Chapter 4
Gabrielle stepped out onto the porch and found Hope standing in the middle of the yard.
Cautiously, she approached her daughter.
She was surprised when she saw the silver sheen of tears on Hope's cheek.
"Hope?"
She noticed that her daughter had hr meager possessions packed in a small bag. There was a resigned sadness in her eyes.
"I wanted," Hope's voice caught. "There was this man, Ian. He found me, after." She took a long shaky breath and closed her eyes. "It's so hard, feeling all these emotions like this."
Gabrielle saw the dark circles under Hope's eyes.
"Have you slept?" she asked lamely.
A frosty smile touched the corners of Hopes mouth. "A little."
The pain in Hope's voice was as real as a knife blade. It pierced Gabrielle's heart.
"I'm sorry," Hope said suddenly, wiping at the tears and sniffing. "I just…I wanted to tell you that much. I know that it isn't enough to make up for everything that I put you through, all the things I've done to you…to your family." Her voice stuck in her throat again and she forced her emotions back down. "I just wanted you to know that."
"Hope."
"I need to leave," Hope continued quickly. The tumult within her was building and she wanted to be gone before it broke through the rapidly crumbling barrier she was trying to erect. "I just had to come back here, just in case."
She felt a hand gently touch her shoulder.
"Don't," Hope protested, shrugging away from her mother's touch.
"Look at me," Gabrielle said gently.
"I need to get going," hope replied quickly.
"Look at me," Gabrielle repeated more firmly. She put her hand back on Hope's shoulder and slowly turned her around.
When their eyes locked, Hope's expression became one of intense internal agony, and the walls shattered as all the emotion burst out. The sobs rose from somewhere within her, sapping her strength. She fell forward into Gabrielle's arms and the two of them settled to the ground.
Gabrielle cradled Hope in her arms, whispering soft words of comfort and feeling her own heart hammering in her chest as she realized that this person was her daughter. The evil creature that had been her daughter was gone, vanquished, and utterly destroyed.
At the first wail, Xena came running out from the house and stopped short when she saw Gabrielle holding Hope, who sobbed uncontrollably.
The entire scene was so completely unbelievable that she forgot to breathe for a long while. Her mouth hung open in amazement. Now the guilt from her earlier actions filled her belly like lead and there was no rationalizing it any more even as the scorn remained.
"You've got to be kidding me," she muttered.
Gabrielle heard the quip and glared at Xena.
"I close my eyes every night!" Hope sobbed. "All I see are the faces! Hundreds and hundreds of faces! They come back over and over and over! I can't make them stop!"
Xena suppressed a shudder. She remembered those nightmares from a lifetime ago. Se saw the faces of her first victims and heard their voices as they called to her the names of those that she had killed in an eerie maddening whisper. Those were memories of fire and carnage and blood that had tormented her for years.
After A while, Xena slowly seated herself on the steps leading up to the porch and watched in amazement as all the torment and pain locked within Hope finally came free.
The sun was riding high in the afternoon sky when the sobs finally began to subside. Throughout the entire ordeal, Gabrielle remained motionless, cradling this thing that was her daughter in her arms.
When it was finally over, Hope was too exhausted to move. She lay helpless in her mothers arms. Soft, pained whimpering sounds emanated from her. Her eyes were puffy and rimmed in red.
"Xena," Gabrielle motioned for her. "Help me with her."
Reluctantly, Xena moved to assist, lifting the limp form and carrying her back towards the old house.
Gabrielle and Xena let Hope settle back onto the bed. Hope was unconscious by the time they got there.
"I think she'll sleep for a while now," Gabrielle nodded. Then she and Xena backed out of the room.
The door stopped with a gentle click and then Gabrielle looked up at her daughter.
"Still think this is a ruse?" she asked. It wasn't sarcastic. It was a genuine question.
The detachment in Gabrielle's eyes caught Xena by surprise for a moment.
"You," she pointed back out towards the yard. "But."
Gabrielle smiled grimly and pointed towards the living room.
Once they were out of earshot, Xena couldn't restrain herself any longer.
"I would have sworn that you were hooked," she whispered.
"In some ways," Gabrielle shrugged. "I am."
Xena groaned and rolled her eyes.
"I said, in some ways," Gabrielle shot back. "I remember all the things she did, the plots and the lies and…" She stopped as her eyes settled on the front door.
"The point is," Gabrielle went on. "I can't be sure anymore."
"You can't?" Xena asked.
Gabrielle shook her head. "I looked into her eyes, Xena. I looked in her eyes and I saw more pain than I've ever seen before."
"She's pulled stuff like this before, mom," Xena countered. "Like when I got back to Poditea and thought she was you."
"And I've seen it too," Gabrielle replied. "But even when she was at her most convincing, there was always something deeper. Like an undercurrent of cold that she couldn't cover up. And there are other things to think of as well."
"Such as?" Xena folded her arms.
"She's been in that prison for over two years," Gabrielle offered. "Who knows what she's been through there."
"We don't know she's been there this whole time," Xena countered. Her eyes narrowed when she saw Gabrielle's expression change. "Do we?"
"Last year," Gabrielle admitted. "I went to the prison."
"You what?" Xena hissed.
"She doesn't know I was there," Gabrielle added quickly. "But I saw her, from a distance."
Xena was clearly unconvinced.
"Then there are other things as well," Gabrielle continued. "Why was she even left in that place?"
"What?"
"Don't you think Dahok would have gotten her out of there?" Gabrielle went on.
Xena shrugged. "Maybe her time there was some kind of lesson?" she offered.
Gabrielle shook her head. "I don't think so. At least, that isn't the way this feels."
Gabrielle sat down on the dusty wood frame couch, her eyes inward, deep in contemplation. "And then, there are other things."
"Don't stop now, mom," Xena said sarcastically. "You're on a roll."
Gabrielle looked at her daughter. "Okay, fine. Where are her followers? She never went anywhere without them, and she didn't waste time with games like this. And then there's the beating you gave her. Did you even see the way she moved, or didn't move in this case? It was like she didn't even know how to defend herself."
"If she wanted to create some conflict between us," Xena countered. "Then all she needed to do was let me beat her bloody for a while, playing to your compassion, mom. You remember the fight we when she was still a child, right?"
Gabrielle shuddered at that memory. It had been the one and only time where she and Xena had faced each other and battled openly. Though Gabrielle wouldn't admit it, there were still aches and pains that she attributed to that fight.
Gabrielle shrugged. "Have you looked at her, Xena?" she asked. "Have you taken a moment and really looked into her eyes? You taught me that, remember? How to look into someone's eyes and size them up."
"I know," Xena nodded.
"But have you done that?" Gabrielle pressed.
Xena sighed and shook her head. "No."
"Why not?"
Xena didn't reply. She turned away and stood before the window, pushing the shutters open with a thrust of her hand. She gazed out at the open space between the house and the ruins of their old barn, her memories flooding through her with the same stinging sensation as if they were fresh in this current life, not relics of a past existence.
She remembered the cold, lifeless stare that had been Hope's gaze. Since she had been born, those eyes had been that way, beautiful green, but dull and merciless.
She struggled to reconcile those memories with the memory of what she had recently done. In fact, she had seen Hope's eyes, even as she rushed forward to attack her.
In retrospect, the memory made her shiver suddenly.
Hope had stood there, her expression hadn't been the same cold confidence she remembered.
This time, her eyes had been weary, tired, lifeless, and filled with meek acceptance. It was as if there was no will left in her at all. There was no move to protect herself when Xena's blows began to fall. Hope hadn't even raised her arms to protect herself. She had simply stood her ground and waited for the punishment she knew was coming. She had accepted it as though it were her lot.
Xena turned back and looked at Gabrielle, her own expression slightly haunted, and filled with a sudden sense of remorse.
"She wanted me to kill her," Xena finally breathed.
"Yes, she did." Gabrielle replied evenly. "And as much as one part of her wanted to die, there was something else that was reaching out to me. You couldn't see it because you were so consumed with rage that it blinded you."
"And yet, you're still being cautious," Xena added, her eyes narrowing.
"What was it your father used to say?" Gabrielle replied with a sly smile. "I may have been born at night, but it wasn't last night."
"So you don't trust her either," Xena concluded.
"No, I don't," Gabrielle nodded. "If she's sincere this time, then she'll understand that she has a lot to make up for. If she isn't, then I won't be too concerned about hurting her feelings, now, will I?"
Xena smiled. "When did you get so cold?" she asked. It always amazed her that, even in Gabrielle's latter years, she still possessed the same ferocity and fire that she had possessed in youth.
"Helicon," Gabrielle said simply, and her smile faded.
"Ouch," Xena muttered. "Sorry."
"Okay," Xena added after a deep breath. "So, what do we do with her?"
It was the same temple again, the same ocean of blood. She could feel the same rhythmic death knell of drums vibrating in her belly. Hope felt as though she were about to go mad. Her feet failed to obey her, propelling her back into that slaughterhouse. The people danced and undulated in a throng of sweaty, moving flesh.
She saw the first dagger and her conscience screamed for them to stop.
"Okay! Okay!" A voice boomed over the maelstrom. "Christ already! Enough for one night! Give it a god damned rest!"
Completely amazed, the masses stopped moving. The deafening drums fell silent, and all eyes turned to stare up past Hope at a figure standing in the corner.
Her heart hammering in her throat, Hope slowly turned her eyes and almost cried out in surprise.
"You again!"
David stepped from the shadows, his long dark coat fluttering about him, smiling like the son of the devil himself.
"Hey kiddo!" he greeted her. "Silence is golden, huh?"
Then he turned to the static throng of people.
"Alright!" he shouted. "No last calls for alcohol, no rude lights, just me saying get the fuck out! Hop a boat, swim the backstroke, I don't care! Just get!"
In a whisper of air, the masses vanished like smoke, leaving only the dark, torch lit temple, with its flickering shadows.
"Much better," David sighed. Then he motioned to the back wall. "Come on. Let's get the hell out of here."
"I've tried," Hope replied dismally. "I can't get out."
David chuckled as he looked about the place. "Sure you can. If you have the right guide with you." He stuck a hand in his pocket and offered his arm to her. "You coming?"
Hope eyed him curiously. "Where?"
She was afraid that the new destination might wind up being more horrifying than her current nightmare. This was, after all, the man she had killed.
David grinned and chuckled. "Man, you need to loosen up, kiddo. We are going out of here. You know, someplace other than this one?"
David raised a hand, gesturing at the back wall. A section of it shimmered golden blue for a moment and then revealed a doorway, dark and ominous.
Hope froze in sudden concern. It was like gazing through a doorway into the very mouth of infinity.
David turned and looked at her, a sly smile on his face. "What's the problem?"
She shook her head, even as David backed closer to the void.
"What's through there?" she asked.
"Just a short free fall into something other than this," David offered with a smile. "We are in your mind, after all."
"Free fall?" Hope asked, not quite liking the sound of that. "What is a free fall."
"Look," David said as he stood on the brink. "I can't understand why, but I'm here to help you, among other things, but I can't do shit for you unless you start trusting me."
"Trust you?" Hope laughed suddenly. "Why should I trust you? You left me in a prison that was torn down around me!"
"But I put you in the right spot to survive it!" David replied again.
"You walked away and abandoned me!" Hope cried at him, her anger rising.
"I led you the direction you needed to go!" David shouted back.
"You left me for dead in that forest!" Hope shouted again.
"But I put you where a friend of mine could find and help you!" David shouted back.
"Yeah, a friend who's also been dead for who knows how long!" Hope cried. "I thought I might actually have someone who could help me get used to all these, these emotions and feeling, without me falling apart at every turn, and he wound up being a corpse! Just another corpse!"
"Well shit, kid!" David bellowed at her angrily. "If you wanted everything neat and tidy, maybe you shouldn't have run me through the god damned gullet the first time we met, huh? Ever consider that?"
Hope opened her mouth to reply, but found she had no answer for that.
"You got a lot of shit to make up for, and a lot of people that you pissed off, with no skills, no experience, and right now, not a whole helluva lot of personality either! Now, you can turn your ass around and go back to the Drum Corps in here, or you can take a chance!" He leaned back, his fingers wrapped around the edge of the opening. "And try something new!"
Again, he grinned. It was almost a maniacal expression.
"Your call, Blondie!" He finished. The he let go and fell through the doorway with an exhilarated shriek. "Geronimo!"
Hope ran to the edge of the void and looked down into the nothingness as she watched the fluttering shadow that was David fall further and further away.
Terror at the prospect of an eternal plummet into darkness and the maddening fear of the slaughter she relived pulled at her. In each hand there was terror. There was the fear of the unknown. Where did this blackness lead? Her nightmare was a place fashioned by her own mind and her own experiences. By taking this course, would she find herself plunged into an even darker torment.
"Doom Boom!" The drums of the temple began pounding behind her. Looking back she saw the people reappearing.
"Gods no," she breathed, her eyes going wide with fear. "No, not again."
"Boom Doom Boom!"
She saw the people beginning to sway to the driving rhythms. She saw the women and children in the masses. She saw the weapons in their hands.
One of the figures let out a shrieking wail that reverberated through the stone room, echoing like the call of the damned. It was answered by the hundreds dancing in the temple. Their shrieks and wails rang in her ears, stinging the inside of her mind with deafening noise.
The drums rolled on.
"No!" Hope cried again, clapping her hands over her ears. "Please! Stop this!"
"Doom Boom Badadoom!"
The drums rolled on.
"Please stop!" she screamed even as the first of the dancers raised their weapons skyward. The walls around her began oozing with blood.
As the first weapon fell towards the body of a small girl dancing in the crowd, Hope turned and flung herself through the portal. Anything would be better than this private hell.
She fell forward into the blackness. The drums gave one final "Boom" and then…
She landed on her belly in a damp bed of soft green moss. The air was thick with the swampy smell of gas. A large stagnant pool shimmered in the light of a partial pinkish moon. All about her was damp earth, bracken, and water.
Thick tangled trees intertwined countless dark branches over her head, most of them trailing long, wispy beards of lichen or other vegetation. Bramble bushes grew wild in the gaps between the trees. Large dead branches intertwined their rotting limbs with the strong roots of the trees protruding like clawing bones in the soft, damp earth.
All about her, phosphorescent gasses floated like pale luminous yellow clouds, ghostlike in their writhing.
Turning her head to the side, she locked eyes with the beady gaze of a large reptilian face. It was mottled orange and black, with a long snout. Its forked tongue flicked in her direction and she heard the soft gulping noise as it tasted the air.
She cried out in alarm as she scrambled to her feet.
The lizard, equally terrified by the strange creature before it, fled into the bracken with a rustle of tall, damp grasses.
Creatures skittered or fluttered about on leathery wings. Strange animal calls, more alien than normal echoed all about her.
Her green eyes looked furtively after each new and terrifying sound.
The damp air bit through her flesh, chilling her right down to the bone.
There was a soft sound of something breaking the surface of the water in the large pool behind her.
She froze, the chill of the damp air solidifying into a chunk of dread, frozen in her belly.
There was a loud, deep groan behind her. It vibrated in the soft ground beneath her feet.
Slowly, her breath coming in short, terrified gasps, she turned toward the sound and saw the massive hump of some huge creature as it broke the surface of the still water. She saw the thick, leathery black hide as it flexed oily in the moonlight, then the plop of the massive tail, and the creature was gone.
The shriek rose from the frozen mass in her gut and burst from her in a rising cry of panic as she turned and half ran - half stumbled through the cloying earth and foliage.
Branches scratched at her clothing and flesh, as if reluctant to allow her passage. All about her, creatures took flight, scampers or slithered out of her path. More than once, she looked up into another set of cold, inhuman eyes before fleeing blindly in a different direction.
She finally collapsed in the middle of a small clearing, beneath the boughs of a huge gnarled tree.
Utterly terrified now, she raised her eyes and took in her surroundings.
On one side of the small patch of earth was a series of neatly stacked boxes, or crates of odd design. The three smaller ones were at one time white, now covered in a thin layer of dirt and grim, as if they had been dragged to the spot. Atop two of them rested a larger, coppery colored crate. This one was open, and within she could see various objects neatly placed on the divider within that now served as a shelf.
A single glowing orange lantern hummed nearby, giving off a palpable heat as well as illumination. She crawled to it and stretched out her hands to receive the blessed warmth as her eyes scanned the surroundings again. Everything was covered in a fine layer of damp mist, or concealed in shadow.
A strange throaty clucking noise sounded over head and she looked up to see two creatures coasting by on leathery wings. At the end of their long necks was not a head, but rather a large circular protuberance. They each pumped their wings once and continued past her, either oblivious to her presence, or simply unconcerned.
"Where am I?" she breathed aloud. Her voice sounded muffled, as if even it was afraid to venture far enough to resonate.
"Welcome to my mind, kiddo," a familiar voice echoed about her laced with humor. "Or, at least, one small part of it."
She looked towards the sound and saw him appear before her, as if walking out of the shadows, surrounded by a soft blue coronal sheen.
That interminable grin was still on his face as he hunkered down on one of the crates.
"So?" he asked, gesturing about him. "Better or worse?"
"I don't know yet," Hope answered truthfully. Her eyes darted about with each new, menacing noise.
Above her, in the branches, a large pale serpent gave an uncharacteristic throaty growl as it slithered further into the branches. Looking at the edge of the camp she saw a beetle, as large as her foot as it scuttled into a nearby rotting hollow trunk.
"Worse," she said, backing away. "Definitely worse."
"Oh, what a terrible thing to say," David replied. "You haven't seen the best part yet."
"I don't want to see it," Hope said, backing towards another of the small boxes and seating herself nervously. She shivered despite the warmth radiating from the nearby lantern.
David's shimmering bluish form rose and stepped over to the open crate. He withdrew a small narrow reddish brown box and flipped the lid open. Rummaging about inside, he drew out two small bars, and tossed one to her. She caught the thing reflexively and studied it. It seemed to be made of various nuts and berries pressed together into a hard, roughly rectangular mass.
David replaced the box and reseated himself, biting into the thing and chewing thoughtfully.
"I always thought these things were like granola bars."
"What is this place?" Hope asked as she took a cautious nibble. "And why do you look like that?"
David looked down at the shimmering blue light that surrounded him and shrugged. "Just paying homage to my boy, George, that's all." He grinned mischievously. "Welcome to Dagobah."
Hope frowned. "Day-ko-pa?" she tried to repeat the word.
"Close enough," David sighed.
"Whose things are these?" Hope continued.
"Oh, don't worry about that," David waved a hand in dismissal. "He'll be gone for some time now. Probably running about here, learning all his special Jedi arts, he is." Again that maddening grin. "He won't be back for a while."
"Why am I here?" Hope asked.
"Oh, that's a complex question, kiddo," David chuckled. "Why are any of us here?"
Hope felt some of her anxiety overwhelmed by frustration.
"For once," she snapped. "Can you give me a straight answer?"
David's smile melted away to something darker and a touch more sinister.
"Okay," he said. "You are here, because I figured you needed a break from the disco back there, that's why. You're in this place because your imagination isn't worth a shit, so I had to use something of mine. But you aren't getting anything of mine that is personal to me, just in case you're jerking my chain, so I used an image from someone else's imagination that I was privileged to see at one time. Straight enough for you?"
Then his gaze softened and he took another bite of food. "Besides, can't go from hell straight to heaven…you might go nuts. So I figured this would be as good as anything to serve as Purgatory."
"If you didn't trust me," Hope asked, still a little angry. "Why did you save me in the first place?"
"Because," David sighed. "Despite the fact that you are the illegitimate result of a spiritual rape by a fucked in the head God, you're still Gabrielle's daughter, and my step daughter by default." He took another bite. "Just because you're the dysfunctional part of the family, doesn't mean that you aren't still family."
He looked over at her. "And I take my family very, very seriously."
"But not seriously enough to be honest with me," Hope shot back.
"Honest?" Now it was David's turn to show some of his wrath. "Okay toots, you want honest, here it is. I don't trust you. I don't trust you as far as I could throw this dreamscape we're in. Every fiber of my being wanted to watch you go splat in that cell, but I couldn't do that. Not after seeing all the shit you've been dealing with over the last two years."
His rage cooled almost as fast as it had flared up. "And I don't have anything else to do, yet."
Hope looked at him sidelong, the dread in her belly taking on a new chill.
"Yet?" She asked. "What are you supposed to do?"
"For the moment," David answered. "I'm supposed to do my job as a father and make sure you don't get your ass handed to you on a plate."
Hope stood up, feeling a pressure in her chest building. "But why are you really here? Why have you really come back here?"
"You called to me, remember?" David replied, refusing to look at her.
"No," Hope stood up, all her discomfort lost as her mind began working. She studied him intently and understanding began to blossom. "You were going to come back again anyway, weren't you?"
He looked at her, his expression set in stone. "Was I?"
For someone so vocal, so animate to become so still and steady only solidified her understanding into certainty. "Who would you come back here for?" she asked knowingly. Her eyes went wide.
"Mother."
David merely shrugged.
"No!" she blurted suddenly. "No! You can't!"
She backed away from him in horror. In her mind, she screamed to awaken from this dream, but the reality remained steadfastly solid about her.
"You've been on the go for nearly two weeks, only collapsing from exhaustion when you can't stay awake any longer," David explained with a sly smile. "You won't wake up for several hours at least, by your reckoning. Could be months in this place, really."
The panic and rage was overwhelmed by sudden despair as she stared at this man and fully read his intention.
"Why do you think old Ian suggested that you come to her first, hm?" David offered. "It was because he knew, just like I do, that her clock was running down." He shrugged.
"But I just found her again!" Hope begged. "I've finally got a chance to know her the way I should, to be a part of her life, the way she always wanted me to be!"
"And you were ready to tuck tail and run away this morning!" David shot back vehemently. "You can't lie to me, Hope! Not here! You're scared to be out in the wide world on your own and you're scared of being rejected by your mother and family, AND you're the most afraid that you won't be rejected because that means dealing with a whole helluva lot of guilt on your side!"
He rose and towered over her, glaring down at her angrily. "You're all good talking about making amends for what you did! But you can't even start it without trying to run away! If your mother hadn't come out of that damned house this morning and stopped you, you'd have been half way to fucking Siberia by now!"
He took a few deep breaths and forced his anger back down. "And you'd have been dead in two days, because you don't have a clue as to how to protect yourself without big daddy D covering your ass!"
He stepped away and reseated himself, glaring at her. "Call me a liar. I fucking dare you."
Hope wilted as her own anger faded back to something more brutally internal.
"How much time does she have?" she asked helplessly.
"Scuse me?"
"Please!" Hope begged. "How much?"
David pursed his lips and leaned back slightly on the crate as if studying the young woman before him. He gave an almost imperceptible shrug.
The entire time, Hope's emotions had been alternating between peaks and valleys. Now, all of a sudden, a fierce protectiveness exploded within her heart. A sense of fury and fear that she could never remember even seeing before, let alone feeling.
She charged at him, crashing through the pale blue barrier of energy and lashed out at him with her fists. Unintelligible noises burst from her lips as she cried out in impotent fury.
Suddenly she felt his strong arms wrap around her shoulders, restraining her attacks as the emotions exploded out of her.
He whispered in her ear, trying to settle her down even as he held her fast. The fury expelled itself and she meekly beat on his arms and shoulders as she sobbed.
"Thanks, kiddo," he whispered in her ear after a while. "You've shown me everything I needed to know."
She looked up at him, despondent and confused.
"What you just showed me, here, was all I needed to see to prove to me that you've changed."
He set her down on one of the crates and wiped the tears from her eyes with his finger, and smiled gently.
"I can't tell you exactly when, baby," he said. "But she was right when she told your sister that this was the last time she'd be coming all the way out here to check on my storage box."
Hope shook her head, the tears rebuilding in her eyes.
"Shhh," David said as she opened her mouth to protest. "That's the way it is in life, Hope. Everything has to pass on at some point. Your mom is no exception."
"How long?" Hope asked.
"I can't tell you that," David said gently. "All I can tell you is that it will be soon, so you had better make the most of the time you have left."
"But I can't possibly make up for everything I did," Hope moaned.
"Baby," David smiled. "I couldn't make up for all the bullshit I pulled in my life if I lived to be a hundred years old. That's always the way it is." He shrugged again. "In the mean time, you have some personal demons to deal with."
"A lot of demons," Hope corrected him.
"Yeah," he replied. "And you have the best person in the world to help you do it." He placed a gloved hand against her cheek. "Use that. And remember this place when you go to sleep at night. When you don't find me here, then you'll know that it's time, okay?"
The pain was visible on her face even as she nodded.
"In the mean time," He went on. "You have a lot more to learn and a lot of old gifts to rediscover if you want a snowballs chance in hell of surviving, so, why don't we start working on that."
"We?" Hope asked.
"Well," David smiled. "It's either me, or my little green bud, Yoda?"
Again, Hope frowned. "Yoda?"
"Little green dude," David grinned. "Trains warriors, talks backwards, and is annoying as hell."
"And you aren't?" Hope replied, her smile breaking through the tears.
David stood up and grinned again. "Compared to him, I'm a freaking saint."
David rose and shook some moisture off his coat. He gestured with a nod of his head.
"Come on."
"Where are we going?" she asked, trying to ignore the sticky moisture that was causing her clothing to cling to her flesh.
"The obstacle course," David replied. "Just be quiet, we don't want to interrupt the others."
Again that damned grin.
"Now, I do need to point out," David continued. "That al lot of what you're going to hear in this place won't make sense, but the ideas are very similar. I'll try and modify things a bit to keep it real."
Hope frowned. "Modify?"
"Well," David replied, hunkering down in front of a large fallen tree. "You had a lot of special skills when Dahok was babbling in your head. Just because he's gone doesn't mean the skills are too."
Hope looked down at him. "What?"
"You were, technically, a high priestess, right?" David asked, looking up at her.
"Yes?"
"And those moves you used on me back in the front yard weren't exactly the moves of an amateur, right?" David continued. "You had to learn them from somewhere?"
"I did," Hope replied, suddenly feeling a little sheepish. "I learned them from you."
David smiled. "That's my point. Now, if you could do that then, why can't you do that now?"
Hope was about to say something when David grabbed her arm and pulled her down next to him behind the fallen tree. Hope grimaced as she felt the mud squish against her flesh and clothing.
"What are you," she began, but David held a finger to his lips, begging silence.
After a few minutes, Hope sat up straighter, hearing a sound she hadn't expected. It was the sound of footsteps running.
She looked over at David who merely held a finger to his lips again and winked.
As the footsteps neared, they both began to hear a voice speaking softly, though they couldn't make out what was being said.
Then the steps silenced suddenly and a figure vaulted over them in a superhuman leap. It flipped over once, landing on his feet and continued off at a sprint through the trees.
The man had been covered in a thin layer of grime. He wore a pair of tan pants, shirt and sturdy black boots. As he disappeared around a bend, Hope saw that a second, much smaller figure was tucked into the pack hanging from his shoulders.
Once Hope was certain that the two figures were out of earshot, she turned to David.
"Who was that?"
"Just another student in training," David smiled. "His name's Luke and the little frog on his back was the guy I warned you about."
"Yoda?"
"Yup."
"A demon?" Hope asked, looking at the space where the two figures had vanished.
David chuckled. "Sort of." He rose, and Hope noted that not a single bit of dirt had clung to his garments. For that matter, in spite of the humidity, he was still completely dry.
From somewhere above, the sound of thunder rolled across the sky. In the distance, through a gap in the trees, Hope could see deep dark clouds moving towards them. Violet flashes of light darted between the roiling mass.
"Come on, kiddo," David grinned. "Your turn on the obstacle course."
They followed the course of the previous runner and rounded a small bend in the path. There at the edge of the large stagnant pool stood the one David had identified as Luke. He was setting the pack down. The green creature pulled himself out of the pack and struggled to his feet, using a small wooden stick as a prop.
The two of them kept out of sight. Hope looked at the man curiously. He was tall and strong. His sandy blonde hair was a stringy sweaty mass as he breathed deeply, catching his breath.
"So," hope asked as she watched the young man seat himself on a rock and rest his elbows on his knees, obviously exhausted. "Who is he?"
"If all goes well," David replied, smiling. "He might wind up being your training partner." He rose again and pointed at the clearing.
"That's the end of the course," he smiled. "Come on. I'll show you the beginning. Then, it's time for you to run it."
"Run it?" Hope asked, feeling a sense of dread. "Through this place?"
"Yup," David nodded.
"But this is only a dream," Hope said nervously. "How will this help me?"
"It's real simple," David explained as they toiled through the dense undergrowth. "What the mind accomplishes, the body believes. You bust ass in here, you're body will adjust to it. You'll learn to control two worlds, for the most part, and that will give you some peace and some of the skills you'll need to survive in the waking world."
He turned and walked backwards in spite of the treacherous terrain. "How do you think you learned all the crap you did before?"
"They were gifts," Hope replied. "From my father."
"And in order for them to work, you had to be able to receive and translate those gifts to reality, right?" David said.
Hope shrugged, unsure of that little fact.
"The only problem is," David went on. "The only learning you had came from him. The only dreams you had to experience were the ones he gave you. You never got any of your own."
Hope ducked under an outstretched branch and almost slipped and fell into the muck.
"Hence the need for you to hitch a ride in one of my dreamscapes," David finished. "And if we're going to do this, we might as well do everything in one shot, right?"
"Ugh," Hope moaned as she stumbled forward and her hand vanished into a thick muddy pool.
"Okay then," She asked, looking at David, still completely untouched by moisture or mud. "Then explain how come you're not having the trouble moving through here that I am?"
David smiled and shrugged. "It is my dreamscape after all. Once you get a grasp of the basics, you'll be able to do the same thing." He lightly hopped twenty feet up to the top of a small drop and looked back down. "Give it a try." He offered.
"I can't jump that," Hope shot back.
"Why not?" David replied. "I just did."
"Like you said," Hope retorted. "This is your dreamscape!"
"All the rules that apply to me," David explained. "Also apply to you."
"Yeah, right," Hope muttered.
"And, likewise," David continued. "Anything you can do here, you can do, for the most part, in the waking world."
"So," Hope replied. "If I wanted to fly in the waking world, you're telling me I could?"
"Why not?" David replied. "It works for Criss Angel?"
He folded his arms and looked up at the sky. The dark mass of clouds was roiling over them, and the violet lightning arced across the sky. The thunder boomed.
"You going to try it, or not?" David asked impatiently.
Hope looked at the steep rise before her, the layers of mud intertwined with old roots. Amidst the earth, she could see small creatures scuttling to and fro within the mass.
"Okay," she thought. "I saw him do it. That means it can be done, right?" She looked back up at him and backed away a few paces. "Just think about it and it can happen. Focus your mind. Make it real."
She took a short running start and leapt…and slammed right into the wall of mud with a sickening squelch.
With a cry of dismay, she pulled herself out of the muck and tried to ignore David laughing from the rise above.
She was covered in dark muck from head to toe, her long golden hair hanging in ragged dirty strings. She cried out in dismay as she felt something wriggling in her hair and quickly extricated the insect with a frenzy of movement.
"Don't worry about it, Hope," David laughed. "No one gets it right the first time."
The first thick drops of rain began to fall from the darkening sky, and the thunder boomed again.
"Come on up," David said again. With a gesture, Hope felt herself lifted from the muddy earth and raised up to the top of the rise. She stood there, covered in grime, looking like a despondent, half drowned animal.
"You did that on purpose," she said angrily.
"I didn't do shit," David replied. "This is my dreamscape, yes, but you have the ultimate control over what you accomplish here, not me."
They continued walking through the rain till they reached the top of a small soggy hill. Hope stood there for a moment, allowing the cool water to wash some of the mud from her body.
When she looked down, she could see the rough path that the obstacle course wove through the trees. It seemed an inhuman distance to traverse with any speed.
Looking to the left, she saw a soft warm glow at the base of one large tree. She frowned.
"What's that?" she asked.
"What?" David followed her gaze. "Oh, that? That's Yoda's place."
He clapped his hands together and smiled. "Okay. Meet you down in the clearing."
"What?" Hope looked at him and then at the thick sheets of rain building around her. "Now?"
"Yes," David replied. He let his long coat fall to the muddy ground where it immediately vanished. Beneath he was wearing a simple pair of denim pants, a black tank top, and tough looking utilitarian black boots.
"See you in a little bit." He nodded. As Hope watched, his hair and clothing began absorbing the water falling around them. He grinned, crouched and then darted off at a full run, leaping over the rise with inhuman grace. And then he was gone.
Hope ran to the edge of the first drop, only a mere six feet high, and looked down as David traversed the course with sure steps.
She watched how he made his way through some of the terrain, making a few mental notes, and then she backed up and got a good running start as she followed him.
She fell, more than jumped the first rise, tripped countless times and spent several long moments scrabbling on all fours like one of the countless reptiles she saw slinking around her.
When she finally came stumbling into the clearing some time later, she was bone weary, covered in scrapes and scratches from the unyielding branches. Her clothing was ripped in several places, and she had a limp from a twisted ankle. She was soaked to the bone, and the rain still hadn't let up.
Seated on a log, under the sheltering boughs of a tree, was David and the small green figure she had seen earlier.
It turned its gentle blue eyes toward her as she emerged. His long pointy ears stretched upward as his eyes widened slightly in curiosity, or perhaps amusement. White wisps of hair trailed from his wrinkled head. Up close, the small creature looked positively ancient.
"Ah," he said as she limped towards them. Something like a bemused smile appeared. "Your Padawan, this is, I take it?"
David chuckled and brushed his soaked hair from his eyes.
"Yes, sir," He replied, smiling. "What do you think?"
Hope tried not to look as miserable as she felt. She even managed to stand a little straighter.
The figure hobbled down off his perch and moved slowly towards her, leaning on his cane as he went. His gentle blue eyes studied her critically.
"Mm," he considered, looking her up and down. "Strong, but also touched with darkness she is, yes."
He turned and looked back at David critically. "Much work you have ahead of you."
David shrugged. "I got time."
Hope gulped. She felt considerably uneasy under his deep searching gaze.
"But will she finish what is begun?" he asked, turning to look at her again. "Many troubles I see. Many fears."
"Well, I never said it would be a fast fix," David replied.
"Mm," Yoda nodded again and turned away, moving slowly through the trees.
He paused after a few moments and turned back to face them.
His eyes fixed on her again, and then on David in turn.
"If council you seek," he added. "Then come to me, you may. For now, rest she seems to need." He turned back and continued on his way. "Yes, rest."
"Yeah," David nodded. "I think you've seen enough for one night."
Even as he spoke, she could feel the reality of the dream slipping away. The conscious world wanted back in.
"Time to wake up now," David whispered. Everything fell into blackness and then faded into the red of light behind her eyelids.
