I jerked awake suddenly from my dream of falling, gasping for breath and trying to calm my pounding heart. The dream hit me then, and I felt a few tears seep from my eyes. Wow, that had felt so real! Talk about your weird dreams!

I tried to get my bearings, I was definitely in a strange hotel room. I frowned and tried to clear my sleep fogged brain. Oh yeah, I had attended the first day of the Larian conference yesterday and met some of my online companions. Jet lag must have been really bad. I didn't remember returning to my hotel, but I'd obviously gotten back and slept for several hours. I got up and stumbled over to the sink, grabbing a glass to get some water to try to wash the 'morning' taste out of my mouth. I hesitated briefly, not sure if it was okay to drink the water (you really have to be careful about that in a lot of countries - rule of thumb is "always drink bottled water" - although I'd recently found out that was a bunch of bull too). I shrugged, and took a big sip of water trying to wake up. Glancing into the mirror I notice that my hair had a lot more silver in it than I remembered. Must be time to visit the hairdresser again. Geez, it sure is getting expensive to stay a red head! I just grimaced and stuck out my tongue at my reflection.

Stumbling back to my bed, I noticed one of my Tarot cards, the Shapeshifter [Linked Image], lying on top of my pillow. I quickly picked it up to make sure I hadn't damaged it - this card was from my special Shapeshifter Tarot deck that I always carried with me. When had I gotten it out? Okay, DQ, no more wine! I looked around for my deck and didn't see it anywhere. Why would I have pulled just one card out? I glanced at the card a little more closely, it seemed more "shimmery" than usual, Must be the lighting... Ahhh, it was my shapeshifter card itself - well, that sort of fit with my dream. I giggled, after all, how often do you turn into Dragon? I opened up my backpack to search for my deck and found it in the bottom of the bag. I carefully put the card back into my deck and put the deck back into my backpack.

What I didn't find was the majority of my emergency chocolate rations. They were all gone! Had I shared it with my friends at Larian? I remembered that Kiya was a "choc" aholic. Then I remembered my dream and laughed; I'd certainly shared the chocolate with everyone in my dream.

I shook my head again and pulled out my notepad and pen and started writing what I could remember of my dream. I had learned a long time ago that if I didn't write my dreams down really fast that I would lose them. I wrote furiously for several hours trying to recapture all the important parts. What I didn't want to write, but felt I must was the last part of my dream. It must have meant something, the man or "fallen angel" that I had loved enough to perish for hadn't really cared for me at all. He had just left me to plummet to my death and gone to carouse with his friends without even mentioning me. I shook my head again, What unresolved issues in my life was that addressing? Did I feel betrayed by my loved ones? I bet Freud would have a field day with that one!

Oh well, time to get dressed and go to breakfast and then on to the next Larian event. I walked over and put my notepad and pen back into my bag, noticing the book I had found under my chair at Larian was in there too. I'll have to look at soon as I can, I mused.

I went to take my shower ...

~DragonQueen~