Ari's Dream
This is what happens after the Ari contemplates leaving story.
The warm water of the hot tub washed over Aft, slowly smoothing the tension out of the drow's body, allowing her to finally relax. Without even realizing it, Ari slipped into sleep.
As she slept she dreamt. She found herself walking in the Underdark. At her side strode K'harn. As they walked Ari put her hand out and stroked her faithful companion's fur. A faint, distant voice expressed confusion at this for some reason, but Ari didn't think of it at the moment. (OOC: Kim, later, as you think about this dream, you realize what it was that disturbed you. When you petted K'harn you didn't have to bend over to do it, you just held your hand out. In order for that to happen K'harn would have to be at least 3' tall at the shoulder.)
As the two walked along in silence Ari began to look at her surroundings. A wave of vertigo washed over her, and she had the feeling that she was a giantess walking through a tiny world. Looking down that feeling was reinforced as she saw thousands of dark ants scurrying around at her feet. She stopped to watch them. They all seemed to be headed in the same general direction, but many would wander off to the side or even move the wrong way for a time. For a while Ari amused herself by trying to find patterns in their movements.
Then something caught her eye. A red ant crawled out from a hole and began to move around with the black ants. Curious, Ari kept her eye on the unique insect. At first many of the black ants turned on the red one. Most avoided it. Some attempted to drive it off. But the red ant overcame the opposition and got itself into the middle of the pathway of ants. Ari smiled, pleased at the ant's perseverance.
As the drow watched, the number of ants began to dwindle. She didn't really see where they were going, but after a short time there were only a handful of the insects left, the red one among them. These all got together and starting marching off to one side of the trail. Looking over Ari saw a mushroom in that direction. She figured that is what the ants wanted. However, as they moved off the trail the ants started running into problems. There were physical obstacles to overcome. Sometimes beetles or other insects would attack the small group and try and drive them off or kill them. But the ants kept pressing on.
Ari also noticed that the red ant was having trouble again. The other ants were giving it a hard time. Then, somewhat to Ari's surprise, the red ant stopped. It moved apart from the others and watched them. After a short time the ant turned its back on the black ants and began to walk away.
This upset and disappointed Ari. The red one had come so far, why was it giving up now? Didn't it realize the progress it had made already? Didn't it realize it was drawing closer to its goal? The drow decided to stop the ant and turn it around, but when she bent over to push it back towards the others she found that she couldn't! She couldn't quite reach the ant to push it back. Frustrated, Ari stood back up. What could she do to stop the ant from leaving if she could not intervene physically?
Ah, spells! But what? She had to get the ant's attention, but not harm it. In the end she decided to use faerie fire. Drawing upon her innate abilities she laid a small wall of faerie fire down in front of the ant. The ant stopped and considered the purple light. It turned around to face the others, and then back around again to the wall. Apparently it couldn't make up its mind. Would it leave, or would it return to the other ants?
Ari was somewhat startled by K'harn's inquisitive meow. Looking up, she found herself surrounded by a shimmering curtain of bright, violet light. It looked almost like .... faerie fire.
With a jerk Ari suddenly awoke from her dream. Disoriented, slipped off her seat and ended up falling all the way into the hot tub. Sputtering the drow stood up and glanced over at K'harn. The cat remained asleep. Good. That meant she hadn't see the drow's slip.
Looking around the rest of the room Ari's eyes were drawn to the candle she had lit earlier - preferring the flickering light of the flame to the warm but steady light of one of Laila's magical lamps. She had lit the candle when she arrived in the tub, but it was now almost gone. Doing some quick estimating in her head, Ari realized she must have been asleep for about three hours.
The thought of being asleep brought Ari's dream crashing back into her consciousness. Slowly lowering herself back onto the seat, Ari began to consider what the dream meant - if it meant anything at all.