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“His name is Bug.”
I turned. A woman with a long braid and a friendly smile walked up to me.
“Do you require a saddle?” she asked.
“Uh. I guess it’s up to him. The only horse I’ve ever ridden was one of those white ones, and they didn’t use saddles.”
She nodded. “You’ll want one, then.”
I went over to the horse and rubbed his nose while I waited for her to get him ready for me.
“Thank you.”
He nodded his big head and leaned into my scratches.
It didn’t take long for the woman to get Bug ready to go. He followed us out of the stable and the woman helped me mount.
“All right. Let’s find Dio.”
The horse nodded his head.
“Do you need anything to track him down?”
Bug shook his head and headed out into the city. Letting the horse do all the navigating, I gawked.
The city surrounding Dream Palace was a bizarre mashup of a fantasy novel combined with modern-day cities, except the city portion had flying cars and trains. The road I traveled down divided the two halves. The fantasy novel half of the city was full of delicious scents, beings selling their wares, winged fairies flying about, people riding horses, dinosaurs, even a few cows. Animals were everywhere amongst the people. I saw beings flitting around from rooftop to rooftop dressed in capes and doing crazy dives off high places, landing unscathed in unlikely piles of straw. Guards occasionally dealt with the random pick pocket or other scoundrel type of character but didn’t seem to imprison anyone. At least as far as I could tell in the time I had to watch.
On the city side, flying cars dodged around long trains hanging from tracks suspended in the sky. Beings hurried along sidewalks, clutching steaming cups of coffee and homey coffee shops showed on every street corner. Fancy shops mingled with people selling antiques and crafts, and a farmer’s market had sprung up along one road. Musicians played everywhere, some better than others.
I saw some beings cross back and forth between the two areas, but most seemed content in whatever area they’d been dreamed up in. It was a chaotic mix that felt both harmonious and discordant.
Grateful that Bug navigated while I gawked, I patted his neck and kept glancing back and forth. At some point, I really wanted to explore.
It made me wonder what Nightmare had been like before not-Baz had begun his systematic destruction of the realm. And why? What was his goal? That question had been nagging at me for a while, but so far we didn’t have many answers, just speculation.
We finally made it out of the city and into the wilds that surrounded it. I suspected, like many of the rooms in Dream Palace, both sides of the city were bigger than they looked from the outside, with many places and different cultures for dreamers to adventure.
Bug tossed his head before increasing his speed. I hung on and hoped I wasn’t bouncing on his back too much. It wouldn’t take much for the horse to decide he was done with my incompetent riding and toss me. I rocked my hips with his motion and tried to settle in.
Dio
And I was stuck. Damn it.
I didn’t have the energy to shift back, but I didn’t want to remain in my feline shape any longer.
Hissing and swatting at a nearby tree, I yowled in frustration as the damn tree dodged my swipe. It swung a branch at me, which I didn’t evade in time, and my wings didn’t have the strength to hold me in the air.
I really need figure out how to get my energy back, I thought as I picked myself up out of the dirt and licked at my shoulder. Everything hurt from the fall, and I wanted to curl up in a ball and sleep until it was all over.
Maybe I needed a good nap.
I prowled amongst the trees until I found one that wasn’t likely to dodge my claws and wearily launched myself at the trunk. Digging my claws in slowed the fall as gravity took hold, and my tired limbs couldn’t keep up. This time when I tumbled to the ground, I stayed there, panting.
“Aww, is the poor putty tat tired?” a voice cooed.
Lifting my head to see who was talking took a monumental effort. Oddly, a woman wearing an evening gown from an era well before Ember’s stood there. A couple of dream beings waited behind her. If I had to guess, they were vampires from either the edges of Nightmare, or the boundary lands.
“I heard a rumor you were having a hard time coming back from your separation. I guess it’s right. Grab him.” She gestured vaguely in my direction before turning away.
