CASILIA: THE LIVING CASTLE

After flying for what seemed like three hours in the vast space of the Lucid dream sky, we finally reached our destination.

We landed on a vast plain field, covered with beautiful well trimmed green grasses and flowers of different varieties.

At first, I could see nothing but the plain field, then Pytra waved her left hand.

WOOSH!

A white wooden door appeared. The door opened itself, as if inviting us in.

"Follow me." She said, before stepping through the door.

I walked through the door following behind her. The door then closed by itself and disappeared.

What the door was hiding was a mighty castle. The beauty and the ancient aura of which mesmerized me completely.

I stood like a statue with my mouth wide open. I'd never would imagine that such a beautiful place could exist in the dream world, but again, that was the dream world. Anything in there could be possible.

There was the castle completely built with golden bricks, surrounded by gigantic colorful living trees, which serves as the protectors of the castle. There were beautiful living flowers and grasses, calm brooks, a fountain and a natural pool. The waters of which had blue and green colors, very inviting.

The more I scanned the place, the more amazed I got.

Beautiful tiny fairies were flying like fireflies all around the place and into the flowers. Large double-headed flightless beautiful birds with extra long tails were roaming around, whistling the sweetest of songs.

Overall, that could be the most beautiful place in the lucid dream realm, but I could not tell for sure.

I took a deep breath, cleared my voice and asked Pytra:

"Is this our destination?"

"No it is not…" She sighed, "it is my home." She answered with a straight face."

I chuckled. "OK!, it is your home I agree, but we could stay here right?"

She looked at me with disdain and replied: "Why then did I bring you here? And could you please stop asking too many questions?"

I remained calm. "TSk… I was thinking you and I could be friends, but I don't think that would work. You are always aggressive Pytra."

"We were not meant to be friends… I am your teacher and guardian through your journey. You got to respect me"

"Fine! understood." I backed off.

When we finally got inside the castle, Pytra took me directly to her personal library. It was large, full of books and other study tools.

What really amazed me with the library was that all the books were somehow alive. Pytra would only need to call out for any book and the book would come flying to her.

The library wasn't the only place in the castle with living objects. The stairs, the seats in the living room, the floors, curtains and even though I didn't go round the entire castle to see everything else, I'd concluded that the whole castle and everything inside, was alive.

While we walked to the library, even the paintings on the walls were completely alive. Paintings of people or other humanoid creatures like centaurs greeted us with smiles.

In the library, Pytra asked me to get a place to sit and I gladly did. She called out for tea and a smoking kettle came flying in with a little cute mug.

Seeing how everything in the castle obeys her, I couldn't keep my peace, I had to ask her.

"How is all these possible?"

"It is the dream realm Sol. Anything could be possible." She replied.

"Yea! But a living castle? Prrr" I scuffed.

She smiled and said: "This castle is the exact reason I love coming back home. Everything in here is my friend. And by the way… Her name is Casilia"

I chuckled. "it even got a name-"

"It is a She." Pytra interupted.

"Oh sorry." I apologized. "Just that, she is realy cool. You two seem quite symbiotic. What is your story?"

"Casilia and I?" She sighed and continued:

"Freda needed a home in the lucid dream realm, she wanted to visit any time she wanted and so Casilia came to being.

Out of Freda's Will and magic, every fabric of this castle was made. Freda was good with it, until she felt she needed a companion in the castle.

She fetched a bit of her consciousness and forged it into a being which is myself. But in the process of creating me, the whole castle magically came to life.

Freda named me Pytra, meaning… Dream Daughter, and the castle she named Casilia, meaning… The Living Castle."

"Wow!" I exclaimed in amazement.

"Yes Wow!" She chuckled and continued: "In a nutshell, Casilia and I are extensions of Freda's consciousness."

I nodded my head in agreement to her explanation.

"So if I understood your explantion properly… it means that you inherited all your powers from Freda right?"

"Not quite!" She said, "I developed most of my powers on my own. Though, my original power came from Freda."

"What is your original power?" I got more curious.

"The ability to develop any powers of my choice." She replied.

My eyes widened by her answer. "At will?"

"Yes! At will." she answered.

I knew that in the realms of the meta physical, bizarre things happens, but Pytra's case was an exceptional one.

What kind of being simply thinks of any powers and just decides to develop them at will? Only Pytra of course.

She'd shown me many more parts of the castle. I'd seen inner rooms, top rooms, the basement and other corners, I was completely amazed. There I'd thought the outside was amazing, until the inside proved me wrong.

Freda was right, with the little time I had spent with Pytra, I realized she could actually be my teacher. She seemed to have vast knowledge of the metaphysical realms.

She'd travel through them anyways, so it was only natural, that she had a lot of experience. Those were my thoughts about her.

I stayed with Pytra for what seemed like a year. I didn't really understood how time worked there, but I could come up with a time calculation I could understand.

Pytra taught me valuable spiritual lessons, and also helped me master my purple energy powers. I'd mastered my speed and strength, all of which came from the purple energy.

One that was hard though was the Ice power I got from Ice realm. That wasn't coming from the purple energy, instead it was from memory muscle.

She'd said to me: "Your main power isn't the purple energy. It is your memory muscle.

Your ability to tap into your memory and convert an intense experience into power. That my friend, is what makes you special.

To master your speed and strength was easy because your purple energy was already strong, but to master your ice power, you need to puff up your memory muscle"

I had trained timelessly until I finally mastered my memory muscle. I mastered the ability to delve into it at will, and tap into my ice power.

Casilia the living castle became a good friend of mine. She would fly right into my hands books that she knew would help me.

She would telepathically speak to me, and we would laugh together. She had shown me even things that Pytra didn't care to show me for reasons best known to her.

On the 370th day of my stay with Pytra, according to my time calculation, I was seating in the library, reading an interesting account of a sojourner in the lucid dream realms. The person wrote the book in the waking world, but a dream copy of it hung in Pytra's library.

Casilia waited for when Pytra left the castle to attain to some personal matters, and she spoke to me telepathically.

"I need to show you something Sol." She said. "But you must promise me not to say a word about it to Pytra."

"What could that be?" I asked her.

"Just follow my lead." She said.

A spectral butterfly the size of a pigeon suddenly appeared, I immediately knew that it was my lead so I followed.

The butterfly took me down into the same basement Pytra already shown me. When we reached there, I thought the butterfly would stop but she she kept flying forward.

I began to drag my feet, I'd wanted to stop but Casilia intervened. "Trust the butterfly, keep following." She said.

I continued to follow the butterfly. When its reached the basement wall, I almost raised my voice to remind it that there was no way forward, but to my amazement, the wall shifted and a door was formed.

The door opened by itself and the butterfly flew through it. I followed suit without hesitation and the door closed behind us.

The butterfly suddenly disappeared as mysteriously as it appeared. I didn't bother much about it because I knew it was only a tool for Casilia.

The room I found myself into was medium bright, infinitely large, and I saw weird mysterious round glowing objects flying all over.

"There they are." Casilia said.

I took a deep breath and asked: "What are they?"

"These are the Orbs of dreams." She answered.

I wanted to ask another question but was interrupted by a loud bang that came from the door. I quickly turned and saw Pytra standing behind me with an ugly expression all over her.

Since I met her, I had never seen her like that. Her eyes were blood red and her long dreadlocks flew in the air, even though there wasn't any wind in the place.