In Dreams
By Kara
Rating: K+
Spoilers: Vague through "The Last Battle"
Summary: Aurora doesn't need some magic land in a wardrobe. She has a secret world in her dreams. Follows "Childhood's End".
There was a wardrobe in the spare room. It was a brilliant wardrobe, even though Aurora wasn't quite sure why it was full of fur coats. She liked to play in there sometimes with her stuffed lion, telling Lion stories about the deep carvings in the heavy door. Mum watched her sometimes, a sad little smile on her face that Aurora couldn't quite figure out. And when Aurora gave Mum the same negative answer to Mum's question if she'd found a magic land in the wardrobe, that smile always seemed to fall until it was a frown. It was the same look she had when Aurora named her lion Lion, as if Mum expected another name.
She knew that their family wasn't like other families. There was no Dad that lived with her and Mum, because Dad had died years ago. Mum didn't have any pictures of him, but she had drawings that Dead Aunt Lucy had done years and years and years ago. Mum never said much about him, except that his name had been Sol and he was a prince and Mum had loved him very, very much. Aurora had dreams sometimes, about a tall man with yellow hair like hers and laughing eyes who picked her up and swung her around in circles. The man always wore funny robes and tights, Mum in long princess dresses and a crown on her head. Mum was happy in Aurora's dreams, her eyes smiling as well as her mouth. She even laughed sometimes—not the fake laugh that Mum used when she was with men, but a real laugh. A loving laugh. But that was part of the secret world of her dreams—the one that she didn't tell anyone about.
There were men friends sometimes, men that Mum worked with who would try to take her for dinner or to the theatre. 'Wooing the war widow' was what she heard sometimes. 'Pity there's a chit to deal with' was another. Some of the men didn't mind her, would talk to her, read stories to her. But some pretended that she didn't exist and talked around her as if she wasn't even there. And none ever made her laugh, swinging her around until she fairly flew. None understood.
Mum was queer now and then. She had fits, Auntie Scrubb called them (not Granny, because Granny died in the train accident with Dead Aunt Lucy), where she would pour a glass of golden wine, sit in her chair and swirl it, as if she could see the future in it. Aurora understood that those were quiet times, times when it was best to take Lion and go play in her room so that Mum wouldn't be disturbed.
Sometimes Mum would tell her stories then, stories about a queen exiled from her kingdom all because she didn't believe anymore. Stories about princes and princesses who fell in love and lost each other, still trying to find each other again. Stories about Dead Aunt Lucy and Dead Uncles Ed and Peter and their adventures, growing up at the Kirke house out in the country, where she and Mum had lived ages and ages ago. It was Professor Kirke who'd gifted Mum the wardrobe when he died, part of the train accident that left Mum all alone—except for Aurora.
There were stories that matched the secret world in Aurora's head—sparkly dresses with long trains, fauns with furry goat legs and centaurs who taught her how to use the first small sword that Dad gave her for her eighth birthday. She couldn't remember all the dreams she had about the secret world, but she knew she went there every night. Mum went looking for a magic land in the wardrobe, trying to give Aurora something that she thought Aurora needed. But there was no Dad in the magic land. No Aunts and Uncles and Cousins and family that surrounded her with so much love that she hated to wake up. Lion wasn't real in the magic land. Lion was only real in her head—her imagination, Teacher called it. Her imagination beat out the silly magic land in every way.