Sweet Dreams

Madeira stirred, smelling the bottle of alcohol that she had fallen asleep eating after a late shift. It reminded her sleeping mind of other scents, and it wandered...

The gardens were fragrant and in bloom, and Madeira leaned over to pluck a blueberry from the bush, smiling as she popped it into her mouth. It was delicious as always. She loved the taste of the berries in Malthus' garden, and they were perfectly ripe so it was truly delicious in her mouth.

Something nagged at her mind- something felt wrong, but she tried to ignore it.

The gardens were beautiful, wonderful, fragrant, nothing was wrong. Nothing had ever been wrong. Nothing could ever be wrong.

If nothing was wrong, though, why was she crying? The tears streamed down her face as she ate the blueberry, hot and wet, leaving her cheeks stained. (Her cheeks... Had she ever been in doll form when everything was ripe here...?)

She stared at her hands, examining the blue nails as if for the first time, confusion setting in to mingle with the twined distress and joy. Where was Malthus? He should be here. He was always in the gardens with her, showing her new plants, talking about what they did - surely he would be here. Should be here.

She stood up from the dirt, turning to walk into the kitchens. The tears couldn't seem to stop falling down her cheeks.

Malthus stood at the stove, cooking apples in cinnamon, the smell wafting pleasantly to Madeira's nose. As she looked at him, something was... strange. His figure seemed blurry, a bit disjointed.

"Malthus?" her voice sounded young, timid. She didn't sound as though she had been crying. As though she was crying.

"Madeira, perfect, can you come take over the apples?"

Her feet traveled across the floor, almost out of her control, till she stood at the stove. It seemed impossibly tall, taller than it should in her doll form - but looking down again, she was a bun again, and as she caught sight of herself in the stovetop, she saw she had no horns.

She had pride horns.

"Madeira, what's wrong?"

She swiped at her eyes. "This isn't real."

Malthus embraced her, petting her soft ears. "No, I suppose it isn't. Why couldn't you let it be, just for a little bit?"

"I wish it was," she cried. "I wish you could have kept me, I wish this all hadn't happened."

"Do you really wish you had spent your life alone?"

She swallowed, feeling the pain of the answer. "No... I just... Why couldn't you have raised a few of us and just let us stay? Why did I have to go back there, to not know anything?"

"I don't know," he said. "If you knew, so would I. It's what we have to do, little one."

She knew it had to be a dream by now, though she wished otherwise. "...can we just... keep cooking, then?" she asked. "Eat pies together again...?"

"Of course, Madeira, of course we can," he said, ruffling her ears.

She took over the stove now, finding she had hands again, while Malthus moved to the counter to work on making the crust. From the corner of her eye, she watched as he rolled the chilled dough out once more and cut the bottom out, putting it into the pie dish and beginning to crimp the edges.

Her heart ached as she looked at the apples, feeling the loneliness overwhelm her for a moment. It felt so real, except for the grief. She didn't think she had ever been so sad here as she was nowadays, living in Burrowgatory. Maybe it had been lonely, but she had always been confident in who she was and knowing what she was doing, that she was capable and competent. Since being brought back to Burrowgatory, she had felt continually on the wrong foot, and like she was completely incapable and incompetent.

Cooking was the only thing that had let her feel okay in Burrowgatory, but even that only went so far when she struggled with making friends, with understanding how things worked, and when everyone looked askance at her for her answers that she thought were normal...

It was almost magical how rapidly the pie came together, the lattices on the pie weaving together seamlessly after the slices of apple coated in cinnamon were arranged perfectly within the pie crust. Then, it was set in the oven, which was already pre-heated, and they settled in to wait.

A beeping seemed to indicate the sound of the pie being ready, but as Madeira went to grab it, she found herself blinking in the early morning, gazing blearily at her alarm clock.

She had been right, it had been just a dream. The tears on her cheeks were real, and the loud beeps of the alarm were too.

...time for work.