stygean

On Saturday, an hour before proper tea time, the Anachronistic Tailor arrives at Beatrice's Tea Shoppe to find a table that is slightly out of the way. Close to the corner of the room, just away from one of the windows that let light pour into the rest of the tearoom. They sit in the chair closer to the corner, which allows them to face the tearoom and all who enter and exit it.

The table is prepared with a tray of scones and sandwiches, but the Tailor insists quietly to the servers to wait on serving the tea itself. They are waiting for company. If that company does not arrive, they will take tea fifteen minutes after--but it would be improper to let the pot over-steep or, heaven forbid, grow cold.

For now, they take water, and they have a book with them, but one eye is on the door. They've sent an invitation to a friend, but only time will tell if that friend chooses to come.

theanachronistictailor

You dream that you are in a large, extravagantly lit ballroom. Despite its elegance and its size, it hosts a paltry number of guests, all masked as you are. A few of them are paired and dancing already, spinning in coordinated circles around its center. When you examine the floor under your feet, you see how the dancers are on set paths. In the center of the floor's mosaic, there is a proud and massive star.

A hand is offered to you. You do not know your companion, and their mask covers their face in its entirety, but the facade itself is that of a maned wolf. Their garb is of the Third City, or maybe the Fifth. Or maybe it's something else entirely, something you have never seen and yet recognize innately. When your fingers finds their shoulder, the fabric is exquisite to the touch, an utter blackness that drinks the light out of the room like an inescapable hole. Their grip on your hip is tight enough to hurt. Your fingers may break as they are squeezed by an elegant glove.

You fall in step with the stranger, onto one of the lines on the floor. The steps are quick. Your feet barely have time to land on the stone. In time it feels like you are not on stone at all, you are walking on air. Walking? Dancing. Flying. Leaping. They're all the same. Your partner glides. You turn in motion. Fire blazes from your trail.

The ballroom is empty now, save you and your masked companion. Has the room been lined with mirrors this whole time?

You find yourself in the many reflections. Here, your mask is a small bird with a curved, sharp beak. There, a snake. This one, a bat. The next, a maned wolf, like your partner.

Malleable still.

The claws on your waist tighten. The full face of the stranger dips. The mouth of its mask finds the side of your throat. Fangs meet flesh. You taste blood.

----

Having Recurring Dreams: The Hungry Silk is increasing...

Nightmares is increasing...

----

The Tailor had pulled out their small collection of prized fabrics from under the narrow bedframe. The worn little piece of luggage had carried what few possessions they'd earned while living under the Widow's roof, but they're privileged enough to say all their belongings would no longer fit so tidily. Now, the box contained those fabrics that might be common to the wealthy and elite, but were to them priceless.

They ran their hands over each one; bombazine and puzzle-damask, aurochs-fur, their one scrap of parabola linen. Already the memory of the texture of that fabric was escaping, but nothing in their collection compared, nothing. What had it been? Softer than silk, maybe closer to fur? But not so coarse. And so dark, like their favorite suit. The first suit they'd had tailored to their measurements that had felt correct.

To pursue this was to risk madness. They recognized this plainly. Already they had spent most of their evening poring over the notes they had, and existing drafts for garments, comparing, laying down sketches no larger than the length of their thumb into the fire-proof notebook that they had stripped of its lace. Several pages had been filled with Correspondence that had been drawn over, or Correspondence reimagined in the third dimension, curves and loops becoming the flowing hems of gowns and cloaks. So much exposure to the language would only damage their mind if it didn't light their hair on fire first.

But the dreams. The dreams. What had that outfit been? A sign? Was that fabric significant? Or were they reading too much into the shape of a nightmare?

If a dream repeats, there is a kernel of truth in it, and it’s better to be aware of what it’s telling you.

They fetch the notes they left the week prior, in their book of plain paper.

Silk. Claws. Light/dark. Water/reflections. Burning.

The repetition is there. What is it telling them?

The Tailor leans back on their haunches and presses their hands to their face. It is too early, or too late, for this. They've work in the morning.

They close the little case and slide it back under the bed.

theanachronistictailor

You dream of laying in your bed, wrapped safely under your covers. The false-summer heat leaves you tossing and turning, trying to fling your sheets off, but they stay tangled around you. Warm, smothering and suffocating. The sheets are tightening around you, pressing to your face. You press your hands to the fabric, trying to dislodge it. It distorts under your hands, pushed outward. It's only fabric, after all. For all it tries to constrict you, your claws shred through it and leave clean edges.

You slice the silken cocoon apart from the inside. When you emerge, your wings are sticky with sweat, but the thin membrane dries in the cold howling wind. It's bright. You have never seen such a brightness before. You think you hate it. It is an insult to you, and it sees you, and it's Judging you.

You are quite used to the sensation.

You leap from the clinging and cloying embrace of the cocoon, which even now beckons you back in, and drop like a stone in the dark towards the surface of the black pond that is the Unterzee. It roils, roars, and splits apart at the seams, bursting with its beast. No. Wait. That's your reflection.

There's no splash when you collide with the water. You are buoyed and cradled, and your eyes are open. Water slips through the gaps between your fingers, sweet and soft. You lift a hand to the surface of the water where you are submerged. A long, thin claw traces a curling line against the mirror, and your reflection bleeds. It drips onto your nose and your cheek. You write a word that glows against the black, and then press your tongue to it to lap at the blood. Your tongue burns.

You waken up with a hand at your throat and your fingers pressed flat to your tongue, desperate to stop the burning which you have already begun to forget. Your sheets have fallen off the end of your mattress. Your pillow is soaked with sweat.

----

Having Recurring Dreams: The Hungry Silk has increased to 1!

A Nightmares increase has been aggravated because of an item you're wearing (The Walls are Wrong).

Nightmares has reached 6!

----

The Tailor is trembling when they sit at the cramped desk in their tiny room above the shop. It is so late even the latest party-goers in Veilgarden have made it home if not to a honey-den, yet not early enough that the bakers in Spite would be beginning their work. Even the pubs at the docks would be, if not empty, then only full of sad and quiet drunks.

London is not often quiet. But it is quiet now. It only unsettles them further. Their hand shakes over the poorly lit paper.

Write down one of your nightmares. Especially if a particular vision proves to be recurring. … If a dream repeats, there is a kernel of truth in it, and it’s better to be aware of what it’s telling you.

Do they know this dream? Will it return?

Do they... want it to?

They stare at the blank page, brows pinching together. This dream feels like a secret. It's theirs. They want to keep it.

Silk. Claws. Light/dark. Water/reflections. Burning.

What had been the word written on the mirror? It hadn't been in English, but if it had been proper Correspondence, they wonder if it would have burned its meaning into their brain.

It had tasted so...

good.

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22	23	24	25	26	27	28
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Reading

In a quiet tea shop...

A dream about a ballroom...

A dream about black silk...

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June 2025

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