False Awakening - Chapter 1

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

—Edgar Allan Poe


I: The Dollfie Dream

“Corinne Tohsaka Delacroix.”

With a shocking suddenness a voice spoke her name. Its distinctive timbre, somber, airy, reverberated off invisible walls and touched upon the high, dark vaults of an unknown ceiling. Some sort of blindfold seemed to be covering her eyes, uncomfortable, as if comprised of rumpled sheets.

“I’m going t—”

She felt an unseen tourniquet tightening, pins and needles pricking her arm. It was bewildering, almost alien, how the pain could feel so real. This had to be a dream.

“—duced HRV,” she thought she heard another, more distant voice say.

Their words faded in and out with varying degrees of clarity, a vast majority of them making little sense. The surrounding world began to whirl around while ghostly hands began pulling her under. Her consciousness, shot through with waves of distortion, screamed out against them, yet she could not move a muscle. All five senses were being set on fire.

“They…dead…barb…minister it…”

More snippets of nonsensical phrases. The throbbing did not cease, but did not grow worse, rather remaining at a dull white noise, like the impending siren call of a headache. It did not hurt as much as before, she could not help but wonder, however, when this would stop altogether.

“…Rin…” The voice was different this time, louder, husky with concern. She could hear him coming close, leaning in… “Rin—!”

The young woman awoke with a start, bolting upright and nearly knocking heads with the one who had been hovering over her.

“Rin?” said that same voice again, not any calmer this time.

She raised her gaze to meet the eyeholes of a gray masquerade mask, behind which shone startlingly rutilant irises, making her jolt at the sight. The man’s exposed lips fell into a frown until opening slightly with an unspoken realization. His eyes suddenly lost their eerie crimson gleam, disappearing as he closed them. A hand shot up to adjust the elliptic mask covering the upper half of his countenance, and then combed over the goldenrod hair eking out from behind its top.

“I apologize,” he murmured. “I know that I promised you I would not use magic.”

“V-Valentine,” Rin uttered slowly, tasting the name, rolling it like a marble on her tongue.

“Even after so long,” he said with a wry smile, “you persist to pronounce my name wrong. It is ‘Val-en-teen,’ not ‘tine.’”

“I apologize, for I find myself disoriented. I just… do not know what happened to me.”

“You passed out, right after the end of our show.”

Rin swiveled her head, eyes roving restlessly about her surroundings. The only illumination was offered by a wan, shriveled candlestick. The shadows it cast were flickering and insubstantial. Its light reached for a curtain, behind which she glimpsed an auditorium.

Millions of fragments of glass coated a stage’s wooden flooring, sparkling in the overhead lights and creating an abundant, glittering blanket of crystalline shards which glowed with coruscating rainbow colors. Above was the frescoed expanse of the ceiling, painted with gradated turquoise and clouds chasing each other across it like swallowtails. A perfume from some unseen censer eddied about, having spread from the stage to the back, to the parterre to the galleries. This scent, redolent of fir and cedar and halcyon days, was indubitably a product of empath magic.

“You did a fine job this night,” said Valentine.

“Perhaps, but I not am sure if my success should compensate for that dreadful dizzy spell.”

She finally tried to stand, shaky at first and still clad in her performing robes of amaranth-tinged gossamer, finding her eyelevel reaching Valentine’s shoulder as he offered his aid.

Valentine smiled kindly when she took his hand, and then held out something wrapped in white cloth with the other.

“What is this?” Rin asked, prodding the parcel with one delicate forefinger.

“What do you think?” He handed it to Rin, who in turn began pulling away the linens.

Inside was a ball-jointed doll crafted from a firm material. Two blue glass orbs rested snugly in the hollows of its eyes while a long wig decorated with ribbon fell to the shoulders like a chocolaty cascade. Although garbed casually in red and black, it looked almost identical to Rin herself.

“Your vessel,” Valentine said softly. “I suppose this could explain why you fainted. Something must have disrupted the wavelength projection.”

“It matters not,” said Rin, hugging the doll. “So long as I may wear this face proudly and offer my heart to those in need, I will be able to bear the burden.”

“Unlike me,” replied Valentine quietly.

She shook her head, reaching out a thin hand to his face. “Even though I know little of you, I am confident that you have changed—”

“No.” Valentine backed away. “…I mean to say, I simply want to leave all that behind, and I will need this guise. Without it, they would know—”

“Know what?” interjected a third voice.

A graying, bearded older man clad in armor approached them from behind the curtain, treading over the glass-laden stage with heavy metal boots, a crunch sounding at every step.

“They would know that he is the assistant of renowned mage-dancer Corinne Tohsaka Delacroix,” finished a self-assured Rin. “Yours truly.”

“I see. So you are Lady Corinne.”

“Might you be seeking something of me?”

“Verily, my lady. I am a knight and emissary of the royal palace, here to inform you that Her Majesty has requested your audience.”

“The princess?” Valentine crossed his arms, dubious. “I believed her to be bedridden at the present time.”

“Yes,” replied the knight curtly. “The princess—nay, our queen—is gravely ill, having gone blind and mute as a result of what this disease has wrought upon her. Before this turn of events she asked that, should her condition reach this point, an empath come and provide their service, and interpret what she has to say.”

“She desires an empath, and so she shall have one,” replied Rin. “I believe myself to be proficient enough in the arte that I may somehow alleviate Her Highness’s suffering.”

“I do hope you are as talented as you say,” said the knight, “for I have seen many an imposter hoping to find reward with their supposed empathic powers.”

“Ah, yes, but I could show you my vessel,” said Rin, although hesitant to offer it up.

“I am afraid that it may not be as you say. I will need to know its true name. I know that some empaths are less willing to give theirs than others but…”

“I will comply,” Rin said, raising a hand to ward off concern. “She was named as Der Traum der freien Völker: The Dream of the Free People.”

She sighed, remembering how Valentine often teased this appellation, calling her vessel ‘The Volks Dollfie Dream’ in jest. He remained silent in this moment, knowing how the royalty so often extorted empaths for their vessels, their birthright; and treated them as a threat to humanity due to their nigh invulnerability.

“Rin is indeed the dream of her people,” he finally said. “She dances to bring together empaths and mages alike, even though the past kings nearly wiped all—”

Rin gripped his shoulder, cutting him short. “It is fine.”

The messenger bowed deeply, as if in penitence, and then asked, “Shall I escort you to the palace?”

“Yes,” said Rin, before adding: “May Valentine accompany me?”

There came a moment of awkward silence.

“Unfortunately, no.”

“And why is that?” Valentine demanded.

“Because,” said the messenger, coldly, “we know who you are, Valentine of the Fake Helix. We know what you have done, and we will not allow one such as you to tread upon Her Majesty’s hallowed grounds.”

“I no longer wish to be called by that title,” he replied evenly, “and I have long forgone that magic. But I will remain here if you decree that I must.”

“I… did not know,” stammered Rin, “that they knew…”

Valentine shrugged indifferently. “What difference does it make?”

She felt her heart sink. “Because it matters to me. You—”

“You do not need me to drag you down. Go.”

Rin could only stand by bereft of words as she watched a crestfallen Valentine exit through the backstage door, blue trench coat billowing behind him in the chill evening air.

The palace courier sniffed. “So that it is the great Helix. I had heard rumors about him, now he is but a shell of his former self.”

“Do not,” said Rin, quietly, “address him as such. The Valentine I know is a great man.”

“I suppose you do not him well enough, then…”

“Enough. Will you take me to the palace or not?”

“Yes, Lady Corinne. Let us be off.”

Rin followed behind the knight, somehow resenting him for his words against Valentine when she knew they could have been very well valid. She knew neither the Fake Helix nor his exploits, only Valentine, her most trusted partner and closest confidant. But was it her place to forgive him his sins when she herself had not the right to do so?

Despite feeling torn, another matter begged her attention: the predicament of Her Royal Highness, the cloistered girl-princess. Healing was not Rin’s forte. And yet, Rin tried to reason, fear of failure was irrational—only that someone's life was on the line.

“Everything will be fine,” she muttered to herself, the famous last words.

She turned, half expecting Valentine to be there, watching from the shadows. She wished.