/jp/ - Otaku Culture

She thought for a second. "Well, as long as there's no severely strange dreamers weaving their wild minds into the fabric of the Dream World. That'd make things confusing."

I...Supposed so? I mean, I didn't really get any of it. "No, but having someone to talk to certainly makes the process feel more natural. Shall we walk?" She raised a hand, causing a mass swirling of pink smoke that began to form into an ornate-looking bridge leading to the castle from the clifftop. Sighing, I followed after her, thinking that this all felt very familiar. As in, it was the same progression that had happened in my first dream that Doremy Sweet had hijacked. "I'm not running out of ideas, in case you were wondering." I looked over at her as she raised her hands in a shrug. "You're the one in control here. I can interpret and make minor changes, but this is your dream. Perhaps you've had cause to think on the past recently." I thought for a moment, then raised my right hand. There was nothing, but as I stared, the ring faded into existence. It formed around my ring finger, and I felt like all was right with the world again. "Yes, I believe you have, hmm?"

Doremy saw what I was doing and spun, walking backwards while she leaned down to look a little closer. "I didn't even get to see you properly after you'd proposed." She told me crossly. "I wanted to offer my congratulations." She was doing so now, so I didn't think it was that big of a deal. "Perhaps not to you, but I can't help feeling at least a slight degree of responsibility, given our first meeting." I had been worrying a lot about things at the time, yeah... "Not to mention the meeting that Hecatia Lapislazuli hijacked. I'm sure you remember." Yeah, I definitely did. Crossroads and such. "Quite right. Helpful, it seemed, because your dreams began to take a much more pleasant turn after that." At least that was something.

The castle loomed ahead of us, and Doremy frowned. "We were somewhere up above on your last visit." She said, raising a hand. Her book dropped into it from nothingness, but I managed to not feel too surprised this time. She began to flip through it, frowning in consternation. "Where are you taking us, hmm?" After a moment, she slapped the side of the book. "Don't give me that...Come on, come on!" She'd done that before, and it was just as confusing. Was the book alive? "Slightly alive, and more than slightly stupid, apparently. Come on!" She stalked to the side of the bridge that was forming as we walked and smacked the book against the side.

"Ah, there we are." Much more cheerfully, she walked back. "Yes - Here we are. 'R' for...Raiko, no - Reiko, n- Oh, my..." I really, desperately wanted to ask her what she'd seen under Reiko's name. The tall Kurodani with the looming presence and nearly all of her skin covered except for her head was fairly reticent when it came to what she was up to, and I really was curious. "Gloves? Honestly..." That cleared up everything and nothing. Fantastic. "Who else, who else...Reimu - No, even when she isn't lucid, she attacks me if she sees me in a dream." That definitely sounded like something she would do. "Ah, here you go. 'Reiki.' Let's see what you're trying to tell us."

She snapped her fingers and the great door in front of us began to shift open by itself, creaking loudly. As it opened further, a sudden blast of wind emerged, taking us by surprise. Doremy exclaimed, keeping a hand on her hat, and I raised an arm to cover my face while my coat flapped in the wind. Another few moments, and it died down, leaving the strange, amber glow of the light inside to illuminate us. There didn't seem to be any actual shapes through the door, though - As if it was all being drowned out somehow. "That's dream logic for you. Even though it's all lit up, you can't see anything." Doremy muttered, straightening her hat. "It's a bit of a bother, actually." It was mostly a mystery to me. "Yes, well...There's no point keeping a dream waiting. It'll just get very fed up - And then you'll find out just how active of an imagination you really have. Shall we?" She indicated the rectangle of amber light through the doorway. I was curious, in spite of myself, so I sighed and nodded, stepping through the doorway with her.

I shouldn't have relied on a dream to be internally consistent. We didn't emerge into an entrance hall as I would have expected, but into a random corridor. Looking behind me, I wasn't that surprised to see that there was no door. Just a blank wall, golden detailing running up the wooden panels. Looking down the corridor, I realised that we were not wherever I had been last time. There was no red carpet here - Just a tiled floor with checkerboard black and white tiles.

>>29375484
That's the cow part, the lovely TAIL