Chapter 39: Ch 39 – Dream

I settled into bed next to Gerl who couldn’t help but keep sneaking peeks over at me.

Devin arrived next and simply lifted me up, setting me on his lap in the process.

“Oh…” I said glancing back at him, my voice suggesting my surprise, but also a bit of excitement.

“Let's just get some sleep alright?” He asked almost pleading with me, no doubt because he didn't want to be more direct, or awkward.

I deflated a touch, I couldn't help it. I'd been building up tonight in my mind for a good chunk of the day. Yet, I expected this. After all, Devin wasn't the massive pervert I was.

But disappointed perversions aside, at least I could enjoy other things. I pulled Devins's arms around me. Then turned to the side with him. I did love his big arms and warmth. I’d really hoped to have enjoyed this when we were back in the cave, but at least I had it now.

“You're feeling better?” I asked.

“Yeah, I'm just a little sore now.” He offered back.

I was glad for that, for any number of reasons, some nobler than others. “Alright. We’ll see how long your plan works.” I said waggling my behind into him.

He just rumbled back at me, using a hand to push me just a bit forward so that I wasn’t rubbing against him.

Closing my eyes, I just chuckled to myself but didn't push the joke any further, at least not yet. Because I knew something neither of these men did. I'd been sleeping horribly! Long nights staring up at the ceilings, or caves was a growing pastime for me. Then again some of that was probably the mana, since I wasn’t quite bursting with energy at this point it might be easier to fall asleep, but I didn’t really expect sleep to come easily either.

As comfortable as Devin and the actual blanket were, it was no match for my overactive mind in the middle of the night! Painful, agonizing, terrible moments ticked through my mind. I entertained myself with increasingly more and more lewd thoughts moment by moment, even though I knew that was a bad idea. But it was in my nature, wrapped in strong arms and feeling Devin so close couldn't possibly have any other outcome. Before too long I decided it was time to give my other abilities their test run.

I had a general sense of the two sleeping men around me. The more I lay there letting my mind wander and feel them out I started to understand that sense a bit more. The most basic component of my dream abilities was the ability to sense sleep, or maybe it was to sense a dream, or someone I could influence with a dream? It wasn’t like I'd taken an introductory course into dream shenanigans, I was just doing my best here.

Was the distinction important? Sleeping, dreaming, it didn’t think it mattered. What was important was once I could feel them in that condition, my ability actually started to matter. It made me think of the dungeon’s strange restrictions in a sense. I wasn’t really learning this as I went, it was more like I was half remembering something, just like how I’d thrown myself at Aquina it was like my body already knew what to do, and how it worked. I just had to find a way to exploit that natural instinct. Why did it work that way? Was I going to complain? Of course not! Besides, there were limits and issues I’d learned of since. Best I take this slow and get a feel for it then go hog wild first chance like last time. I wasn't planning on needing to fuck with dreams in a life or death situation any time soon, but I didn't want to end up in that type of high-stakes situation without some practice at least. In that sense, this was a great idea! Or at least I was going to continue to tell myself that.

There were two primary things I seemed to be able to influence. First was the depth of sleep. Once someone was sleeping, I could really push them deeper into it. The second thing I could do was direct the dream. I say direct, but since I had not tried it yet, I wasn’t entirely sure.

The first thing I learned was that just reaching out with my mind was not enough. The strength of this ability seemed directly related to my proximity to their bodies. A lot of big words for I gotta touch people! Which was fine, I was big into touching people! The more inappropriate the better! Still, I needed to focus on what I was doing, and not let my mind wander into people's pants, at least not yet.

Of course, with Devin wrapping me up It was quite obvious he was asleep, though not deeply so. So the first thing I did was change that. Reaching through where I touched him with this strange magic, I began forcing him into a wonderfully deep sleep. I could feel some energy, the mana from me flow out of me and into Devin, there didn’t seem to be any real reason or logic of the where of that, just anywhere and everywhere I was touching him. From there I shifted around in his grip so I was more on my side rather than with my back to him. I could tell that each little thing I did, a tiny poke, and prod would help to wake him. Still, I was surprised by how deep, his deep sleep was. I wondered if this had to do with the individual, and less just all people in general. I bet this had a lot of nuance to it. In fact, I would bet on it.

I was able to unwrap his arm from me and set it on his side. I could even continue to apply more pressure to ensure that such things didn’t wake him up either. I wondered just how much I could get away with before he woke up. Maybe I'd come back to that.

Gerl, on the other hand, was glancing in the other direction so I couldn't see his face, but I could hear his soft repetitive breaths. I reached out and a bit closer I could feel he was sleeping too. Once more mana flowed from me into him where I gently touched him, a tiny expenditure of magical energy leaving me and going into him. Giving him the same treatment and plunging him into a cozy sleep was as easy as breathing to me. It was also more than a little exciting to be trying this out.

Fantastic! Time to play! I let Devin roll over and I climbed on top, straddling him so I could easily reach Gerl without my awkward reach around.

Closing my eyes I set my hand on him. Just my light touch caused my sense of his slumber to shift. He was definitely a lighter sleeper than Devin was. But now that my hand was flat against him, it was time to get a bit more interesting.

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At first, I didn’t get much, more like a sense of nothingness. But as I felt his chest with my hand, and I felt his heartbeat pass the moments I started to feel something forming. A vague sense of things. I was definitely not feeling patient, but my curiosity helped win me over, slowly like a painting being made with individual brush strokes the scene in my mind continued to build. What started with a sense of a path, expanded with grass, a tree, there was a fence. It continued to build with a breeze, clouds in a sunny sky, up ahead was a village, the wall familiar, a path traveled many times. I wasn’t so much getting a clear image, or movie, but rather a vague cloudy sense of what was being experienced. From there my own mind seemed to be constructing its own version of that for me to experience in the same way. At least that was my best guess.

Oddly I found that rather than just feeling like I was sending mana into him to do this, it felt more like we were exchanging mana like I was giving him a tiny feed of it, and in return, he was sending some tiny bit back. I wasn’t particularly good at sensing mana, or magic in any meaningful way, so I really didn’t know how that works. Yet, I thought that maybe I was losing more than was coming back. Something to note, but not really worry about I supposed. I doubted this really registered that much on a scale that would worry me.

Letting my mind worry about what I was actually trying to focus on I found he was walking down the path, towards the village. Welcoming voices and cheers for his return. Everyone was happy to see him. He arrived somewhere, was this home? He called out hopeful, “I’m home… This time for good.”

I was getting words!? I was excited at this revelation and I could tell he was looking around his home for someone. One room, and then the other. He steped inside to find who he was looking for.

A woman… blonde hair, green eyes, a nice rack that was lazily drifting to either side as her chest rose and fell with soft sleepy breaths within a somewhat revealing simple dress. It was the kind of imagery that made me wonder why she was wearing the dress at all. Her eyes opened, and immediately recognized him, a bright smile in response.

“I’m home…” He repeated himself.

“I’m so glad.” She offered back, her arms opening to accept him.

It was about that time that something dawned on me, “Hey! That's me!” I whispered into the cool night air of the guest room. I couldn’t help but grin wickedly. Back in his mind he kissed the woman, picked her up, and set her down. They embraced in a warm hug. “Get to the good stuff!” I whispered hopefully, letting the moonlight in on my interests.

They instead broke their hug, and the woman asked, “What happened? Is the war over?”

Gerl replied, “We won. It's over.”

I frowned as he started describing their glorious battle strategy, how the elves were unable to resist and how they had ground them underfoot. Which was to say the dream was glossing over it. I couldn't help but feel strange about how the dialog shifted from concrete words and sentences into something that was more like watching people talk in the distance. Yet, all the same, it was like someone was describing what they were talking about instead of me being there to actually listen. There were no details, it was like a lazy scriptwriter just wrote, “Ad-lib about victory and battles here.” I supposed that was because his mind was more giving him the scenario for when they won, he didn’t know how that would happen, but he wanted it to be the case and he was happy about it. He was glad to sit there and tell this woman, his dream version of me, all about it. The details were all irrelevant to his mind, or what was really happing. It wasn't like she was going to call him out on his bullshit after all.

On one hand, it was kind of sweet, and a touch romantic. On the other, I wasn’t interested in either of those! Time to change shit! Rather than just pick up on the things that were happening, I decided to start small. “The woman reaches up with a finger to Gerl’s lips.” I inserted it with a small force of additional magic. So it was. He paused his speech not quite sure what to make of the change.

I couldn't help but just sit there waiting to see what he might do, how he might reply to my alteration.

But to my surprise, the dream woman continued on her own, “I’m glad you’re so excited…"

Oh! It continues even after I mess with things!? I couldn't help but find that fun, and exciting. I could mess with tiny little details, or completely change the context for something and just watch how things developed rather than need to figure it all out on my own. I should probably have expected this, after all this was Gerl's dream, so his mind was still technically in charge.

“Maybe we should have dinner? You can tell me more while we eat.” She offered.

Dinner!? She just woke up! Dream me was an idiot! Then again maybe this is what I should expect when tossing stones into his dream. Dreams were sort of weird anyway, there was a reason a phrase like "dream logic" existed after all.

“Sure… I’d love dinner, it's been a long trip.” Gerl offered his reply. The whole thing began to shift, they practically were in one room before instantly finding themselves in a kitchen. The transition felt horribly awkward to me, but to them, it seemed almost as if nothing had gone wrong, they had just skipped the trip and my dream clone had started making soup or some shit.

Gerl began bragging again, and I was left as a witness to it.

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