Chapter Twenty-Five

The last night before he came home was the oddest night, the dream I felt I had the least control over, the least input into, consciously, if you could even say that about a dream. It really was as if I was simply along for the ride on that one.

It was dark, except for a moon, a huge one, reflecting on the water in repeating ripples. But it wasn't the water of the Faerie pond, or any lake I'd ever seen. It seemed so much more vast, with white caps in the distance that made me shiver. It was an ocean, though I couldn't say which except that it wasn't tropical, not by a long shot.

Eric was there, standing just out in the waves as they rolled over a rocky shore, barefoot, I could see the water lapping against his pale skin with white froth. It was wetting the hem of the robe he wore, open, hood down around his shoulders, long, wide sleeves covering his arms nearly to his fingertips. He looked ethereal against the moonlit blackness of the waves. His hair was long again, down past his shoulders, and he wore it loose, except for two braids, one at each temple, held back by a circlet around his forehead, which made him the picture of the Nordic Prince for me. He was breathtaking. And he was holding his hand out for me.

I saw my hand reach for his, like a stranger in my own body, and I looked down to find my own feet bare and a similar robe draped over my shoulders falling to the rocks. My hair was long as well, and I could feel a cool weight on the skin of my forehead. A touch from my fingers revealed it to be another circlet. I stepped towards him to have him take my hand, and my feet touched the icy water, though I did not start at how cold it was. As we stood there, hand in hand, looking out over the dark people seemed to materialize around us. The first, and most peculiar, if I could be so bold as to rate the levels of peculiarity in those assembled was a man, shorter than Eric, about my height. I thought at first he was a Vampire, but his fangs were wrong. To begin with he had two sets, one set protruding from each jaw, upper and lower, and they were longer, lying over his lips, unable to be hidden away. And his skin was not pale, in fact he looked positively tanned, and as I was to see just a little bit later, his hands were elongated, fingernails ending in points, like talons. But he did not seem frightening to me.

As I looked around us other beings appeared. Out in the water, spirit shapes, the ghosts of Vikings, Eric's people perhaps, translucent but visible. Beside me, not quite in the water Claudine's folk, the faeries, delicate, draped in flowing garments that clung to perfect forms. Behind Eric, Vampires for certain, fangs gleaming in the moonlight, and further up on the beach all manner of shifters and weres, some in human, some in animal form. And others, spiritual ones, like druids it seemed, intermixed with the shifters, all staring down at Eric and I, in a silent witness to some ceremony I could not fathom right then.

Holding our clasped hands outwards towards the officiant Eric turned them, and opened his so that our palms were upwards, the pale skin glinting. The man spoke in a language I didn't think I would understand, and yet the words, though nonsensical, resonated in my head so that I understood.

"Sharing blood is the first bond, and the last bond. It is the source of life, death and life everlasting." He spoke slowly, reverently, and with a voice possibly more suited to a demonic entity then the role he was playing that night. And no one else made a sound but simply listened, only the surf itself dared, beating against the rocks with a muted roar and raised mist.

From the folds of a red cloak he drew forth a dagger, not silver I noted, and not iron. It was stone, and black in color, with sides that looked chipped away like an arrowhead: obsidian glass, it could be nothing else.

"As it began, as it shall always be." He continued. He brought the blade down over our stretched palms and cut across them deeply so that blood welled up. But I felt no pain. Eric pushed our hands together again and held them stretched out over the black water; intermingled blood dripped down and was mixed with the sea foam now swirling around our ankles in a pink froth. I turned my face away from the man and looked into Eric's eyes. They were soft, unlike his grip on my hand, which while it did not hurt, was strong, maybe even as strong as I one I held back with.

"I love you Sookie Stackhouse." He brought his mouth down over mine again, kissing me, but this time as our tongues played together I felt something new, and brushing the tip over my own teeth I found them, fangs, as sharp and deadly as Eric's grown from my own jaw.

I awoke with a scream.

Bubba's hurried footsteps on my porch, and subsequent pounding on my door tore me from whatever shocked state I was in, and I stumbled from my bed, not even bothering with a robe to throw open the front door before he tore it from its hinges. I met a look of tightened readiness on his face, prepared to rend and tear at whatever it was that had frightened me, but he found only me, in my tank top and jammie pants, beginning to cry, and the ferocity of his countenance quickly faded, to be replaced by shock and a tender concern as I dissolved into tears.

"Miss Sookie? What's wrong?"

I felt like an idiot as I blubbered out, 'it was only a nightmare, I'm okay'.

"You most certainly are not Miss Sookie."

Just my luck to find another perceptive Vampire on my porch.

I stepped out into the night air; I didn't even feel the cold, though I was still shivering from the images that seemed burned into my retinas. I sat heavily on the porch swing, the ancient thing creaking behind me and swaying just slightly. I let my head fall into my hands, practically doubled over.

"I should call Mr. Eric." Apparently Bubba had a phone as well. Eric must have gotten a bulk discount.

"No, please don't Bubba, he'll just think it's dumb, and I don't want to disturb him, his business is important, more important than a nightmare."

"I don't know that anything is more important to Mr. Eric than you Miss Sookie." Bubba sat himself down on the porch right in front of me, and I raised my head out of my hands to look at him.

"Do you know Mr. Eric very well Bubba? If you don't mind me asking."

"Well enough I suppose. I've worked for him off and on for twenty-some years. He's always treated me well." Bubba smiled a lopsided grin, curling one corner of his mouth upwards. "He helps me stay out of trouble. Sometimes I get confused about things, and that makes me angry. Mr. Eric makes sure I don't hurt anyone, or myself." That made me smile. "He loves you very much Miss Sookie. I think sometimes I remember what that feels like."

I felt so terrible for him right then. I might have had a nightmare, and maybe all my memories weren't great, but at least I had them, warts and all. Bubba had nothing but vague feelings. And he was comforting me. I wiped off my tears on the back of my hand and tried to put a smile on my face as false as it looked against the mottled cheeks and red nose.

"Do you love him Miss Sookie?"

I sighed, what harm would there be to say it, I asked myself.

"Yeah I do Bubba. I really do. I hope that isn't crazy."

"Not crazy at all. He'll do right by you."

"Maybe that's just what I'm afraid of Bubba." He caught that note faster than I imaged he would have.

"Is that what your nightmare was about?"

"Sort of, I guess." I stuttered, trying to be very careful what words I chose. Bubba was loyal to Eric, long before keeping my secrets, and I didn't want Eric to hear half a story from him and get the wrong idea. "I think I died, and that scared me Bubba."

"Mr. Eric won't ever let any harm come to you. That's why I'm here." He declared proudly, sitting up just a little straighter.

"I know, and you being here makes me feel better. Maybe I'll just go back inside and try to go back to sleep."

"I'll be out here if you need anything Miss Sookie."

I couldn't get back to sleep, I just sat on my bed, with the table lamp on and hugged my knees, trying really hard not to cry. I generally don't put much stock in dreams, 'cause they aren't real, but looking over the images that had haunted me over the four nights Eric had been away it was hard not to try to analyze them, especially as the hours crept on without me sleeping.

The first dream had been Eric and I at Sam's, a fantasy, what might have happened, my subconscious letting him into my world, my human world. The second dream, on the shores of the Faerie lake was like sharing with Eric the other part of me, the part I didn't really know much about yet, the Faerie blood and the world of my own supernatural side. But they were different than the dreams I'd had of Bill, especially the one of him sitting in my kitchen, reading the paper in a Leave it to Beaver kind of moment, bright sun streaming in the windows, setting him to burn. That dream had just shown me how different our lives were, and that he'd never be able to fit into mine, not then. But with Eric, the dreams had been at night, in places where he did fit into my world, and instead of showing me the futility of falling in love with him, they tried to emphasize the possibilities of it; how it might work.

The third dream showed me how I could enter into a joined world, one of humans and Vampires together, even if the periods were all muddled. It was a step into his world, one I hadn't really taken yet, and one he had so far discouraged me from taking with good reason. The Vampires who were aware of me, or had been aware of me besides Eric, Pam, Jess and Bill; and I questioned that last one, wanted to use and control me, or just kill me. It was better to stay hidden from them so as not to arouse any more 'faerie cravings'. The dream was encouraging though, as if the step might be taken. And the fourth dream, well, full immersion, I had left my world behind and joined Eric's most finally. I'd never, ever thought of my own death in terms of being changed; at least not consciously. But apparently my subconscious had other ideas. If Eric couldn't fully join my world, why couldn't I join his instead?

Good thing I didn't put much stock in dreams.