Despite the skirts of her gown being short in the front, her hands still fisted in the fabric anyway, not out of practicality but out of tension. Vartouhi’s bare feet slapped against the white marble of the floors over and over and over as she kept up a quick pace, her head swiveling left and right so fast at times that her long pink hair flew out behind her. Occasionally she turned down a hallway, and the ornate, lovely walls of the palace suddenly changed. They were plain white walls, and instead of luxuriously decorated doors, she passed doors with simple white frames and silver handles. And those hallways eventually gave way to walls of trees and heavy brush on either side, a canopy of verdant leaves overhead, and purple moss underfoot. The lighting changed in each area–midday, dusk, twilight.
Rabbits began to follow her. Some hopped along leisurely as they appeared, and she would lose them quickly. Some bounded ahead of her and out of sight, while others would gallop forth and stop to wait for her, before taking off again when she reached them. Her neck strained with the effort not to cry; her eyes were already wet with tears but she refused to let them accumulate enough to blur her vision.
“Where is it?!” she cried, desperate to let off some of the painful tension in her throat. She rounded another corner, jogging down the palace hallway that presented itself beyond thorny brambles that cut her legs when she passed them. As she passed one of the many open doors, she spotted something that did not match–did not belong. It was odd enough that it made her stop and backtrack, peering into the beautiful sitting room. “Do you know where it is?” she asked the man, biting her bottom lip nervously.
Another dream, and it wasn’t his. Hoon had fallen asleep at work again, that much was clear to him. The dreamwalker found himself in a strange room, every inch bathed in a rose coloured haze. All around him stood elegant pieces of furniture, the likes he’d never even seen before. It felt very fairytale-esque, albeit a little eerie.
Movement at the doorway grabbed his attention. A small rabbit passed by, then another, and another. A few paused to observe him, before continuing on their way to where ever it was dream rabbits went. “Carrot factory, probably.” Hoon muttered to himself. It wasn’t long after that an actual person happened by him. A woman with bright hair, causing him to wonder if she was part of the dream, opposed to the one having it.
“Maybe.” Hoon replied softly. “What are you trying to find?” It was always better to play along, to act as if this wasn’t merely a creation of somebody’s imagination, but real life instead. Pointing out it was just a dream only ever confused the person having it, and in Hoon’s experience that never failed to lead to disaster - he even had a scar to prove it. “I could help you find it? I don’t have anything else to do.”
