The Baron

I had a pretty cool dream that I should have written down because if I ever do write a story someday, it would have been an awesome scene in it. Several awesome scenes, actually. But now I've mostly forgotten it. Let's see what I can remember.

A group of us were marched into a manor. We were common people and had been outside enjoying the sunshine. They had captured us and marched us in, and we came quietly, acting as if it were our idea to begin with and the guards were merely our escorts. The lord of the manor--I don't know who he was, really, but he dressed fancy and walked and talked in a manner that showed he was obviously important--came to talk to us. I don't remember anything he said, except I remember he took a special interest in a girl with long curly dark blond hair standing in the back of our group of five. She was older than me by a few years--she looked to be about fourteen or so, and I think I was only eleven or twelve. He asked her name, and she gave it: Elanivia or something long and weird like that. I remember he pulled out a riding crop and used it to force her chin up so he could see her face. He made a comment--I don't remember what it was. I remember being very tense, afraid for her, but he didn't hurt her.

After that, I don't know what happened to everyone else. There was a short time skip and I was standing looking into a mostly empty bowl of fruit. The bowl was enormous, and a few inches of it was filled with water. I was eying a star fruit on the bottom, but not daring to touch it. The Baron, or whoever he was, told me to go ahead and take it. I picked it up. There was a slight resistance as I pulled it out of the water, like the suction when you pull a cup out of a sink upside-down or something. It turned out that the star fruit was just an empty skin, and when I looked at it, the Baron reached over and squeezed it so a puff of air blasted into my face. He said something about always looking deeper into everything, because things weren't always how they looked at first.

After that, I'm not sure if I was a slave or a student. I was given a certain amount of freedom, but I don't think I was free to leave. I could tell the baron was cruel sometimes--not often to me, though. I don't know if I would have called him evil or not. There was a certain amount of harshness about him; I don't think anyone would have called him a caring person. I knew he was very politically active, but I didn't know what about, and I didn't care.

There was another time skip, and I remember running into the kitchen after an errand for the baron. The baron was sitting at the table, and across from him sat Rob, who I recognized as a former teacher of mine. I couldn't meet his eyes, because I knew I had disappointed him, I think by allowing myself to be the student (or was it slave?) of the baron. I don't know why that disappointed him, but I could sense his sorrow, his disappointment, even when I averted my gaze. I wasn't there too terribly long. The baron gave me another assignment and I withdrew quickly, relieved. I wanted so badly to go to Rob and explain, but there was nothing to say. Whatever I was doing wrong was exactly what it looked like.

There was another time skip, and I was sitting on a bench by a lake talking to a friend of mine. He was slightly shorter than me, and skinny, dressed in a loose white shirt and plain dark gray pants. I think he had been in the group that had originally been brought to the manor with me. I rarely saw him because he worked in the basement, doing who-knows-what for the baron. I asked him what was the meaning of death. He paused for a moment to think. Then he stood up and skipped a stone across the water, shading his eyes from the sun to watch it. I watched his back, outlined against the sun, which was just above the horizon, thinking about setting. I heard him take a breath to answer my question, and I knew that whatever he was going to say, it was going to be really deep and insightful. Then I woke up.

Dang it!