Helis d'Ambray, currently standing guard behind the royal thrones, fails to keep the delighted surprise off their face, but ends up frozen for a second, until the guard deputy-captain steps up to take their post and pushes them forward with a grin.

They circle around to the center, make a low bow several steps before the thrones, approach, and kneel.  They manage to be reasonably graceful about all of it, having practiced until it felt comfortable - they like court, and aspire to one day be one of those shiny people who look natural there.

The royalty smile at them with their classic poise. The Queen says, too quietly for anyone else to hear, "It's been lovely seeing you jump in to everything. You have exactly the sort of enthusiasm we love to see, and your art is beautiful. And you've been so helpful at events."

The King projects his voice enough for the front half of court and most of the other people behind the thrones to hear. "Helis, ever since you joined you've been learning and helping. You've been making beautiful garb. You've been guarding her majesty at events and during court. I've seen you fight, and how you're not afraid to try things and fail and learn and try again and you're already improving. And whenever there's something that could use an extra pair of hands during setup or cleanup, there you are, making it happen. And so we would do this."

He gestures to the Jewel Herald, who holds up a beautifully illuminated scroll and starts reading. He's projecting well enough for practically everyone to hear, because you don't volunteer to be Jewel Herald if you don't like to make noise. "It is the joyous duty of a ruler to see and reward the achievements of the populace. Helis d'Ambray has come to Our notice. They defend Our Sylvan lands by force of arms, and spread beauty with the work of their loom and needle. When duty calls, they appear. Therefore do we," absolutely flawless enunciation of the royals' foot-long Italian names, "award them Arms and name them a Noble of Our court." Then there's a bit more metadata with the date and event name and such but the important thing is that Helis gets to keep the scroll and also stand up. 

Just before the King says "Noble Helis, turn and greet the populace," the Queen slips a second piece of paper into Helis' hand beside the scroll. 

"For Noble Helis!" yells the Jewel Herald, and everyone raises a hand to do the V sign.

"VIVAT! VIVAT! VIVAT!"

There's a quiet and heartfelt "Thank you, Your Majesty" or two, and the traditional delighted noise at how amazing the scroll is (it's absolutely amazing and they're going to frame it), but luckily the ceremony does not call for Helis to say or do much of anything. They beam at the populace, turn around again to back away properly and bow as they're dismissed, and then there's a whirlwind of congratulations and hugs from their friends and neighbors. People keep saying so many kind things that they barely make it back to their guard post before the end of court, and need to wipe their eyes as they do.

The SCA token-gifting culture has given them the right reflexes for what to do when someone quietly gives you some small thing, so they carefully put away the Queen's little piece of paper without looking, don't lose it during the next few hours, and remember to take it out and look at it once they finally have a quiet moment - after they have talked to everyone (and mostly managed to remember all of their titles), gotten so much advice and praise that they're not sure they can remember it all, accepted multiple drinks and snacks, and helped carry everything that needed carrying as the event wound down. It's surrounded by a little pile of other tokens by then, but upon examination it doesn't look like a token itself, just a piece of paper with writing on it. What does it say?

Can you meet us at our car after the event? We'd like your help with a secret project. Thank you!

Then there's a license plate number, corresponding to one of the last cars left in the parking lot. 

A secret project!! And oh no, Helis wishes they had read it a little earlier than this, but in their defense they really weren't expecting anything time-sensitive to be conveyed in writing.

They make their way to the car immediately, with the slightly awkward half-bow of a person who realizes nobody involved is in garb any longer but still can't treat their royalty like they're just normal people.

"You wanted me for something, Your Majesties? I'm sorry I made you wait."

"No need to be sorry--or to stand on ceremony. The thing we wanted to talk to you about is somewhat more serious than most of what we do here. It's an opportunity to help a lot of people, but there are risks. Something like joining a volunteer fire department, albeit much less time consuming. If that doesn't sound like the sort of thing you want in your life, we can all forget we ever had this conversation and you won't have to worry about it again. Or I can tell you more--but only if you promise to keep it a secret."

Those sure were some words. Why... is... the SCA... running a secret volunteer fire department? Or is it the SCA doing it, rather than Their Majesties in their personal capacity? Presumably they wouldn't be asking a new noble at an event if it was not at all an SCA thing... Well, Helis can come up with some things that are wrong with the world and might need a secret project to fix, although it being not very time-consuming is pretty surprising. Then again, nobody in the SCA is well calibrated about how time-consuming any normal projects are. But Helis can also come up with some hypotheses for secret projects they would not want to be involved in at all, and they don't actually know Their Majesties that well as people.

They feel like they've been quiet for too long, but probably this is expected, given how serious this sounds.

"I... am very confused. Probably everyone is, when you first ask them?" They shake their head, trying to put the confusion aside - it can't be resolved right now, so they should really talk about the things that can be resolved. "It sounds like the sort of thing I probably want in my life, especially given the circumstances you're asking under. I will keep your secret, but before I swear to that, may I know if I'd be swearing it to the crown, or to you as people, mundanely or not, just so I know what-- what category this goes in in my head?..." They know it's an odd and probably unnecessary question, but it feels important to know, for some reason.

They nod understandingly like that's a totally normal response. "I've explained this to a dozen people in my time, and there's really no way to explain this that doesn't make it sound weird. Frankly, it is weird and you're entirely right to have questions. As for who exactly is asking you to keep a secret--well, if we weren't ruling right now it would be someone else asking you, but I think it would be better if you thought of it us as ordinary people asking you as an ordinary person. If it would help to talk to someone you know better and have more reason to trust, we've asked Malcom to stick around as well."

The King waves and Malcolm comes over from where he was leaning casually against his car watching the trees and definitely not waiting for this.

That continues to be confusing! It is an SCA thing but it's for some reason better to act like it's not? Possibly Their Majesties they don't realize how bad Helis Vic? is at being an ordinary person.

But if Malcolm is in on this then it can't be a cult, and probably isn't the bad sort of illegal conspiracy either. "Thank you! That should really help. But, secrecy oath before we do any talking, right?" A bit of an embarrassed smile. "I'm sorry I'm making a big deal out of it, it's just that I'm bad at secrets, and it sounds like you seriously want me to keep this one, so I need to make a big deal of it so it sticks in my head properly." They stand quietly for a moment, thinking about how to even sensibly swear a mundane secrecy oath in a way that will feel like it means the right thing. And whether they're really willing to do that. They haven't sworn a single real oath in their life so far, because they take both their word and their independence too seriously for any of the usual reasons to be worth it - but secrecy isn't that much of a duty to take on, and this has to be something important, given everything about this conversation. If this is something wrong, swearing to keep the secret is still the right thing to do unless it's the sort of thing Helis could have figured out independently - and they sure haven't noticed anything about it in their entire SCA life so far, and they know they're not the sort of person to figure out secrets, so this isn't much to give away in exchange for the opportunity to openly talk people out of whatever wrong thing they might hypothetically be doing. And anyway they really almost certainly aren't, and if this is a good thing then they very much want to be in on it.

"I swear on my mind and honor that I will keep your secret, no matter what it is and no matter how I feel about it, for as long as I live." That wasn't very good, but that's what you get when you only have a minute to think of an oath, and it will do well enough. Helis takes a deep breath, stops looking solemn and goes back to looking confused, but smiles anyway. "Now someone please tell me what this is about, because yes, it's already very weird and I'm not sure whether to expect it to get weirder from here." They look between the crown and Malcolm, not sure who to expect the explanation from.

Malcolm attempts to arrange his face into a reassuring smile, but Malcolm's face never does what he wants it to. 

"The fact that you take this sort of thing seriously is important in more ways than one. And there's no way to explain this slowly with every step making sense, so. The world of dreams is a real place, it's haunted, and a supermajority of SCAdians fight monsters in our sleep to stop them from killing people. We can prove we're not crazy, but only by bringing you into the dreamrealm, and once you've been there it will happen every time you sleep and the dreamwyrms will know you're a threat. Some nights you'll have to fight them just to wake up.

I know you have a million questions and we'll try to answer all of them, but first I want to say: the SCA is also what it pretends to be. We really are a bunch of dorks having fun hitting each other with sticks and making art and studying the past and having fun together and you're going to get to keep that whether you decide to fight monsters with us or not. Unless you decide you don't want to, which is also fine, but I'd be sad because you're cool."

Malcolm is very good, and Helis is used to the face thing. Perhaps his ability to make normal facial expressions was stolen by dream monsters No, probably he was just always like this.

The rest of this sure seems like a great opportunity to suspend judgement and try to build a model of what's potentially going on without trying to convince your brain any of it is real until some point later in the process. Which is very convenient, with how Helis's brain is absolutely not taking any of it as real.

"I'd be sad too! You're great, all of you are great, the SCA is great, and I guess I'm really not surprised that you all decided to fight dream monsters in your sleep given that this is apparently a thing. I mean, I don't really know whether it's a thing yet, because what the fuck, but, uh, hypothetically." Some part of Helis feels bad about not entirely believing what their friend and the crown they admire are telling them, but they were right, this is clearly the sort of situation to treat like an ordinary-ish bizarre claim first and apologize later not apologize at any point because no sane person would want an apology for not believing in the existence of dream monsters on their bare word.

"So... questions. First, uh, why? I assume there's a reason we're fighting the dreamwyrms, but so far you've only said that they try to kill people who opted into it. If normal dreams don't happen in the dreamrealm then what... is... the dreamrealm and how sure are we that any of us need to be there?"

The King scowls the scowl of an old soldier. "Oh, they'd quite like to kill everyone. When someone 'passes peacefully in their sleep', that's dreamwyrms. When a baby dies of 'failure to thrive' or 'sudden infant death', that's dreamwyrms. When a coroner's stumped and puts down 'natural causes', well, sometimes they're just bad at their job, but a lot of the time it's dreamwyrms. They prey on the weak, on anyone whose soul is less than perfectly connected to their body. But they have to get through us first."

"The fight is older than the Society," the Queen adds. "Probably over a thousand years old, though I'm not sure anyone alive knows how it started. There are other groups on other continents. It's very difficult to interact in the dreamrealm with anyone you're not connected to in real life, so we don't coordinate much, but I suspect one of them is descended from the Knights Templar."

Malcom nods. "I've looked at some graphs of US infant mortality statistics versus SCA membership and of course everything's confounded to heck and back but they do line up encouragingly. People have tried to communicate with the dreamwyrms; as far as anyone can tell they're dumb as particularly evil rocks."

The King gets another half-bow with Helis's hand on their heart, because really, pretending to be ordinary people or not, how can you not react to someone saying things like that.

Malcolm gets a grin and a nod. Numbers!

"Why in the world did we end up having to deal with particularly evil rocks?? That's awful!"  Really, of all things.

And yes, it's 'we' and has been so for the last few sentences, oops. Helis knows they need to actually think about this at some point, but emotionally they're somehow skipping the part where they believe this is happening and getting right to the part where they'll obviously get involved. Which, they suppose, is the real order of operations here anyway, so that's well enough.

"And I genuinely cannot tell whether by 'encouragingly' you mean we're somehow less likely to die than random people who haven't opted in, despite what you said about someones needing to fight to wake up, or we're more likely to die, which is evidence for the battle not being made up but not evidence for it accomplishing any-- wait no, ignore me, I'm an idiot, you mean having more SCA membership lowers the overall population mortality in the area, yes, good, it just didn't occur to me that being in the same geographical area would matter. Which is the sort of thing it'll be easier to explain to me once I've tried it."

"So, what do I really need to know before I try it... Am I getting it right that normal people who are dreaming are not usually in the dreamrealm, since you said I need to do a thing to get there? Is it that they sometimes accidentally get in, or that the dreamwyrms sometimes get out?"

Malcolm attempts to answer, gesturing with his hands a lot the way he does when he's worried what he's saying doesn't make any sense. "So, it's sort of like--everyone's soul is in the dreamrealm while their bodies are asleep, but mostly the souls are also asleep, but if you're a dreamwalker your soul is awake. So you don't really perceive the dreamrealm, you just get glimpses that your brain tries to make sense of with normal dreams about, like, being late for a dentist appointment with no pants or whatever. Dreamwalkers can perceive the dreamrealm for what it really is, which is actually a lot weirder than being late for the dentist with no pants, and move around in it and do things."

"Locations in the dreamrealm are only loosely connected to locations in the waking world," adds the king, "but there's still something it means to get between the part where the sleeping souls are and the direction the dreamwyrms come from. It'll make sense when you see it."

"Ohhh. Yeah, that makes perfect sense." And neatly solves problems like 'are we invading the dreamwyrms' home dimension where we wouldn't normally be', not that someone else wouldn't have already figured that out.

"So... what's it like?" Their voice softens, wistful. "And am I just never going to have normal dreams again?" They'll miss them. Even the ones with randomly being naked, but mostly the ones with flying.

They'd miss the ones about war, too, but that sounds like it'll be more than covered.

"I haven't had a normal dream since I started," grins Malcolm, "but I like that. My dreams usually sucked."

The Queen makes the tippy-hand "maybe" gesture. "I get normal dreams a couple times a year, on airplanes and bus rides when I don't fall asleep deeply enough for my soul to wake up properly. I think people vary."

"A few times a year would be nice," they smile. "I mostly like my dreams, and I'd miss flying if I knew I could never have that one again."

"Not that I'd say no just for that, but it makes a difference. So, how do I do this thing?"

The King smiles. "I knew we could count on you. There are two parts to it. First, you need to go to sleep while thinking about the dreamrealm, with as much accurate detail as possible. That's part of why the secrecy: it's possible to become a dreamwalker on accident by worrying about it too vividly.

The second part is to make sure your soul wakes up near us, so we can help you get oriented and watch your back while you learn to fight. Even when you're highly experienced, there's safety in numbers. That means you also need to be thinking about how we're connected on the level that the dreamrealm understands: the level of myths, of archetypes, of concepts and relationships old enough and deep enough for the dreamrealm to understand. It's easy to find one's parents or children in the dreamrealm. Likewise spouses, siblings, close friends--and kings." another momentary smile, this one tinged with acknowledgement of the ridiculous, then he turns serious again. "The most reliable way we've found to get new people in the right place immediately is for them to think of themselves as soldiers of their kingdom forming up under its banner."

Ohh. Is that why everything about the SCA is the way it is? Helis loves the way the SCA is, the web of heartfelt hierarchical relationships that feel real even though on some level they aren't, the way people will describe someone as their squire-brother or apprentice and sound like it really matters, how everyone bows when passing before the thrones. Discovering that there's a deeper meaning to it... It's permission to treat it all as real, and they're not sure they've ever wanted anything more in their entire life.

They go down on one knee, because this is what they're like, and apparently being like this helps.

"That I expect to have no trouble at all with, Your Majesty."

The King claps them on the shoulder and says, "I'm glad to hear it." The Queen holds out a hand to help them up.

(Malcolm, who will never tell anyone whether he had trouble with this, smiles at a random patch of air.)

"I think that's everything that you absolutely need to know before you go to sleep tonight, but we'd be happy to answer more questions, and if you want to be sure you'll get there on the first try we should tell you more details about the dreamrealm."

The royalty are wonderful, and Helis appreciates them so much for gracefully putting up with their half-baked emotional gestures. (Also Malcolm looks like he might need a hug, but Helis is not socially graceful enough to know how to do anything about it.)

"I'll take more details, if you have the time." To be sure they get there tonight, because it'd be terribly disappointing not to at this point, and to know what sort of place to emotionally prepare for, and maybe just not to be left alone with all this yet. "But I shouldn't keep all of you, especially in this parking lot. Malcolm, do you want dinner or anything, or is this not a hanging out with people sort of evening?" Figuring out social plans always feels awkward, but hopefully someone better at it can take over if needed.

"Yeah, I'm down to get food!" Malcolm fishes in his bag for his phone. "Let me see what's good around here."

"There's a Chipotle up the road," says the Queen, who has been to a dozen events at this park over the years.

"Good with me if it's good with yinz! Helis, what's your opinion on Mexican food?"

Chipotle's nice, and if everyone else thinks it's a reasonable place to quietly hold secret conversations, Helis is not going to argue with them - they've been doing this for probably decades. The trip and the food ordering provide some downtime to try to settle their thoughts about the entire revelation, although honestly it only ends up feeling weirder and more incongruous in a well-lit fast-food place than it did in the parking lot at dusk.

"I don't know that I'll really manage to emotionally prepare for whatever ends up happening, but details seem like they should help." They give an uncertain smile. "And I'd hate to wake up tomorrow having not managed it at all." Well, it might be nice to have one more normal dream - except that it would probably be one of the unpleasant ones, and then they'd want one more try at it, and they know this sort of gambling until a positive outcome is not a good pattern.