Date: Fri, 17 Mar 1995 13:49:46 -0800 (PST)
Subject: PROSE: In Berni's Dreams

It seems like it's been forever to the impatient Singer, Bernadette Marshall,
since she was able to send a message to her estranged fiancee, Kevlan Sharr,
via the Deputy Guild Master. She's beginning to lose hope, and slip into
another state of depression, thinking that he must have received the message by
now and maybe doesn't care to respond. She really can't blame him. She deserves
it. She made her bed, now she has to lie in it.

Bernadette has fallen into a restless sleep in her small temporary quarters
on Shankill, where she has been since before Passover searching and awaiting
word from Kevlan. She's managing, this time, not to let her emotions and
depression keep her from eating, despite her total lack of appetite as is
often the case with her when she's upset, and is maintaining her health.
Some people turn to food for consolation when something's bothering them;
Berni turns away from it...and practically everything else.

She turns restlessly on her bunk as her sleep is instantly filled with dreams
as it usually is nowadays. In her mind's eye, she sees him smiling at her;
  that familiar half-smile that makes his face light up with boyish charm. His
  teeth gleaming white in contrast to his tanned skin; expressive eyes as blue
  as the sky after a storm; blonde hair falling unchecked across his forehead
  and into his eyes. Her heart swells and skips a beat--he's always had that
  effect on her. She loves him so much.

  He's speaking, his rich baritone endearingly accented, but she can't
  understand what he's saying. In her dream, she's shaking her head and
  shrugging her shoulders, and he's patiently repeating himself. Again, she
  doesn't understand. His smile fades and he looks unhappy. Her heart takes a
  rapid plunge before it starts pitter-pattering in her anxiety to please him.

  He's angry now...an emotion he's rarely shown towards her. And he's talking
  again. Only now, his words are all too clear.

  "How could ya leave me? How could ya hurt me so bad? And now you 'spect
  me t' take ya back?" She winces with every word in her dream, and also in
  her sleep, small whining noises escaping her throat. "Yer a fool," he's
  saying now and turning his back on her.

  In desperation, she cries out "Kevlan! Wait!" He turns to gaze disgustedly at
  her. Oh, it hurts so much to be the object of that scornful look. She's
  crying now. "You said you'd wait for me!"

  He sneers and replies "Ah cain't wait f'revah. Ah cain't wait f'r you."

  She cries out again, as he walks away and fades into blackness. She's filled
  with an empty feeling...loneliness...despair. She calls for him again and...

...She's awakened by the sound of her own voice. Her face is wet, as is her
pillow. She rubs at her eyes, feeling forlorn, as she sits up and looks around
the empty room.

Still crying silently a little, she climbs off the bed and starts packing the
few belongings she brought with her to Shankill so long ago.

'I've lost him,' she thinks, as she slowly changes out of her bedclothes and
into the first coverall she pulls from her carisak, 'And it's no one's fault
but my own.' She sits at the small desk in front of the room's terminal as
she pulls on her boots and taps out her request to book a seat on the next
available shuttle back to Ballybran. Maybe she can find white again and lose
her misery in song.

Slipping her carisak over one shoulder and her still-new guitar over the 
other, she leaves her room and turns the key back in. She heads for the
lounge to await the departure of her shuttle. The moonbase is quiet. It's
still awfully early for anyone to be awake save the midnight crews.

In solitude, she dials up a pitcher of Yarran and nothing else, seating
herself at one of the many empty tables and proceeding to slowly yet 
methodically drink the entire contents of the brew, wishing it were stronger.