Good Nightmare Ecstasy

"You know… I had this really awful dream last night…" She chuckles.

I shiver, remembering I had a weird dream too. I just don't remember what it was.

"...Yeah?"

"Yeah… So weird… We were in a fantasy world, completely different from the world we're in, and we weren't married. I hated you and you hated me and we never had a chance to just talk." Hiro keep's laughing like it was nothing.

My heart sinks to the floor as I suddenly remember every detail of it, believing it was just a dream was an illusion.

"That's not a dream." I say immediately.

"...What do you--" She looks worried.

"...It's a nightmare. Dreams are usually good, I think." I hold my tears the most I can. "Don't worry. No use thinking about it. It isn't real neither is it going to be." I gently pass my fingers through her hair staring and trembling as I try to control myself.

"...Remember that garden we met at? That we used to go all the time?"

"Of course! I think about it every single day."

“Good. Let’s visit it when we can, okay?”

“...Yes. Please… You have no idea how much I miss it.” I sigh, trembling as I hold back the decades of crying I've been saving. "...See you tomorrow."

Waking up is harder than I ever imagined.

"Mow."

"Hey Tomo… Ugh…"

I pet the fur ball on top of me. I don't know how I ended up in my bed after the dragon incident… I never even laid on it before. I pet his head, resting my hand on his ribs as he lays on top of me and gets comfortable.

"...Hey, the good news are… You were in my dream."

He stares at me like he knows how much of a fool I feel like.

I sigh again.

"Mow."

"Yeah. Shut up. You didn’t see it. You don't know what you're talking about."

I felt so lost and confused, like the slumber lasted so long in my head that reality doesn't feel real anymore.

I get out of bed, taking Tomo with me in my arms, wandering around the castle, looking for Uncle Masao. Only a disaster would make me voluntarily do so.

"You look like you had a bad night of sleep." I hear from the end of the dining room, sitting across the last seat of the extremely large table.

"...You too won't miss the chance to mock it, huh?"

Masao simply chuckles.

I take a deep breath, walking closer to him. The old man flips a page from his newspaper and pushes his glasses back. He doesn't look once neither at me, or the leaves on his plate.

"So that's what sleeping is like?" I say sitting down at the chair on his side, sighing. "Am I suppose to wake up feeling this destroyed?" My forehead aches in between my fingers.

"Not as much as you seem to be. Last night I slept so well… And this morning I woke up in an unusually good mood…” He smiles, and then says clearly angry. “ ...But that didn't last very long. What do you want?"

He puts the papers down, and slowly takes his gloves off, putting them inside his suit.

"Why does our kingdom hates the Hi'Dras again?"

He finally looks at me.

"You're a warlock, they're alchemists. the Corps studies death, the Hi'Dras don't have magic, only numbers. The thing our entire existence was dedicated to is the thing they try to spit out with plants and rocks."

"...No, why again?"

He stares down at his plate, then put his fork and knife down.

"...I don't understand why you need more reasoning when our kingdoms couldn't be more naturally dissonant. You know Hiro's father murdered your mother with your own sword… But you killed her parents because of it, and they killed your mom because she killed Hiro's grandparents, her grandparents killed your grandpa–"

"They've been killing my family all this time? I thought the sword itself was the one ending us." I say a little worried. Maybe the only reason I lasted so long is because Hiro didn't kill me yet. The possibility makes me sweat cold.

"It is, they all died by the sword's wish, but the sword usually uses some help. The point is there's always some kid trying to avenge someone in the middle because of something."

"Ok, so" I snap my fingers as if I finally understood what he meant. "You're telling me that, the only thing we can do about it is me marrying Hiro so the babies are even. Did I hear that correctly?"

He doesn't move a muscle.

"I'm joking." I frown.

I'm ignored as he starts to eat.

"Everyone knows that, in one way or another, you care a little too much about her."

"What?? Have you lost your mind?" I stand up with a loud shout, smashing my palm against the table.

"Have you forgotten who killed her parents? Both of them?" I say still looking at him, even though he wouldn't look back.

"You were 14. You didn't even kill them, they were already dead. You just turned them into zombies and the kingdom was so disgusted they were frozen. It's good because they couldn't be turned back, and the debt we've been put on by them since your mom died was over, everyone here loved it. You, on the other hand, came home crying like a baby."

I step back, shamefully red.

"When I saw you cry, I knew you would turn out like that, weak. I told everyone but they were too busy cheering the hope that you might finally be of any use…" He carelessly says.

It hurts more than the daily punches.

"...I didn't give my soul to the sword to become immortal for a human to disrespect me."

"You wish you knew why you're really immortal." He chuckles, taking his newspapers again, not daring to even stare in my direction. "Maybe someday, I'll trust you enough to tell you. If you don't die first, of course."

I spend the morning taking down trees with the sword.

"Care too much… Care too much…" I grunt.

I feel betrayed by my own court, not only I can't know what happened to me that I just won't die, but I also can't use the information for my research. That idiot will die before me without ever believing I'm immortal.

 Slash after slash, I'm not tired, but I lean on the sword as I breathe deeply.

"Care too much... Care too much... That is the last thing I'd do, I never care about anything."

"You wouldn't dream of something that means nothing to you." The sword says.

"Because I hate her, right?" I say under my breath"

"...Yeah. Right..."

I throw the sword at a tree and don't come back for it until it's time to get ready for the council.

I'm not ready for the council.

The more I try to not look at her, the worse it gets. "It feels like I'm used to staring… But I'm so curious to see if looking at her looks anything like what I saw in the dream." I think to myself as I slowly turn my chair around to look, she was looking straight at me. I turn my face back to Miori again pretending that never happened.

Her eyes really look the exact same.

Being fired barely shakes me, there's so many worse things happening that less work actually sounds like something I need. I can't think of anything else for the day.

"Do I really care that much?" I think lowly as I pace behind the council building, walking through the forest straight to the garden.

"You wouldn't think a whole day about something that you don't care about." The sword whispers.

I immediately stop walking.

"Shut up. Shut up. Shut up." I smash the sword against a rock again and again while shouting.

It gets me exhausted. "It's so late at night already, am I really getting sleepy again?"

I look around and notice I'm already in the garden… "I wouldn't be here if I didn't care, but if I ran away now… it would be obvious that it matters."

It looks like a horror movie, I brace myself for the tormenting horrors I willingly step into: Birds sing, squirrels play, the fishes jump out of the river to say hello... A gentle and silent park of flowers... It brings me chills. I slowly walk terrifying garden, bringing me way more memories than I can take with every step. Abandoned, nature growing around the swings and the porch near the lake, remains of ages old fire-pits…

I walk on the same dying path by the grass that seemed to have been walked over hundreds of thousands of times before.

"I don't know if this is called being relaxed, or tired…" I yawn. "Probably both."

I'm startled by the sound of steps, my cape swings as I quickly turn around, to see, and immediately turn back again."

"...What are you doing here?"

"I thought we agreed it didn't belong to any of us. We're free to go anywhere."

I twitch, holding onto the handle of the sword. I feel like I'm about to do something stupid.

"And why did you think it was a good idea to come here today?" I say trying to not show how furious I am.

"...You know you're here too, right?" She says laughing.

One side of me is happy to hear her laughter, the other turns around ready to kill.

"...I think this is the part where you say you're sorry for letting our job escape." I say walking into her direction.

As I see what I'm doing, I think to myself: "I should… Talk to her. No, I shouldn't. But I… could."

The wish to say something goes nowhere as Bunny ruins the moment. I don't pay attention to a single thing she says, and by the time she's gone, I don't remember any of it. All I can think about is the frustration that for once second, I considered having a mature conversation.

I stare back at Hiro, she seems terrified. She doesn't attack me as we're both fearing for our lives… The silence of staring into her eyes sets my face on flames and I walk out.

"I… Am going to go." I pretend I'm completely calm and not freaking out as I slowly walk back.

"I'm tired… Exhausted… Sleepy… Dead." I mumble on my way back home, trudging, barely keeping my eyes open.

"...I don't care about it. I won't even think about it again… I don't even remember how that dream was…"

I throw the sword on the corridor outside my bedroom and I lock my door after I walk in. I drop pieces of my armor without any care, until I give up on taking it all off and simply throw myself on my bed, sighing in the loneliness of my room.

"Just… Just a nap… Just five… Mi…–"

Having my conscience being stripped away feels way better without the rocks crushing my body. The bed is so comfortable, the pillows so soft…

I pull Hiro closer into my arms, interlocking my legs with hers.

"See… Just five minutes… I told you."

I kiss the back of her head and in a deep breath I get up, heading for the kitchen of our apartment.

As soon as I reach the door and stare at the living room, I slowly turn back. The bed I woke up from was not the bed I went to sleep at all.

It was the dream. The same place, the same dream, all over again.

"I really must care… At least a bit."

I follow to the kitchen, preparing coffee like Hiro taught me. The confusion and despair I had last night standing in front of this same sink is nowhere to be seen today.

"I'm already here, ain't I? It's my dream, I get to enjoy it however I want… It's not like it will happen every night."

I walk around the cozy room, taking a look at what supposedly was the place we made together.

I hold up a picture of us, framed on top of the counter. We weren't ready for combat, mundanely dressed in front of a very tall tree, holding cones of ice cream.

Brings a chuckle to my face, I don't know why.

The idea slowly sets in, and by the time she wakes up, I'm ready to not think about anything else. Fully knowing it was a dream, I live it as if my entire life has been this way.