Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This (Invite)

It was well past midnight, the time of the day before the sun came up and the world was cloaked in darkness, and still, Karma was sitting on the couch. She'd been there since one, when she'd woken up from the same nightmare she'd had for the last few months. She hadn't told anyone, but it was cutting into her sleep, and it was part of the reason she'd always been in the kitchen to feed Nightmare or to feed on....

She was paler, a bit unhealthy-looking, as she hadn't eaten in a while, and her sleep was horribly off schedule. She'd learned that the only way she could sleep is if she passed out after drinking, but drinking on a daily basis was not something she wanted to do.

For a second she was distracted, her mind flashing back to the warped faces of the Muggles, cheering as she was tied up and beaten by the one person she'd trusted the most. Cobalt sneered at her, calling her the spawn of Satan, branding her, beating her as the Muggles cheered and jeered. Everything seemed huge in the dream, as if she was small.

Karma shivered, pulling a blanket around herself as she frowned. She didn't know why the dreams had started a few months ago, but she couldn't stop them, and each time she had it, it disturbed her greatly, even though it never changed.

She gently touched her neck, where she had dreamed Cobalt had branded her. Nothing was there.

"I have a question..." Aria said. But no one was there. She knelt alone by the tree overlooking the lake, the person she'd spoke to nowhere in sight. The blonde stood, flowing skirt rustling about her legs. Turning, her gaze swept the landscape.

Aria opened her mouth to call out, but she couldn't remember the person's name...

Mismatched eyes snapped open. Aria sat up, pressing a hand to her temple. Another odd dream, no, memory. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed like half of them were missing or incomplete. Who had she been talking to by the lake that day?

Throwing back the covers, she got out of bed, leaving the dorm as quietly as possible. She would sit by the fire for a while and - the girl drew to a halt.

"Karma?"

Karma swung her head to the steps to the doors to the girls dorms. "Oh... hey Aria..." She said softly, her voice cracking with misuse. "You're up late..." She patted the seat next to her. "Are you alright?"

Aria made her way over to the couch, casting a brief glance to her usual spot at the fireside. Sitting down on the cushion, she tucked her legs beneath her.

She nodded. "Just woke up," the blonde stated with a shrug. Staring at the fire a moment, she added thoughtfully, "I keep dreaming I've lost something important.

"Are you alright?" Aria had turned her gaze to the other girl. "You don't look very well."

Karma looked curiously at Aria. "Odd. I feel as if I've found someone important, but I can't remember who it is either." She shrugged. "My dreams aren't very important anyway."

She smiled reassuringly. "I'm fine, Aria." She said. "It's you I'm worried about."

Aria laughed. "That is odd," she agreed. She gave Karma a rather skeptical look, but decided not to contradict her.

"Me?" Aria asked in surprise. "Why are you worried about me?"

Karma smiled. "You're my sister. It's my job to worry about you." She said, her eyes twinkling. "Even if you found you had a last name all along, you're still a Black."

"That makes sense," Aria decided. She turned and laid her head in Karma's lap, throwing her legs over the arm of the sofa. "It goes both ways, though, you know. I'm allowed to worry, too."

Karma smiled down at her. "I suppose you are, yes." She said softly, her eyes returning to the fire. "I'm too much of a nuisance to be worried about, I do a lot of dumb things." She admitted, her eyes going to the fire. She remembered to RoR, surrounded by a bunch of Mechanical Dummies. If it hadn't been for Evie...

Karma looked back at Aria. "Alright. What are you worried about, then?"

Aria gazed back up at her friend - her sister through choice; the only family Aria ever had.

"You look ill," the blonde stated bluntly. "And I think something is bothering you that you won't tell anyone about. You think you need to be strong, so you keep everything to yourself.

"What are you worried about?"

"I have to be strong, Aria. I have no one to catch me if I fall." She said softly. "There's only you, and I don't want you to have to take that kind of responsibility."

She looked at the fire. "I'm worried about your memory loss and memory gain, because it has too many holes. I don't like it. It seems... tampered, somehow. I don't like it at all."

Aria gave a wry smile. "I'm not a little girl, you know. I know I used to be, but I'm really not, anymore.

"I think so, too, sometimes," the blonde admitted with a soft sigh. In fact, she was certain her memories were tampered with, some of them suppressed for whatever reason of Djinn's.

"I remember all my life before the attack, though," she said, tone light, even though the lie somehow felt wrong. It wasn't really her life, after all. "Surely, that's worth a few lost memories, isn't it?"

Karma grinned. "Well, I'll just have to get used to the new you." She said, a small smile on her lips. "I'm sure you still have a few questions, even if they're not the really simple ones."

Karma debated it. "I don't think having holes in the present are better than having holes in the past, or visa versa." She said, her eyes distant. "I'd rather you'd remember everything, and then just be yourself, whoever that'd be in the end."

This time, Aria's sigh was heavier. "Me, too."

She studied the way the light from the fire flickered on the ceiling for a while. Keeping her gaze focused upwards, she ventured to ask about something her mind had been preying upon.

"Karma, have you ever," she paused. What was that euphemism? Right... "slept with anyone?"

Karma looked down at her, a question on her lips. "Yes..." She said, her head cocked to the side. "Why?"

Aria shrugged. "Just curious, really..." she said. "Do you think it's supposed to be something sacred? Or something just for pleasure? I think it would be a shame if there were so many stipulations on it."

Karma shrugged. "I suppose it could be sacred, I don't see why though. It should be with someone you care about... or... with someone you don't..." She frowned. "It's for the pleasure." She finally decided. "And you can do it for love if you want, but I hear it's better if it's for love."

Aria laughed good-naturedly at Karma's indecision. "Who was your first, then?" she asked conspiratorially. "Anyone I know?"

Karma grinned. "Just a guy I kissed under the mistletoe at the Christmas Ball." She said with a lopsided grin. "He was a good dancer." She smirked down at her. "What about you? Who has the honor?"

"Just a guy?" Aria echoed teasingly. "Was he attractive?

"Mine is not so mysterious," she remarked candidly. "It was Rhys Haines."

Karma grinned. "Yes, only a guy." She said. "Of course he was attractive, she said with a wink."

She felt something in her chest maybe break, maybe stop, maybe shatter. "Rhys Haines?" She said, he voice devoid of anything but curiousity. "Really?" She grinned, the smile a bit forced. "Its too bad I have no idea who your talking about, he sounds interesting."

Aria might have mistaken the slight strain in Karma's smile as a trick of the light. The other girl's tone certainly didn't give her away and observant as she was, Aria was no empath.

But she knew Karma was lying, simply because she had been there at 'Spin-the-Bottle'.

"Oh," Aria murmured as the air forcefully exited her lungs. She sat up and away from the other girl, gripping the cushion on either side of her as her teeth clamped firmly down on her lip. There were a lot of things Aria didn't get, but the concept that one shouldn't sleep with their friend's... what, crushes? love interests? whatever, it was a fairly easy concept to pick up. Especially since Karma had felt the need to lie to her.

"I..." Aria began. She ran a hand through her hair, gazed fixed straight ahead. "I thought it would be okay because you were dating Arsen Salvator. It..." The blonde grimaced.

And she'd thought she had felt awkward immediately after she'd slept with Rhys.

Karma waved her hand dismissively. "It doesn't matter." She said. "He is nothing to me."

She furrowed her eyebrows. "Dating Arsen?" She asked. "I'm not dating Arsen." She bit her lip. "I don't even like him! Or him me!"

Aria cast a dubious glance at Karma. "Okay..." she said slowly. "If you're certain about it..."

A blond eyebrow lifted in a delicate arch. It seemed that the only ones who didn't think Karma and Arsen were dating were Karma and Arsen. Curious, she thought. She was certain there was something there... in fact, Aria was so certain, she rather keenly recalled taking several days to make some small part of herself resigned to this certainty.

This same small part of herself was currently making itself known via an odd fluttering in the pit of her stomach.

Aria shook her head.

"My mistake," she said. "I thought that you were."

Karma looked at Aria questioningly. "W-why...? Does it seem like... I mean... Do other people think we're dating?"

She had a flash of memory, a pair of lips on hers, innocent, quick, tasting of vodka and blood... and something else... but it wasn't any of the times her and Rhys had kissed, and she vividly remembered all the scandals she had with Ethon. Who then....?

She shook her head to clear it, a rosy red blush flashing across her cheeks. It hadn't stopped there, she was sure. but who...?

There was no way it was Arsen. No way.