Just dreamed about our old place in Saskatoon - S. and I were driving down the street, and as we passed the seniors' residence I noticed that it was covered in ice. It looked like someone had dropped a full payload from a water bomber on it, then flash-frozen it as the water hit. Which would have been weird enough, but it was summertime, so really the ice should have melted / be melting. We parked in our old spot and got out, and it looked like all three of the old buildings were in the process of being renovated - lots of scaffolding and plastic sheeting flapping around in the hot, dusty wind. It was the weekend though, so none of the workers were around.
When we went into the building to have a look around, it looked strange - all the walls facing onto the hallway had been knocked out, and the floors had been raised nearly half a metre, but there were clearly people living in the apartments even though an entire wall was missing and they had no privacy or security as a result. Our old place was even worse - parts of the roof had also been removed and the wind was blowing the plastic sheeting around. I also noticed that there was a gap between the outer brick wall and the inner wall. I pushed aside a loose panel of drywall and climbed into the gap. There was a narrow staircase (more of a ladder, really) going up to the attic. S. followed me up, and as he blocked the light from below, the air shuddered slightly and the dust seemed to glitter in the darkness.
The attic was bigger than you'd expect, looking at it from the outside. Better lit, too - a sort of golden late afternoon light filtering through the vents at either end and cracks in the brickwork and roof. It looked like there were a bunch of homeless kids squatting in the space, except after looking around some more the place looked more like a pub / arcade than a living space, and the kids looked... fey, for lack of a better term. Delicate, angular features, strangely coloured eyes, slightly pointed ears - the whole nine yards. The older guy behind the bar was, rather stereotypically, a troll - huge and craggy and distinctly blue-tinged. I noticed that there was a massive stone hammer on a rack above the bar. Good security. I didn't order anything (I think I meant to ask him some questions about what the deal was with the building), but he just handed me a mug full of something. It turned out to be wine - specifically this ludicrously expensive Chateau d'Yquem that a friend of my dad's brought over one evening for no particular reason. It was ice-cold and tasted like sunlight and apricots and orange blossom honey.
"You can't stay here," he said. "Go back to the world and stop them before we're driven out forever."
I was swaying slightly and turned around to tell S. what they wanted, and then I realized that he couldn't see any of this. I saw through his eyes and the attic was cramped and dusty and stuffy, and there was nothing up there except some construction supplies. He hadn't seen the ice on the other building either. I had no idea what to do next. I tried to give him the cup, but it turned into an old bird's nest in my hand.
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