Kinship in Winter
Dreamed 2023/6/2 by Elia Rowan
sostrata.neocities.org
Dreamt of hiking on a somewhat hostile world, a hot and dry planet of oceanic topography bared to the clear blue skies. It was winter, about as non-hostile as the planet got for humans: the plants helpfully signposted where I could not go, their foliage green-yellow-red depending on heat (not a planet for the colorblind). I had the impression that I had been here before, and was here as a guest.
For much of the dream, I wasn't hiking. I was down in the bottom of one of the world's ubiquitous trench-valleys near an alpine lake (one that, if the oceans were as deep as those on Earth, would be kilometres underwater), trying to photograph the beautiful orange foliage--to the planet's natives, thriving in a nice temperate region; to me by all rights hotter than I could handle.
I wandered around a little, not-quite-eavesdropping on the conversations of those around me--mostly humans, but the quadruped sapient people native to this planet were common too (awake, I get the vibes of alien centaurs like Jay Eaton's Centaurs and to a lesser extent Alex Ries' Birrin).
Alien centaurs, by Jay Eaton |
Birrin, by Alex Ries |
I don't remember what they were talking about, but gradually they cleared the area--giving me opportunities to get the best shots of the slowly-reddening hills and trees.
I was higher up in the trench-valley, making for greener altitudes. Even now things were trending back towards green, the air growing colder and thinner. Usually I wasn't the one doing the hiking, but I took over for a stretch of slightly inclined walking (shows my skill, huh). Not many people on this part of the trail--hadn't caught up with the rest of the pack, it seems. A few people were going down instead... but there's only one person who looks about as awkward as I do. Somehow I start a conversation (though awake I only have a faint inkling of what the conversation was like).
Something deep inside me says this person is capital-I Important, but I try not to think about that. They talk to me about how most humans here seem to act like the shape of the world is a challenge to them, like they'll prove something by staying in the heat longer than they can handle. I believe I say something about sympathizing with that, but that I'm mostly here because I'm too much of a perfectionist to get going when I need to. They seem to agree, and point me towards something special.
I have turned off a little into a high cul-de-sac. I'm high up enough that I'm not causing trouble for the one doing the hiking, thankfully. The hidden valley, as it were, is almost a map wall--covered in what could be topographic maps of the planet, but due to the red-yellow-green plant life it could just as easily be made from true-color data. They are beautiful--I fall in love with the planet once more.
I remember one map vividly, probably because it was the one I--or the person driving the body while I wasn't taking pictures--was using to navigate. Three great trench-valleys rise towards a meeting with a grand equatorial plateau- the western one is crushed between the plateau and the central valley, unable to continue; the eastern one folds up until it joins the central one, and the central valley ascends into the snowy heights of the plateau.
NOTES IN THE MORNING
EDITOR'S NOTE
I wish Elia had sketched that map... but the text does imply a world much like Capsica, where foliage color marks temperature zones so that ground-cover maps work as (rough) topo maps too. And yet... Elia hikes in a trench-valley like Earth's sea floor, suggesting quiet a different Planetocopian world, dry little Tharn. Come to think of it, Tharn has weird-looking centauroids too--Lobbras.
Tharn (end of Mrr Trench) by Wayan |
Tharnian centauroids (Lobbras) by Wayan |
About Elia's closing sentence: my own alien-planet dreams (like Shout in a Crowd) agree with this idea that quite a lot of art (even science-based art) is at least partly meant as a flag saying "Here I am, I'm this sort of weirdo, anyone like me out there?"
I mean, it works for me. I get sent dreams like this.
--Chris Wayan
World Dream Bank homepage - Art gallery - New stuff - Introductory sampler, best dreams, best art - On dreamwork - Books
Indexes: Subject - Author - Date - Names - Places - Art media/styles
Titles: A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - IJ - KL - M - NO - PQ - R - Sa-Sh - Si-Sz - T - UV - WXYZ
Email: wdreamb@yahoo.com - Catalog of art, books, CDs - Behind the Curtain: FAQs, bio, site map - Kindred sites