The Bridge of Memories
Also See:
Bridge of Memories Tale
This is a tale of the last day of the Dream before The Great Loss. It begins uneventful enough in Cloudsbreak. Ialura was going about her daily routine, gathering the eggs in the chicken coup, churning the butter with her sisters from the cream gathered by her brothers in morning milking, and preparing the evening meal with her mother singing in the kitchen of their small country home.
All gathered and as always the meal was mixed with laughter and smiles often shared in her family. Then suddenly a great sadness filled her heart and formed into a single tear, traveling solemnly down her cheek, a droplet of pure sorrow made its way down her now pale cheek. Marking the beginning of an end.
Excusing herself from the table she went up to her room to rest suddenly feeling quite ill. The concern apparent on her family's faces was dismissed as a touch of the flu that was going around the shire. She sat down quietly upon the edge of her bed and decided to see if she could find some answers to what troubled he in the dream. She quickly fell into a fitful sleep, awakening into the dream she found her self-alone in the Threshold of the City. All else seemed as it was when last she was here except for the apparent lack of other dreamers on a night when the rooms of Threshold are usually packed so tight you are forced to become friends do to proximity. A small seed of despair had been planted in her heart.
Unable to find a single soul she decided to see if any of her friends could be found at their house in the Basin. Stepping through the portal to the planes of the Basin the seed sprouted and entangled her heart. She stood horrified at the sight laid out before her. The ground was littered with essence of her fellow dreamers. Despair turned quickly to fear, almost swallowing her soul. She built up her resolve and fought back the almost uncontrollable desire to run from this horror before her. She instead began to gather up the essence. Hoping against hope she could find someone who could help her restore her friends.
Tears cascading down the hills and valleys of her once lovely face like a raging river now contorted into a mask of sorrow and fear. She whipped them on her sleeve and filled her cloak outstretched on the ground, gathered it up and headed for the house in hopes someone their could help, if there was someone there. As she passed from portal to portal she gathered more and more until her cloak was full and her arms could carry no more. Vowing to return for them she pushed on.
With her vision blurred from the tears, the salty taste finding its way to her now drawn and pale lips as they traveled her cheeks, she stumbled under the weight of her burden. She pressed on almost feverish with despair. As she reached a small bridge crossing over a gently flowing stream she took a moment to rest. Legs shaking, chest heaving, her head was spinning searching for some reason for the death that lay scattered about the City. Then she felt it, deep with in her. Like an iron fist squeezing her heart, stomach tied in knots shear terror overcame her. Then it swept through the plane, a pure wave of Chaos. The second to tear through the Dream Plane this day.
Desperately she dove into the waters. The essence of those she carried scattering over its surface. Her attempt to avoid the horror that the Chaos would bring was doomed to fail as all attempts made earlier had. But before it hit for the second time this day a lone tear formed in the well of tears and wound its way down her cheek to break free and fall joining the gently waters of the plane as the wave overcame her. The last dreamer had fallen. Somehow in that instant all of what she and those she carried became infused in the waters that flowed under the bridge. Mingling together the only thing that would survey the utter destructive force of the Chaos, their Memories.
It is rumored that if one stands upon the bridge and looks out upon the waters they will see the Dream as it was before the Great Loss, as it was seen by the eyes of all those souls that make the gentle waters under the bridge their home.
Midhir looks at you as a single tear makes its way down his cheek, clearing the lump now formed in his throat, his eyes glass over as a far away look gathers in his eyes. Before he wanders off you can hear a whisper escape his lips, learn from them so this never comes to pass again.
Midhir Gwilthcvinthil Initiate of the Order of the Sable Moon
