The Perfect Knight and the Illusionist (BL)

MARIUS

Skylark sat next to me and began to draw without hesitation. It was as if he knew what he wanted to draw as soon as he picked up the pencil.

Dreams.

So Skylark dreams too.

I suppose most people do.

But to have dreams that one wants to draw must be a wonderful thing.

Because I used to dream too, but mostly they were nightmares.

Once, in my dream, I was on a cold mountain wearing only my thin linen clothes—just like during the real training I had. But instead of surviving the night unscathed, I was being hunted down by big black bears with impossibly long claws and fangs as long as my forearms.

I ran all night and woke up screaming.

Then there was another dream where I was in an archery tournament. My target was smaller than the other participants’ targets. Unfair—I complained at first. Really. But no one cared. I lost. Understandably so. But I was given a second chance. A face-off with a loser from another bracket. If I won, I would have gone through.

But I lost again.

Then I was given yet another chance, facing yet another loser.

My target remained small while everyone else’s was as large as the chandelier in the mansion’s main hall.

So I lost again.

But the tournament wasn’t over. I was given a new chance again and again, to make it out of the losers’ group and progress to the next round. But I lost every time until the morning came.

That was the night before the first archery tournament I ever won.

I remember.

I remember running to Father—I was only six years old—with the trophy in my hand. I said, "Father, I won!"

His answer was simple.

"As you should."

But I also had good dreams.

A few of them.

One particular dream I remember was when the three hunting dogs we kept—Alpha, Beta, and Gamma—became huge, as big as horses. Alpha, the one I was most fond of, lowered his body in front of me and spoke.

"Get on my back and let’s go for a ride," he said.

A speaking dog.

Splendid.

I got on his back, held onto his furry neck, and we ran through the open field. Wind against my face, Beta and Gamma by my side.

I was laughing all the way through.

Then I woke up. The three dogs were back to their normal size, and they couldn’t talk.

It was silly.

The worst dream of them all, though, was a recurring one.

In that dream, I was tied by my ankles, and my arms were also tied behind my back. I didn’t know how I got there, but I was inside a hole dug deep into the ground. I could smell the soil.

It smelled like death.

And as I lay inside the hole, looking up, it started to rain. The water was filling up the hole fast, but I could not get out. I screamed and screamed, but no one came to help. Just as I was about to give up, someone turned up. I could only see his silhouette, but I remember the distinct feeling of relief—I thought I was going to be saved.

But then he took out a shovel and started to pour earth onto me from above.

I was getting buried alive in the rain.

I invariably woke up as the final shovelful of earth landed on my face and covered my eyes for good.

All these dreams—both good ones and bad ones—stopped at some point. I couldn’t pinpoint the exact time, but one thing was for sure: once the dreams were over, they never came back.

As the recollection of my old dreams reached its end, I looked at the picture that Skylark was drawing. He was quick—or did I get lost in my thoughts for that long?

The paper was filled with people. Not particularly well drawn, but at least I could recognize that they were people.

"Is this your dream?" I asked him.

"Yeah," he said.

"Who are all these people?"

"This is the dream I had on my last night in my special room."

"So this is inside that room? I suppose the one lying on the bed in the middle is you then." I pointed at the figure in the center of the paper.

"Yeah. And the one here, next to me, is Big Sis Sally. These two boys here are Davi and Abe. Then**,** of course, these are my Mom and Dad."

The name Big Sis Sally alarmed me briefly, but studying Skylark’s face, I saw that he was fine.

"I see. So you met everyone from Erdville in your dream?"

"Yeah, and more than that. Guess who this is?"

Skylark then pointed to a big male figure. The face was unrecognizable, but it wasn’t hard to guess based on the size.

"Is that supposed to be Dimitri?"

"Haha, how did you know?"

"Well, he’s at least a head taller than everyone else here."

"Right, heh. And this is Thomas. This is Isabelle, and—"

I then noticed a strange figure whose head was that of a bird.

"Wait, this ’person’ looks strange."

"It’s the canary. Weird, right? In my dream, the canary was a person. But its head was still a bird’s head. Haha, isn’t that funny?"

"I suppose. So what is the canary doing?"

"It’s preparing to sing."

"Ah, that must have been nice. How did the canary sound when it sang? As good as Janice?" I tried to joke a little.

"Unfortunately, I woke up before it sang."

"That’s unfortunate, yes."

"It was kind of your fault, though," Skylark said, shaking his head.

"Um... why was it my fault?"

"Because you weren’t there. I was looking for you. Everyone was there, but you weren’t. So I asked the canary to wait for you before singing."

"That means—"

"Yeah, you never came. I was sad, you know..."

I felt as though something suddenly gripped my heart and started to squeeze it.

I opened and closed my fist, out of reflex, trying to calm myself down as my breath grew heavier and faster.

"Are you okay, Marius?" Skylark asked, confused and concerned.

"I’m... okay."

"What’s wrong?" Skylark placed his hand on my shoulder. My body twitched away from his touch.

"Oh, I’m sorry!" Skylark quickly apologized.

I felt like my heart was thumping in my throat, but I had to say this, no matter how hard it was to squeeze out the words.

"Skylark, the next time you have such a dream..."

I then looked at him.

I felt like crying.

I couldn’t stop myself from crying in front of Falken that once, but this time I had to hold back.

"Don’t wait for me.

Let the canary sing."

Skylark sat without a word. His lips quavered, then he suddenly let out a short laugh and said,

"Don’t be silly, Marius. Of course I’ll wait for you."

What did I do to deserve this?

The joy of being waited for weighed heavily in my heart.