2: Sleepless
I startled awake, gasping for breath, feeling sweat run down my face. For a moment I was seized by a tearing, clawing panic and I glanced about frantically like a tiger in a cage. My mind came to terms with reality in a second. I was home...in my own bed...
It was only a nightmare, nothing more, I assured myself, looking around the room and seeing that everything appeared normal. I felt tempted to put on my slippers and go across the hall to wake up my assistant. However, getting her up for something so childish as my having a nightmare, no matter how terrible, seemed silly. Besides, if any of the guards saw me I would crying I would be embarrassed. I wrapped my arms around myself and mumbled some prayers, trying to calm down and go back to sleep. I closed my eyes tightly, listening to the faint sound of rain outside. At first I began to relax, but as I drifted back into sleep the haunting images assaulted me once again and I shivered in fear.
What do I need pride for? I slipped out of my bed into my green slippers and shuffled out of my room. The door squeaked as I opened it and I mentally made a note to myself to ask someone to oil it. Nika's room was just across the hall. Fortunately, her door opened more quietly than mine had. "Nika...Nika, wake up..." I murmured, leaning over my sleeping assistant. She twitched in her sleep and turned away from me. I scooted closer to her bed and reached out softly to shake her. I have always disliked having to wake people up. I suppose that started a very long time ago when I woke up my father because I couldn't sleep. I was about seven, I think...I climbed up onto his bed and shook his arm a little. I will never forget how sternly he sent me back to my room, telling me never to come into his quarters without his invitation again. I was so scared.
"Bishop Sasarai...?" Nika mumbled, sitting up and rubbing her eyes, "What is it?"
"...I," suddenly my fears felt so trivial, "I had a nightmare...I can't sleep."
She shook her head and slid out of her bed slowly, "I'll come sit with you," she told me.
Nika makes a funny sight in the middle of the night. Her dark blond hair sticks up at awkward angles and her hair is often more out of her ponytail than it is in. This night was no exception.
Nika held my hand and went back into my room with me. In my mind I can imagine myself, so much younger, being led places the same way. ...Although, I suppose I was only younger, not truly a child. I don't know why I think of things that way? Maybe that is how they wished me to. Like I had real memories of a childhood.
She sat down on my bed with me and asked, "Is there anything in particular I can do?"
"I just don't want to be alone..." I said to her, but I really wanted to tell her everything. I wanted to tell her about what I did during the war and how Luc was my brother and what I really am...but I fear that I'll sound too strange and she'll be scared. Nash knows, as do Lena and Dios. But how do I explain to Nika?
Nika pulled over my chair from my desk and sat in it with her legs tucked up and smiled at me. Her cerulean eyes were half-closed. She looked like she was barely staying awake.
I cannot hold this pain inside.
"Nika...in my nightmare I was eating at that fancy table no one ever uses with His Holiness and he asked me why I was there with him...I said, "You asked me to come," and he threw a bowl full of blood at me...I was looking down at my blood-spattered robes and when I looked up I was standing with him in that dark room he works in. I felt very small...maybe it was like something that happened when I was younger...he turned to me and handed me a large glass orb that was sort of glowing and had some sort of liquid floating in it, "Hold this for a minute," he said. Then he started sorting through his books, looking for something, and I dropped the sphere...it cracked on the floor and all I could do was look at the horrible thing spilling on the floor..."
I could see her face loose color at my words. I was the one who had been upset, but I felt the need to say something reassuring. "It was just a dream Nika."
She placed a hand on her face for a moment and closed her eyes, "A real creepy one, that's for sure...no wonder you looked so upset..."
We sat quietly for a few minutes then; neither of us saying a word. Nika could not seem to make eye contact with me. I guess she was feeling nervous.
"Nika, if you found out that I was something entirely different than you'd thought I was, would you still be so nice to me?" I asked, awkwardly.
"Of course, Sasarai," she responded, "Whatever you are, it doesn't change the things that I really like about you..."
I nodded, somewhat pleased by the reply, "Oh, that's good...thank you."
"Uh, you're welcome."
We sat quietly. The rain continued to fall outside. I could hear it pounding away on the swollen earth as I fell asleep. When I closed my eyes, she was still sitting near me. And the rain was still falling.