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  Dreams that are poetry.

  Songs that are people.

  To be more than one thing at a time.

  The layers within words.

  Collected Unpublished Lyrics

  - Sibsil Creed, Stories of Shurwinn, (2772)

  I opened my eyes, and it was still mostly dark outside. So, a bit before sunrise, then. I was drowsy, so I let my eyes close and drifted. It was day five of my trip, and the day before, all I had eaten was costamelon, craving it like an addict.

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  I just wanted to keep eating the juicy fruit until I turned purple. As I slowly woke from a refreshing, deep sleep, my body was relaxed and languid, and it was nice to lie in bed feeling good.

  It dawned on me that my head didn’t hurt. MY HEAD DIDN’T HURT!

  I wanted to laugh; I was so overjoyed! I smiled against my pillow, happiness overflowing. The joy warmed me from the inside out, and I felt so light!.

  Light as a feather, and my mind was clearer than it had ever been. It seemed like happiness would spill out of my eyes while my brain filled with soft, glowing light.

  It was silver, no, it was gold. No! It was purple. No, was it pink? What was that light? That blissful, blissful feeling of being so alive? Full of joy and ecstasy overflowing!

  There was light in my head, running down my neck, feeling like it was stripping apart my spine and running down my back. Tingling. I wanted to laugh. Gaping with awe, I was so overcome, I couldn’t move.

  What the stars was this? Amazing, that’s what. I didn’t want it to end. I just wanted to keep going and going.

  My legs were still, but my feet flexed. Like there was something that wanted to flow from the top of my head down and out the bottoms of my feet.

  I felt the bed, the stone floor, the walls, the street outside. I felt the garden on the roof and Ritsken in her house. The creatures all around, and a village full of people.

  Buildings, walls, and porters.

  Beyond that, I stretched into the desert, wide and vast, and I expanded past it. I was so vast. I was the world. I was sand. I was morning sky.

  I felt the sun rising, and I was glorious.

  I was beauty.

  I was all living things.

  I was everything that was yet to be.

  I was the stars beyond the stars.

  Aware of my gasping breath, I calmed myself, inhaling slowly, blinking. Pull it together, Ryst.

  I couldn’t see, so I breathed in, focusing on the air moving through my lungs. In, then out; returning to myself.

  I was Ryst, lying in bed. I was there, small and myself. And I was calm, steady, whole, and free.

  Finally.