On the Hills of Eden

Pallas woke from her slumber, the feeling of the rough cloth beneath her barely masking the stiffness of the wooden planks she called her bed. She lay awake for a while, slowly breathing in the cold, wet air of the Minervan forest, her arms completely outstretched to both of her sides. The thoughts of the dream that had roused her to consciousness swirled about in her head as she felt little beads of sweat creep their way onto her rudimentary hay pillow, her head hot and her face flushed.

She tried to wiggle her fingers, instead meeting a slight resistance as though her hands had been coated in honey.

She rose from her bed, sitting up straight as she brought her arms in from her sides, bringing them closer to her face. Illuminated ever so slightly by the tiny dancing flames that filled the air around the camp with the scent of myrrh, she could just barely make out the familiar red that she recognised as her own blood.

Brushing the bangs that covered her forehead behind her ears with the back of her hands, she pushed away the thin cloth blanket that covered her legs and got to her feet.

The girl had grown a lot since she’d first met Rei, whom she now referred to affectionately as her mother. In the decade that had passed since the burning of Minlos, her stature had grown- no longer resembling that of a child, but of a young lady. Even still, the memories of her past continued to plague her, the shadows they cast stretching across the vast landscape of her mind and enshrouding even its deepest recesses in darkness.

She bumbled her way to a nearby clearing that overlooked the city they’d head into when morning came, heading there to locate a luffa they kept specially for her in the case of situations like this one.

Oftentimes at night, Pallas found herself enwebbed in dreams so vivid and detailed that it seemed as though she had been slipped into the body of another. These dreams took place in the shoes of every kind of person, from that of the lowliest of peasants to the vainest of soldiers. But, it mattered not who the person she found herself in was, only what they’d go through. For between all the hundreds, maybe even thousands of dreams she’d bore witness to over her nineteen years of life, each and every one of them ended in bloody horror.

The soft grass met her feet as she stepped off of the makeshift wooden floor and onto the path that led to the clearing.

Pallas would sometimes stand in the stead of a child having to bear witness to their parent’s death, and at other times she would be the one returning that parent to the red earth beneath them. And every time she would find herself awake in the dead of night, drenched in sweat and blood that worked its way out of her. Those dreams horrified her, stalked her even through the deepest depths of her exhaustion, poked and prodded at her even at the lowest lows of her psyche. They did not let her rest.

The forest’s trees parted as she entered in the clearing, a small cliff that gave way to an unobscured view of the marvellous city that stood aside the strait that partitioned Minerva between the Ahd and Lord Gravitas. The overcast sky ahead lit just dimly enough for her to make out where the cliff ended and the landscape began.

She only ever found comfort when she slept in the company of other people, for at least then she knew she wouldn’t be alone to face the dark of the night if she woke from her torment. The incense helped too, a reminder that all her eyes beheld while asleep were dreams, detached from reality.

The cool, wet wind of the forest blew across the clearing, causing the loose folds of her chiton to flow gently across her skin. She knelt down onto a small mat woven from plant fibres, picking up a small tin filled with clear water from a large pail nearby and using it to wet her bloody hands.

This dream, though, was different. She was familiar with dreams that jumped perspectives, often leaping from person to person as each one died. But, this time, she saw herself in the dream. It had taken a fragment of her memory, used it to seed a scene crafted from a patchwork of perspectives from real people that lived real lives. She herself and her recollection of that wretched time tethered the horrors of her imagination to reality, and the minute crevice of disbelief that split her and her torment had been sealed shut.

Her hands now wet, she picked up her luffa- ever so slightly red in the dim light, and began working her palms against it. She rubbed and scraped and wiped the blood off of her hands, bit by bit, letting it run through the luffa and drip onto the dirt beneath.

Perhaps her subconscious had merely begun taking inspiration from her memories to continue feeding its sick sense of humour. Perhaps not, and her dreams carried some other meaning other than to inflict trauma upon her. Pallas couldn’t tell, and as far as she was concerned, there was no point in trying to understand. She couldn’t decipher her nightly horrors before in the past, and chances were she wouldn’t be able to do so even now. She left the hive untouched, the bees undisturbed and the offer of honey untaken.

Once she was satisfied enough with her hands, she set the luffa back down with the other two and got back up, making her way back to her bed. Once again she laid back down on the sheets of cloth, the hardness of the planks beneath greeting her as she sighed and let herself sink into the floor.

“You alright?” Soleiman whispered, quietly so as to not wake their mother.

“Mmm. Yeah,” she closed her eyes.

“...Do you wanna talk about it?” the concern in his voice showing even through the whispers.

Pallas paused for a moment.

“No, I… I think I’ll be fine.” She let the interaction sit in quiet for a bit. “How are you awake, anyway?”

“I couldn’t sleep. Can’t stop thinking about how I’m going to introduce myself tomorrow.” He paused for a moment, as if to think. “How about, ‘Soleiman’s the name, and logistics is my game.’ Sounds good, doesn’t it?”

“No it doesn’t.”

“Right, okay.”

Silence.

“Thanks for asking, though, Soleiman.”

“No worries, Pallas. If you ever need anything, just let me know, okay?”

“Okay.”