#theribthatgrewback

This is the longest and most elaborate dream I've ever had, from way back in 2017. I wrote down everything I could immediately. Here is a copy of my notes:

I had a dream last night that was like a play. It followed the rulers of two different kingdoms. The good one was ruled by a king and his daughter, and the bad one had only a single ruler named Lord Darkhammer. Now the story was that Lord Darkhammer wasn't always in charge; he came seemingly out of nowhere back when the evil kingdom was more of a ragtag group, and killed his way to the top of the ranks. He was an efficient and powerful leader who commanded the respect of the warrior-like group, took over other smaller groups to grow his ranks, and reorganized it into a society. Now he has his sights set on the good kingdom, ready to take over and absorb them into his kingdom.

Cut to the good kingdom, and the king and princess are talking about the queen. It has been a bitter subject since her passing. The princess suggests hiring a medium to attempt to contact her. The king becomes angry at the suggestion, and says he'll have no more talk of witchcraft within his walls. They argue, leading to both of them storming out.

Cut to the evil kingdom, Lord Darkhammer is angry with his generals. They say it will be impossible to take over the other kingdom, but Lord Darkhammer won't listen. He's become obsessed. "I've dreamed of ruling them," he says. "Not in wishes, but in sleep. Night after night, I see myself in charge!" He continues his ranting, becoming more angry as it goes on. The generals are nervous, wondering if perhaps he may kill one of them. They placate him, saying instead that they were mistaken, and double their efforts to devise a strategy.

Cut to the good kingdom, the princess has gone ahead and contacted a medium without her father's approval. They sneak through the castle to the princess's room, and begin the ritual to speak with the late queen. Smoke and flame and mystical lights dance over the stage (it's a play, remember) and it seems to be working, but then it all dies down without anything happening. The medium is baffled. "This always works," she says. "Try again," says the princess. "I shouldn't have to," the medium answers. The king then bursts in, having seen the light under the door. He's furious, ordering the guards to take the medium away and have her executed for being a witch. The daughter pleads with him, saying she didn't even make contact, so no harm was done. The king doesn't care. Witchcraft is witchcraft, even if this witch is an incompetent buffoon. But the daughter comes to a different realization. Perhaps the queen is still alive.

From this point on in the dream I forget the order in which all these scenes were presented since they jumped around in time a lot, so I'll just give them to you chronologically:

It is far in the past. The princess is only a baby, and the king and queen are together. The queen has been learning magic in secret. I'm a little hazy on the details of this scene, but I think something bad happened and the king found out. He gave the order to have his wife executed. She ran away. They chased her into the wasteland where the ragtag evil group was, then gave up the pursuit, certain that she would be killed. By this point her clothes were ruined and she was filthy, unable to be recognized as royalty. A member of the evil group whanged her on the head to knock her out and dragged her back to the main camp where they made her into a slave. When she woke up, she had no memory of her previous life, and they put her to work immediately. Time passed, and she grew bitter. They had her building something, and the person supervising her work was shouting and being cruel and aggressive. He came close in an attempt to intimidate her, and she just sort of snapped, swinging the tool in her hand at his head and killing him. Luckily, he'd been the only one supervising at the time, so she wasn't caught. She ran and hid, taking the tool with her….. a hammer blackened with filth and soot. She made a vow to kill all those who had oppressed her, but knew that in that age, no woman would be taken seriously. She disguised herself as a man, and took on the name Darkhammer in honor of her first kill. As time went on, she expanded her range of weaponry, eventually settling on a sword, but kept the name. She killed her way through the ranks until she'd taken out the previous leader of the evil kingdom, and the rest is history. This whole section was done across multiple scenes which may have been in a different order.

Back to the present, Lord Darkhammer has begun the attack on the other kingdom, though I think at this point the "audience" still believes Darkhammer to be male, so I'll use he/him for the persona. The generals toward the beginning were right, and the attack has taken a nosedive, but he somehow ended up inside the castle ahead of his troops using the small amount of magic he'd learned years earlier. His face is covered. He makes it to the throne room, and I'm fuzzy on the details here, but there is some sort of bizarre encounter where he tries to kill them but something is holding him back, and because he hesitates he gets captured. They're going to publicly execute him, but when they pull off his helmet….. it's the queen! The king gasps and calls out her name in shock.