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[Xana]

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Snow.

She dreamed of snow, softly falling in its surreal and quiet way.

The dream lacked all of the usual oddities that Xana often experienced in her sleeping world. There were no bizarre displays or emotions or impossible to explain scenarios. No flying horses, no haunted woods, no inexplicable inventions that did not really exist in the world. Another thing that struck her as odd, in this dream she had an actual self. So often she witnessed her dreams from a disembodied point of view, more a spectator than a participant.

In this white-out world, she stood in a hilltop cemetery. She was completely at peace. There was no fear or trepidation.

There was a white wrought iron fence running the perimeter of this resting place for mortal remains, and somehow she knew that the river flowing past the one side of the fence was on the western edge.

Xana herself stood beside a decaying mausoleum, her satin-gloved right hand resting gently against the cracking surface of its southern wall. As is often the way of dreams, she slowly became aware of things, and she next realized that she wore a beautiful gown in shades of purple. Incredible in its beauty and detail, really, the kind of thing a lady of true means would wear to the theatre. There were small ribbons and bows and pearls and crystalline gems adorning the garment in a way that was impossibly subtle in execution.

As she felt compelled to regard the river, she realized it was cloaked in fog, wearing the mist as a mantle of secrecy. Yes. Secrecy, she thought in her dream-self's mind. That fog is hiding something. Possibly something dangerous, though the sleeping gypsy felt no dream or corporeal fear.

To her left, she heard a small sound in the southern winter woods. Subtle but concise, a cracking type of noise.

Slowly, Xana turned her head to see who or what dared interrupt this too rare moment of inner peace.

It was only possible to make out the figure of a man. Tall, obviously strong, long hair flowing gently with the almost non-existent breeze in this snowy world so near the secret-hiding mists. If only she could see him better, she knew she would know him. She just knew it. Xana felt a surge of emotion, somehow she knew she needed to speak with, to be near, to touch, this man standing just out of range of clear vision. Her left hand raised, and reached out to him, the little decorative crystals on the glove glinting in the low light. He returned the gesture.

In the physical world around her, a knot in the blazing log in the hearth exploded, creating a sound that was too loud to be ignored, and Xana slowly came up from her sleep.

Upon waking, realization flooded her mind. The dream was gone, yet the feeling remained, and she emitted a soft cry of indignation.
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An artist is a creature driven by demons ~Faulkner

[Xana]

---

The sound of her pulse rushed through her ears, and when she looked down at herself, Xana actually saw the thud of her heart against her ribcage. She took a few shallow breaths that sounded vaguely ragged and leaned back against the pillows. She felt as if she could just step back into the dream, its power holding her in a state of rapture.

But it was a dark, and somehow frightening sense of awe she felt. The dream, in its own way, felt perhaps a little too real.

And the man. Who was he?

Xana shifted her gaze toward the crackling fireplace, the flames dancing merrily in the hearth. How beautiful and ominous were the shadows they cast in the darkness of this room she had rented earlier in the evening when twilight began to fall. In fact, she thought, those very flames reflected the same feelings that were evident in the dream. Sleepily, she wondered how such opposing feelings could possibly be shared within the same moments.

Thoughts of the man in the dream continued to taunt Xana as she fluffed the pillows and tried to settle down with the intent to return to the land of sleep. What a nagging feeling, that she should know who he was but at the same time not know.

Was there a message in this dream? she wondered. Or, perhaps, she ruminated, I am reading too much into a nocturnal thought?

Sleep did not come until the predawn hour, and what sleep she had was not restful.
_________________
An artist is a creature driven by demons ~Faulkner

[Xana]

---

Though Xana was not consciously aware of such, she languished in a sleep induced by the elder healers, herbalists, and alchemists of the many close and far-flung relations of the gypsy clan. To look at her, the average person may have been horrified by her emaciated countenance; so still she lay, as if a corpse. The copper color of her usually tanned skin was gone, replaced with an unhealthy paleness that would be worthy of a necromancer. The once lush mane of deep brown hair lay limp, straw-like against the pillow.

What Xana was aware of, was being caught in a nearly endless loop of a dream she'd had so many months before. Such a fine gown she wore, standing in this chill graveyard, the unknown man in the distance raising his hand to her. The repeated dream seemed timeless, without bound.

When not reliving the dream, Xana's mind relentlessly, cruelly, replayed to her the incident that left her as she was. That beautiful, winter sun-warmed day that she was forced to purchase her potions from an unknown source; the family's potion makers would no longer indulge her ever increasing demands for more, and stronger, narcotics. She saw, in the third person, herself staggering up to her sister's home in that strange dark land outside of Umbra; she saw herself vomiting mercilessly, she relived the fear that she would choke.

Or perhaps, part of her mind said quietly, you did choke. Perhaps you are caught in the land of lost souls.

Xana's mind pushed this unpleasant possibility away, and she fell back into the peaceful scenery of the bluff above the river.

She admired the beautiful gown she wore.
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An artist is a creature driven by demons ~Faulkner