20.3

Impenetrable darkness. Zyrdicia gazes around at the black nothingness, ill at ease. A mere absence of light would not concern her, but here she knows that she is in alien territory. She reaches out, surprised that her eyes cannot pierce the gloom. Her hand grazes the rough texture of a wall, its stone cold and moist.

"Where are you?" she calls impatiently. No reply issues forth from the darkness.

"Answer me!" she yells. Fear seeps into her voice, despite her effort to control it. She suddenly believes that she has lost her way. She trembles at the thought that she has mistakenly wandered into an in-between place from which she might never awaken. It occurs to her now that the notion of pursuing a mortal into his dream world was unwise. Such tricks belong to real gods, not to an imposter like her.

She is alone in the darkness. Her heart pounds loudly as she stumbles ahead, desperate to find her way out.

She follows the path of the wall with her hand, rounding a corner. A large door blocks her way. She fumbles for its handle and finds it locked. She knocks on the door to no avail.

"Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!" she murmurs to herself, as though in prayer. Minutes pass. She knows she might spend eternity in such an alien place, trapped forever. Her soul might never find its way back to her body. The bitter irony of it holds no humor for her - the one who has trapped so many Sephiroth in Hell is now trapped similarly by her own foolishness.

She tries to calm her reeling mind. "Dirk, I can't find you!" she screams silently with her mind.

"Of course not, my dear," he answers telepathically.

"I'm trapped between dream worlds. I can't find my way out - " She pauses when she senses him laughing silently in her head. A grim realization sets in.

"You found your way perfectly," he informs her coldly.

"You put me here deliberately?!"

Icy silence is his only reply.

She realizes that this has the feel of a trick, one demonic in its cleverness. Rage and disappointment taste all the more bitter to her for recently trusting him so deeply. She growls, "To which Sephiroth have you betrayed me?"

"Oh, come now. You know perfectly well that I would rather kill you myself than betray you to one of those wretchedly annoying creatures. Trapping you alone is entirely my idea."

She senses the smugness in his mental demeanor. He is proud of his trickery's success.

She is relieved her foe is mortal. And she knows well enough how to manipulate this particular mortal. She argues, "Dirk, here I'm of no use to you in your war against the South. You accomplish nothing by trapping me alone in a foreign dreamworld!"

"On the contrary. Here I will succeed in impressing upon you a point you might otherwise never grasp."

"Namely?"

"Whatever obligations you think I have, I alone remain in charge. If you ever dare to question my mastery over you, your own dream demons will seem kind compared to what you will face here."

She bites back a sharp reply. She fears he might leave her alone in this awful place a while longer out of spite.

The door swings open then, flooding the passageway with torchlight. She steps into the room beyond, terribly relieved to escape the isolation. The large chamber contains a great pit of fire in its center. To the left and right of the fire, twin staircases rise at sharp, slanting angles to a small stone balcony.

Dirk stands at the balcony's edge, looking down at her. A self-satisfied gleam sparkles in his eye as he greets her. "Hi."

He gestures to the stairs at her left, beckoning her. When she nears him, he reaches out and jerks her against him roughly.

She glares playfully, harboring no ill will. All that matters is that she is out of the awful, lonely place, out of her own dreamworld, and surrounded by the touch she craves.

No longer weighed by her body's weariness, she wraps her arms around his neck.

"I trust my lesson was effective?"

"Stop gloating and kiss me!" she laughs, melting against him. "You arrogant, handsome scoundrel!"

"Tsk. Tsk," he chides mockingly. "I had hoped you were a more apt pupil. You seem to have misunderstood the part of the lesson about me being in charge. Perhaps I will have to return you to isolation . . ."

"No!" she giggles, certain he was not serious. She senses from the firmness of his arm's grip around her torso that he can no more bear to part with her than she can bear to be alone right now.

"Then convince me you understood sufficiently to eliminate the need to put you back there."

"Um...I...err...," she puzzles out loud for a way to end this frustrating game. She smiles suddenly, as an idea strikes. The smile fades instantly as she feigns an imploring expression and pleads, "Please kiss me, my lord."

"Much better," he purrs approvingly.

"And if you do I'll tell you a secret," she adds, her eyes twinkling impishly.

Finding the terms pleasantly acceptable, he grants her request. In no hurry, he turns, moving her to rest her back against a nearby stone wall. He leans heavily against her, pinning her to the wall with his body.

After several minutes, he turns his face away unexpectedly and demands, "Now reveal the confidence you promised."

"There is no magic here."

Dirk rolls his eyes as though her "secret" is the most obvious thing in the world.

"There isn't!" she protests.

"I'm already well aware of that," he notes indifferently, gesturing to the monocle's absence at his chest. "Your secrets begin to bore me. It's fortunate you have other means of holding my interest."

"Dirk, I mean there is no magic at all in any dreamworld," she prods. She arches an eyebrow suggestively, waiting for him to catch the implication.

His eyes widen as the unspoken sense of her statement dawns on him. "Then there is no-?"

"Edict."

20.4

Dirk and Zyrdicia awoke simultaneously nearly fifteen hours later. Night had already fallen. Neither had even the faintest awareness of the sun's passage while they slept. For her, it was like a surreal vacation from the 'reality' of her own dreamworld.

Dirk rubbed his eyes, dismayed at the lateness of the hour. For all the exertion of the dreamworld, he expected to feel exhausted. Instead he felt exhilarated and wonderfully rested.

"I was to have held court this afternoon," he realized indifferently.

"You had better things to do," Zyrdicia reminded smugly, snuggling against him. The room was cold, despite the fire the servants had recently relighted. She wondered at the fire, and the implication that someone had managed to tend to it without waking either of them. They were both unusually light sleepers.

Dirk followed her eyes to the flames and caught the implication. It was as though they both had been drugged. No servant ever entered his sleeping quarters without him sensing it. Not even the light-footed chambermaid could slip in without disturbing his rest. His expression darkened.

In the lingering psychic connection from the dream world, Zyrdicia sensed his thought even before he gave voice to it. "The danger of leaving ourselves defenseless in the material world makes pleasure stolen from the dreamworld that much more delicious," she grinned.

Dirk arched an eyebrow skeptically. She might derive pleasure from tempting fate with foolish risks; he preferred a more practical approach. "I intend to double the guard outside my chamber door before we retire again."