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[recollecters]

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Comments

[caelestialis]

I do look at them before I post them up online! 📱 🔍 👀

Though if I have to be honest - I usually look for how my hair looks and how my clothes appear. Not for a thumb. Until now. [ but she will be ever vigilante now for that. so very vigilante. ]

[daemonized]

[Ainsley....] But aren't wayward thumbs the first thing most people would notice?

[caelestialis]

[ huh. for some reason, she doesn't immediately respond. ]

Promise you won't laugh too much at my reply?

[ and no emojis in her text too? at all??

she must be serious. ]

[daemonized]

[No emojis? That's highly unusual to the nth degree.]

Cross my heart and hope to die.

[caelestialis]

Lately whenever I check the my photos, there's a chance I'll feel strange. Put off, I suppose, is the better word.

I see my face and I can't help but think 'wait, what's that?' and I look at my photo to see what's wrong. Nothing's wrong, of course. I have my two eyes, both my ears, and all my hair. But this always ends up making me feel the heebie jeebies for some reason. So I try to give my photos a quick peek and nothing more to avoid that happening.

[ which could explain her inability to notice the thumbs? it's a very strange explanation but ainsley doesn't lie often. and her lying when trying to be serious for once is even rarer. ]

[daemonized]

[Ardyn reads the explanation, then reads it again. It's not that he doesn't believe her, but feeling odd when looking at your own pictures? It sounded a bit like an inner sort of crisis.]

A mid-life crisis?

[Through text, it's hard to discern tone. But this time he is being relatively serious, as much as a man like Ardyn can be.]

You said "heebie jeebies" as if it's disturbing for you. Is that really the case?

[caelestialis]

[ a midlife crisis? ainsley takes his words into serious consideration while struggling to reply back. something about it hit the mark close. or hit it close as it could for the moment.

she did just turn thirty nine this year. and she is wondering what's wrong with her… ]

'Disturbing' would be too strong of a word in my opinion but it is close to what I feel.

Like I'm unsettled over something, that's for sure, but I can't place my finger on what it is exactly.

[daemonized]

[Strange, indeed. Ardyn almost wants to say that he knows the feeling, but he's not sure that would be truth or otherwise. It's certain that he's felt a bit... well, restless these days, for no real reason. As if there's something nagging just under the skin, and he can't pin down exactly what it is.

Maybe this was similar. Or maybe her apprehension was of a different kind. He wonders. He ventures-]

Do you, by any chance, have odd dreams?

[caelestialis]

[ the sense of trepidation and fear she feels melts into relief upon reading his message because something clicks in her mind.

her fingers are shaking for some reason as she types out her message, tries to send it back to him soon as she could. ]

I have been, actually. I thought it was the same dream until I realised the little details were always different. The height of the burning candle changes. I write in a different language. Sometimes I wear jewellery, sometimes I don't.

I'm sorry if this isn't making sense. It's just a relief to know this I'm not alone in this. [ she had written something else at the end. less flattering description of herself in regards to the situation but no need to bother her friend with that. ] What are your dreams?

[daemonized]

[He isn't sure what to think of that. A reoccurring dream wasn't all that strange, was it? People often had them all the time. And yet, there was a decided uneasiness that he feels upon having this conversation, as if they're flirting with something they don't quite understand.

Maybe they just both have overactive imaginations.

There's a small delay before a reply comes back.]

Don't apologize. In fact, I daresay my dream makes even less sense, despite being more straightforward.

Ever since I was younger, I've had a dream about the darkness. Just that. Ongoing, everlasting, feeling like it has no end. Nothing else ever happens; it's just myself, alone in a swath of impenetrable night.

[caelestialis]

[ ainsley needs to stop responding for a few minutes, pressing her hand against her forehead like that'll stop the sudden unease she feels.

something about the description makes her feel sick for some reason. she isn't sure why. was it the idea of being trapped in darkness? the idea of someone being aware when swathed in nothing but shadows? something about this conversation rings a bell for her…

probably a childhood fear of hers. her dreams of writing and writing and writing aren't so bad after all after reading this. compared to… that… they're downright tame. ] That's an ominous thing to be subjected to.

To experience something like that once is one thing. To experience that several times, over and over again? That's borderline sadistic if one believes in the grand scale of things. I take it few know about these dreams of yours.

[daemonized]

[The way Ardyn sounds so casual about it, especially in text, shouldn’t be surprising to her by now. Even with dreams about an unending blackness, a long, long night, he makes an attempt to sound dismissive, as if talking about the weather. Certainly there’s an unease, but it isn’t from the subject matter itself; it’s more from the fact that they’re talking about inexplicable things, shared reoccurring dreams that never truly went away. Dreams that felt as if they had some meaning that they both couldn’t parse.

(Either that or, perhaps for some inexplicable reason, an endless night isn’t as disturbing to him as it should be. That would be another oddity altogether, wouldn’t it?)]

Not many. You know now, and I’ve told maybe a couple of others throughout my lifetime. It’s not often that I put much stock into dreams, other than their strangeness, and I wonder if those individuals even remember me mentioning it.

Besides, it’s not nearly as bad as it sounds. It’s disorienting, yes, but there’s a sense of purpose behind the dark.

[caelestialis]

[ she likes to think she's gotten to known him over the years.

but, sometimes, she admits the puzzling enigma of her friend is a lot for her. not in a bad way, of course! he means the world to her since they first met in school but… something about this is making her stomach clench in anxiety and her head feel frustratingly empty. the way one would feel when they were about to look for something when, all of the sudden, it escapes their mind, just out of reach.

so she tries to ignore it, focusing on the positive aspect of their conversation because of course she would. ]

There's a sense of purpose to the dark? What a lovely way to put it when things seem strange and unanswerable at the moment. It sounds like an excellent quote to have when one needs to remind themselves not everything is laid before them and nothing wrong is that.

Sometimes you need a bit of the unknown to continue going forward. Don't you think? [ satisfaction of its' curiosity did bring the cat back, in contemporary times. ]