The Dream Realm Ferryman Who Guides Memories

Night had fallen. At the far end of the sea, the moon hung strangely large, its reflection twisting through the waves and ripples.

The Divine Boat crossed the moon's reflection, borne onward by the current and the swell.

Starlight streamed from the night sky, and a beautiful figure in a splendid golden robe appeared above the sea.

Delight filled the dream spirit's eyes when she saw the Divine Boat.

Walking across the water, she reached the silver sailboat and ran a hand along its hull.

Her touch was as tender as if she were stroking the hair of a child she had not seen in a very long time, finally home again.

"Found you at last!"

"So this is where you ran off to."

Another life lay sleeping aboard the Divine Boat. It woke with a start, sensing both the dream spirit and her power.

Though the spirit had lost the dream of the divine, her strength still far surpassed that of any ordinary ability user.

The life was frightened. It tried to hide, but the little Divine Boat could not conceal it completely.

Then the spirit noticed the Sun Cup aboard the Divine Boat, a flower that had awakened to wisdom. Now it was her turn to be astonished.

Curiosity stirred in the dream spirit. "What are you?"

"You're not a dream spirit."

The dream spirits had come out of the Sun Cup, but what mattered more was Polo's blood of myth.

The creature before her was not a dream spirit. It was a plant that had seized Redlichia's wisdom bloodline and awakened to consciousness, while both its bloodline and power sprang from wisdom ability.

The consciousness within the Sun Cup trembled before the dream spirit like a guilty child.

Every thought and feeling in its heart lay open to the spirit.

"Are you called Redshi?"

"No, that's not it. Weisen, then?"

"No, that's not right either."

"Did you forget your own name? Or are those memories not yours?"

Across the quiet sea, only one voice broke the stillness aboard the ancient sailboat. Yet two wondrous creatures were speaking to each other.

The dream spirit was certain now. "You're something between a person and a flower. You're not a spirit, but you're not a trilobite man either."

"You've got a spirit's body, but Redlichia's blood runs through you."

The Sun Cup Flower's flower cup swayed as though in a nod.

One corner of the spirit's golden robe lifted and brushed the Sun Cup Flower's flower cup.

Dream starlight rose around them as a powerful force enveloped the spirit and the Sun Cup alike. The spirit's long, soft, bright golden hair danced in the air.

Her half-closed eyes opened, and a trace of sorrow entered them.

The spirit looked at this newborn life. "You're trapped in a nightmare. There's nothing in your dream but darkness and pain."

"You used to sleep in Lord Polo and Queen Star's garden. Then someone planted you by force in the body of a prince named Weishi Hosen, and you inherited his nightmare and his despair."

The Sun Cup opened its flower cup wide, as though crying out in pain.

Gently, the dream spirit soothed it and told it not to be afraid.

"I can lend you my Dream Egg and seal your nightmare inside."

"Then you won't have to be afraid or suffer anymore. You can leave the despair of that nightmare behind."

"But my Dream Egg's important. I was saving it for something."

"If I give it to you, you'll have to do something in my place."

The Sun Cup Flower nodded its agreement.

The spirit smiled as light kindled within her breast.

The Dream Egg emerged from her body as though she were drawing her own heart from her chest.

Hila the dream spirit's dream fragment had already dissolved into the Spirit Realm. Her Dream Egg was now only a shell, of no further use to her.

She had intended to use the Dream Egg on the Divine Boat. Now, however, she had found a better use for it.

Cradling the Dream Egg in both hands, she placed it inside the Sun Cup Flower's flower cup.

"Nightmare and despair, be turned wholly into bubbles of dream, and be bound within this dreamlike shell forever!"

As soon as the creature between person and flower received the spirit's Dream Egg, the nightmare and terror buried deep within it began seeping out, little by little, and gathering inside the egg.

At the same time, the Sun Cup's golden body slowly dimmed.

A dark golden flower now bloomed at the Divine Boat's bow. Within its cup, the Dream Egg carried a black dream, yet light shone inside that dream.

It felt like a wondrous guiding lamp hung at the bow.

From that light, a dream bubble spread around the Divine Boat, exactly as Hila the dream spirit's dream had once enveloped the temple.

Its second-rank wisdom ability came from Redlichia. When its mental power merged with the Dream Egg, its consciousness manifested as a black shadow aboard the Divine Boat, standing within the dream bubble beneath the flower cup's lamp.

This was the Consciousness Projection divine technique, born from its bond with the Dream Egg.

Mental power had joined with dream. Now it could propel the Divine Boat with mental power and use the spirit's Dream Egg to leap and weave through the Spirit Realm.

Once the nightmare was bound inside the shell, its anguished wailing and inescapable fear vanished in an instant.

The black shadow looked at Hila the dream spirit and spoke in a clumsy, halting voice.

"Th... thank..."

"Thank... you."

With a smile, the dream spirit said, "We made a promise, didn't we?"

At a wave of the spirit's hand, the gate of the Spirit Realm opened.

"O Divine Boat that passes to and fro through the dreams, O dream realm ferryman who guides the memories home!"

"I hope that one day you will take my place, passing to and fro among the dreams and guiding home every memory that returns to the dream star sea."

Across the sea beneath the night sky, the spirit's ethereal aria carried farther and farther out.

"Lives do not scatter away. Their memories, and everything they once were, will all become stars, and stay at God's side forever."

Beneath the guiding lamp, the black shadow steered the Divine Boat through the gateway and into the Spirit Realm, still wrapped in its dream bubble.

The sailboat sailed between the dream moon and the dream star sea.

A strange ferryman stood aboard. No eye could discern its shape, only a blurred black shadow beneath the guiding lamp.

The silver boat, wrapped in its dim and clouded bubble, circled along the courses of the dream moon and the star sea.

How long this journey would continue, it did not know. It knew only that it had made an agreement with the spirit.

An agreement once made had to be kept forever.

At last it reached the center of the Spirit Realm and the vast dream fragment there, drawing alongside the island where the divine dwelt.

At the island's edge, a barefoot girl in a white gauze dress watched it.

Gurgle gurgle!

This time, even such a powerful and terrible being inspired no fear. All its darker feelings were shut away inside the nightmare.

It knew neither Shelly, the Mother of Life, nor her habit of making that sound without thinking.

It thought she was asking who it was.

"Who am I?"

"I have no name."

"I am only a ferryman who walks through dreams and guides memories home."

Lifting its head toward Shelly, it asked her a question and invited her to become its first passenger.

"Would you like to board? I can take you to the star sea of dreams."