She Ain't Getting Out Of This THAT Easily

"Hey, hold up," you say, darting forward and taking hold of her from behind.

Selena stops in surprise as she was starting to turn translucent but becomes fully solid again as you pull her up against you and rest your head on her shoulder. You hear her sniffle and sob as she leans back against you and rests one of her hands on where yours wrap around her waist. The sensation of her softness is something more from your memories in the real world than what you feel in the moment but it is still pleasant to experience. You let her cry for a minute or two before she pulls away and you let her go.

Wiping her face with her arm before turning around, she tries a smile despite her quivering lips and shimmering eyes. "So... uh... does this mean you want me to stay or...?"

You give her a wolfish grin. "Projections from my fairy and you could hardly be called MY dreams, right? I think we can do a little more exploring tonight. If you're still in the mood, of course."

Selena slowly transitions to a more steady, grateful smile as she nods in agreement. "And these... issues can wait until we're in the waking world?"

"Yeah. So..." you look around at the darkness around you, "Now what?"

"Depends on what you want to do," Selena replies, "We're in a shallow enough dream space you could just... think stuff up and it'd all change into that. Buuuuuut, the two times you popped in I was more... dream drifting. Like, until I wanted to talk to you about things I was there but just kind of... riding along inside the me that was THERE there? It's... all about un-focusing? On everything else except the you that wants to watch the... you... that's there but it's not CONTROLLING?"

You think you have the idea of what she means even as she is clearly struggling to explain the concept to you. Yet that raises another question. "So what happens to you?"

"Well, I could either be myself and just appear in whatever you dream up BUT I think it would be more fun if I just drifted too and ended up in another character. Since it's your dream it'd have to be someone you'd be interacting with so it's not like we wouldn't be together for it."

You nod your head in understanding but then yet another question hits you. "What if my subconscious dreams up something you're not comfortable being a part of? Would you just be... trapped?"

"Only if you used certain spells that would actually trap me in there," Selena replies, "Or drew my consciousness in deep enough you could get me confused and lose track of if I'm real me or the dream me. But that's stuff you'd have to actively be trying to do, like when I warned you about planting suggestions when in my dreams."

"Right," you reply, "Then let's see what you got for me, subconscious."

You let your mental eyes unfocus, not thinking of anything in particular as you let your id take the wheel. As you do so, a blur of images and sounds swirl around you as the reality of your mind begins pulling together into a scenario formed from the firing of your resting neurons.

It starts with you giving some kind of speech in a lecture hall. You are not quite sure where, as the surroundings are unfamiliar but the design of the room and the dress of the people listening to you looks like something from a very long time ago. It has to be somewhere in the Victorian Era or possibly earlier but there is no way you could specify where or when.

The contents of your speech are garbled and incomprehensible but a lot of the audience seem excited by it, giving you a standing ovation. You notice however, there are a fair number of people who are NOT happy and who pointedly remain seated while glaring daggers at you. None of that seems to matter to your dream self as it looks towards the back of the room, noticing a woman in a conservative, black dress and a face concealing hood. The woman's head tilts in your direction and she nods once before exiting the room.

Time moves on fast forward after that as you leave the lecture hall and head down the hallway towards an office. Something about the layout of the building grows a little familiar. Is your mind pulling from memories of the school? Somehow, you feel you have walked down this very hallway very recently.

You stop at a door with a name on it, though the nameplate is an incomprehensible garble of letters so you have to assume it is yours as your dream self gives a covert look around before opening the door, stepping inside and you see the black dressed woman standing there nervously. "I must say," the body you are in states, "I did not expect to see YOU today. This office is safe, so you can drop your disguise now, Your Majesty."

It is a strange sensation, as the voice sounds a lot like yours but older and warmer. By that same token, it is a strange thing to see the woman's body ripple as her dress transforms into a more revealing white one and realizing her face is very much like Selena's. It is also a more mature face, with a thinner nose, warm hazel colored eyes and her hair a more brownish dirty blonde instead of Selena's pure golden locks.

Well, can't say I expected this, you hear Selena's voice emanating from the woman that looks much like her, even though the woman's lips are not moving and she and whoever you are take a moment to stare at each other silently, You into old tyme-y stuff or something?

Not particularly? you say back, noticing it sounds like you too are saying it on another level than the scene before you is playing out on.

The woman who looks similar to Selena suddenly leaps forward, embracing you and wasting little time kissing you full on the mouth. You are surprised by the fact you can... actually kind of feel it as your tongues dance against each other. As if she can sense your reaction, you hear Selena giggle as she says, When it's your body, your mind can better simulate the sensations. That's why it feels better for you here while it felt better for me in that horse stable dream.

The two lovers you inhabit break the kiss, having gone at it so hard a string of drool keeps their mouths connected for a second or two until the woman speaks, her voice also having that same quality of sounding older and warmer than the one she resembles. "I couldn't stay away," she pants, "Not with how things are now. I... I needed to see you again. Be with you again. Before it's too late."

"You really believe they'll come for me?" the you that you inhabit replies, reaching out to stroke the woman's hair.

"I know they will," the woman insists, "I've seen it! If you don't come with me, let my kingdom... let ME protect you..."

"I can't do that," you reply, "How could I champion the values I stand for if I ran away to another country and hid behind its rulers? Besides, I doubt your husband would be happy to know he would be offering asylum to the one lover she has been forbidden to keep."

"I love him... but for you, I would divorce him in a second, strip him of his crown, and he would be powerless to stop me," the woman sobs, a frantic look in her eyes as she reaches her hands up to cup your face, "Even if he could forbid it, I would still find my way into your arms... and your bed."

Ho hooooo, you hear from Selena, So maybe it's an infidelity fetish you got then?

You get a short flashback to your time with Keira and how... unexpectedly good that it had felt to be acting the way she asked you to and her reactions to that acting. Maybe there was a part of you that genuinely enjoyed that kind of thing. Maybe.

The woman kisses him again briefly before stepping back, reaching up for the shoulder straps of her thin dress. "But if you truly will not go with me. At least... at least... let me ensure something of yours lives on."

Slipping her fingers under those straps, the woman slides them down, letting the top half of her dress fall down to her waist where it is still connected to her skirt. She was not wearing a bra beneath so you are treated to the full view of her modest but perky breasts and flat stomach. You hear a gasp emanating from the body you are within as he looks at that belly and sees a number of golden runes painted upon it in a design very different from the one that makes up Selena's curse. "Your Majesty," you hear yourself say, "Do you really understand what this would mean? How would you explain it? Not just to your husband but your guards? Your people!"

"My husband does not need to ever know," she replies, "And do you think I would have been able to come here like this if my guards were not supportive of the idea? Or at least... supportive of me even if they had reservations?"

She pauses to place a hand over her stomach, right where her womb is, "And by the time I return it will be the start of a year long sabbatical that was already planned as part of the rituals enhancing the barriers around my nation. They are simple enough duties to perform even with a child growing inside me... and private enough to do so while also finding it a safe, loving home with none the wiser as to its origins."

You are silent for a good several seconds before you sigh and all but whisper, "I once swore that if I ever allowed myself to have offspring, it would be with someone I could absolutely trust to treat it well and not **** its birthright in any way."

There is another pause and the woman looks worried, biting her lower lip and still standing there with her breasts on display and hands on her stomach. Eventually, you say, "... And I can think of no one else in my life who I could trust to do that other than you. So yes, if that it what your heart truly desires... then those fertility runes will not go to waste."

Whoooooa, Selena interjects, her voice filled with an almost impressed sounding awe as the woman she is within beams radiantly while reaching down to start unbuttoning the lower part of her dress, Infidelity AND impregnation?!

... Okay, I'll admit the idea of a girl ACTUALLY wanting me to knock her up instead of being magically compelled to IS a pretty hot one.

You hear Selena's giggle again as she asks, So... seems pretty obvious they're gonna do it now. You wanna take over and act it out between us or see where they go with it? It'll FEEL the same either way but sometimes controlling a dream is funner and sometimes it's better to let it get all unexpected.