Chapter Text
This time I think I'm a soldier or royal guard of some sort. The sun is blazing in the light blue sky but I can't feel the heat. It's bright. I'm in some sort of large raised temple with familiar imagery in an unfamiliar language carved delicately into the walls. I am indoors somewhere and people are dressed like what seems to be royalty as they slowly make their way about the decadent halls.
I look down at myself. I have armour plating half of my body, wrapped leather footwear and a sarong. Is this Egypt? No. It feels earlier than then. It's definitely in a desert country. I can't put a name to it. Maybe it's the Middle East? I have an ornate, heavy spear and wrists adorned with colourfully beaded protective bracers.
A young woman in long cerulean and gold robes approaches me with a stern look on her face. She has piercing blue eyes and a pretty, dark complexion and long black braided hair adorned with jewels and beads. I know her from somewhere. It's the same nameless person I dream about every night.
I enjoy our time together. In my dreams we are endlessly drawn to each other. Wherever we are, we find each other. This time we are home in a great sandstone ziggurat, corridors gently lit by oil torches.
“Come,” she says, taking my hand while looking around cautiously. I follow her order without hesitation and she leads me to what I understand is her bedroom within this grand palace. She is royalty. I don't know how I know this but the dream seems to provide me with all of the understanding I need. I feel an undeniable knowing that what we are doing is forbidden as she closes the delicate drapes behind us.
“We can't be here,” I tell her. She flips a hand and dismisses me.
“I may do as I like,” she tells me without a doubt of knowing her authority. She is the boss around here, but there will still be repercussions from the priests and even worse, the Gods.
“What would Inanna say?” I chastise her, unsure of why I'm choosing these particular names. She clicks her tongue at me as she saunters back over, walking me back up against the wall beside the curtained entrance archway.
“Love is love, Inanna would surely celebrate for us.”
She always has an answer for everything. Every single time. I love that about her. Her unusual charm and wit is always the same wherever we meet.
She slinks her fingers around the handle of my spear slowly, fingertips brushing my hand and I willingly surrender it. I know I shouldn't but I can't disobey her orders. She is my Queen. I don't know if she's the queen of the lands I'm dreaming of, but it comes heavily implied with the scenery and her confident demeanour. These dreams seem to unfold more information and clarity as they progress.
She rests the spear against the wall and stretches up onto her toes to kiss me gently. I barely register the warmth of her lips through the haze of sleep. Sometimes I wish I was there in person in these fantastical, faraway places.
“The King will-”
A finger presses to my lips. It feels so real.
“The King is busy, he does not know we are together,” she interrupts me, pressing close with her delicately jewelled fingers curling around the straps holding my chest piece in place. Her fingers know the straps and knots like the back of her hand and she begins undressing me. I cannot deny her.
The rest is a blur as I wake, the warmth of her room fading into daylight that peeks through the blinds of my apartment. I lay in bed for a moment. The urge to return to my pleasant dream is not as strong as it once was when the dreams begun. I craved her company, trying desperately to fall back to sleep to meet again.
I know we will see each other again soon.
We always do.
The dreams began on Christmas night when I was eleven years old. They have recurred every night since. Sometimes they are pleasant and serene, others macabre and frightening. Even when I have nightmares, she is always with me. Sometimes she is male and sometimes I am female in these dreams, but our connection remains the same regardless of gender.
Each dream beholds wonders I can't fathom with my waking knowledge. It's deeper than any gathered mental information. It's an innate knowing that travels deeper than my bones.
I was never a religious man, but after years of researching dreams and their meanings, I can't help but believe that I knew this person in previous lives. It's nothing like the buddhists suggest with their images and ideas of reincarnation, it feels stronger than that.
I often wonder what this person is doing in this current life. Are they alive? How old are they? What does their life look like? Are they happy? Do they think of me? Is this all a one-sided fabrication of my own mind?
I spent years thinking they were just the creative dreams of a wild mind, but I have slowly come to accept them as a part of my life. A private, secluded part of me that is no more important to me than breathing.
This time around I am Erwin Smith and I have no idea whether the person in my dreams is real or whether I will ever meet them again, only to remember them in dreams for the rest of my life.
I suppose we will have to wait and find out.