I really don't know where I'm going with this story…
Also sorry for the delay, my computer needed to update and when I tried to send in my stuff to fanfic, I wasn't in my account and my genius self didn't remember the password or the Gmail account. I recovered it though, after many ridiculous and VERY stupid mistakes. I am also willing to fully admit to my own procrastination and forgetfullness too as a factor to it.
Either way, Enjoy.
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Static was all she could hear in the depths of her dreams.
Preparing all the delicacies and decorating the ballroom of the Mather's Mansion was very tiring, even if not as much physical exertion as, let's say, towing a field or doing mercenary work. Not like she knew what that felt like anyway or how truly tiring such jobs were.
But she was tired nonetheless and from all that work that certainly turned her bones to ash and her muscles to whining and begging for relax masses. And with their quiet pleas, she flew to her bed and laid her head, soon succumbing to a very common human hobby that each human secretly loved and each child pretended to loathe… sleep.
Of course, as usual, she did not fall asleep right away. Memories of the day's events and moments constantly replayed in her head. She was still somewhat traumatized.
She expected that drilled haired loli to be harmless but when tasked with putting the banners upon the high mansion walls and being a child whom the words 'I can't do that,' literally did not exist, she only accepted the challenge and proceeded to be hit with a spell that the other loli called…
Murak…
Holy, she was never this scared in her life. She just started floating and as she got higher and higher, her desperate screams to be let down continued to grow in intensity and her own panic began to rise to greater heights, even more, terrified that the loli held the power to this to her anytime she wanted.
Teasing that loli like Otto was going to require an even more steel-reinforced heart.
And oh she hated her sister.
She LITERALLY just stood there laughing!
"HELP! I'm gonna go splat and blaugh!" screamed the girl, floating several feet above the air and her little wiggling feet begging to kiss the ground once more after being devoid of it for longer than usual.
"Just hang the banner, I suppose. Betty's Subaru could do this without flinching an eye, in fact!" also screamed another drill-haired girl, contrasting the girl floating above by being several feet below her.
The scene was…
Something to behold.
The more surface-level jobs were already done.
Neatly arranged tables with fancy and elaborately designed cloths decorated the room from end to end, silver platters and plates laid all about in an almost artistic manner, and the entire room seemed to sparkle in the apparent cleanliness. So sparkling to the point where Naoko herself understood why people got blind.
But that was not the point…
"HahahaHAHAHA," died Fortuna, safe on the ground, doing nothing but laughing at her sister's early demise.
Beatrice, though not laughing, was pridefully posing in her triumph at finally being able to get revenge on one of the two young girls for taking away her alone time with her Subaru. She also looked up with an apparent smugness and look of accomplishment as she spoke in a non-challan tone towards the girl feet above her.
"Just pin the banner to the wall and I'll reverse the spell, in fact,"
Naoko, being wise in her years, continued her screaming as she obeyed the other loli's demands. Her eyes narrowed and her determination solidified into the sturdiest and hardened of materials and she did what any smart person would do…
She flew!
It was not a bird or a plane or Superman…
It was Naoko.
And she looked really, really stupid. She spread her arms and wagged them around as if she had transformed into a bird and, agonizingly, gradually made it to the wall and pinned the banners to the wall, realizing that she could also use the wall to propel herself along it.
And when she was done, her heart gave a battle cry at the fact that she had done it and saved herself a heart attack.
And as she turned around, her heart then began to sink to even greater depths.
Where did they go?
And stood there, well I guess floated there, was Naoko…
As screams resounded throughout the mansion once again.
However, like with anything, sleep would eventually come and overcome such traumatizing experiences.
And as her eyes slowly gave themselves to the darkness, she felt the sweet embrace of her dreams.
She expected the usual, dreams of being in a field of flowers of all colors with nothing out of the ordinary occurring in the dreamscape. She did though still see the field. All sorts of green grasses, purples, yellows, blues, reds, and all sorts of colors in between. Each and every one of those flowers also held a certain uniqueness to them too. This purple one for example reminded her of her mother, standing tall over others but leaning to look down at them as she still cared much for the others, friends, or simply for her citizens.
Plus… it was purple and her mother had amethyst purple eyes. Of course, it matched!
There was also the one to her far right, a bright yellow one that had many other yellow ones 'holding' It up to make the middle one look so high and mighty. The flower shined very brightly and seemed to hold some very familiar feelings she usually got when being with Unie Garf. Maybe that's just what it was, the flower reminded her of him.
Each flower, for some odd reason, continued to jog memories within her. It didn't matter of what, whether the flowers jogged a memory of person or an event, it truly didn't matter…
She enjoyed spending time with people outside the lonely dreamscape, she enjoyed playing with her sister, teasing Uncle Otto, climbing on Uncle Garfiel, talking with Sister Meili, or poking fun at her mom just for funsies…
But here was also weirdly enjoyable too.
Was it that she was an introvert? Maybe. She found an odd solace and peace in the landscape, something that someone twice her age still might not have found laced throughout the dreamscape.
Staring at the flowers, especially, were calming and always tended to paint a sincere and genuine smile across the girl's face.
It was then that she noticed something out of the ordinary.
Out of all the reds and yellows, whites and purples, out of all these wonderful colors…
Held no Orange.
Not a dye nor a splash of Orange could be seen.
And it was weird too.
The field, for some odd reason, was devoid of the color as if the Od Laguna itself hated the color and banished it from temporary existence.
Funny thing was that she was not necessarily wrong in a way.
The Od Laguna probably didn't hate Orange. Maybe just a person who really liked the color once ago.
But back to the matter at hand, Naoko still found it weird that the field forgot the color.
Why forget a color that had once littered the field before? Did the field itself believe that the color didn't add to its beauty enough? If that was the case, then Naoko would strongly refuse such an explanation. Naoko believed that the orange added the most beauty to the field, constantly feeding the field with a never-ending sense of brightness and movement. It seemed that the more orange, the more beautiful the field seemed to appear in her eyes.
I guess that's why it weird too.
In all her other dreams, the color still remained very much present and, even though it differed in the amount in the field, the color never was absent before.
The color orange always seemed to shine brilliantly, seemed to either constantly droop down in a pitiful sorrow or move exuberantly in excitement like a child experiencing a sugar rush and gave that excess energy to the other flowers in the field, somehow making the field appear much prettier…
Happier…
There was one other peculiar thing about the amazing color though…
The color, if anything else, only reminded her a bit of her mom and a bit of sister Meili but that was it. It reminded her of nothing else, no memory, from she could remember, attached itself to the color.
No one either.
She found no connection to the color and yet…
And yet…
And yet…
And yet…
And yet…
And yet…
And yet…
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A-And yet…
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It was her favorite.
Orange was her favorite color and she didn't know why.
Why not the purple one beside her that reminded her of her beloved and amazing mom?
Why not that four-leafed clover over there that reminded her of her 'lucky' Uncle Otto?
Why not the red one over there that reminded her of the similarly-haired knight back at the palace?
Why not this and why not that was all she questioned throughout her time in that dreamscape that fine night.
She had forgotten the static that resided in her ears just moments ago and decided that maybe they weren't of immediate importance.
It didn't annoy her as much as the brimming question of 'why' that was forever stuck inside her skull. People usually love things because they made a connection with that object to something that brought them joy. She loved the purple flower and appreciated its beauty firstly because it reminded her of her beloved mother back home and only secondly to its actual beauty. She loved cookies, even when the maids put disgusting raisins in them because she appreciated the hard work and effort dumped into making them and then secondly loved them for how they were actually exquisite sometimes.
But Orange was an anomaly as no true and strong connection solidified in the quarter-elf child's eyes.
It made a sort of crack in her head/as she continued to think about it.
A headache started to form, mak/ing her wreath in the phantom pain.
She strived towards an answer to\\that curiosity generating question.
Naoko never told anyone and, as an\\ y child would, she craved the answers and only wished she had the confidence to walk up to someone who could understand and then just magically get answers.
Why was the Orange gone? Why was she panicking?
It reminded her of so little yet it intrigued her and begged for her to listen evermore, maybe even more than the other colors did.
It jumped, it sorrowed, it toiled, it looped and bopped, and all these weird words that I'm using to describe it that make no sense!
And yet it still reminded her of nothing and continued to grasp her in warm comfort, as if a guardian was watching over her with nothing but radiant smiles… and secret regrets.
And so, even with no explanation to satisfy her, Orange ended up staying her favorite.
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The static was gone now…
Orange started to appear again, did it listen to her pleas?
She started hearing footsteps.
Naoko froze, usually, she only heard sounds of her own and only heard other such noises when it was a nightmare. She etched her eyes into her skull, clutching them with all her might in order to protect herself from the horrors that she might experience.
What was it going to be this time?
A scary dog?
Hearing noises that shouldn't be there?
Falling from a great, terrifying height?
Meili staring off into nothingness?
A cold, sad tombstone out in the cold?
Her mother crying in her room, cries easily heard throughout the palace?
She tucked her knees towards her chest, crumbling up into a ball, protecting herself from the worries of the dreamscape and the secret horrors it could contain. Was the Orange gone because this wasn't a dream, but a nightmare?
Why…?
Why?
WHY!?
She was having so much fun, she was so excited about this trip and so why was she having a nightmare now? Shouldn't she be having a sweet dream of flying over Lugunica or enjoying the tranquil landscape that was the field of delicate flowers? She would have been happier if she just went to sleep with no dream in the first place. After all, it's not like she would notice not having a dream as it's not like she remembered every single one of her dreams.
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The footsteps behind her continued to grow in volume and lessen in distance, soon the monster she imagined would be right in front of her, staring into her eyes with their own bright red evil eyes.
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Why did they stop?
Wait…
Why was she asking such a question, shouldn't she be happy!?
After a few minutes of affirming the monsters mysterious stop, Naoko slowly opened her eyes only to see the same field before her. However, at the corner of her eye, she saw something and immediately closed her eyes once again, scared that the monster was just waiting for the time to pounce on their prey.
After a few minutes, maybe hours in the real world, the monster still did nothing.
Was this monster so sadistic to wait for her to open her eyes to attack?
Naoko had pearls of water form in her eyes and her hairs all around her body still stood up as if they were subject to cold temperatures.
And then she felt something…
She felt something so very unexpected.
This monster touched her shoulder and gave it a reassuring pat.
She absentmindedly opened her eyes to the dreamscape again, confused by the soft gesture.
She looked at the monster only to see the silhouette that also plagued her dreams and occasionally caught her attention. The silhouette usually stood at the top of the hill of flowers or in the midst of the field, looking as if it appreciated the flowers as much as she did. This time though, the silhouette was not some statue-like entity that it seemed to represent in all the other dreams.
This time, it was alive.
Its features were still unnoticeable, the body was still covered in purple-ish shadows and the faint lines of orange that slightly covered in the last dream were now absent.
The now alive statue stared at her as if wondering if she was okay and tilted its head as if demanding an answer.
Oh, wait…
"Oh! I'm okay, you don't need to worry. I just thought you were a monster, you need to give a warning you know!" exclaimed Naoko, slowly gaining her confidence and comfortableness that she usually retained throughout these dreams.
The silhouette nodded in the sign of yes, accepting her response. The silhouette then proceeded to put its hands behind its body and looked into the field, also admiring the beauty of it all. Naoko could only stare at the silhouettes, mesmerized at the appearance of the silhouette. This certainly was not a daily occurrence. The silhouette nodded again as if preparing to say something. It did no such thing but it still did something nevertheless.
It pointed forward in the direction of the field and as Naoko tracked her eyes to once again look at the field, she was caught by surprise that the field was now replaced by walls.
She was in the mansion now.
The pointed and curved finger of the silhouette remained motionless once again. Naoko guessed it wanted her to walk down the dream hallways.
She hesitated at first, still somewhat confused why that, in her own dreams and being fully aware of being in one, she did not have the power to control it. She took a step, the sound of it somewhat loud due to the eerie silence of the mansion, despite the footsteps being quite soft and calm.
She turned around, predicting that maybe the silhouette would give a look of affirmation or nod at her if it really wanted her to walk down. To her surprise though, the silhouette was gone as if it never was there in the first place. I guess, in a sense, it never was… After all, it was all a dream.
She continued to walk down the hallway, vases and hard warned paintings littered the walls.
But something caught her attention…
These paintings, even though her memory wasn't the best, were not the same as the paintings she saw in the mansion. Paintings in the mansion were of forests, beautiful landscapes, or of the camp that once lived there but here… the paintings were just that, generic artistic ideas splattered upon the walls that she could tell hold no meaning to her or any of the others who once lived there.
Was this the Mather's Mansion?
Or the 'Mather's Mansion?'
As she continued down the halls, stopping every few seconds to stop and think about where the silhouette actually wanted to go, she came to spot something very peculiar.
You see, the mansion she was stuck in was of an odd color. The walls and the floors had a sort of misty quality as if the walls and floors themselves were ghosts. Each piece of furniture or whatnot also held this ghostly quality, only with soft patches of blue or purple.
But from what her eyes were telling her, she saw something else in this mansion wasteland that popped out when put next to the misty walls.
An Orange Flower, with lines of black swirling around it.
As she crept upon it, she could only wonder what caused such a flower to grow there or if it meant something else.
Her mom and others told her that sometimes having a gut feeling could sometimes be the best decision.
What that what this was?
Was what she was seeing some sort of vision, a gut feeling that something is occurring?
As her toes touched the ground, left and right, and left the mansion floors with soft creaks…
She finally made it to that flower…
She was still confused though. If this was a vision of some sorts, then why was the flower here? From what she could tell, this area in the mansion was the servants quarters and the only people who actually stayed here were the butlers and maids.
But then she noticed…
This room held a sort of importance, didn't it?
When walking through the actual mansion hallways earlier that day, she watched as the drilled hair loli and Meili look at the room in a sort of mixed sorrow, though sorrow nonetheless. Just whose room could make them feel such a thing.
Was the person who resided in that room a bad person and hurt them!? If that was the case, then she was going to make them pay! She'll convince the loli to cast Murak on them instead.
She still hadn't entered through, simply looking at the misty blue door in front of her to which the Orange Flower laid beside. As she moved her hand toward the handle and twisted it, she whelped at the loud and resounding creak it made. But through her resolve, she opened the door fully and was introduced to the silhouette again, now sitting on a structure that seemed like a bed.
It tilted its head at her, probably relieved that their esteemed guest made its way without any troubles. The silhouette this time, though, was just a tad bit more than it was earlier. While the silhouette held a distinctive black, this one seemed to have lines of orange on its shoulder.
And the silhouetted hand came up again, its weak and delicate fingers pointing to a cabinet in the middle of the room and then pointing up… perhaps telling her to pull it up? Out maybe?
She hadn't disobeyed the silhouette's wishing yet and so she walked over to the cabinet too. But as she got closer, she noticed that the silhouette stopped her. It nodded its head in the sign of no and then tapped its wrist.
She was confused about what the silhouette was trying to communicate.
After all, watches didn't exist in this world.
She put her hand up again, attempting to open the cabinet only to have the same silhouette stop her in her tracks. She looked up at the faceless human and was once more confused at what they actually wanted. They were telling her to open the cabinet but would stop her if she tried? What kind of joke is this!?
It was then that a painful headache became present, making her kneel and grasp her head as if calming the storm trapped inside. She gritted her teeth and started messaging her scalp in the attempts to get her head to relax, to failed attempts.
And to yet another surprise, the silhouette kneeled down with her, though not with the same pain, and hugged her.
She would have panicked if she still thought this shadow was a monster but, even if it was, she still felt an oddly warm and loving feeling emanating from it. The headaches calmed down and though she would have wished to see what was in that drawer, she couldn't resist the temptation to sleep.
To sleep within a dream?
Or was it to simply wake up?
Author's Notes:
Well... I tried. At this point, I really don't know what the heck I'm going to do with this story. I can't find a way to make it entertaining, for the next chapters at least, and I keep on forgetting that the actual thing exists.
Sorry if this was too short for your liking...
Extra News though:
In a flash of inspiration, I wrote a neat little fanfic separate from this one and I was wondering if I should post it now or once this is finished which should be soon.
For insight though and to get an idea, it is inspired by two fanfic: Inspired from a certain chapter in an 'A Beako Story' and the beginning premise of 'Starting life from an Alternate Reality,'
I'm also trying to add visual effects in my writing like making the static be represented by slashes or whatnot, get what I mean? Hopefully, fanfic doesn't auto-correct it...
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But ending with that, my name is Yorelis...
Bye! ;-;