don't you mess with a little girl's dreams

Two weeks ago, a thing that was only doing a very poor job of pretending to be a woman crawled in through Nausicaa's window and raised its knife above her head and she screamed -

And her friend the boogieman tore it apart.

Nausicaa had been scared of him back then. It only made sense. But he seemed so lonely hiding under her bed, so she crawled down there - and kept crawling into the infinite shadows -

He seemed to need a hug, was all. And he did save her.

They've been best friends since, and Nausicaa's become more aware. Of the way Nanny doesn't seem to sleep - no actually she doesn't sleep - and seems to know a weird amount of things, and is always meeting with other Nannies outside in the dark...

Of how her friend Sue's sister died, and how it was probably way more horrible than what the adults told them. Which was nothing. How Sue now has a monster of her own, a skeletal thing (Nausicaa's glad she only needs to keep her boogieman from scaring people, not from eating people).

How there's something wrong with two of her teachers, and how her classmate Lianne has something weird in her family and people are following Silvie around who shouldn't be -

She's also become aware that she probably made her friend the boogieman. Three weeks ago, she saw a fox's skeleton, half decayed, and convinced herself it was going to follow her home and haunt her -

So, naturally, it did.

And now the rain-monster who brought the drowning dreams touched her boogieman and changed him, and he's weird lately and his shadows keep dripping, and maybe if she believed him she can believe very hard in someone who'll fix him -

A magical girl, obviously. Someone who will fight for truth and justice and humanity. Someone who can look into people's hearts and bring out their true selves. Someone who'll help because there's something horrible in this town and none of the adults want to know -

Nausicaa sits on her bed, scrunches up her face, and believes very, very hard.

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slumber-and-disaster

"Good idea. There'll be more to do tomorrow."

The Crone

within-yourself

"Always is."

And home?

slumber-and-disaster

Home. And naps.

fear-itself

That night...

There's a shadow in her dreams. Lurking. Watching.

slumber-and-disaster

Lucid dreaming isn't a skill she possesses, so the set of things she can do about this is limited.

fear-itself

Her dream twists, shadows bleeding out, a deformed horse's skull leering from the darkest part...

There's a clatter like bones. Hands reaching for her.

A whisper.

I wonder what you are.

slumber-and-disaster

What is she? She's a magical girl. Almost hard to remember being anything else, at this point.

fear-itself

What is your fear, little girl?

slumber-and-disaster

Ignorance. Helplessness.

fear-itself

There's nothing familiar, here. Flat sands and gaping stars and strange figures in the distance -

slumber-and-disaster

She needs a handle to twist. People are handles she can usually twist. Figures are usually people. She goes closer to the figures.

fear-itself

A skull the size of a planet, a woman made of stars, a horse like someone stitched and melted together pieces of horses, not knowing where the parts go or how many of them a horse should even have...

The not-horse charges her.

slumber-and-disaster

That is not a good horse. That is a creepy horse. She does not like that horse. She does not want that horse to hit her. She dodges the horse.

fear-itself