" ... and that is the reason for Gettysburg being seen as the beginning of the end of the Civil War ..." Melaine was in class, a rather boring recap on a war that divided the nation. Some students had noded off during the lecture, others seemed bored and fidgety shuffling papers about their desk or gazing at the clock to see how much time had been left.

Only the new girl, Cindy, jotted down notes furiously and seemed like she had been paying attention. Her blue hair tied up in a pony tail, her glasses pushed in place to the bridge of her nose as she glanced up from time to time to gaze at the notes on the chalk board.

Unbeknown to her, however, was that Cindy wasn't as she appeared to be. She had actually been a persona of Aegir that he had used once before recently with Pia though it had worked in that he had been able to get close to her.

Now he scanned the brain waves of the various students. One thinking about distilling moonshine from a book they just read, another thinking about an upcoming party, another still which was thinking of ways to impress a girl she had the hots for. There were one or two that were paying attention but not many.

Such drab thoughts ... then his interest perked up. Atlantis! He had not been there for ages. Apparently one of the girls just read a book on the subject and was thinking about it ... he flickered his gaze towards her as he regarded her for a moment then thought.

Today matters seemed like they were going to be a drag until now. This could be interesting ... an idea formed in his mind as he exerted his powers over the human mind. First it was a slow push, a drowsiness settled in over her, then sleep as he took control over mental impulses and projected stimuli straight into her mind.

She was adorned in a strange blue toga with sandled feet. Olive skinned people in similar drab moved about her and she could see a nearby fountain with a man squeezing a turtle and water arcing out of it's mouth.

A young boy, maybe 12 rushed towards her narrowly avoiding people. His face was beat red and in his left hand he held a scroll. His hair, black and curly, seemed to be of the dominate nature here. "Mel! Mel! Father wishes to see you."

The Civil War, huh? An American squabble over land and resources. It was war like any other, but Melanie could not bring herself to be completely absorbed by the material. She already knew about the Battle of Gettysburg. It held the single highest human casualty recorded in battle. The devastation was so massive that the American president at the time, Abraham Lincoln could only respond with a minute speech. Taken in context, it was a brilliant speech. It spoke to so many levels of humanity, one would wonder why he would ever commit his country to war.

Seeing as she had already read ahead, Melanie's mind was allowed to wonder about in its cramped cranium. How could she contact her father and mother? Surely, they were worried about her. She began to think of interesting subjects to talk about with the teacher after class. What about Atlantis? A mysterious island that sunk in a moment, and the epic mythology that swelled around the lost continent. She actually just read a book about the location of Atlantis. Of course, the work was non-conclusive, but Melanie liked the idea of a good mystery. Perhaps she could aim to be a Cryptologist and specialize on the lost continent. Obviously, she was dawdling. Perhaps she should...

A sudden drowsiness took hold over the girl. She fought it ardently though. Staying awake was part of school...
Her dorm was for sleeping...
She wasn't... tired....

Melanie suddenly opened her eyes and bore witness to a beautiful blue sky. She adorned with nothing but a blue Toga, and all about her, pale-skinned civilians milled about. Melanie had the wavering notion that this was all a dream, but something compelled her to act along. Besides, she reasoned to herself, maybe it'll be a good dream. All of a sudden, Melanie realized that she had little to no guidance. How odd in a dream. Usually- wait, was somebody calling her name? Melanie truned about to see and young boy calling her, telling her that father wished to see her.

"Very well then. We best not keep him waiting," she replied to the earnest raven-haired boy, following him through the crowds.

The streets were crowded but she made her way along easy enough. The boy led her though he chatted about mundane politics, names that both sounded exotic with mo real ethnic feel to them either and unknown to her though by the way the kid was blabbing she assumed that knowing of them were common enough knowledge.

He turned his attention on a tragedy that he watched, Oediphus? Greek tragadey? But before he got too far with his telling of the tale they had arrived at a off white house with several arches in the ancient Greek style. The boy walked into the house, it had no door, and called out to someone, dad.

"Dad, I found her! He's in the study." He pointed the way to it, then headed in the opposite to a bedroom.

The house had furnishings in it, though they were rather simple in nature. There on a table was a clock hooked up to a potato by metal wire and a Greek style statue in one of the corners. In the study she could "hear" her father speaking though no one was answering him so it was likely that he was speaking to himself out loud.

As she approached the study a man in a silver colored toga exited one of the rooms, his raven black hair showing some graying at the sides though his skin was olive colored and he sported a goatee.

"Ah, your back Melanie. Any luck?"

Luck? With what? Melanie couldn't tell. So, this man with the goatee was her "father" in the dream world. Would it be strange to believe that she could easily see the resemblence between him and his son? Same skin, same hair. But the father was much more grand figure. Yet, Melanie felt that she could trust him, put her faith in him. His warm demeanor and off handed welcome seemed to indicate that whatever Melanie was supposed to be looking for, it was not nearly as important as could have been. For all intents and purposes, Melanie believed that she was in Greece. Oedipus, the Fountain with man and the fighting tortoise- she had a pretty good idea about where she was. But something was off.

Regardless, she the man a toothy smile, but replied in the negative. "Sorry father, I didn't find anything." Perhaps... whoever she was supposed be had a journal or diary she could look into.

"Ah very well," the man frowned a little then forced a smile onto his face. "Those inks are hard to come by. I best be getting back to my work, I'll be in the study if I'm needed." He left her, turning back to the study from which he came.

The house was spacious and contained a foyer, the study, a kitchen and the three bedrooms she presumed. Looking in the direction that her brother headed in just the slightest shift in movement allowed her to confirm her suspicions seeing that none of the rooms had doors. In fact the entire place thus far lacked doors.

Going in that direction she easily ruled out one of the rooms, her "brother" was in it sitting on the edge of the bed tinkering away with something metallic. What looked to be an earlier flying machine, something of the sort DaVinci designed. He had various little tools on the bed next to him, mostly what appeared to be small screwdrivers.

The other two rooms seemed bare. Both had beds though one also sported a writing desk and a bookshelf complete with books on it bound in leather. If inspected the paper was vellum. The room without the bookcase and not occupied by her brorther had housed a statue in one corner of a bearded man dressed in a toga with a lone finger pointed to the heavens. The base of it had an inscription but it was in a dialect that she was unable to decipher.

Seeing her "father's" forced smile kind of hit Melanie hard. She was supposed to get some inks? How was she supposed to know. But she turned around and walked aimlessly around the house. Her Greek was rough at best, but everything she real was indecipherable to her. It seemed strange that the building had no doors, but seemed perfectly natural. The wind and air blew in languidly. Melanie, despite being in a dream, felt complete at home.

As she passed by her brother's room, she noticed that he was toying with something.
"Little brother, what are you working on?" she asked, knowing better than to sit beside him- those screws would extremely difficult to find if they fell to the floor.

Startled, the boy looked up at the sound of her voice. "Oh, this?" Yeah, that obviously as he flickered his gaze down as if he had forgotten what was in his hands before looking back at her. "The latest gyro copter model. I am having a little problem with the propeller it keeps falling off this one and since Xeres is at the stream having a picnic with his folks today I figured that I had the time to take it apart today and put it back together to insure that I did everything right.

"So far it all looks right, just tightening up a few screws and then I'll be sure to know if it's just me or if it's a flaw in the model's design. Heamvo's last stuff before this was a little shoady so I would put it past him."

Xeres and Heamvo sounded Greek to her, even if Xeres had latin roots. Xeres was probably her brother's best friend, and Heamvo sounded like the man who forged these interesting gyrocopters. Her brother must have been pretty good with putting stuff together, and would probably end up inventing something neat. But she did not have name to go off of. It was difficulty to piece together her own identity with just the data she currently had. "Well, can you show it to me when you're done? I'll be in the other room," she smiled, getting up and walking to the first bedroom with a bookshelf.

She began to peer through the books, seeing if she could find something she could read. But it served little purpose. She could've held the Odyssey, and still would not know. She looked at the work desk and shuffled through the papers. Again, nothing. She promptly walked over to the next room, but again, she was unable to read a thing.

In the end, she resigned herself to flopping on the bed and whispering, "Come on... give me a clue... anything... what am I supposed to do?"

"Sure!" Her brother responded before she left. Going into one room she flipped through the books, and though she could not read them she recognized that they had been in the same flowing script and appeared to be done by the same author.

But other than that she found nothing, nothing in the other room either as she flopped on the bed. While asking for something to work with she noticed that the inscription on the statue became clearer and clearer, the words appearing to her as if scribed in English rather than whatever script they had been written in.

Damolces; reach for the stars. Founder of Neptune.

The words read as they slowly shifted so she could read them as if she were manipulating her dream in a small way just by considering it.

Her eyes dancing about the room, Melanie finally settled on the room with the statue. She felt herself beginning to focus, to hone in on the language... but to no avail. But wait- one thing had changed. The inscription of the statue had changed. Melanie, feigning restlessness, trudged over to the statue, reading the statue. The name held little meaning, though it did bring up the name of a man from a Greek morality tale. This, obviously, was not the same man. Damocles was buffoon.

Reach for the stars. Melanie had heard this phrase multiple times. It held no importance to her.

Founder of Neptune. A clue, if anything. Perhaps it would be odd to ask her brother about Neptune- there was a statue with the name scrawled upon it. Melanie, cursing her inability to relate the dream to anything she really knew, decided that the only way to get new clues was to leave the house.

But first, she would need a distinct goal. She walked over to one of the study tables and found a tiny piece of Vellum. She lightly inked a quill.

Melanie walked to the study, where her father was working tediously. "Father," she called to him, "I'm actually going to go out and try again. Could you tell me which inks you wished for again?" Her inked quill was ready to scribble what the man was about to tell her. Another light breeze blew in.

As she approached the study she could hear her father speaking again. Looking into the room his gaze had been directed towards one of the shadowy corners though turned toward her as she approached.

"Ink? Oh, yes ..." he said as it took a few seconds for it to register in his mind. Meanwhile she could have sworn that something shifted in the inky darkness of the corner of the room, though it could have been her imagination as well.

Her father got up from a desk and she noticed that there were parchments on the table, a quill and an ink bottle that had nearly run dry, There was much she could read on the papers from this distance but a partial word caught on her mind.

'...antis' looking further her eyes fell upon the word, 'Atlantis'.

"Squid ink, one vial of it, octopi ink if squid is unavailable." He said. "And don't let Vlar charge you more than one tale for it."

Oh thank goodness- I was afraid of a more complicated ink type.
"Very well Father, I shall return soon." Melanie was now interested in what her father was studying, and he was talking with. It was a strange situation, but she promised that she would soon investigate to ensure that it was only an imagining.
Still, her sudden ability to read had revealed an interesting word. "Atlantis." Good, so this dream was based around Atlantis. In fact, the place where she was greatly reminded her of renderings of the sunken continent.

Then she heard the word "tale." A "tale?" was that a kind of coin? Melanie check the pouch she had carried about her and opened the "purse." Inside, there were a bunch of coins she could not quite recognize. She made a mental note to try buying things at different places to determine their worth.
She took a moment to stop by her brother's room."I'll be back later, ok?" she smiled affectionately. She left the household, and walked in the same direction that her "brother" had guided her along, only one name acting as her director: "Vlar."

"No, she's my daughter ..."

She heard her father saying as she left the room. The words were softly spoken though not soft enough for her not to have heard.

Checking her coin pouch there were plenty of silver coins stamped with the head of a bald bearded man that resembled the older version of the statue in her room. There were a few gold ones in there too but there were bronze coins as well none of which she recognized. The gold and bronze coins had been stamped with different images as well, people she did not recognize ... an old man on the gold coin, a young comely man on the bronze.

When she passed by her brother's room he acknowledged her with an 'ok' of his own though he was busy tinkering with his model and barely paid attention.

But back out to the streets she soon went, it being as busy as she remembered it. People going to and fro, mostly adorned in blue togas, some silver, a few gold. But she was scantly away from her house before the ground violently shook beneath her feet.

Everything trembled and she lost her footing thrown off balance she landed on the ground. Earthquake! Though it ceased after a few seconds, a lot of people picking themselves off of the ground, some exclaiming that the Gods were angry others still checking their wares and stalls looking over damaged goods.

Melanie was thrown to the cobbled street as the earthquake struck. She may have scraped her elbows, but that was the least of her worries. Her mind began to whir as she tried to put the pieces together. What major Greek events centered around an earthquake? She quickly flitted through her memories, but she could not focus. A part of her wanted to race back and see if her father and brother were all right. But as she got up, she berated herself.

This was only a dream. Its only a dream.

She ran back anyways, seeking out her home.

When she arrived back the statue in the foyer was broken, am arm shattered on the floor. The one in her bedroom was fine, though her brother was cursing. Evidently, as she checked on him, she found that he had lost one of his screws in the quake.

The other room had a few books knocked off of the shelf but that was all. Her brother was alright, as well as her father who checked out what all the fuss and cursing had been about. Seeing Mel he asked if she were alright, and asked his son if he were too.

One thing of interest that she discovered was the boys name, Icarus, the same as the boy with the wax wings who had not heeded his father's warning and flew too close to the sun causing his wings to melt and he too plummet back to the earth.

But everyone seemed ok, it was just a little tremor right?

She did here sounds from the study, movement ... slithering of somekind.