In Miregard City, floating above the world, dreams come to life and nightmares roam the streets. Old stories are told and retold, their immortal characters stuck in bastardized loops. Once you find your way to this little island in the sky, it's hard to escape. So, welcome. My name is Olivia and I'll be your guide.
Excerpt from 'Flight Patterns: The Lives and Re-Lives of Mythological Figures'
Excerpt from 'Flight Patterns: The Lives and Re-Lives of Mythological Figures' , lecture given by Icarus Daedalakes at Miregard University
[...] One unique condition that plagues Miregard City and a number of its residents is the seeming perpetuation of certain events. Stories, if you will. Archetypes, fairy tales, myths. Characters whose lives have become legend in the world outside our city, but who continue to live those same lives among us here. They're generally referred to as 'fable folk', or 'story citizens', or sometimes even just 'immortals'. You are all familiar with at least one of these people or creatures; after all, as you should be aware, I am one of them.
Because of the nature of the city, tied as it is to the shared thoughts of the people of the world, and taking its power and contents from the minds of its own people, those of us of mythological origin are allowed - or forced, depending on your perspective - to continue to live, and to re-live. Immortality, for us, comes in the form of 'false endings'; that is, we tend to replay certain patterns of our first lives in changing context, but life never truly ends. The details of a story will change based on setting and ability and frame of mind. An 'evil stepmother' - and the word 'evil' must be used very cautiously, as nothing is ever as black-and-white as a fairy tale - may be more subtle or more creative with each successive assassination attempt. An innocent girl might become, with each new cycle of the pattern, more vengeful or sadistic with what was once a villain-driven comeuppance, and, although she is destined to live happily-ever-after until the next repeat, may be more and more corrupted, or cynical, or cautious. This is human nature. Even as our patterns repeat, we continue to learn and grow and adapt; therefore, though we continue to perpetuate our basic storylines, we never live quite the same story twice.
The bastardization of a story does not always benefit its character. We are all aware of the unfortunate change of direction in the life, or lives, of a certain little mermaid, which occurred only a few generations ago and which has been, if I may speak freely, tarnishing her legacy in a perhaps irreversible way. She has been admitted into rehabilitation programs several times; however, while her story continues to run its course, it has taken unsavory new forms, the most recent of which has been headlining as a rather scandalous affair in modern mainstream media. The mutations of our lives help us conform to the changing times, yes, but the misfortune of the immortal is that it becomes difficult to heal a mistake, to revert to a previous state. Our mermaid friend has struggled with her 'adaptation' for years and makes limited progress, but every time the cycle begins anew, she is forced back into the worst of it, back into the currently-evolved beginning.
I am, in most senses, a fairly rational man. I am a respected mechanical engineer and an adjunct professor of this honorable establishment. But since my arrival in Miregard many lifetimes ago, I have been caught in the loop of my past, of my first life. I know - of course I know - that flying past the physical limits of my various contraptions will always result in a fall, but still, because of the bounds of my story, I will always, when the time for it comes along, push myself too far. My methods may be more complex and more informed each time, but the fact remains that I will forever be reaching for the sky and never succeeding. I see no way to escape the cycle, and believe me, I've tried. Fortunately my 'recycling', if you will, has been more beneficial than harmful; my followers and I gather new insight to the possibilities of personal human flight each time I fail, and only at the cost of a pair of wings, and perhaps my dignity.
So who, exactly, is affected by this peculiar thought-driven condition, and why does it occur in this manner, and what influence does Miregard City have over these individuals? We will continue to explore the answers to these questions, as well as delving deeper into the lives of the fable folk, and inspecting possible psychological effects the cycles can have on them. [...]
She can feel it as soon as she opens her eyes, prying herself out of the dregs of a dream she can't quite recall. It's a Red day.
Every morning is a leisurely routine, to be savored. The sun is still not quite risen, but she is glad to be awake and about. Slipping into a dark robe, she makes her way to the kitchen, footsteps barely audible against the cold floor. On goes the kettle, for tea, and into the shower while the water waits to boil.
And then she's clean and out, drying down with an incredibly soft towel, and she admires her hair for a moment in the mirror above the sink; it always looks so nice when it's wet. And now the kettle's whistling, so back into the kitchen to take care of that.
She drinks her tea at the table, watching what she can see of the sunrise through the window, over the neighboring buildings of Miregard City. The drink warms her throat and her chest from the inside, and she likes to imagine that it also warms her heart.
Back into the bedroom, now, because there are a number of things to select from the large, full closet before she can leave the apartment and begin the day. First a modest shirt, and dark jeans - Red days are usually fairly casual - and then a pair of charming little golden earrings and several thin bangles to match; and then she dawdles a bit, playing with her hair again, before approaching the shelf in the back.
A collection of decent size waits for her, laid out in a row, but she's known her choice for today since she woke. It's a Red day, so she picks it up, and looks at it appraisingly, and a smile touches her lips. And then she reaches up to her hairline and, being careful not to pull any of her beautiful hair, scratches at her forehead until she finds the seam. She tugs slowly, but steadily; it's been a very long time since this first became her morning routine, and she likes to think she has it down perfectly. She's practically a professional by now. The layers of skin and fat and flesh and cartilage peel cleanly away, and she discards the face, which grows in overnight just to be a nuisance, she's sure. And then she picks up Red, always one of her favorites, and pinches it carefully on, kneading her fingers around the features and rubbing circular motions at the edges until it mends itself to her flawlessly, as it does every Red day. And she looks at herself once more - and the girl whose face she's wearing is there with her in the mirror, screaming silent profanities through a missing mouth - and she smirks at her reflection, and blows it a kiss, and walks out the front door, turning the lights off as she goes.
[ Excerpt from 'A History of Lives', by Dr Christine Hellgate. Required reading for BIO-AN-0813, The Thinkers of the World, Professor Franz Ash. ]
Dremizens are integral members of the global organic network of sentient fauna. In their tightly-structured communities, they are responsible for the metabolism of the ever-present psychic energy that manifests most commonly as what humans and several other species of humanoids know as dreams. Though they rarely interact with human society, and few are fluent in the common humanoid dialects, dremizens can be found wherever there is sentient life. (Refer to Appendix A, Diagram 3 for a comprehensive list of species and races with known sentience.)
Dremizens tend to be small in comparison to most humanoids, averaging in height around two feet tall. Because of their nearly completely self-sufficient communities, the evolution of their species has taken many environmentally-affected turns, but there are several traits common to the species as a whole. Each dremizen has a flap of muscle at the back of its head, concealing glands that produce metabolized psychic energy into the air. They also share a common grooved indentation located on the abdomen, minutely unique for each dremizen, similar to the human fingerprint.
One thing that sets dremizens apart from most species of the world is their ability to see and interact physically with psychic energy, which exists perpendicular to the perceptive plane of humans, and humanoids with psychic vision filters similar to the dormant human lens. (Refer to Appendix A, Diagram 4 for a table of sentient beings and their perceptive and practical psychic abilities.)
Although dremizens have come to be known colloquially as 'the creatures under the bed', they flourish in their own social groups, close to but apart from the dwellings of men. Each of these communities has a clearly defined structure, based mainly around the role each dremizen must play in the metabolization process of dream energy. Such groups, called 'clings', can range in size from anywhere between three or four to almost a hundred dremizens; the average population of a cling is about thirty members, although size varies based on the surrounding population of 'dreamers' (sentient beings susceptible to the effects of psychic dream energy) and the number of dremizen clings in the area.
There are three main jobs that a dremizen can perform in its community. Dream gathering generally falls to the most psychically perceptive and physically resourceful members of the group, who continuously canvass the local area collecting strands of psychic energy that has been processed into raw dreamstuff by sleeping dreamers. These strands are then turned over to the dream weavers, who are selected for their high intelligence and creative power. The strands of energy are 'woven' into tangible forms, which, in accordance with the laws of preservation of psychic energy, lose much of their potency as they gain a more physical form. The weavings are consumed by dream eaters, whose bodies metabolize the dulled dreams back into a purer form of psychic energy. This is released into the air from the glands protected by the flap of muscle on the back of the dremizen's head, and reabsorbed by nearby dreamers to repeat the cycle.
The necessity of the dremizens' roles in the ecological system has been debated by biologists and philosophers ever since the research of renowned anthropologist Peter Walker brought the mechanisms of their species into the public eye in 1839. It is widely accepted that the natural processes of psychic energy would not be possible without the presence of dremizens, and many believe that psychic overflow would consume the world but for their existence.
Occasionally, a dremizen will gain a taste for gathered dreams, unwoven and unmetabolized, with disastrous results. The substance is highly addictive, a druglike sensory overload, and an affected dremizen, called a 'dream parasite', will withdraw from its cling, often living independently and sustaining itself on raw dreamstuff. The psychic energy absorbed by the consumption of the raw dreams enhances the parasite's psychic perception and power, but tends to overwhelm its survival instinct. Known dream parasites are inevitably found dead of malnutrition or a similar affliction linked to neglect.
Imagine a bustling metropolis floating in the sky, tethered to the rest of the world by countless invisible threads. A place where creatures run about consuming and recycling memory and imagination; where nightmares, left unchecked, can spawn tangible horrors.
Most of the residents of the city have tried sleep aids at least once in their adult lives - medicated slumber should mean calm and dreamless, or at least it does anywhere other than here. But they quickly learn better after a night or two of lying trapped in bed, muscles unmoving, darkness taking over their still-conscious minds. You learn to sleep naturally, on your own, if you've seen the terrible products of your twitching, twisted brain leaping into the physical world from the depths of your skull.
Ludatics, those crazies cracked out on dream pills, wander the dirtier parts of town; occasionally one is so far gone that he will shuffle right off the edge of the outskirts, plummeting to an early end. Some say hey, at least they die happy, right? Running on the fumes of pleasant, drug-induced, non-living visions.
Don't get me wrong; it can be beautiful. Wisps of colorful dreamstuff float in the breeze. Buildings tower beyond belief. Artists and writers and poets have made this place their Mecca, in the middle of the city's atmosphere of enhanced imaginative resource. Innocent minds produce enough clear and bright visions to keep us from diving into darkness. And though the fully-grown of us may toss in our beds, our children are able to thrive, tiny pictures of health and happiness. This is a place for dreamers.
