Disclaimer: Predictably not mine.
A/N: I set a challenge on Livejournal: if you would provide me with a piece of fanart, I would write a short ficlet for/based on it. Elfciel requested something for astau (dot) deviantart (dot) com (slash) art (slash) Avishipping (dash) 202365406.
Seeking the Truth
© Scribbler, January 2012.
Isis knew she was dreaming, but it was with that special dream-clarity that didn't also necessitate waking. She was back in the tunnel where she had spent some of the only enjoyable portions of her childhood, but the worn-smooth strip of wall was below her hand-height now. She crouched to touch where she had walked these interconnecting corridors, something to read in one hand, her other fingertips against the wall so she would only walk in a circle and not cross her father's path by accident. She worked at a desk now, but she thought best when she was in motion. Sometimes her secretary joked that she would wear a groove in her office carpet from all the pacing she did when she was problem-solving.
Something called to Isis without words. She stood and turned a small circle, trying to locate it. Every crevice, every cranny, every nook and every shadow was ingrained into her memory. Here was where she had hidden her intelligence from her father. She had transported herself to faraway lands where glossy magazines weren't forbidden and girls could take exams without being told they didn't need qualifications to bear children. Isis had always thirsted for knowledge and her father had hammered down that nail whenever he spotted it.
Whatever had brought her here was off her usual route. It tugged at her gut, loosening from a tight, painful knot when she went towards it. Her path led her to what looked like a sliver of shadow, but was in actual fact a slice of corridor cut into the wall. The tiny space obliged her to turn sideways and raise her arms so she could fit through. When she emerged on the other side she was streaked with dirt on both sides. Her nose tickled with dust. Was it normal to smell things in your dreams?
There was a door in the wall. There had never been a door like that before: ornate and shining with light beyond the two sconces set either side of it. As if compelled, Isis laid her hand against the polished gold engravings. The surface was warm and slightly spongy – not like metal at all. Her hand snapped back when the lock clicked and the whole thing swung open, revealing a room she had also never seen before. A high-backed throne sat within, its occupant steeped in shadow.
"Hello, truth-seeker."
Isis straightened. This was not a voice she knew, yet it knelled something deep in her memory. The hand she held at her breast like a shield clenched into a fist and lowered to her side. "Who are you?"
"Also a seeker of truth. And perhaps," he said, tipping his head to one side, "an ally. Someday."
"You give an answer without actually answering my question."
She could only see the lower half of his face, but his smile was recognisable: not pleased, but cunning; the smile of someone recognising either an equal or a challenge. "You know me."
"No, I don't. I'm dreaming," she added unnecessarily. Dream logic wasn't like real-life logic. Applying one in the wrong place would never work. It was a good litmus test.
"Are you?"
"I haven't been back here in years."
"True." The speaker nodded. "You've been too busy chasing your brothers."
"What do you know of my brothers?"
"You seek a truth that will restore them to you, but not as they are now. You seek a truth that will heal them and make your family whole again. You seek a truth that has eluded your clan for thousands of years."
Isis stiffened. This was a product of her own mind; just some whimsy of imagination brought on by stress and overwork. She had probably fallen asleep across her paperwork again. She had been stressed out of her mind lately, her brain filled with shipping orders, insurance, governmental permission and other details to get to Domino everything that needed to be there. Work helped blot out her fears that Malik and Rishid would do something unfixable before she could put her plans into motion; just as it had blotted out her father's dictates when they were children.
"You know me. And you will know me again," the figure said, rising to his feet.
He stepped forward, into the square of light cast by the sconces flanking the outside of the door. Isis waited to see his face, but something glittered around his neck, momentarily blinding her. At her own throat, the Millennium Necklace flared white hot. Her hands flew to tear it off before it burned her, but froze before they could touch it.
She was aware of a forehead touching hers, the brush of hair and a musky, male scent.
"Don't give up, truth-seeker. You will find all your truths in time, if you persevere."
"Who –"
"You will know me when the time comes."
Isis fell backwards, toppled like a tree. She crashed into her own head – and woke with a start.
She raised her face, a half-completed order form stuck to her cheek. As she peeled it off, she yawned and stretched. It really had been just a dream.
Except that when she touched it, the Millennium Necklace was warm, and when she stood, despite having stayed indoors all day, her feet were coated in sand.
Fin.
.