Part 53: Someday The Dream Will End

Chapter 53: Someday The Dream Will End



ARIST: [Medium: Success] …Kim?









ARIST: [Challenging: Success] ...Wait, what? You’re not actually going to—






ARIST: [Heroic: Success] Oh.



ARIST: And here you stand, in front of Dolores Dei herself.

SUGGESTION: [Medium: Success] Okay, don’t say you need to ‘talk’ right away. Melt the ice first—this way you’re *already* talking.
VOLITION: [Medium: Success] But you don’t even *want* to talk to her! She would only be cold and mean. Let her go.
ENCYCLOPEDIA: [Easy: Success] Let her *go*? This is the holy queen of the territories of Mundi and Insulinde! Think of the historic knowledge we could glean! This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity—to win her back!





DOLORES DEI: “God, Harry…” She shakes her head, her eyebrows knitting together with worry. “You have to take care of yourself. You’re not a young man anymore. If you keep going like this you’ll…” She falls silent.



DOLORES DEI: “I’m sorry. I was heading to the aerodrome, I just don’t have time to…” She stops mid-sentence, glances to her right. Then looks at her bag.



DOLORES DEI: She sighs and looks over her shoulder.





DOLORES DEI: “Oh, this?” She corrects the wreath on her forehead. “This is just a wreath. The Crown of Immortality is made of rareified light, manna and raw palladium. It was passed on to me by the rulers of late antiquity…” She looks at the suitcase, not knowing what more to say, then over her shoulder.



DOLORES DEI: “No, Harry.” She shakes her head sadly. “No. I don’t want a *massive epic showdown*. I want to go to the aerodrome. I have tickets for the 10:20 flight to Mirova…” She looks at you plaintively. “Really… We don’t have anything to talk about anymore. Every combination of words has been played out. The atoms don’t form anymore, us, our love, our unborn daughters… It’s all gone. I have to go to the aerodrome. I have to leave Revachol and you. And you have to be alone—in hell, forever. That’s just the way it is.”





DOLORES DEI: “That’s it, yes,” she looks up from her toes. “We’ve talked about it a million times. You will get over it, just like I did. People do. Things will get good for you again…”
RHETORIC: [Medium: Success] Where? In *HELL*?



RHETORIC: Oh yes! She’ll come around now. I made her love you again, Harry.
VOLITION: Are you *stupid*?
RHETORIC: She’s about to say something. Here is comes. She’s starting to *love* him again.

ARIST: [Challenging: Success] Oh buddy, no…

DOLORES DEI: Her innocence Dolores Dei fiddles with the handle of her airport bag. She has a *pained* expression on her face. It’s agonizing.
VOLITION: See?! She isn’t saying anything!
RHETORIC: I don’t understand. It was… she herself said…
DOLORES DEI: “We were bad for each other, okay? I was bad for you. Can you not see, I’m *bad*? I had to stop, I couldn’t just turn into a bad person… You *will* get better. It just takes some time. For you, I think it will take something like… twenty years maybe? It was hard for me too, you know—I used to think I couldn’t live without you…” She looks you straight in the eye—her irises are light blue, flecked with green. “But—I can.”









DOLORES DEI: “Oh my god, Harry! Stop. I don’t want to hear anything about *the mourning*, mourning someone who’s still alive—*any of that*!



DOLORES DEI: “Wasn’t I Dolores Dei just a second ago? Now I’m the *ex-thing*… You’re confusing me. Look, I have to be at the Lausanne Aerodrome at 10:20 PM. I still have a light rail to catch…” She keeps glancing over her shoulder nervously. “I haven’t even bought the tickets yet…”



ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN: Everyone.



DOLORES DEI: She sighs with frustration: “My friends are waiting for me on the platorm. I can’t let them wait—it’s impolite.”





DOLORES DEI: “Call me like that…”



DOLORES DEI: “Oh, Harry? Do you really think so? We haven’t talked in *years*… I don’t want to call you. I don’t want to hear from you. I think of you less and less every year, weeks go buy without me remembering you… Months already. Soon it will be years. Every season that passes the lights get less clear. I sit there, in Mirova—in the holy gratitude of my bliss—I put my hand on my belly and *smile*…” The air gets cold around you. She looks down on her stomach, then up at you. Her eyes are full of tremendous distance and mystery.
HAND/EYE COORDINATION: [Medium: Success] The DEATH BLOW is coming.








DOLORES DEI: “Oh no, no-no-no-no.” She shakes her head. “We’re not doing that again.”




DOLORES DEI: “See?” She smiles—as if a weight is lifted off her shoulders.



DOLORES DEI: “Yes, Harry. I am. Things have gotten *much* better for me—now that I am the ruler of the known world…” she pulls up the silvery sleeve of her gown, to check the time. “Oh god, it’s already so late, I have to *go*, Harry.”





DOLORES DEI: She looks at headless FALN rider between your fingers and doesn’t know what to say.



REACTION SPEED: Yes. I thought it would be good.
SUGGESTION: [Medium: Success] A form of communication where words have failed?
REACTION SPEED: Yes.





DOLORES DEI: “We both said a lot of things. We were very young.”



DOLORES DEI: “As *queen regnant* I write a lot of letters.” She brushes a strand of white hair out of her eye.








DOLORES DEI: “Very well,” she sighs. “I wrote it. It was morning, you slept. There was hoarfrost on the ground when I left. On Voyager Road. It was autumn, the first autumn. But Harry, please understand—it was a million years ago. No… it was *a hundred million years ago*. I was someone else then—filled to the brim with love for you. Hanging on your every word. Oh Harry, you were the *coolest*… But I am no longer that person. This…” She points to herself. “…has taken her place. It will devour you. Harry—I will eat your mind.”



DOLORES DEI: “The coolest…” She closes her eyes: “With your leather jacket and your boot cut pants. Smoking in the bus stop. I wanted you to be the rest of my life that day. And you were—some of it, at least. You were my first. My first kiss, my first time to have sex.”



DOLORES DEI: “Yes. Let’s talk about that too.” She nods. “Let’s bring it up—the zoo. In Le Jardin. The day we went Easy of the river. To the aquarium first… I was sad about my mother. I don’t even know why. The shimmer of the fish tank on my face, the octopuses…”





DOLORES DEI: “And my Crown of Immortality? No.” She shakes her head. “You scared her out of me. With your crying, your…” She stops. “The awful time we wound up having. In the cheap rental flats you could afford… Can’t you see—I can never think you’re cool again. I can only think that way about *new* people.”



DOLORES DEI: “Yes. I have found someone. For whom I can feel the same—a copy of my love for you, only this time he is careful and rich. He will not lose me. It will go somewhere. It will grow…”
REACTION SPEED: [Medium: Success] Your heart burns. Through the blackness you feel the treacle of blood on the mattress below you…





DOLORES DEI: “There.” She points across the water, into the darkness. “You could not pay the electrical bill. It became a lightless tomb. The years you spent training for the militia, my parents’ money… It was not good.”





DOLORES DEI: “That is *very* contested by modern historians,” she tramples her little feet for warmth and adds: “Very contested. Plus… You’re only saying this because things didn’t work out between us. I have to go to the aerodrome now. I don’t have time to defend myself from these accusations.”




DOLORES DEI: She shakes her head. “I am actually very ordinary, Harry. Below this gown and wreath I have an ordinary souls and ordinary thoughts. The only thing inhuman about me is this…” She looks around.



DOLORES DEI: “My lungs do not *glow*, Harry. I am just like all the others. None of us have glowing lungs—stop making me into some kind of…”



DOLORES DEI: No answer. The arches of her brows quiver as she looks you in the eye and backs away from you…
EMPATHY: [Medium: Success] You won’t do any of that. You can barely make her cry.
SHIVERS: [Medium: Success] All the roads will miss her footsteps when she’s gone from here.




ARIST: No…








DOLORES DEI: Her chest rising like a pillow, warm exhalations against the side of your mouth—her tender soul moving through her lungs.





DOLORES DEI: Her hand does not return the grip. Her body is rigid. A current of unease courses through it.









DOLORES DEI: “No, Harry. Not yet. There is one more thing you have to see…” She slides her hands down her chest, and onto her lower stomach. And smiles.



DOLORES DEI: “Yes. He did it.” She looks down at her belly, then up into your old eyes…



DOLORES DEI: “Now, go ahead…” She wipes her palms into the silk of her gown. “…ask me more questions. Let’s talk about *something else*.”



DOLORES DEI: “I *have* to, Harry. Really, I’ve already missed the 8:30…” Her fingers wrap around the bag handle. “I’m gonna go now…”




DOLORES DEI: “Light, life, *culture*… It’s so much better than here. Everything here reminds me of you, and the horrible times we had. The nights we stayed up fighting for our dying love.”







DOLORES DEI: “Right here. Tomorrow night. Once this dream starts happening it keeps happening—three times a week. At least. And Harry, it really, really looks like it’s started *happening* again. There’s the video rental…”



DOLORES DEI: “Oh, yes. This is real darkness. It’s not death, or war, or child molestation. Real darkness has love for a face. The first death is in the heart, Harry.”