The rest (why does LJ insist on doing maintenance on this journal ONLY when I actually have a post?)
cross-posted with 
waterscribe
For some reason, everything was an eye-burning shade of purple.
It all slowly calmed and darkened to a deep indigo, still formless, but pulsating gently. The place (not a room or a hall or a street or field, just a place) was breathing, quickly but steadily.
She wondered how she'd ended up here.
It wasn't as if every dream she had took her to Balatengi, the Realm Beyond Worlds. Normally she had to ask for it, light the violet fire, weave the grey-green embers. Settle into trance in the protective wrapping of the new-made, softly smoking Ca-en-phalta, which would dissipate when she awoke. It wasn't unheard of for her to get there by accident- her childhood journeys had certainly been unwilled- but it always meant there was something she needed to know. She looked around at the (now-amber) setting and saw only that she was standing in a stream.
It never came easy, did it.
The message always came in the most obtuse manner possible, and the ever-shifting surroundings weren't exactly bursting with clues. She sat down bonelessly in the stream, legs crossed at the ankles, arm around
one knee, elbow on the lower knee and chin on hand. She stared down the blankly blackness and got wet.
She'd been wet before she'd come here, hadn't she?
Rain, roof, leaves, dragon, wet cloak floating about- no, that was here, in the stream, wet cloaks don't float. Roof and rain. Those were right. Dragon? Bielti had something to do with it. Leaves were floating in the stream (leaves meant time, didn't they?), but they'd been there, too.
Inn.
Roof.
Fall.
So that was how she'd gotten here. Now, why? There was still nothing but stream and leaves and she, wet and silent and wet. Not that she gave two geens about wet.
Inadi, breathed the silence.
She listened. Her name, of soul and sorcery and truth. This was important. She was rarely addressed directly (always by that name, always her true-soul was called). She waited.
A book landed on what passed for the ground with a *thud*. She whirled around and reached for it, leaning backwards, most of her cloak in the water now. The stream wasn't that wide... got it! As she
carefully lifted it above the water she saw Gar-na-kri, Fate on the cover. Well, that was direct, now wasn't it?
She opened the cover- only the cover- and the pages turned them selves. Names in a chain, linked by colored lines, ran over the pages that were open, and she saw her own (again Inadi, always Inadi) in a diamond
Aradoi
Inadi Chuen
Badin
Not so direct, after all. These were soul-names, very few knew they even had soul-names, much less what their soul-names were; what the diamond and the placement of the names on it indicates were beyond her; and what relationship white lines indicates (there were no lines visible but all the names had lines between them so they must be the color of the page and the pages were purest piercing white like no real pages could ever be) was far from clear, white was all colors or the absence of color, but what did that mean? Then she noticed the place had gone black, the water was fluid pitch and all she could see was the pages flipping again, they stopped and her eyes burned and she saw the end of everything whiteblackchaos
Niraianis woke with a scream trapped in her chest. She lay in a strange bed in a strange room with a single candle, sweat-drenched and gasping for breath.
The soul-names can be changed if you don't like the ones I gave you. (I bet you two can figure out who's who.)
waterscribeFor some reason, everything was an eye-burning shade of purple.
It all slowly calmed and darkened to a deep indigo, still formless, but pulsating gently. The place (not a room or a hall or a street or field, just a place) was breathing, quickly but steadily.
She wondered how she'd ended up here.
It wasn't as if every dream she had took her to Balatengi, the Realm Beyond Worlds. Normally she had to ask for it, light the violet fire, weave the grey-green embers. Settle into trance in the protective wrapping of the new-made, softly smoking Ca-en-phalta, which would dissipate when she awoke. It wasn't unheard of for her to get there by accident- her childhood journeys had certainly been unwilled- but it always meant there was something she needed to know. She looked around at the (now-amber) setting and saw only that she was standing in a stream.
It never came easy, did it.
The message always came in the most obtuse manner possible, and the ever-shifting surroundings weren't exactly bursting with clues. She sat down bonelessly in the stream, legs crossed at the ankles, arm around
one knee, elbow on the lower knee and chin on hand. She stared down the blankly blackness and got wet.
She'd been wet before she'd come here, hadn't she?
Rain, roof, leaves, dragon, wet cloak floating about- no, that was here, in the stream, wet cloaks don't float. Roof and rain. Those were right. Dragon? Bielti had something to do with it. Leaves were floating in the stream (leaves meant time, didn't they?), but they'd been there, too.
Inn.
Roof.
Fall.
So that was how she'd gotten here. Now, why? There was still nothing but stream and leaves and she, wet and silent and wet. Not that she gave two geens about wet.
Inadi, breathed the silence.
She listened. Her name, of soul and sorcery and truth. This was important. She was rarely addressed directly (always by that name, always her true-soul was called). She waited.
A book landed on what passed for the ground with a *thud*. She whirled around and reached for it, leaning backwards, most of her cloak in the water now. The stream wasn't that wide... got it! As she
carefully lifted it above the water she saw Gar-na-kri, Fate on the cover. Well, that was direct, now wasn't it?
She opened the cover- only the cover- and the pages turned them selves. Names in a chain, linked by colored lines, ran over the pages that were open, and she saw her own (again Inadi, always Inadi) in a diamond
Not so direct, after all. These were soul-names, very few knew they even had soul-names, much less what their soul-names were; what the diamond and the placement of the names on it indicates were beyond her; and what relationship white lines indicates (there were no lines visible but all the names had lines between them so they must be the color of the page and the pages were purest piercing white like no real pages could ever be) was far from clear, white was all colors or the absence of color, but what did that mean? Then she noticed the place had gone black, the water was fluid pitch and all she could see was the pages flipping again, they stopped and her eyes burned and she saw the end of everything whiteblackchaos
Niraianis woke with a scream trapped in her chest. She lay in a strange bed in a strange room with a single candle, sweat-drenched and gasping for breath.
The soul-names can be changed if you don't like the ones I gave you. (I bet you two can figure out who's who.)