This time the dream took us home. To the little stone house that Celestine lives in with her mother. She sat at the stone dining table while I was standing idly near the clay front door.

Actually, was being awake before even real? Everything moved too fluidly.

This is giving me a headache. I brought my hand to my head and massaged my temples. I walked over to the dining table and sat down opposite of Celestine. She was looking at me with a bright smile on her face.

"Well, seems like you're asleep again?" I asked. "Or still..." Again, were we even awake? I wanted to know more about what happened and what caused all that pain. If the ceremony was supposed to be painful, wouldn't they have said something?

"It's weird. My dreams are never this real." Her smile had disappeared. She was looking at the table shyly.

I took a deep breath. Well, if this is a dream, I wonder how much control I have. I would like to see myself. So I turned my head to the left and just like I wanted, a full body mirror appeared a few paces away and reflected my sitting form. It's about what I suspected. My body is covered in the static of my void world experiences. No sexual identifiers on me at all. Should I consider myself male then? But then it might be awkward when Celestine gets older. I'll just keep going with neither for now.

"Whoah, how did you do that?" Celestine jumped up and walked over to the mirror to study her reflection.

"This is a dream. When you discover you're dreaming while having the dream, you can sometimes take control of it. Guess control works for both of us. Why don't you try making something appear?" I said from behind her, looking at her face in the mirror's reflection.

She looked at herself in the mirror for a bit before closing her eyes tightly. Something appeared beside me and someone new sat at the table to my right. I turned and saw Mother sitting there drinking a cup of tea like she usually does in the mornings.

Celestine jumped up and ran over to hug Mother's waist.

"Momma!"

"You're so spoiled, girl. I weep for your future." I said with a half chuckle.

The dream Mother didn't say anything. She just casually stroked Celestine's hair. I thought for a moment that I wanted a cup of tea myself. Celestine has never tasted Mother's tea, though, so I don't know what hers tastes like. I just summoned up a cup of black tea from my memories and drank it from a clay cup similar to Mother's.

"Hey, Novos!" I was in the middle of a sip when I saw Celestine was done hugging Mother and was beside me now looking up at me.

"Hm? What is it?"

"Are you a boy or a girl?" She asked. That was blunt. Well, I was expecting this sooner or later.

"Yes." I said simply, then continued my sip.

"No, which one?" She asked, confused at my response, but not relenting.

"Both? I guess. In my past lives, I've been born as boys and girls. I don't know if I've been born more as a boy or a girl, though." I responded.

"Past lives? You've been alive before?!"

Oh yeah. Mother's explanation of what I was didn't go too deep. It was just a general overview of what a Voyager was. A sort of spirit guide from another world, as she explained? My thoughts were preoccupied at the time and Celestine's memory is fuzzy from the fear she felt. "Yeah, I have. Come, sit back down in your chair. Would you like me to teach you a game from a few of my past lives?"

"Yeah!" She shouted and walked back to her seat on the other side of the table. The table wasn't too large. Just enough for maybe four people to have a simple meal without much extra table space. Dream Mother wasn't really doing anything but sitting there watching Celestine, so the table was empty. She sat on her chair and waited for the game to begin.

I sifted through my memories and recalled a simple board game. One second the table was empty, the next a board of 8x8 black and red alternating squares appeared with two sets of twelve colored discs. The board was made of stone, but the chips were made of plastic. A foreign material in this world, most likely. Celestine won't care about that so much, though. It was a checkers set. I suspected she was too young to learn chess, but that was on the list of games I could teach her in the future. She was likely capable of playing chess, but she had never played a board game before. So it would be better to start simple. I also know a couple card games I could try to teach.

I casually explained the rules. How turns worked, how the chips moved each turn, how to capture chips, how you can go backwards once a chip hits the other side of the board, and the win condition of getting all of the opponents pieces. She soaked everything up like a sponge. She lost the first two games, but finally got me in a corner on the last game. Strategy games were never my strong suit in the lives I remember. Maybe if I had lived to an old age I could have picked up some skill in that regard, but all of my lives were short-lived. Still, to be beaten by a child like this now, maybe she does have a talent in these kind of games.

"Haha! I won!" She started to rub it in. Now that's starting to hurt my pride. Or what's left of it.

"Now, don't be a sore winner. I didn't act like that when I won, did I?" I reprimanded.

Her smile vanished. Now I felt bad.

"That's not to say you can't still be happy." She smiled again. "Here, give me a handshake." I said, extending my hand over the table. She looked at me funny before she took it and we shook softly. "A little respect toward the loser goes a long way. Don't forget to be a respectable winner." She nodded.

I feel like I'm going to end up being some sort of father figure for her at this rate. Mother does all the babying and here I am teaching her about sportsmanship in a dream.

My vision shifts and the dream ends in front of me in an instant. Now I'm back in a black void. Even the chair disappeared from under me, but there was no gravity here now. "Celestine?" I called out. I focused on the sensation I've felt for the last few years since I woke up in her bed. I think she woke up on me, but I'm still stuck in her unconsciousness. I close my eyes and focus on how I shared her vision for so long. It was just an involuntary effort before, I never bothered to think I would have to struggle like this.

A shiver traveled down my body in the black of this unconsciousness. The more I tried to see through her eyes, the more that shiver happened. I switched focus to the shiver and it got stronger. After a few minutes, my whole body was chilled by the sensation. From head to toe my body was submerged in chill water. When the feeling encompassed my head, I opened my eyes and I could see through Celestine's eyes again. But I also felt as if I still had my own body in the dream state. Did this awakening ceremony do something to my place within Celestine's head?

I focused on the shivering again and willed my ears to pick up her hearing. A rush of air flooded my senses, it was just the sound of Celestine breathing, though.

The room was dimly lit, but it was the hospital ward. How long had we been asleep? They must have dimmed the lights for night. Celestine was awake and Mother's head was laying on Celestine's lap. She was softly sleeping. Celestine looked around and saw that the white robe she had been wearing was hung up on a movable wall that the hospital ward used to separate the bed areas. The robe looked shorter now, though. And it had a huge X on it instead of a galaxy like all the acolytes. It was too dark to make out any more detail.

A few beds further away were occupied by adults and Celestine saw a nurse going around checking on them. The nurse acolyte was wearing a white apron over her black robe. She didn't seem familiar, so it was either too dark to make a positive ID or she was the night shift. Celestine's vision rested on an odd bed. There was a person's shape on it, but the covers were over their face and they weren't breathing. So that's a universal trait for hiding the dead here, too?

My voice! I need to find my voice before she realizes what that is!

"Oh, Novos?" She was whispering. I distracted her, good.

It took her a sec to figure out how best to speak to me. I could still access her thoughts at least. I guess the best way was to picture me in her mind and direct her thoughts to me. she asked.

She slowly laid back down so as to not disturb Mother. She closed her eyes and after a bit of time, she drifted back to sleep.

Today was a long day. I hope tomorrow is a little quieter.