Mid Encounter

Chapter 10: In Your Dreams

Ambrose.

Ambrose?

"Sir Ambrose?"

The Advisor wrenched his eyes open. A blonde lady in a maid's uniform, holding an empty silver serving tray in one hand was leaning over him with a worried expression. It lessened a bit when she saw him look at her. She smiled and stood up.

"Sir Ambrose, you know it is very bad for your health to sleep on the cold floor, remember to sleep in your bed next time. It's hard to keep up with work when you're sick!" She tsked her tongue at him and turned, heading down the elegantly furnished hallway.

Wait. What? He sat up, looking around at his surroundings, and then shot to his feet. He was in the palace. And it was like it used to be years ago. He turned his head this way and that in amazed confusement. Everything was right, the tall sweeping ceilings, the soft glow of candlelight, and the royal workers hurrying around busily but happily.

Glancing down at himself, he was no longer wearing ragity clothes, but his intact adviser uniform. A rich brown tailcoat with gold trimming and dress pants that looked freshly pressed. He saw a small wall mirror a little away and stepped over quickly to looked at his refection. The face looking back at him was young and well groomed; the soft brown hair brushed back neatly, not a mat or zipper in sight.

"How is this possible?" he whispered aloud to himself, hesitantly touching the place where the zipper was not long ago, "Was it all a horrible dream?" he frowned slightly, that didn't make sense, everything that had happened, DG's death, the overthrow by Azkadellia, becoming a headcase, was clear and too real to just be a dream.

The faint sound of joyous laugher pulled his attention away from the mirror and his thoughts. He snapped his head quickly in that direction. It was coming from an open window nearby. It sounded like….

Ambrose took the few short strides to the arched window and after glancing out, his brown eyes widened and he froze.

Every part of him told him he was not seeing what he thought he was. The Royal Adviser turned and walked down the long, familiar hall calmly, but that was only in appearance, his mind on the other hand, was whirling. 'This isn't real, i-it can't be…..she's…maybe it is an illusion by an A.T.D.E.S.P.H.T.L, a loop of a memory playing over and over….' His pace increased, long legs stretching to their limits. After making it to the bottom of the elegant wide staircase, Ambrose couldn't take it anymore and broke into a run, the long trailing tails of his coat flying behind him.

He shoved open the heavy door with his thin arms and immediately spotted a problem with the outside landscape. Something was…off. Maybe a little blurry even. He shook his head slightly; mostly convinced it was just his eyes. He was feeling a little….

A wave of bell-like laughter washed over him again, much nearer now than before. Just around the edge of the palace wall, less than three yards away.

He approached, barely noticing his feet moving forward.

OZOZOZOZOZOZOOZOZOZOZ

'why do I smell…..flowers? It's fall"

DG opened her bright blue eyes and found herself laying on a cold, stone pathway in a magnificently huge garden with every color and kind of flower that she could ever imagine. She stared in wonder for a moment, and then her small face moved into a confused frown.

The last thing she remembered was climbing onto the roof of the farmhouse to get her new kitten that has gotten up there somehow and it was mewing in fear. She had almost reached him when her foot had slipped and….

Her eyes widened and a stab of fear flooded her chest. Did she fall off the roof and die? Was she dead? The little girl grabbed ahold of her forearm and pinched herself as hard as she could.

"OW!" she exclaimed out loud.

She rubbed the red spot on her arm. Well she was alive but where…..wait! She remembered! This was the palace garden where she would always go to play after she finished her daily lessons with Tutor. Sometimes after a lot of pleading, he would even hold a few lessons out here. She smiled to herself happily and picked one of the long-stemmed purple striped flowers nearby. DG lifted it up to her nose and inhaled the sweet fragrance, exactly as she remembered it.

The farmhouse, the flat endless land, and the people pretending to be her parents. It must have all been a dream, a really long, horrible dream.

She laughed and spun in a circle with her porcelain arms stretched out to each side.

"D…G…" the sound of the unsure voice made her pause in her spinning. She immediately recognized it.

"Ambrose?' she whispered quietly, knowing it was her slightly awkward best friend without having to turn around.

"It is really you…isn't it?" he asks in a soft voice.

The five annual old finally looks behind her, her big blue eyes meeting his wide brown ones.

Ozozozozozozozozozozozozozozozozozozozozozozozozozozzo

It WAS her.

Ambrose covers the distance between them with three strides of his long legs and takes the small girl up into his arms. She was warm and heavy. He could feel her hot breath on his bare neck. How could this not be real? How?

"DG." He breathes raggedy, blinking back the prickling feeling of tears "You're alive?"

She laughs, the question bizarre to her. "Of course I'm alive, silly! Why are you so surprised?"

He opens his mouth to answer but the right words escape him. Instead he simply grins at her.

She then frowns, "Did you have a nightmare?"

The look of childish worry that appears on her round face causes the inventor to chuckle.

"Yes, I suppose I did have a bad dream." It must of just been a dream. Right? He thinks to himself "But bad dreams always end right?" he asks and pokes her on the nose with the tip of his index finger.

DG giggles and nods in agreement, "That's right! The sun chases them away!"

The little princess wiggles around in his grip until he sits her back on her feet. She grins happily and latches onto his pale hand with her small ivory one. "Come on!" she tugs, "Let's play Ambrose!"

A hilariously fun game of tag soon follows, DG winning of course, and before long they are both collapsed breathlessly on the vivid green grass.

DG rolls over onto her stomach and starts picking the white wild flowers dotting the grass around them.

"Whatever are you up to now, Princess?"

"Making flower crowns for us," she says and sticks her tongue out in concentration as she starts weaving the stems together, "Az taught me." the hands pause for a moment, then continues, but she brow is furrowed a little.

Ambrose notices and props up onto his elbow, watching her, "Now what has caused you to make that face?"

She mutters, not looking up from the task, "I just felt weird talking about Az, like something is wrong but I can't remember what."

"I'm sure everything thing is..." the smiles drops from his face suddenly, "...fine?"

He doesn't notice DG looking at him puzzled, nor did he hear her questions.

Ambrose slowly stood up and turned in a circle, staring at his surroundings. Really looking at them.

Why hadn't he noticed already? Was he too wrapped up in this impossible dream?

The trees at the edge of the clearing...and the sky as well...both were blurry, edges undefined and colors twisting together. Kinda like a blotched oil painting.

His heart hammers in his chest and he rubs his eyes roughly, desperately hopeing that this is just a problem with his eyes somehow.

A blind hope.

A strong tug at his jacket draws his attention down. DG is looking up at him with very wide, concerned eyes. She was still in sharp focus.

"Ambrose? Ambrose what is wrong? Tell me! Are you sick?"

The Royal Adviser swallows thickly, "The—the trees" he stammers out, "and the sky they-they're blurry."

OZOZOZOZOZOZOZOZOZOZ

"No they aren't"

The trees looked normal to her.

Ambrose must be really, really sick.

She pulls at his sleeve, hoping to take him back to the palace and find someone, anyone to fix him. Only he doesn't follow her, or even seems to notice. The brown eyes darting over everything in a panic.

DG looks back towards the tall stone building several hundred yards away. Two guards were walking next to the garden on patrol.

"Hey!" she yells at the men as loud as she could, "Help! I need help!"

They hear her and start running towards them at once.

"It's ok, Ambrose" she bites her bottom lip and looks up at her distraught friend, "Help is coming."

The heavy footsteps of the approaching men becomes louder and she turns back towards them.

And freezes in fear.

The palace guards are faceless and blurry.

She whimpers and clutches Ambrose's tailcoat tightly.

OZOZOZOZOZOZOZOZOZOZOZOZ

Everything was disappearing around them. He watched in horror as black nothingness creeped across the sky, consuming everything in it's path. The trees and land to the west was vanishing as well.

It clicked at last. This wasn't real. All of this was just a dream and now it was almost time for it to end.

"I'm scared." a small and teary voice reaches him.

Looking down, he sees the five annual old gripping his coat as if it was a lifeline in a world gone mad.

His long tailcoat is no longer new and well kept. The tatters and holes are reappearing as if by magic.

The darkness accelerates and pitch black surrounds them, until only a small patch of faded grass beneath their feet remains. Just like a sweet dream slipping away.

He kneels down in front of her and cups her tear streaked face in his hands. "It's ok, DG. Don't cry." he smiles softly and brushes the new tear rolling down her cheek away with his thumb. She still felt so real. Heart breaking, knowing that she is really dead, that this was simply a cruel illusion of her that his mind had created, he lets out a shaky breath.

He doesn't want this to end.

"What is happening?" she asks in a quivering voice, "Are we dying?"

That last question stabs his heart and a small sob escapes his lips. "No, of course not." He struggles to keep smiling, "It is just time to wake up."

She fades into the darkness in front of his eyes and his thin hands grip the empty air.

"Goodbye DG."

OZOZOZOZOZOZOZOZOZOZOZOZOZOZOZOZOZOZOZ

Something cold and wet touched her forehead and she cracked her eyes open. Sunlight poured in through the window of her attic bedroom, highlighting the many drawings she had posted all over the slanting walls. A familiar gentle face smiled down at her.

"Mom?"

The woman with wavy brown hair sits down next to her and brushes her daughter's raven hair lovingly.

"DG, I told you to be more careful. You could have been hurt really badly falling like that."

The five year old sits up, the wet washcloth falling down to the bedspread.

"I'm sorry" she says sheepishly, the dream she just awoke from was already mostly gone from her memory.

OZOZOZOZOZOZOZOZOZOZZOZOZOZOZOZOZOZOZOZO

The first thing he noticed was the burning in his right shoulder.

Glitch sat up slowly, whimpering in pain. Dried blood coated his arm around the bullet wound, dyeing the fabric a dull color of rust, and his entire body felt like a giant bruise.

"What happened?" he asked himself aloud, cocking his messy head to the side, then wincing when his neck popped loudly.

"OWWWWW. I must have fell. I must have fell. I must have fell. I must have-"

A very brief image of clear blue eyes appears in his glitching, damaged mind. But as quick as it came, the memory was gone along with all traces of the dream.

Except for a dull ache in his chest that he passed off as a result of falling.

Author's Note: And finally after 8 long years this story is finished. T.T. well, at least this part of the Encounter series. I still have to finish Second Encounter. Anyway! Thank you so so so so much for reading all the way to the end! I hope I didn't confuse anyone with this chapter. DG and Glitch met in a dream after they both had fell and was knocked unconscious. The outside world was fuzzy to Ambrose/Glitch because he spend most of his time inside at the palace so his memories of the place was stronger inside. And DG had spent most of her time outside playing so the garden was clear to her. Make sense? Maybe? XD I had a lot of fun writing this chapter and I hope you had fun reading it!

See ya later!

KORAGG