DCW: Awareness

Writers: Jane
Date Posted: 11th June 2007

Characters: Ylisahn
Description: Ylisahn wakes in the middle of the night for no reason.
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 4, day 18 of Turn 4

Being wide awake in the middle of the night was becoming common-place
for the Dolphin Cove Weyr Headwoman. She lay on her side of her bed and
looked up in to the darkness trying to make sense of the sounds she
could hear and wondering why her brain was wide awake.

It wasn't the rain, surely? It had rained plenty of times since the
storm and she hadn't felt anything special. It had just been rain,
after all; not a hurricane. It was just seasonal rainstorms travelling
along the coast as they did all the time.

She had even seen this particular rain before she went to bed. Had run
through it from the dining cavern to her new room and been scolded by
Wirril for not getting out of her wet clothing right away.

"Nothing to be afraid of," she whispered to herself, not even sure that
her being suddenly wide awake had anything to do with the rain.

Perhaps the sea? Could she hear the swish-swish of the waves on the beach?

The way she was so ridiculously alert she could even be hearing the
sound of her own blood pumping. She felt so aware of everything - the
rain, the bed, Wirril's breathing beside her. Even the darkness.

Could one be aware of the darkness?

Her mind did another circuit, analysing everything she could hear, and
then started on smells. The faintly damp smell that everywhere that had
been flooded seemed unable to lose. The herby smell of a mattress.

She could feel her nostrils widen as she struggled to gather more
information.

Enough!

Cautiously she slid back the light counterpane that was all that was
needed at night in the tropical Dolphin Cove Weyr and slipped out of the
bed. Standing there, her feet firmly on the rock floor she hesitated,
listening to hear if she had disturbed Wirril.

Her ears could move too. That had been her discovery the night before,
or the one before that. That the muscles around her ears could move
when she was straining to hear. As if she was a feline or canine.

Wirril's breathing hadn't changed. Ylisahn crept over toward the
workbench beneath the wide window. Still unglazed, but the shutters
were closed, keeping the night insects out.

Darkness. Was the darkness bothering her? She didn't think so and
paused with her hand on the glowbasket at the end of the table to make sure.

It wasn't the rain that was waking her up every night with this
terrifying sense of awareness. And no, it wasn't the dark.

She half opened the basket's hinged lid, checking if doing so affected
the sense of readiness. No. Whatever it was that was waking her up
from her sleep it wasn't either darkness or light.

If it was a fear it wasn't one she understood. She came blindingly
awake each night; ready for anything, but not with the heart-thumping
fear that nightmares brought with them.

She didn't know what it was that was happening, but she did know how to
settle it. She needed to work. To get back to doing Headwoman things.
That didn't settle the feeling itself but it did distract her from
worrying about it until it faded in its own time.

Because this didn't only happen at night, though the night-time
occurrences worried her the most. Every now and then, though, in
daylight while she was in the middle of some job or other, the feeling
would arrive. The over-sensitivity to smells and sounds and that
excessive awareness of everything that was going on around her.

Usually she could just keep working and it would pass but on one
occasion she had been talking with somebody and had lost her ability to
carry on the conversation. There had been too much going on, she was
sure, what with listening to everything and suddenly seeing things that
were normally just part of the background, and the smells. Smells that
were usually just 'the dining cavern' or 'the kitchen' broke themselves
down into a hundred different components.

She couldn't register all of those things and talk at the same time.
She had waved the foster-mother away and got herself back into her
office, trying not to panic at being overwhelmed. Looking through the
new room assignments had worked; she had even been able to make notes
and decisions, and eventually the awareness had passed and she had been
able to seek out the foster-mother and apologise.

Ylisahn didn't often lie deliberately but that time she had calmly told
the woman she had suffered a headache that had arrived without warning.
Which wasn't entirely a lie.

She had certainly suffered something that had arrived without warning –
it just wasn't a headache.

She didn't know what it was.

But she knew that it wasn't going away.
____________________

Last updated on the June 21st 2007

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DCW: Awareness