/jp/ - Otaku Culture

"Bravo! I've never seen someone put together the facts like that!" I heard clapping. I looked down and witnessed Yamame turn to pink smoke in front of me. There was an otherworldly light beginning to shine through the room, and I realised that it wasn't a room at all. "Most have to train themselves to understand a dream." I was floating. I strange pattern of red squares stretched out around me as far as the eye could see, and I could see what looked to be Earth below me, if the colours were any indication. I tried to look as far behind me as I could. The voice seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. "Ah, give me a moment. I don't think you're planning to wake up any time soon, and I've been meaning to have a chat with you." Now, the world around me was swirling like a whirlpool, and I could see something that resembled clouds forming up underneath me. Slowly, I began to sink downwards, until I landed on the substance, which felt like...well, what I imagined walking on a big fluffy cloud to feel like. In the distance, I could see a forest, and taking up the horizon, strange spires rising off of a massive castle. Misshaped and definitely not capable of supporting their own weight, but they held regardless. There were lights streaming through all of the windows, and I thought I could see strange, indistinct shapes passing through them. There was some sort of massive wheel behind the castle, with small carriages that were also lit up inside, and large tracks stretching across the horizon, twisting and turning in ways that they couldn't possibly support. Two massive bridges stretched away from the castle, and even these looked to curve in ways that couldn't possibly be real.
"Do you like it? Once a few outsiders began to settle in Gensokyo, I was able to bring this place to another level. So many things to work with..." The voice was beside me now, and I whipped my head around.
A girl stood next to me. She was about as tall as my shoulder, though she wore a massive red hat, which had a fluffy-looking white portion where it sat on her head, that trailed from the top of her head down to her legs, with a fluffy ball on the end that reminded me of Shameimaru's hat. Her hair was an almost blue shade of purple, as were her eyes. She wore a long dress, and floating around her shoulders was a black capelet which had more of the fluffy balls attached, alternating between black and white with each one. The capelet obscured the fact that her dress was sleeveless, but down near the end of the dress, the pattern changed from white to black, with even more of the strange balls in alternating colours attached. The hem on the very bottom of the dress had a white pattern of stitching, as did the top of the capelet and the part of the hat where the white connected to the red. In her arm, she held a book, from which I could see some sort of bookmark trailing out with a sort of heart-shaped ending. Looking down, I noticed that she had a tail with the same shape as the bookmark, and when I looked back at her face, I saw a smug looking smile. "Well, now." She said, looking me up and down. "You've never been quite so astute before. I don't usually appear before dwellers in the Dream World, you know."
I slowly asked her who she was, how she seemed to know me, and where I was.
"Questions, questions. I'm supposed to be asking you, but I'll play along for now." The girl gave me an exaggerated curtsey. "My name is Doremy Sweet. I'm the ruler of the Dream World, which is where you are right now." I stared at her, my mouth hanging open. "I suppose you're having some trouble accepting that idea, hmm? That's okay. Most regular humans do. It's only the ones who resolve incidents and the youkai who get it quickly. Watch." She looked ahead, and I slowly followed her gaze. In front of us, something seemed to be forming out of that same pink smoke that I had seem from Yamame when she disappeared. It slowly resolved into a bridge, which led over the forest and to the castle that I could see in the distance. "Shall we walk? I find that witnessing the Dream World with your own eyes helps you to accept it more easily." Not seeing many other options, I gingerly stepped onto the bridge with Doremy, who followed beside me, holding her book under her arm. I decided to try and act naturally, so I asked her what I was doing here. "Well, that's rather interesting. The Dream World is, as the name suggests, where you dream. Everyone has a dream self, which they inhabit while they're asleep. You usually don't remember all that much of your dreams because it's your subconscious that's controlling them, but sometimes, a person can put their conscious mind back in control while they're asleep. I believe it's referred to as a 'lucid dream' state. You, it seems, have managed to make yourself lucid just by deducing that you were dreaming, which is really rather impressive. Even that grumpy Shrine Maiden had to use a mask to cause a lucid dream."