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And as she sleeps... Aurora dreams.
She knows that she is asleep, in that bone-deep way that she sometimes knows things without explaining them, and yet her eyes open. The sky above her - if it is even the sky - is an endless, piercing blue, the same magic-blue of her dress.
"Meh anik mohin esetot dap?"
Aurora turned onto her side and looked round, sharply, at the sound of the words. She was quite sure they were words, although she did not recognise them. "Pardon?" she said, for her manners were not wholly gone.
"Ah," said the woman, for it was a woman. "Moh digtem Adlantisag kwam bashebenen. Is... this your language?"
The woman sat, cross-legged, not far from Aurora. She was dressed strangely, had white hair and deep brown skin, and her eyes were the same shining blue as the sky.
"Yes," said Aurora. "You speak it?"
"I speak many languages," she said. "Including this one." Her voice had a musical cadence to it, warm, and whether it was the voice or because this was a dream, Aurora was not afraid. "My name is Kidagakash. Most call me Kida."
"My name is Aurora," Aurora replied. "But... Rose. I was called Rose."
She couldn't say, not yet with pain in her throat and heart, that it was her aunts that had called her Rose. That they were the only ones who had ever given her a name, only to take it from her again.
"Are... are you real?"
Kida chuckled. "As real as you are. Here, at least."
"Do you know where this is?" She was very aware of the number of questions that she was asking, but the woman seemed more in-control, more secure. Aurora pushed herself to a seated position, and only then realised that she was not wearing her blue dress. She was wearing her usual clothes, her blouse and skirt, and when she reached up her black ribbon was in her hair. "What this is?"
"My people call this... demot kerodag. To you, it would be perhaps... heartland? They say it is where the first Queen of Atlantis found the first crystal, in the deepest of her dreams where the heart guides the mind. She was my..." Kida paused, and frowned for a moment. "My mother's mother, but many times. I do not think your language has a word."
"I think I understand, all the same," Aurora replied. She bit her lip, uncertain for a moment, then rolled onto her hands and knees to crawl closer. It was inelegant, not like a princess, but somehow that made her want to do it all the more. Kida watched, with warmth and not indifference, until they sat almost knee-to-knee.
If this place had walls, Aurora could not see them. Just the smooth cool stone below and the unending blue above. "I have not heard a tongue like yours before. How did you come to speak mine?"
"Temin... my language, it is the mother of mothers. Your language remembers it, so it knows yours."
"Well, you speak beautifully."
Kida laughed, a golden sound, and Aurora felt some of the fear in her melting away in front of its light. Fear. She couldn't remember how it got there. For a moment, Aurora tried to call up the memories, why there was a burst of green light written across her, stark and raw and painful. Her fingertip ached, and she looked at it but could see no mark.
"How did you come to be here?" said Kida, startling Aurora out of her thoughts.
"I... I don't recall. There was magic, I think."
"Then you are in the deepest of dreams also. That is how we came to be here. We might be quite separate in time - your clothes, they are not at all like the ones that the people who entered Atlantis wore. But dreams do not obey the usual rules of time, do they?"
She smiled. Aurora liked that, the smile, the almost playful look in Kida's eyes. There was something very old there, something that she thought she might have seen before. For a moment, she thought that Kida's eyes were supposed to be gold, then in a blink the image was gone. "No," she agreed. "They don't." She reached out a hand, slowly, towards Kida, then stopped at the last moment.
Kida looked to the outstretched hand, cocked her head, then reached up and slipped her hand into it. Her skin was warm, and very real, and Aurora gasped at the touch. Kida's hand rolled around hers, sliding to cradle her wrist and then run along the inside of her arm. Unconsciously, Aurora's hand moved to do the same, lightly pressing the skin as if to check that it was really there. It felt as real as holding the hand of her aunts, of Phillip.
"Dreams are strange things," said Kida. She raised her other hand, and Aurora hardly dared to breathe as she felt fingers brush her cheek. "And the deeper they are, the stranger they become. Something real and not real, at the same time."
Aurora turned her cheek into the hand that cradled it, until her lips brushed against Kida's skin. Besides the warmth, there was something else there, something that tingled and almost stung.
"We will not meet outside this dream, will we?" she asked. Kida's hand shook slightly. Aurora ran her hand over Kida's knee, fingers finding a faint raised scar there, then up to rest on her thigh. "Then why are we both here?"
"Perhaps we are just meant to meet," said Kida. Her tongue traced along her lower lip, then she leant fowards, rocking up onto her knees. She released Aurora's arm, and as she came closer Aurora wrapped it around her back instead.
Their faces drew close together, barely inches apart, and Aurora realised that she was shaking. Not from fear, though, not this time; it was as if warm hands were pressed all over her skin, soft and inviting. It was Aurora that started the kiss, pressing her lips to Kida's, and feeling a shuddering glow run through her. Kida's hand reached up to wind into her hair, and she felt breath against her cheek as she stole kiss after kiss, kisses which something within her whispered that she should not take.
But this was a dream, a deep dream. And dreams were not real.
Kida's tongue brushed across her lips, and Aurora responded almost greedily, breathing in the scent of Kida's hair and running fingers across the warm skin of her back. Then there was a shudder, like the world tearing itself apart, and Kida's touch grew insubstantial and began to fade away.
"No..." Aurora whispered. Her eyes snapped open, and she tried to reach for Kida again but her hand slipped through the shadow in front of her. The last thing that she saw were Kida's burning eyes, glowing like fire, and she felt the ghost of a hand brush over her heart.
"Remember. This land will always exist in dreams. Now wake, princess," said Kida, her mouth twitching in a smile, and something ancient in her voice. "Your prince has summoned you."
"Kida..." Aurora breathed, and then wondered if she was the one that was fading, if Kida was real and waiting in the heartland while this feeling like weight filling her body was something else altogether.
She closed her eyes again.
And awoke.