Luci has a dream

[Luci]

***

Luci floats through a grey-scale dreamscape echo of Tier-5, her spray-paint can at the ready. The Astral Realm distorts sounds and shadows, warping them strangely, giving a surreal weirdness to every movement. Luci is not afraid. She passes by Moss, Klowdy's first lieutenant.

The area around Moss is flashing with brightly colored lights, contrasting with the grey of the Astral Realm around him. He is getting a lap-dance from a Twi'lek stripper. Luci floats on.

Luci sees Lyon, Klowdy's second lieutenant. He is sobbing, and holding the body of a young elven woman with a burn hole in her chest. She flinches, and floats on.

Klowdy's astral presence is strong. Whereas his friends light up a small ten-foot area with their dreams, Klowdy lights up a whole city block with color. He dreams of merchants and performers and families with laughing children and a hundred other people living happy, peaceful lives.

Luci follows behind him curiously, easing her way through the crowd. Klowdy is laughing with a group of young elves. Luci realizes with a shock that it is his gang, but with faces filled with joy and cleaned of war paint. Klowdy catches her eye and wanders over.

"Hey," he says nonchalantly. A hand-rolled cigarette in his mouth seems to not experience gravity and keeps trying to float away.

"Hey," Luci responds, her neck craning around. "This is beautiful. How long have you been Dreaming?" she asks, meaning how long has he become lucid in the Astral Plane.

"Oh for years now," the elf explains, peeling a tangerine. "It's the only place I can relax, let my guard down a little."

A young dwarf boy pulls a wagon of laughing elf children over the cobblestone road.

"I can understand that," says Luci, her eyes unfocusing, her mind going somewhere else for a moment.

"But you," Klowdy says "You're something else. You're a Native. You're a fish in water."

Luci shifts. "It reminds me of home."

Luci pauses. A young Ewok presses something into her hand. It's a glowing chrysanthemum.

"So," she says "You can dream of anything, and this is what you choose?"

Klowdy nods solemnly. Luci nods back, and looks at the flower in her hand.

"It's a good dream, Klowdy," she tells him. "It could be better."

"You're talkative all of a sudden," he says, bemused. "I don't recall asking for a critique, but since you're so chatty, why don't you tell me what would you do to make this dream better?"

Luci pulls him close.

***

[Luci]

***  

Luci catches a fleeting glimpse of an enraged Ewok wielding a cattle prod before she is knocked unconscious and into the Astral Realm. She watches, a disembodied paint-ghost, as the Ewok pokes her cautiously. He unzips her backpack and duffle bag, finding the glittering blue orbs, and his eyes go back to Luci. She watches as the Ewok presses a button beneath the spaceship, and a secret basement is revealed. He grabs Luci's body, and then the orbs, and drags them down into the basement, then presses the button, concealing them again. Luci is not worried; Klowdy trusted this man. Luci hears a song coming from outside the garage; someone is dreaming.

She floats out of the garage and into the steeply slanted drainage ditch. As usual, the Astral Realm is mostly rendered in shades of grey. Luci looks over at the Hoover St. bridge where Klowdy had once painted her chrysanthemum black and white. The whole bridge is alive with light and color and laughter and music, and the neon chrysanthemum is pulsing brightly with a hundred colors. Luci floats over.

The crowd welcomes her warmly as she floats in and takes a seat beside Klowdy. His face is red from laughter, a beer is in his hand, and a pretty elf girl on his lap. His eyes are alight with mirth and his face is wiped of his war paint, and Luci thinks that he has never looked so beautiful.

"Hey Klowdy," Luci says with a smirk.

He realizes she is next to him and laughs, pulling her in with one arm and giving her a sloppy kiss.

"You!" he cries drunkenly. "You did it! You made it, oh man, I am SO happy!" the elf says, and he truly looks it. "Chirpa and the Westside Ewoks can defend their homes. Their Warriors can defend their streets. The business owners can protect their livelihood. You DID it, girl!"

Luci stares at her feet guiltily.

"I didn't do everything," she says. "I didn't save Lyon. I didn't save you," she chokes as a multicolored tear runs down her face. Klowdy sighs.

"I'm a gangster, Luci, I knew what I signed up for, and so did you," Klowdy says with a stern voice. His eyes show compassion, but there is a strength there too. Luci will not find in his eyes a place to let her guard down and collapse. In Klowdy's eyes there is only fire, and determination. She sniffs, and wipes a tear. Klowdy smiles.

"That's the fucking spirit," whispers Klowdy.  "Now come on, are you going to party with me? It's my last night alive, and you've had a big day, you aren't waking up for a while!"

Luci laughs and stands up, letting her body sway to the music, as Klowdy and the elf girl come join her.

***