All her life, she had not wanted for much. Her father was Quilton, the mayor, and the house they lived in had been spacious and well-furnished, with pillow-tiles that were swept and fluffed each morning by the maids and a gorgeous pillow-garden of her own. And though her mother had passed years ago (wasted away from some mysterious illness, her stuffing draining out of her each day), her father took care of them both. He was whimsical but also intelligent and kind; his judgment was sound, and his justice accepted by all members of their town. So she had lived there, in her childhood home, content with the world.
Then he had come.
After he killed the dragon, the town celebrated. There was a feast. She found him, the stranger, plucking at his honorary ribbon. He had looked so lonely, so lost, and it troubled her in a way she did not quite understand at the time. They talked, casual banter that steadily grew into questions of where he had come from, who he was. At the peak of the night's festivities, they had danced. At the time, he was quite nervous, and so was she, but she had already felt something stir in her pillow heart. Love for the young and charming hero who was already filling a spot in the town's collective body and soul. Young love. A true love.
They are happy, for a while. He is caring, handsome, a good father to their children, and there is a playfulness to him that reminds him of their youth, of the anxious dance by the fire the night he slew a monster. He is fond memories and nostalgia. She adores him, loves him with everything her pillow-heart can muster.
But it doesn't last.
He had spoken of a nameless girl and a nameless place, buried inside the memory-well of his head. He had yearned to return to it and show them his old home, which he described as a pillow-tree tall enough to scrape the sky. He'd had friends there. As he grew older, he'd begun to renew his search, and she and the family followed. It had ended, thankfully, when he reached the oracle Rasheeta, and the peace returned for the last few years of their life together.
Finn dies an ancient man, missing an arm and half-delirious as he passes away. She is not at all prepared when it happens. Her husband is muttering oaths under his breath and calls out names she does not know. Clarity in his final breath, but only for himself. Not for her. Remember us, she'd told him outside the oracle's tent, and he had looked at her with love again and promised, I will. He does not remember their family while his pillow heart beats its last and his eyes close, unseeing.
The funeral is bitter.
Her own time is not so far away now. Each day, she feels herself getting lighter as age eats away at the down beneath her casing-skin. When she feels up to it, she tends to her little garden in the back of the cozy old cottage. Jay and Bonnie are long gone, married away, and she keeps their pictures above the mantlepiece. A reminder, she supposes. She keeps his picture there, too, like some careful secret, looking at it only when it's dark outside and she gets a feeling like laughing and crying at once.
She tries not to think of him often. It doesn't quite work.
Sleep fastens its languorous coils tightly around her, plunging her into dream-waters higher than the Dome of the pillow-sphere, and strange collections flit around her. Collections of verse, snatches of imagery bright as the scales of the great pillow wyrm, subtle praise and droning melancholia. Weakly, she reaches for light, and as she wills the sea to separate, she -
{dreams}
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A dim chamber emerges, lit by pale lamps with thin legs clambering up the walls, rattling in curious cages. Unfamiliar. Cold. She shivers, peering into the gloom and calling out a shaky, "Hello?"
One of the lamps drops from the ceiling and lands next to her feet, startling her. She prods it gently, sending it scuttling away. Barely a moment later, the sound of footsteps enters her hearing, and she backs away, frightened.
"Roselinen."
It is a man's voice which sounds her name, shapes it, declares it less as address and more as fact, as being. There is a rustle, like curtains being drawn back, and in no time at all, the darkness recedes, fluttering into the hands of a figure clad entirely in white. He claps once, collapsing the shadows, revealing empty palms. He has hair like the down-storms that come during the cold months, or perhaps a flame, flickering from one form to the next. His eyes are unfathomable. She looks at him, at first with apprehension that fades into unabashed scrutiny; she finds that there is something about every part of him that is strangely familiar - the name of an old friend or a fond toy.
"Do I know you?" she asks. "I feel like I've met you somewhere, ages ago, but I can't quite place it..."
"I have not disclosed myself to you fully before," he answers, "but we have met. I have watched over you for many years, and your family, as well."
"What do I call you, sir?"
"You may refer to me as Daniel. I am the Weaver."
"Daniel," she murmurs. It does not bear the same weight it did when he spoke first, called her Roselinen, but she has a name to place to a face. Some of the initial fear has gone. "I suppose I'm a bit confused as to where I am." A thought comes to her. "Have I died? Are you here to take me to the Land of Down Feathers?"
"No, Roselinen. You have not yet passed on. But you have wished to."
There is nothing to indicate that it is an accusation - no sharpness in his tone, nothing scathing in the way he directs this at her; just a cold, clean truth - but it still feels like one, and she recoils in hurt. "I-"
"You loved him, although he was not of the world you were born in. You have dreamed of him ever since he left. You dream of your marriage, of your children, and the early days of joy. You miss him so." On the last sentence, his voice seems to shift subtly, growing lighter and more resonant, and she catches a glimpse of three things: golden eyes, two wavering silhouettes, and a sheet of sheer pink fabric. A laugh that rings in her ears. But Daniel says, "Begone," and the voice is no more, and the things she had seen disappear.
"How do you know?" she demands, a hot trickle of tears spilling down one cheek. "These are private things. How do you know?"
He produces a snowy handkerchief, which she accepts grudgingly. "It is in my business to know," he tells her, softly. "I am the Weaver. I am the Prince of Stories, and the stories that you have made for yourself are under my care."
"I don't understand." She blinks. "I don't understand at all."
"You called . I was the one who answered."
From nothing, it seems, Daniel conjures up a wavering curtain of some pitch-colored material, which flaps its way across the room, eerily alive. She watches it solidify into something like the sword Finn used to have, full of lights and hard. Stairs stack themselves far up, into a distant place she cannot see. Daniel turns to her, eyes glittering.
"Come. I will show you what you seek."
"Where are you taking me?"
"To the world of Finn the Human."
And she takes his hand, which is cool and like silk.
And they take a step through the portal.
And, in a fashion, they travel.
They travel years and years away, though it only feels like seconds.
She sees shining things and knows that they are called galaxies.
She sees a bright sphere, colored orange, and knows that it is a sun, beating hot, giving life to planets.
There are endless stretches of black roads, where the winds lash at them coldly, as they have done for millennia before and will do so until the universe runs dry.
There are also cities of odd buzzing things and creatures with hundreds of legs and oceans like smoke.
There sits the entirety of Creation, Endless.
Vast.
Impossible.
Terrifyingly beautiful.
They land in a field of soft green threads. The grass he'd told her about, she thinks. Here, the air seems so much more vibrant and crisp. The skies, too, are higher, and the clouds softer even than the pillow-clouds of her land. She begins to understand, on that field, why he had searched for his home with such desperation. Why he had longed for it all those years. Had she been him, she would not have left this place either.
Again, she wonders if this must the Land of Down Feathers, and if she has gone in her sleep. But his presence is beside her, and that, more than the abundance of life here, reassures her that she is indeed alive.
"Over there." He points to a huge tree (yes, it is as tall as he promised it would be), where she hears someone talking. A boy walks out, followed by a yellow dog, and her pillow-heart skips.
It is exactly as she remembered him, when they first met. The white hat. The green bag. His voice has not changed.
"Why is he so...?"
"Young?" She doesn't quite nod, at a loss for words. "Time in dreams passes differently than it does in the waking world. A lifetime has passed for you, but only a few hours have passed for him."
"So I - I was a dream. His dream."
"Yes."
She swallows. "It never happened, then? What we made together, the life we lived - was it all meaningless?"
"He is no god, no eternal. He cannot make you fully flesh and blood. He could never give you that. But his imagination is strong. For a moment, at least, he made you real and anchored you to a construct of his own making. You are a dream, Roselinen, but you were his dream and his alone. You have substance."
Daniel brings them closer. Inside the tree, she sees, are ladders and wooden planks and all manner of beautiful objects, sturdily wrought but crude. The trappings of a boy. She watches Finn pick up a telephone, listens as a girl's voice speaks and he laughs at something private between them. A joke. And she sees a pillow fort, like Jay and Bonnie built sometimes in the backyard.
"That is your anchor," says Daniel. "When it falls - as it must - you and your world will cease to exist."
She nods vacantly. "Of course."
"You will die, then."
She turns to him and smiles wryly. "Should I be scared of death?"
"If you have a reason to," he responds impassively.
A chuckle makes its way out of her mouth. There is no trace of envy in it, none of the grief she thought she would feel. "I'm not afraid. I've lived a good life. I've had a good family. If you must take me away when the time comes, Daniel," she says, eyeing him, "then so be it. Is that the reason you've brought me here? To let me see my husband one more time before I die?"
Unexpectedly, Daniel smiles. "I am only the Weaver, Roselinen. I am not Death. She is my sister, and you will have nothing to fear from her if you choose to let her guide you onward. She is kind, and just."
"Choose?" The notion is so preposterous that she laughs once more. "How can I choose to live or die? I'm old. My time will be up very soon, I expect."
"You don't. But you choose how it happens."
At this, she looks to him, searching.
"You are half-dream and half-mortal as a result of Finn the Human's doing. Surrender to your mortal aspect, and Death will show you ahead; where you arrive, however, is your decision. Surrender to the sway of your dream aspect, and you will revert to the form you held when you first encountered Finn. The memories of you and your children will remain with him once the fort has been destroyed. You will live on a recurring dream in his memories, although your dream-vessel has decayed."
A movement distracts her. One of the pillows has fallen, tumbling down and landing at the feet of Finn. He grabs it and sets it on a table, glancing out the window and letting out a proud whoop of excitement. As he unlatches the window, she spies a girl made completely of fire waving and grinning before flying off, leaving a trail of sparks in her wake. Finn looks at her with adoration, eyes aglow, the same way he used to look at her.
She makes her choice.
"I'll die the mortal death," she explains to Daniel. "I only ask one thing. After I'm gone, will you record my story and make sure it isn't forgotten? Please?"
The shadow of a grin flickers across Daniel's face. "Roselinen, daughter of Quilton, I give you my word that your story will be recorded forever in the library of the Dreaming."
She beams. "Thank you. I'm ready to go now."
"You've got guts, Rosie."
Another girl is standing next to them, apparently having been there all along. Her casing is as pale as Daniel's, but her hair is black and her eyes twinkle mischievously. "I wanna know, though," she adds, "why you chose the higher path." The girl raises an eyebrow. "You've still got feelings for the guy."
"He made me happy," Roselinen answers, "while he was alive. It's his turn to be happy now without my interference in his dreams." She draws in a breath, drinking in the fresh air of Finn's world and letting out a grateful sigh. "I had a lifetime to share with him. I have nothing else to ask for."
"That's the spirit!" the girl exclaims, taking her by the arm. "I've gotta say, I really like that about you."
"Are you finally taking me to the Land of Down Feathers, after all this time?"
A merry little laugh bubbles from the girl's throat. "Well, I guess that's up to you, isn't it?"
Both of them smiling ear to ear, Roselinen walks forward, into the light-
-and doesn't look back.
a/n: Puhoy was probably one of my favorite Adventure Time episodes. The only thing I was a little disappointed about was that the pillow-world Finn visited didn't really serve any other purpose than to get him through his relationship troubles at the time, and that he forgot all about his family and life over there once he woke up. So I tried to breath a little life into Roselinen. It's probably a bit too rushed, but I hope it works.
Reviews are greatly appreciated.