Of Dreams and Nightmares {Solana}

here was little change to be found in the routine of Sialarvanya's never-ending nightmare. Streike continued the game endlessly, Sialarvanya lost every time, and whenever she had lost everything she would gain it all back - just so it could be taken again. All the while, Solveig was in a coffin somewhere, locked underground, crying out for her. It came to a point where she just had to block out the thought, forget who Solveig was, and focus on herself...

In this world, it was easy to forget someone.

There was the occasional change the more she blocked things out, too. There would be a different card drawn, or Streike would say something new, or someone else would pass by just outside of her peripheral vision, and it was a change. She would grab that change, dig her nails into it, and refuse to let go. It was the only thing that kept her from going mad. Unless, of course, she already was mad. She couldn't tell anymore, but it could explain quite a lot.

Each time there was one of those changes, Sialarvanya would attempt to use the surge of power it gave her to do something. She was a Planesjumper, she could magic her way out of any old place. She should be able to leave this nightmare as easily as she could leave the Material... And yet, she couldn't. She tried jumping to the Field Lands, and would open her eyes to find herself in King Haelrin's prisons. She tried jumping to her tower, and would instead reveal herself to be in Aissic, where her family all looked down upon her and cursed her wretched name.

Eventually she had managed to jump to some place unfamiliar, and she would settle with it. Streike had not yet found her here, and so she was mercifully alone.

It was a boat that her nightmare had moved to, one that looked modern, but she could say that she knew little about boats. She sat in a silent room, perhaps some kind of banquet hall aboard the ship that was not in use. One oil lamp of the many along the walls was lit, flickering a light near her and into nowhere else. A beacon. She would stop trying to jump for now, she would stay here until Streike came for her again.

There was a single boon to the nightmare: She could see. Just like in her nightly dreamings and her daily imaginings she could see what was around her as if she had never lost her sight.

What she could not see, however, was that her attempts at power were like a bell, heralding that something was stuck in a nightmare. Something was vulnerable. Something powerful was vulnerable. Monstrous things were hidden inside of nightmares, but nothing was so monstrous as a thing that didn't belong there. A thing - no, a woman - like Solana Heiralei. Not here in Vanya's nightmare where nothing could truly hurt her in any way but her mind... Solana was something that could help her, which wasn't her danger. The danger was that Solana Heiralei did nothing for free.