Would you like to hear a story?  I can't promise it will be anything you haven't heard before.  I cannot, unfortunately, profess to relate tales of great originality and creativity.  For, I tell tales of what I know, and what I know is dreams.

No, don't walk away.  You came to me, you can at least here me out.  Maybe I can say something that hasn't been said before... but I'm not going to go out of my way to try.  It's futile.  People have been telling stories about dreams for... like, what?  Forever?  Yeah, for like forever.

I think it might be because it's something that all people have in common, they all dream.  It's nice to have common ground, even if it's shifting dream sands--

No, stop right there.  _Don't_ say it.  Look, I have one rule about when I tell stories... you have to agree to _not_ make Sandman references.  Look, Neil Gaiman was obviously a pretty creative person, and sure, he even got some stuff right.  But he also got some stuff wrong.

No, I have nothing against the Sandman series.  It's great stuff.  It's just that it's fiction, and a lot of people seem to forget that.

Hmm?  Oh, you have to be going?  Well, off you go then.  Can't stand around on the street all day and talk to people, now can you?  Don't worry about me.  There's always someone who has time for a story.

Someone like... you maybe?

**
Dream Hunters
Prologue I: Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself
**
Unofficial BGM: Final Fantasy VIII: Original Soundtrack, disc 3 & 4

**

Hello, my name is Matthias, and I'm a dream.  

~The Dream?~

No, _a_ dream.  Didn't you hear what I told that other guy about the Sandman refs?  

~Sorry.  Couldn't help myself.  It was too tempting.~

Yeah, yeah, well, just try to keep them to yourself from now on.

~I only read it because it was about dreams.  They're sort of an interest of mine.~

I'm not surprised.

I say I'm a dream with such utter conviction because it's probably the 
only thing in my strange "life" that I know to be true.  I suspect I 
wasn't always a dream, just because I still exist... somehow in the 
waking.  Not that I'm really living during those moments.

~Hell, no one really is.~

Shall I relate to you what I know about myself?  Don't worry, it's not 
much so it won't take too much of your precious dreamtime.  I just like 
to talk to dreamers, sometimes.  There aren't very many other folks who will stop to talk.

~S'problem with city dwellers.  They're always in such a hurry.  Can't see why... Anyway, please continue.~

My name is, as I said, Matthias. It may or may not have been the one I had in WakeLife.  I could have just as likely had another one.  I've been using this one for as long as I can remember, which, I might I add, isn't an overly large period.  I have another name, but it's more of a title.  It was given to me by the dream who last held the position, and it was his title.  He was called Shaper--

~Wait, Shaper?  As in _The Shaper_?`

Yeah, The Shaper.  You've heard of him?  

~Saw him once.  It was like he breathed magic.  But he looked a little too Goth-y.  Liked to keep his secrets secret.~

Yeah, that's him.  Tall guy, kinda pale, had a thing for black...

~You look like him, y'know.  Bet that's one of the things that drew him to you.  They say the Shapers don't like too much variation.  They like people to think that it's the been the same guy since... whenever.~

Well, I guess sorta look like him.  I never really thought much about it.  

~Not quite so tall, though.  That's good, it makes you more approachable, less menacing.  Sensible clothes, too.  So what color are your eyes 'neath those goggles?~

My eyes?  Not sure.  Some odd color, probably.  

~Take 'em off, and lemme have a look. ...  Huh.  Kinda dark violet-gray.~

Violet-gray?  Is that even a possible color?  

~You're the Shaper, you tell me.  His eyes weren't that color.  I know, cuz I saw them.  He didn't wear goggles.~

No, his eyes were... brown or something.  

~It depended.  They shifted colors, like yours are doing.  That his pouch?~

Yeah, it was his but he gave it to me.  Wait, I'm getting off-topic, aren't I?  My apologies, that's rather sloppy story-telling on my part.  

~My cawing might have had something to do with it.~

Well, yes, you are partially to blame, but I shouldn't have gotten sidetracked.

~No harm done.  I'm not going anywhere, and I'm guessing you don't have any place special to be.~

Not really, no.  I guess that's an advantage I have over other dreams.  You see, as I said, I am fully aware that I'm a dream.  I know that rules and logic that we keep from WakeLives don't apply to us here.  There is no logic in dreams, just... 

~Bleedover from dreamers that drag their WakeLives into their dreams.~

'Bleedover'?  Interesting choice of words.

~Yeah, well it's true, y'know.  Back, way back, before your time, I guess this place was like a huge vast plain.  Full of wild jungles and distant shores.  At least during the age of exploration.  Or so I've heard.  How old are you, anyway?~

My age is unknown to me.  I can't be older than twenty, but there are 
times when I feel like I've been around since the dawn of time.

~Bleedover from the other Shapers, I'd bet.~

Most likely.

~So... I heard something about a story.  Not that the foreplay isn't 
interesting... I mean, people get around to saying things when they get to them, but I've got a bit of a trip ahead of me.~

All right.  What sort of story did you want to hear?

~How about you tell me how you got to be The Shaper?~

That's a rather personal story.

~I'll repay you with one of my own.  I'm Poet, by the way.~

...The Poet?  But you're no dreamer.

~Not going to get that story now, am I?  You want to pack up and leave, l'il Shaper?~

I'm not scared of you.

~There's no reason to be scared of me.  I'm a poet.~

The way I hear it, you're more of a mercenary, who'll hunt down anything for the right price.

~Yeah, I'm that too.  I'm a lot of things.  We need to have something to do, to help kill time or whatever passes for time here.  Now, about that story...~

Why are you so interested?

~You know what the problem with most dreams is, Shaper?  They don't know they're dreams.  They rush about, going on with their 'lives' and 'jobs' and never clue in.  You ever tried to have a conversation with one of them?  I mean, really talk to them?  It's impossible.  The moment you start bringing up Baku herding or Nightmare hunting, they give you this look like you've sprouted feathers.  You said it yourself, you have the advantage cuz you know you're a dream.  I 
mean, look at the two of us.  You and I both know the sidewalk under our feet isn't real.  Neither, is this bench we're sitting on... or that damn crow over in that tree across the road.~

Crow might be a Dreamer.

~S'pose you're right.  Either way, it probably doesn't know this _isn't_ WakeLife.  By the way, the bench is too comfy.  Did you make it?  It wasn't here the last time I came through.~

Yeah, I made it.  You really think it's too comfy?

~It's more comfortable than the last park bench I sat on.~

Dream bench?

~No, an actual WakeLife one.~

So I'm not the only one who still lives a WakeLife.

~If you want to call what I've got a 'life'.  Let's just say you're not the only one who got pulled through.~

How so?

~Nuh uh.  First your story then mine.  Gotta have some rules here.  Otherwise things'll start falling apart.  Hypocritical, isn't it?  Here I am complaining about BleedOver only to start praising now.  But anyway, let's hear that story of yours.~

Okay...

**
Dream Hunters
Prolouge I.i: Shaper

Unofficial BGM: Final Fantasy VIII: Original Soundtrack, disc 4
**

"A sheet of glass," the pale man beside me remarks.  "Dreaming is like looking at waking life through a sheet of glass.  You can see it as if it's just beyond your reach, but if you try to touch it... your fingers brush the pane to remind you that it's not yours to have anymore."

I nod politely and return to stirring my coffee with the plastic swivel stick.  The waitress makes her rounds back from the tables and steps behind the counter.  She stops before him, the pendant catches the light.  "Warm up that coffee of yours?" she asks.

He nods, and she pours half an inch back into the cup.

She nods and moves towards me.  "What about you?"

I shake my head.  She shrugs and moves on to chat to the cook through the order window.  Damn, I had been waiting for twenty minutes to try and talk to her.  Just my luck that I'd freeze up.

I sigh, lean back, but not too far because it wouldn't do to fall off the chair.  From the corner of my eye, I sneak another quick glance at him.  He's been here as long as I have and I haven't heard him say more than those few words.  Is he trying to start a conversation with me?

That's a hell of a way to open up a connection.  Talking about sheets 
of glass.  God, he's pale.  Black hair to match his unimpressive black clothes.  Yeah, I bet he's a Goth.  Nice cloak, though.

I had a friend who was a Goth.  Nice girl, but she did some strange stuff.  She wasn't as spooky as she looked.  This guy reminds me of her.  He's kinda scary, but hell, I'm probably just as scary...

He notices me or something.  He looks over and catches my eyes with his.  They're so dark they're black and fathomless.  Eyes are supposed to be the window to the soul, but his are just so... black.  For a moment I think he doesn't have eyes.  I look away.  Stir my coffee.

"If I were to offer you some advice, would you accept it?" he asks finally.

"I guess it would depend on what it was," I manage to say, my tongue feels swollen. This is downtown at near midnight...  what if he's a psycho?

"I don't speak to many people anymore," he remarks.  "But I remember when I did, they all had wishes that I could chose to grant.  Do you have a wish?"

I blink.  "Are you a genie or something?" I ask, sarcastic.

"Perhaps.  Perhaps not.  But the wish can only affect you. So no world peace or stuff like that.  However, if you want to fly, that might be doable..."

I laugh.  "You can't be serious."  He looks at me.  He's serious.  
"Okay, okay..."  I'll humor him.  "I wish... I wish..." I bit my lip.  
"I wish that I was happy.  Can you do that?"

"What is it that would make you happy?" he asks.

I faltered.  "I don't know," I tell him, honestly.

Silence.  I look around at the empty diner.  Where has the waitress gone?  The lights are off, and I can't even see anything beyond the sheets of glass that make the big window panes.  It's just him and me.

"You simply know that you are not," he shakes his head.  "Flirting with death isn't the answer."

I unconsciously glance down at the bandages peeking out from my heavy coat sleeve.  "Yeah, well I didn't have a genie offering to grant my wishes yesterday."

"What would make you happy?" he repeats.  "What made you happy before?"

"I was happy when my life had a point to it," I admit.  "Beyond that, your guess is as good as mine."

"All existences have a purpose.  It is to exist."

I snicker.  "Well, that's not enough for me."

"Perhaps, it was also not enough for me..."  he trails off.  "Hold out your hand," he instructs, after a few seconds of silence.

"Why?" I ask.

"I feel like granting one last wish."

I shrug.  Might as well follow the game through to the end.  I hold out my hand.  He reaches over and puts a small pull-string pouch in my hand.

"It's your purpose now."  He says.  "You are the Shaper.  Now, wake up 
before you bleed to death."

**
Dream Hunters
Prologue I.ii: Review

**

The blond-haired boy blinked his green eyes.  "That's it?" he asked, looking 
disappointed.  "That's the best you can do?"

The other boy, furrowed his brow, the gold-rimmed aviator goggles wiggling 
slightly.  "Well, that's what happened."

"You're definitely new at this, Shaper.  Where's your dinouement?  You've given 
me no introduction and you're leaving me with a cliffhanger.  Why was the boy in 
the cafe?  What happened when he 'woke' up?"

"It's my story, and I'll chose what details I put in or leave out of it." Shaper 
frowned.  "You seem to think you can do better, Poet."

Poet leaned back against the bench, resting his arms along the back edge.  
"Challenge issued," he remarked, "and accepted."

**
Dream Hunters
Prologue I.ii: Poet

Unofficial BGM: Ninedays-- The Maddening Crowd

**

The beast looks like a cross between an elephant and a Technicolor acid 
flashback.  Long snout, strange colored hair... patterns like a wave that all 
bleed together.  It was like wet watercolor paint that had water spilt on it.  
It was casually shuffling along the ground, its long snout making wet snuffling 
noises. 

I've been after it for a while.  Curiosity and a lack of anything better to do 
is mostly the cause.  I'm probably going to get in trouble for coming so far 
into the woods, but I don't care.  I'm already in trouble with my folks.

You see, my Dad collects antique weapons.  He's a sport hunter, archer, 
...whatever.  Anyway, among his collection, he has this Japanese sword set that 
he'd brought back from his honeymoon in Japan.  Since my mother was, most 
unfortunately, deceased, you can understand that there was a great deal of 
sentimental value attached to that particular piece of his collection.

My father and I had a very violent fight earlier that night.  Yelling, slamming 
doors, me storming off with his prized Katana and my mother's old journal.  I 
was angry; hey, it was puberty.  Everything's a big deal when you're going 
through puberty.  

So I took it, and I went outside to the woods behind our farm.  You haven't 
really seen the stars till you've seen them on a clear night out in the country.  
They're larger and brighter, and the moon shines through the leaves, casting 
shadowplays on the ground.

There's something about the way the moonlight glints off the metal of a well-
crafted sword that's breathtaking.  It's like a symphony playing perfectly in 
harmony, the moonlight dances along the blade and never misses a step.

I was listening to the symphony when the creature made the strange noise and 
walked across my path.  It sounded like a vacuum cleaner.  It sounded like 
someone trying to suck air in between their teeth.  It sounded like an elephant 
with a blocked sinus.

It snuffled over towards me, giving no indication of seeing me.  Its snout 
chased over the journal, and then it sucked it up.  It ate my mother's journal.  
That journal was all I had left of her, poems and flowing hopes and wishes.  It 
ate it.

Needless to say, I was royally pissed.  I yelled, waving the katana, and it 
looked up.  It gave me a sort of once-over, and then it turned and took off, 
much quicker than anything I'd ever seen.

It ran between the trees, and the air shimmered like there was something 
hovering between the two trees.  I noticed a definite sort of resistance as I 
pushed through after it.  Beyond the trees, was a field, but it wasn't the 
_right_ field.  See, beyond our shelterbelt is a field where the dugout is, and 
about quarter-of-a-mile or so till the next farm.  You can see the lights from 
that farmhouse as soon as you get through the thicker spruces that make up the 
back layer of the belt.

Only, I couldn't see the lights, and when I looked back I couldn't seen the 
shelterbelt, either.  Just a dark field of grass spreading out in all directions 
like a carpet of forest green.  There wasn't _anything_ else, you see, just the 
grass and the blanket of stars.  The stars were wrong, too.  They were in 
chaotic patterns I'd never seen, tinted like Christmas lights and dancing like 
fireflies.

I barely noticed all this, as I was too intent on reaching the creature, which 
was futile since it was going as fast as a car or a bullet train.  I started to 
run, but _he_ stopped me.

"You can't catch a baku, little dreamer," he said, holding me back by the 
shoulder.

I turned and saw him.  The Shaper.  Of course, I didn't know that's who he was.  
I was a dreamer, someone who'd walked across the boundary without even realizing 
it.  He was tall, cloaked in black, with black hair and pale skin.  His eyes 
were, at least at that first moment, a twilight blue.

"What's a baku?" I asked.

"A baku is the Japanese name for the dream creature that can be summoned to take 
away a dream of misfortune or ill omen," he replied.  "They run faster than any 
other dream, as they deliver the nightmares and bad dreams far out into their 
domain."  He paused.  "But they have been troubling me lately, as they seem to 
have discovered a boundary, a rift between the waking world and the dream world.  
I see they've caused trouble again, dragging a poor little dreamer into their 
fields while he's still awake."

"Do you mean me?" I asked, looking around.  "This is just a dream?"

"It is a place in the dream world.  But you are not dreaming.  You are awake."

"Is that possible?"

"There are different ways of being awake.  There is the Awake of the Waking World, and the Awake of the dream world."  He paused.  "But you are neither and both.  Awake of the Waking world, but standing in the Dream world.  A rarity."

I didn't know what he was talking about.  "How about I just turn around and walk back home?" I suggested.  "I promise not to do it again."

He looked at me, a sad expression on his face.  "No, such a promise can never be kept.  You will do it again, if you intend to or not."  He shook his head, and reached for the small pull-string pouch on his belt.  "No, this power must be Shaped, defined."  He looked at me.  "I have a favor to ask of you."

"What is it?"

"Guard this barrier.  Decide who shall pass through it."

**

Shaper frowned.  "You said 'yes'?"

"Yeah, I said 'yes'."  Poet smiled, sadly.  "You're not the only one who can pass through to the Waking World, Shaper, and you're not the only one who said 'yes' without knowing what it meant."

Shaper was silent for a long time, looking down at the brown leather gloves on his hands.

Poet hesitated.  "Look, Shaper--"

Shaper looked up.  "Poet, I would like it if you called me 'Matthias'."

Poet grinned.  "Is that your way of asking to be friends, Matthias?"

"Your story was far too expository for my tastes," he replied.  "Plus, you didn't have enough descriptive narration, and you kept hopping between colloquial and overly-fancy language."

"Well, I didn't exactly get a chance to wrap it up all nicely.  Someone interrupted me."  Something glinted in Poet's dark green eyes.

Shaper adjusted the scarf around his neck, loosening it.  "My personal opinion remains unchanged."

"So we both suck," Poet shrugged.  "I haven't told anyone a story in a long...  and I didn't think I did that badly..."

"Improv is the most difficult of the dramatic arts.  Given some time to 
prepare, I'm sure the stories would improve."

"Might help to have an audience that's not so picky."


Shaper lifted his goggles, pushing them to rest back on his bandanna.  "Are you suggesting we do this again sometime, Poet?" he asked, eyes shifting to the same green as Poet's.

Poet stood, nodding, and attached the slim katana to the leather looped around his hips.  "How about in one Wake Week.  Should be enough time to either experience or fabricate something interesting."

Shaper chewed his lip thoughtfully.  "Where?"

"I picked the time, you pick the place, preferably one with Dreamers.  Dreams never want to take the time to listen."

"All right.  I know just the place.  We'll meet at this bench and then proceed there."  Shaper stood, and extended his hand.  Brown leather glove met a black fingerless one as the two dreams shook hands.

A star twinkled above, as if to signal the sealing of the arrangement on some higher level.  Perhaps.  Perhaps not.  It was after all, only a dream star, and it was only there because Dreamers expected it to be.


**

prologue fin

*
Explanation: 

This was all done in good fun, and to get an idea out of my head before 
it makes me insane.  You see, when I first heard about "Dream Hunters", 
I had a very different idea of what it would be about from the actual 
reality of the story. 

As this is the prologue, it was just to introduce Shaper and Poet to some degree. I am currently plotting out the first story arc, tentatively called "The Dream Tales" (like "The Canterbury Tales").  It should define more about Shaper, and Poet, plus introduce other characters while sort of... giving a direction to the frame that the "stories" the two dreams fit in.

Aside from the Sandman, there were a couple other sources of influence...

John Evans et al who've done "Nightmare Fighter Yumeko"
(http://www.chaoseed.com/btr/nfy/) <-- Go read, maybe even sign up.

Todd Harper's "Dream Tides", and I am extremely pissed off about it not winning the 3i starter contest.
(http://www.improfanfic.com/3i/experimental009.txt)


The Sunburst Project, Week 12
http://www.chaoseed.com/btr/sbp/
8/16/00