...yeah okay that's not the Dreamlands. It might just be a normal weird dream? Inaaya has never experienced a normal weird dream but she is informed that people have them.

Sal can't tell. "That's certainly very dramatic."

"It... was. I would say that, uh. I mean, that's a dramatic example, many of them are quite - quite pleasant. The chaotic places are a recurring theme, I would say. Or - chaotic elements. Amalgamations, etcetera, no continuity. The missing tooth never came back, for instance."

Scribble scribble scribble. "How have they changed since reading the book?"

"Oh, what I just said. Chaos, a lack of continuity. Every place and person comes for one night and is never seen again. An... upheaval of familiar roaming-grounds. At the same time, the mind turning up old fixations or feelings. I don't want to be too hasty to attribute this to The King in Yellow, mind you. I was revisiting a lot of things around the same time. ... I mean, like I said, the King, the Sign, fragments of the City, they show up there. But the rest is... well, I don't know. The city doesn't feel properly like a city, in the dreams. I'm sure that's on my end. ...Does this make any sense? I'm not really used to describing dreams to people."

"Did cities used to feel properly like cities?"

"I mean, of course."

"Hm. And were things generally recurring before? You'd talk to the same people and be in the same places from night to night?"

"Certainly." Terrence is confused at the question.

...she has a suspicion. She doesn't want to be right. She really, really doesn't want to be right. "What does it mean when you say cities felt properly like cities?"

"I mean - Hmm. I could draw you a map of London. I could draw you a map of Carcosa, though I've never been there and it would just be one man's flawed interpretation, I could draw you a map of my mind-scape if I were particularly inclined after a night... But in each, if there's a room, it'll be the same size in and out... If someone lives there, they're likely to have a bed and cooking-pan and stove, they're likely to have their things scattered about... Broadly, if not always, there are aqueducts for water and storage rooms for supplies. ... Whereas lately, all of that seems askew. In doubt. Not assured. It... sounds frightening, phrased like that. It - " Terrence catches himself, fidgets with his spoon some more. "It's not. ... It feels like my foundations are on shifting ground. Transformation can be frightening."

"Of course," she says. "This... might be a weird question, but how would you describe the architecture? In your dreams before you read the book, I mean."

Terrence is curious about her curiosity. As he thinks about her question, a wistful smile breaks across his face. "It was lovely. I should know. I built it." ... He pauses. "I mean. Not - all of it, consciously. But a lot of it, consciously! The roots of it were rather Egyptian, or Babylonian, I suppose my younger mind's conception of something Biblical. At accordingly grand scale. But I built up in whatever style I was interested in at the time: Greek, Roman, Ottoman, Arabic..."

That may well be odder than the current dreams. "Thank you, that's very informative," he says, looking at Inaaya to determine if it was actually informative.

It is.

She does not want it to be.

She doesn't want to be right, she doesn't want to live in a world where the King in Yellow can take this away from people, she does not want to, but-- you can't change the world by pretending it isn't there, whatever is true is already true--

"Now-" Terrence glances between the two of them, pleasant and confused and interested at this reaction, sympathetic but even more interested at Inaaya's look - "Do you think you could explain to me what you could possibly have learned from that?"

If Sal looks mysterious enough it will be just as good as answering the question.

"....I'm really sorry," she says, quietly. "That you lost that. I don't know if I can explain or not and if I can I'm not sure I should. But I'm sorry."

"...I'm sleeping poorly. I haven't lost anything." He hasn't, right? Of course he hasn't. "It'll come back. I'm sure of it. It's alright."

Terrence smiles, still confused but encouragingly. He believes in what he's saying.

Yeah, see, the problem is that Inaaya isn't sure she does. "I hope you're right."

Meanwhile--

Jing Yi and Evie are going on a date to picnic in the park!

Probably there is no way to fuck there but, you know, there are dark places full of trees.

The fact that this is the order they are doing things is kind of amusing, but Jing Yi is mostly effervescent about getting to spend time with Evie and going ~*on a date*~ with her.

Evie is a wonderful cook.

Evie is wonderful at everything. But cooking is definitely one of the things she's wonderful at. "This is delicious," he says. "Best I've ever had."

Teasing: "I suppose you go for picnic lunches in the park with all the girls."