Field Notes from Diamonds Hadder: On the topic of his dreams and the destruction of Kilwaughter Castle.
"It’s autumn in Bok. I awoke last night from some nightmares. I don’t often talk about such things but it’s true.. while I sleep, I often frequent places that seem unquestionably real to me. So real in fact I think I may even bring things out from the dreams. I’m not sure how I do that or what exactly that’s all about, but it happens. Another odd thing about my dreams is that I see other people with the same eye tattoos that I have in my dreams, something that Zabble has been pondering and scratching his head over. Ezra is with me now and we’re on the western rim this morning watching the sun come up… she’s extra close to me.. I think she heard me in the night talking in my sleep… shaking from the dreams. I wonder if she dreams… I often see her jittering while she sleeps… as though she’s running or playing…. grumble grumble... I wonder if she dreams of home… of other Fanglors in places she’s never been. I have a coin that I sleep with occasionally, a gift, it’s a simple thing that brings me comfort, the weight of it… the memory of the meaning… my fingers trace it’s etched markings in a silly pattern over and over as I sleep. I often clench it with a tight fist close to my heart to ward off my demons in the night. I did last night as well. Some people might say I’m foolish to put such value in trinkets and made things, but I see what others don’t and I feel what others don’t. I see memories in the air. In my dream I saw a poem and a paper… it was folded and I desperately was trying to see the date at the top of the page… it’s so vivid… me trying… I don’t remember what it said but I know that it left me with a very sad feeling… there was an image of a field on the opposite side of the paper, as though it was written on some card stock which I tried desperately to recognize but couldn’t quite place it. There’s other things too.. a child… a family that seemed like it was mine.. an elaborate golden rimmed deck of cards sat on a rather old ebony table… a queen of hearts was flipped and was shaking and vibrating making a strange uneasy rattling noise… unrested… it moved as I walked near it, turning as I did… almost staring at me.... I was playing a game and laughing with the child and for a moment that was so nice but there was a huge rift between us that wavered in the air… it shimmered between us bending time and space… it was like a window…. And I saw the most beautiful queen I’ve ever seen.. standing on an elaborate cobblestone terrace... she was in tears overlooking a vast ocean of waves and wind…… her hands clenching an iron railing with what looked like an ornate hand worked black twisted diamond pattern… seems an odd detail to recall but I remember staring at it as though I twisted it myself with my bare hands… she was clenching so tightly that her hands were bleeding down the iron railings and so the black diamonds were dripping in a dark red… there’s a strange feeling as though I know the place but yet I can’t place it… And then in a flash I witnessed what looked like the gardens and Lord Zabble’s Kilwaughter castle in ruins and a large raging fire on the hillsides covered in bodies… it was all so real. I wonder if I should go back… I worry about Zabble, he’s always so occupied with his books that I fear he wouldn’t even hear a Barkanian dragon wondering through the castle hallways chasing his magic books, let alone a kings raiding party. By now, word of my arrival and stay at the castle has made its way through the outer reaches of the kingdom and has surely caused a little unrest with the king, who still has a sharp hatred for john hadder and the war between the warmoths and men. I hear rumors that I’m not really welcome on these lands and that Zabble has fallen out of favor with the king. Something isn’t right I just feel it in my bones. Perhaps I just worry to much. Zabble says, “Little Hadder, leave the worry for the worry leaves.” Ha, a reference to the strange tree we have in the gardens that Zabble often touts over as it’s a rare species from the black forest which he planted when I arrived, a “Worry tree” they call it, aptly named after the warmoths who still rule that forest and the fear rightfully invoked when standing near one. Well, we should get going. All this talk of dreams and trees has made me hungry, I know a little place on the way. Pssst....Come girl... lets go.
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