Dreams - Dayna and Lauren (reading e books .txt) 📗

the trunk of the closest tree and used his hind legs to propel himself in a high arc, muscles rippling upon impact. Fanyare landed perfectly and kept running, shooting a smile in Chinook’s direction. He couldn’t pass up an opportunity to show off the skills that he had been so diligently perfecting while alone.
Chinook. Such an interesting name. Fanyare hoped he would have the chance to get to know her better. Now that he had met her he desperately wished that he wouldn’t have to go back to mundane loneliness. The prospect seemed even more bleak than before.
Up ahead a bluish tinge of light was filtering through the trees. Fanyare suddenly realized that all of his surroundings were foreign to him; he had never been this way before.
He began to slow his pace to a trot, sniffing the ground for familiar scents. An ear swiveled to the side as he listened for the slightest hint of a potentially threatening sound. He had been so caught up in the excitement of meeting another wolf that he hadn’t been paying any attention whatsoever to where his paws were carrying him.
“I don’t know,” Chinook answered, taken aback. The question had caught her off guard, and she became conscious of the fact that while she and this wolf were enjoying each others’ presence, in reality she barely even knew him. “I suppose you’ll just have to trust me,” she replied impishly, glancing back at the wolf.
He certainly was a show-off, wasn’t he? Flitting all over the place like that… was he trying to impress her? She supposed she really didn’t care; she was excited as well at this sudden change in the endless monotony she had gotten used to.
She shook the thought from her mind as she sensed a sudden mood change in the wolf. He had become tense and edgy, sniffing around uncertainly. As if he had anything to fret about here…
“Hey, relax! I know where I’m going, after all. You’ve nothing to worry about,” she chided teasingly, giving a fleeting look towards Fanyare.
Excitement flooded through her veins as the rays of light sifting through the trees increased in intensity. The wind swelled around the she-wolf, rolling onward in great, billowing gusts that nearly knocked Chinook off her feet. She burst through the trees eagerly… and the air instantly stilled.
She immediately sauntered a little ways away from Fanyare. While appreciating his company, she still preferred to be alone from time to time. Although the wind had disappeared, vanishing without a trace, her fur was still being gently ruffled by some unseen presence.
Chinook heaved a sigh and gazed around at her surroundings with wide eyes. This place never ceased to captivate her. The sheer, almost unnatural magnificence of it all caused her to gasp softly in awe.
“Wow…” she murmured softly. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
They were at the edge of a vast, flawlessly circular pond, its whole surface sleek and glossy as if made of glass. Light turquoise in color, it remained shallow for a few feet before plunging down into a dark, cerulean abyss. When staring closely at it, Chinook could just make out the bottom, no more than a dark smudge at the base of the pool. Hovering close to the surface and dispersed loosely over the remaining area were innumerable azure flecks of light, each radiating with their own unique glow. The silky waters absorbed every single miniscule trace of light and reflected it back even more brilliant than had already been. In addition, the moon—the last remnant of the night—shone weakly down on the pond, illuminating it and the surrounding forest with a dazzling luminosity.
Chinook stepped to the edge and tenderly touched her nose to the crystal clear water, taking delight in the effect the ripples had on the pool. Shimmering blue light danced before her eyes, bouncing off the trees and spiraling across her fur. Beaming, she gazed over in Fanyare’s direction, awaiting his reaction.
Fanyare had paused at the edge of the tree line, still sniffing the ground despite Chinook’s assurance that they were perfectly safe.
“Look, I don’t mean to come off as a show-off or anything. That’s not like me at all. It’s just so exciting to be in someone’s company for a change. By the way, my name is Fanyare…” He trailed off, having raised his eyes and beheld what lay before him.
The most magnificent scene he had ever seen was there, within his grasp, not ten feet away. He seemed to be in a trance as he stood there, unable to move due to loss of feeling in his legs. Glowing reflections from the water swam across his eyes, and everything within five feet of the perfect pond seemed to have a blue hue. How had he never come across this place of such beauty and enchantment in all the time he had been on the island? Not once during any of his explorations had he seen anything remotely like it. This pond was almost too good to be true, too pure to even exist.
A glorious weeping willow tree stood rooted to the opposite bank, lean trunk beautiful despite its gnarled bark. This tree looked to be frozen in time, like it had simply stopped growing just when it had reached a ripe old age. Long, graceful branches as flimsy as whips floated on the pond, fragile leaves brushing its surface like frail fingers. The branches that did not touch the water seemed to float in empty space like wisps of hair.
Oddly, the willow did not look even the slightest bit out of place against the tropical trees in the background as it swayed gracefully of its own accord. In fact, it seemed one with the pond, strong roots grasping the fertile ground at its edge, some immobile in the water. They were one organism, they belonged together.
Fanyare blinked, bowing his head and rubbing his eye with a paw. He had to be dreaming.
“Fanyare…” Chinook breathed airily.
“So your name is Fanyare… But is that what you are, I wonder?” she said mysteriously. She glanced down at her windswept fur, as if confirming something, then studied him out of the corner of her eye.
She remained like that for quite a long time, as if trying to figure something out. Eventually she looked away and stared into the pool, her features perfectly reflected back to her.
“I’m hoping this will somehow cure my insomnia, you know,” she said softly. “It sounds farfetched, but obviously there’s more to this pool than meets the eye. I don’t even know what it’s like to dream… because when I do actually sleep, I have no dreams at all. Just blackness, and even that only lasts for half an hour at the most. Are dreams fascinating? Peculiar? Or perhaps…fearsome? I’ve heard about nightmares, but it seems rather odd…after all, how can anything happening at night ever be sinister or frightening?” she mused, gazing at her reflection in bewilderment.
Dreams were the one thing that escaped her grasp, because no matter how hard she tried she just could hardly ever sleep, let alone dream. At this point Chinook would even settle for a nightmare—as outlandish as that word may be—for at least it was a dream of some sort.
Shooting Chinook a saddened, sideways look, and feeling deeply grieved for her, Fanyare frowned at the luminescent liquid before him. Suddenly the pond didn’t look so magnificent in light of the miracle that was expected of it.
“Dreams are… wonderful. I don’t know how to describe them without doing them an injustice.” He grinned sheepishly, turning his head away. “Sometimes they make no sense whatsoever, sometimes they reflect something that has happened that day or something you desire deep in your heart. The sad part is waking up and finding that you can’t remember anything at all about what you dreamed, only that you really enjoyed it.” He laughed. “Sometimes a dream is so good that I try to go back to sleep so that it can continue, but it never does. Occasionally I find myself spending a good part of a day trying to remember a particular dream. And when I do happen to have a fleeting memory of a dream I try desperately to cling to it, but it’s like trying to keep water in your paws; it slowly fades away the more you try to hold on until you remember nothing. I have been fortunate, however, to remember entire dreams, and I still remember them to this day. I’ve always wondered if maybe they have some greater significance in my life, or if I’m supposed to learn something from them.”
Fanyare seemed deep in his thoughts now, eyes narrowed in concentration. It was as though he had forgotten he wasn’t alone. A growl rose in his throat, the fur along his neck stiffened, and his tail raised.
“But there’s an evil side to everything. Nightmares are the nastiest, demons of the night that delight in making the vulnerable suffer by recreating some ghastly deed that has been committed or preying on the victim’s deepest fears. Nightmares can change people, bring out the worst in them or drive them into insanity. They are the things that can be manipulated in the hands of those that wish to inflict fatal wounds on the mind. Mental wounds are far worse than physical wounds, which is why one must learn to shut out the terrible things by strengthening their psychological defenses. Otherwise…” Fanyare’s voice trailed off, leaving in its wake a deadened silence. His deep, emerald eyes took on a look of excruciating sadness as they fixed on a far away, past place, pupils shrinking to nearly invisible slivers. His tail drooped, hovering between his legs as though wherever his mind had traveled to in the past pained him.
Fanyare swiftly raised his muzzle to the sky. A high-pitched whimper of longing and utmost sadness pierced the dawn as all the pent-up emotions the black wolf had been harboring were at last released from their prison. In that moment all the memories Fanyare had finally succeeded in locking away over his years of isolation came bursting out of their heavily guarded corner, blooming like horrific specters in front of his eyes.
The heart-shattering cry rang through the air for what seemed like an eternity, stunning any singing birds into silence even after it had ended. Fanyare stared at Chinook with a look of extreme horror, seeming to be looking straight through her. He suddenly came crashing back to his senses, and in a split second he was gone, running faster than he had ever run back through the trees.
Chinook watched him go, dismayed at the sudden change in mood. It had gone from calm and relaxed to somber and depressing in less than a few seconds. Was it something she had said? Should she have not asked about dreams? Either way, Fanyare was gone, and there was no reason for her to be there any longer. She sighed despondently and finally allowed the wind to swirl around her, causing ripples to whisk across the pond and scattering light every which direction. Sneaking one last look at the pool, she turned and trudged back in the direction of the beach, disappearing gingerly into the bushes.
“At least he had fun for a little while,” she reflected aloud. “Next time, I guess I’ll avoid that topic…if there’s even going to be a next time. Apparently I need to work on