Big Salmon Lake time has stopped for everyone but you and me

AW. This is the first of Aditya's character-building dream sequences, which is quite long and which I have formatted so you can expand/collapse at your choosing, to keep the post clean and short. Jump in with anything you want!

this journey down the valley was definitely for pema, but it benefited adi as well. having wanted to venture out on his own, to mentally map the landscape, it provided a sanctioned opportunity for him to do so. he hoped he would return even more esteemed in grayday's eyes.

he left the ladies one crisp afternoon to trot down to the lake he had spotted while perched on the gorge. it was a decently sized body of water, and he noticed it teemed with wildlife--at least, the wildlife he didn't scare away. the blue depths surely teemed with fish, and he wondered whether he could manage to snare a couple that ventured near the shore.

a dreamy haze came over him, whether from contentment or exhaustion, he did not know. it had been a long time since he had expended this much energy--he had limited his recent wandering to the plateau and its adjacent territories--and he felt suddenly tired, sitting heavily on his haunches.

he closed his eyes for just a moment. when he opened them again, something. . .something incredibly subtle. . .had changed in the atmosphere.

First Dream Sequence

sometimes his mother came to him in his dreams, further hammering home the point that she was dead, not merely gone. she was a beautiful golden brown, with silvery streaks through her fur, and her pawsteps light and airy, barely touching the ground below. eyes of green-brown, blinking back at him with love.

but today, as he sat by the lake, the wolf that came to him was not rekha. the figure was decidedly male and much bigger, with an ebony coat and strikingly handsome golden eyes. the stranger gave a wag of his tail and a nod of his head, coming to a stop to sit by aditya while looking over the water.

"who are you?" adi asked, his tone brusque but curious. the sunny gaze snapped back to him, and the wolf's mouth spread in a bright grin, nearly all of his perfect ivory teeth exposed.

"you don't know me?" he asked, and aditya shook his head, now truly curious. this man had spoken to him in his mother's tongue. the black male tilted his head, smiling further. "i am hari, son."

you could have knocked aditya over with a feather. truly shaken, he lowered himself as far as he could go, placing his nose at his god's forepaws.

"why have you come to me, hariji?" a thought struck him suddenly, and his pelt prickled as a ripple of fear traveled throughout his body. "am i dead?"

hari laughed, beckoning with his head for aditya to rise to his feet again. "no, child. you are alive and well. your companions are still nearby. i have come to bring you the story of your heritage."

aditya was thoroughly confused, but nodded nervously, speaking again as another thought reached his mind, "do i look crazy, sitting here talking to myself? no one else can. . .see you, can they?"

"no one can see me but you," hari assured, "and they are not seeing you talking to yourself, either. time has stopped for everyone but you and me." he gestured at the water, and aditya realized with a start that the waves had stilled, the breeze had ceased, the birds had stopped chirping. he looked back at hari with awe, his mouth hanging open in a thoroughly unbecoming expression.

"now, as for your heritage," hari repeated, smiling once again. "it's a long tale, and i'm afraid i will not reveal all of it now."

"what? why?" aditya asked, tacking on a belated, "sir," in deference.

the black wolf bark-laughed, eyes twinkling with mirth. "i am busy, son," he said matter-of-factly. "i have many things to do. i am a god, no?"

"close your eyes, and tell me what you see," hari continued, and aditya did so. a pair of wolves danced in his mind's vision, black and silver in the shadow of huge mountains, larger than any he had ever seen. "wolves," adi responded simply. "two wolves."

"those are your great-great-grandparents," hari informed him, "in a land called bharat." aditya had heard of bharat before; his mother had told him of it. he meant to interject this fact, but was cut off by hari, who said, "they were named for my lover and me. nitya and hari."

adi wrinkled his nose, trying to work everything out. "my mother told me bharat was far, far away," he murmured, opening his eyes despite no direction to do so. "how did she--and i--come to be here?"

sadness fell over hari like a shadow, his eyes darkening to a dim amber. "captured by humans," he said simply. "sent to a zoo in one of their cities."

before aditya could ask another question--zoo? cities?--he saw hari begin to. . .fade? was that the right word for what he saw? because like smoke from a fire, the black wolf was beginning to ripple and dissipate into the air, his voice fading to a whisper: "i told you i would not reveal to you the entire story today. . ."

"wait!" aditya cried out, lunging suddenly forward, only for the god to disappear completely.

birds began to chirp and water began to flow again. feeling bereft, aditya sat down on his haunches, worrying in vain over the fates of his forebears.