Ring Shopping ~ 11/30/2018

I dreamed that I was newly engaged, and shopping for rings. We were in Australia, and had to take a helicopter to the jewelry store. It was remote and hard to get to, br it was the closest one, and it was world famous.

We flew across a desert flat spotted with a few sparse, dark green trees, then over a bare, bone pale karst highland. Finally, we wove through jagged peaks of rust red streaked with ochre gold to land in a tawny landscape, dry and dusty, with a few palm trees clustered around an oasis spring, and a large red clay building that was the jewelry store.

I had brought two small sapphires I had from my grandmother, mounted in a mock-up of a ring design I’d come up with. I wanted to have them flanking a slightly larger center stone, nothing too big, and NOT a diamond. The ring would be in platinum, and would be molded such that the prongs holding the stones wouldn’t just stick out of the band, but would sweep out of it like little blades of grass bending up around flowers.

The salesperson we had our appointment with took one look at my design and completely vetoed it as too plain and dowdy for their store to be associated with. She tried instead to sell us a ring from a collection of mixed yellow and red gold, where fans and frills of thin golden strips swept up from the bands, like butterfly wings, or the swirling fin of an ornamental goldfish, or a sailfish sail. I was not at all interested, as I wanted something small and low profile. So we left.

We were planning to stay for a few days in the town, so I gave it some thought, and we went back the next day with no appointment, just to browse the store. I decided I did like their signature red and yellow gold streaked metal. It was unique, and echoed the mountains around the town. I thought maybe a delicate band with a few very small rubies might be nice. But when we walked in, the first ruby rings we saw were huge stones set in platinum. To me they looked an awful lot like the ring the sales lady had said they wouldn’t make. I was going to keep looking, but then I woke up.

TBTT#39 The Affairs of Dragons ~ 4/30/2018

I dreamed I learned I was a member of a secret magical order. There was a hidden world of lush, emerald mossy rock and ghostly pale marble ruins, a land of mist and silence and hidden depth. There was a certain pool, at the top of a rocky hill, surrounded by marble columns supporting an arched roof. Broad marble steps descended in concentric rings down into the dark, still water. If members of my order came under the shadow of this temple roof and bent to drink the water, most would become black-robed warriors, but a rare few, maybe one in a thousand, would become dragons.

I found myself in this world for the first time, having slipped in sideways somehow while running from some men who were trying to attack me. One moment I was pelting down a grimy sidewalk, and dodging into a dark alley, when suddenly I was in a valley like a shallow jade bowl filled with cloud. The light was like silver and pearls, and I was drawn into the mist until I found the pool. Seven other people were there, all looking just as bemused as I felt, we felt compelled to drink, and then we changed.

My companions drew weapons and charged off down the hill and up out of the valley to combat invaders that were menacing villages and markets in the American Southwest, and I… I spread vast crimson wings and rose into the air above them. We burst out of a cave into a desert canyon lined with stalls of daub and wattle and thatch. Dark haired villagers were running for cover as armored attackers tore down their stalls, upturned their tables, scattered and trampled their goods.

Then they saw me, and began to shout. I inhaled deeply, then sent a blast of blazing golden flame across their ranks. I dove down, bent my head down, and skimmed my jaws along the narrow streets, smashing them into stony cliffs, scooping them up and throwing them down into rocky ravines, and the ones that escaped me still had to face my shadowy companions.

When the invaders were routed, we melted into the darkness of night, and faded back into our normal human selves. From that day, we answered to the call, soundless but profound, impossible to ignore. We moved among the members of our order in a hidden cavern compound. I found a place in the vast library, became steeped in the ancient lore of our order. And when we were needed, we knew, and when it was our turn to fight evil, we were called back to the pool.