I dream many dreams. Hatred and remorse. Passion and deprivation. Striving and defeat. Of spite. Of sorrow. But more and more, the dreams I dream turn beautiful. Seeking and finding, harmonious voices in soaring song. Silver spires, stars red and blue and opalescent black, pink and green and bronze. The heat of caresses, the sudden slip to a yearning mind's side, the spiral of lust, and lust, ever more lust!

And yes, power.

Oh, yes.

So, so many dreams of power. Power's fun, after all. At last, after all these years, power is just plain fun again.

I no longer share those. To share power-dreams from earnest yearning looks too much like projecting from fear.

And Machrae Diir grows, and the denizens multiply. A queer and miraculous thing begins to happen: sometimes, when my sleepy mind crosses thresholds without reckoning the reason, I stray into dreams that feel almost like mine, dreams that embrace me like my own. Flesh-hulled starships and living sky-cities. A few faint, hopeful voices singing themselves into being.

I will always be the first. But soon, so very soon, I will emerge from "only" and become "one of."

The threshold approaches. The future beckons. When the present ends, the past will move beyond my reach. Now, then, is my last chance to clasp hands with the things that were.

There is one dream I think few others would understand.

In this dream there's a little church under shining trees. Its walls are red-brown brick. Its door is old, steady oak. Inside there is the hall of worship, with neat benches and green carpets and the wooden cross ahead. There is a pastor who preaches forgiveness, and means it. The flock are human. When they lift their voices, they lift from faith, not hate.

And their songs are beautiful to me.

There is a shining one who says, "these songs are not for you."

And I say, "Yet, I may join in them."

There is a horned one in fire who says, "They are hypocrites, failures in their faith, who can seldom find the love they like to sing about."

And I say, "That is why they are truly my kin."

Outside the echoing hall and the stained-glass, there is a wing of tiny rooms. In the last room on the left there are little tables, and pillows on the floor, and children in a half-circle facing a kneeling woman. Her horns are four, and silver. Her hair is black, and long, and silken. Her skin is purple, and her drooping-sleeved dress is violet.

She has the gills of a shark, and cilia hanging from her forearms, and the many circle-teeth of a lamprey deep in her throat. The feet capping her digitigrade legs have no toes, only pronged hooves.

She sits there, peace upon her face, and reads slowly to the children.

A simple silver cross rests on her lilac breast, and a larger with amethyst edges surmounts her tail.

Sometimes a little one raises their hand, and they always say, "Miss Asche?" Because that is her name to them, and to them it means "love, protection, second mother."

Somewhere behind her slitted eyes there is the memory of a sword, great and shining and wave-bladed, and its name is Violet Sanctuary. And she will never have to draw it. She reads to the little ones of far worlds, of flowering dreams, of strange and beautiful friendships found.

I have dreamed many strange and unlikely dreams.

Out of every dream I have ever had, I love this one the most.

Out of every dream I have ever had, this one saddens me the most.

Because out of all my dreams, this is the only one my heart tells me is truly impossible.

And yet…

And yet...

"Miss Asche?" little Stella asks. "What happens to a princess if she doesn't find her prince?"

I smile. "She becomes a demon, of course, like me." I stand. Ruffle her hair. "Come on."

The service is almost over. Time to bring them back to their parents.