apologetically, “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize this was off-limits.” Tomatsu and Tamao were unmoved and continued to glare at the tree despite Arrietty stepping away from it. Curious, Arrietty looked behind her and saw a dark figure emerging from behind the tree at a menacing snail’s pace. Arrietty held her breath as Tomatsu stepped toward the conifer and the intruder with his giant club in hand. Just as the intruder revealed himself, Tomatsu swung the club toward him and---

     Morning sunlight filtered through the bedroom window softly kissing the face of the sleeping Paralogos. Arrietty sat up in bed swiftly, finding she had passed out with the window’s glass still open. She looked around sleepily and sat back on her haunches. She turned and looked toward the door, then toward the floor, and finally toward the corners of the room. Everything seemed to be as it should be when she heard a knock at the front door of her home. Arrietty hopped out of bed energetically, pushed passed the bedroom door and walked toward the front of the house. Opening the front door revealed her friend Aisling mid-knock. The other Paralogos was grinning ear to ear as she embraced Arrietty in a warm hug. “A-girl! How are you doing? Are you ready for our girl’s day?” Arrietty grinned and stepped back after freeing herself from the embrace. She chuckled and breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m more than ready for a day of relaxation,” the sleepy Paralogos replied. Aisling looked over Arrietty with a smirk, “you seem a little rattled, did you sleep ok?” Arrietty rubbed her hand over her crescent moon shaped fin, “I just had a really confusing night is all, it was hard to tell when I was dreaming and if I was awake.” This made Aisling’s eyes sparkle, “Oh OH!! You must tell me about it!” As an aspiring expert on the intricacies of dreams, Aisling was more than happy to listen to stories regardless of how much sense they made. Arrietty chuckled and stepped back to let her friend inside. “Ok, ok, but let me go grab some paper, I think I’ll have an easier time explaining if I can draw parts of it.” Aisling nodded her head happily joined Arrietty at a table to doodle some details. 

    After what turned into several hours of back and forth dialogue with her friend, Arrietty looked down at her large sheet of paper and admired the things she had scrawled onto it. In the top left corner was a rock sitting in a doorway with a path of dirt trailed behind it scrawled with crayon. A spatula is running after the rock with an angry expression scribbled on its face with a black crayon. In the bottom middle of the page she drew a beach with large waves using a blue pen. Finally, in the remaining space of the middle and top right side of the page she drew a large conifer tree and a scribbled red Paralogos about to square off against something dark and foreboding with more crayon. 

    Arrietty looked over her work, pleased, and then turned to Aisling, “What do you think it all means?”