Disclaimer: All references to the plot of Myst III: Exileare copyright Presto Studios, 2001, and CyanWorlds.
Author's Note: This piece was inspired back in late 2001 by an image which is, unfortunately, no longer available on the web. It's a photoshopped image, but looks very real--Atrus stands before the Resonance Ring tracks on Amateria, his hands clasped behind his back, and appears to be thinking silently. It is shown from such a perspective that one must imagine they're looking out through someone else's eyes--a watcher, watching the watcher.
This story was reuploaded on 12 September, 2009, to correct the formatting eaten by FFdotNet at some point. A rewrite is (possibly) pending.
The Dream Within
The watcher watched the watcher. Her wet hair, curling quickly in the humidity, fell down in front of her eyes and brushed against the cold stone. A few water droplets fell and splattered against the roughly cut stone, shattering the silence for barely an instant. But the silence was a heavy one, laden with sorrows, and would never be broken for too long. Still she watched him, as he watched the open sea, and the setting sun.
A bolt of lightning, barely visible over the Tower's peak, distracted her attention for an instant. Calm, clear brown eyes darted towards the thunderheads, waiting patiently for the echoing sound of thunder. As she ticked off the seconds, a low, powerful rumble of thunder rolled across the small oasis of land and machinery in the endless sea. Five seconds. It's coming closer now. Another water droplet fell and shattered the silence.
Silently she stepped down from the rock passage down onto the tracks. She always doubted their stability, the wood having stayed there for twenty years and no doubt more, so she walked as swiftly as she could to the platform. There she stopped, her hands clasped together behind her back, behind the watcher. His hands were clasped behind his back as well, wrists hidden beneath his yellow coat.
She watched him for a time, occasionally turning her gaze to the sea, trying to see what he saw. Finally she took a few steps forward, until she was standing on the platform nearly beside him, on the left side of the narrow beam that ran parallel to the tracks behind them. "You still have soot on your face," she said calmly, not breaking the gaze she held with the Resonance Ring tracks.
"Do I now?" replied the other gruffly, rubbing his face with a hand. "At least I, it seems, am not soaking wet."
She snorted. "True." They lapsed into silence for a time, watching the sun sink inexorably downward towards the horizon. A few tendrils of darker red clouds knitted their way into the pattern the other clouds made, creating a blanket over the horizon. "Did you see the painting?"
He nodded grimly. "I've seen them all, my friend...each grows more disturbing than the last."
"Just be glad that was the last one." The sun sunk a little bit lower, accompanied by another thunder clap. He reached out and traced the pattern on the wooden panel, delicately, as if retracing a memory. "See anything interesting?" she asked quietly. Another drop of water fell from her hair and landed on his shoe.
"I see a woman standing next to me who is soaked to the skin," he replied, looking at her with a slight smile, his beard bristling with the beginnings of a laugh, "for no apparent reason."
"I slipped on the moss by the Balance Bridge," she admitted sheepishly, "and fell into the water. It almost happened the last time I was here, too." The woman's face flushed and she hurried to change the subject. "Do you see anything else of interest?"
He paused, staring out into space for awhile before giving his answer. "I see a beautiful sunset, and a hundred different memories and dreams, dancing in and out of the clouds."
She looked out to the sunset, now threatening to disappear completely below the horizon, straining her eyes to see what he saw. The clouds drifted lazily across the twilight horizon, but no memories presented themselves. No dreams, either. "I don't understand," she said at last, "how can you see such a thing?"
"They are all around us." He gestured to the entire expanse of the Age. "From the platform we stand on to the painting in that room. And they are elsewhere, too, in the other worlds. Pain and suffering, hope and longing, betrayal and hatred, despair...and forgiving." He turned to face her, his dark eyes brightening for just an instant. "Dreams within dreams, and the dream within us all. It's something Catherine taught me, long ago."
The silence fell between them again, drifting in thick tendrils until the sun slipped beneath the horizon, plunging the world into a darkness broken only by the faint glow of distant fire marbles. "Come," he said quietly, stepping over onto the tracks. "We should leave before the nightly rains come. You're soaked to the skin already, no reason to make it worse." He moved onward down the tracks, but she hesitated at the edge of the platform.
"Atrus! Will...will we--"
He turned and nodded slowly. "We will, my friend. Tomorrow morning we will leave for Narayan."