26 Jun 2024
Dream
I am a lone vampire wandering about in Japan, mainly the mountainous regions, the lakes and the oceansides(around nature sites)
There were a few people both in my head and irl(of the dream) that would police me about where I can go, for how long I may be out and such and when I must come back to the inn their travel group have booked for the day and such
I would comply with them while I was in Hakone, but then when they would start to go around the mountainous areas in the Izu regions and the Mt. Fuji area I would start to ignore their instructions and go on my own
I would take mountain railways that ran amidst the foggy slopes in their summer hydrangea season, take buses around the Mt. Fuji regions singce there’s not much convenience in the train systems, and wander about once I get off at whatever stop that seems to be in the middle of whatever idyllic scapes I fancy
First I saw some scattered buildings but it would soon give way to the increasing altitude and the lack of flat areas and plains, the roads surrounded by trees. It’s a bit foggy now, and the leaves are brown.
I would soon fall asleep in this dream, and when I wake up I’m walking around a lake
Rusted signs, a turnpike in the distance, a Michi-no-eki(a rest stop that serves as a souvenir shop of the local merchandises) with scarcely a car or a bike because of the cloudy weather
I would start to walk around when a man’s voice calls to me from a car that just seemed to have arrived, accompanied by several other younger people’s noises hastily trying to get off and take a break after a long driver
The man seems to be in his fifties or so, looks youthful. His stature imposing but graceful, his hair long, fluffy, rich and silver, a portion of it tied up at the top of his head with a red silky ribbon; he’s got an air of youthful virility, grace and the old wisdom about him, a balance I’d like to be able to embody, if not just something I admire
I recognize his face; it’s Jing Yuan, one of my favorite characters from my favorite game, Honkai: Star Rail
He asks me if I’m out alone(I looked like a young boy with blond, fluffy long hair, a frilly cravat and an overall Victorian, vampire-like get-up)
I ask him where he is going to and such
He states a destination(which I couldn’t hear) and I would say that I’m going to the same direction(I think he said he’d pass through the Fuji city or something and I said Fuji-Atami)
He smiles and says something like ‘ah, a (something along the line of what would be the equivalent of a 同道) then. Care to join us for a lunch break?’
I oblige and we eat warm udons and sobas in the road rest building, looking over the lake and the mountains while the kids(all of them are young adult/adolescent characters from the same game Jing Yuan is from) play around and explore
We would converse about many topics, mostly of our trips and what we have seen, how this trip is the first time in Japan for them while for me wandering is a part of my routine
When we would start talking about the interesting things and the local legends and the cultural myths and such we heard of around the landmarks and such we visited(separately) there is one that came up in particular that somehow sounds relevant to my own self
It’s that of a clocktower, and a boy that lived in it
The monument itself is a mere 5-meter modern abstract art piece the man(Jing Yuan) saw in a city he visited; the story is from the local landmark that had been barred tourist entry due to how decrepit they became over the years
It prompts me to share my desire to go and visit the Alps and the surrounding regions, how I feel that something there must have to do with my origins
He seems curious and asks what I mean by my origins(he doesn’t know that I am a vampire, it appears he takes me for a strange kid in a dated fashion and an antique tone of speech)
I try to speak but I zone out from a vision I get caught up in, slightly dissociating
He worries slightly before telling me that I don’t have to talk about it if it taxes me so
I shake my head and tell him a little bit about my life: that I have wandered for as long as I remembered, how know where I grew up in and the family, but they are but specters in my mind that occasionally haunts me with this urge to go and search for my true home, how it my intuition seems to point toward the lakes in a steep mountains of Europe
He is intrigued and asks why that could be,commenting on how it explains my exotic get-up and such
