There are some who say that if an undisturbed sleeper sleeps late, they wake up late- and if they sleep early, they wake up early. But for Cindy's first night at Stallion's Rest, the saying clearly overlooked her. To be perfectly clear, Cindy had not been an undisturbed sleeper for some time and, for a number of reasons I shall not repeat, she had gotten into the rhythm of falling asleep long after dusk and waking up sometime before dawn. Despite this, although she had fallen asleep sometime around dusk, she did not wake up any earlier than usual. In fact, give or take about an hour, on her first night at Stallion's Rest, Cindy had the privilege of sleeping away the sun's entire absence.

At first, on account of her darkened lenses and the time of day, she had some trouble remembering where she had woken up and how she had gotten there- on such a comfy bed in such a cosy room. Then she heard it.

ghroaaaahgr huwuuwuu.... ghroaaaahgr huwuuwu.... ghroaaaahgr hwuuwu.

And it all came flooding back: the reality of her dream.

To be sure, the Who's pig-ish groan had no better chance of being the cause of Cindy's awakening than the odd late night storm or passing autocar, but she had not heard another like it since her last sleepover at the Gibbs' estate. And the effect of it was that, when she became properly aware of it, the first thing she did was let out a laugh- which she was careful to muffle with a pillow. The second thing she did was marvel at her first time actually having to muffle her voice. And, finally, as a third thing, Cindy lifted up one of her pillows and sincerely pondered lobbing it at her new roommate.

Surely, he cannot catch it while asleep.

Then, she stopped when she saw that the snoring wasn't coming from the bed, or the sofa but the carpet. And when she saw the boy resting soundly on the floor, she could not help but wonder how she had mistaken him for being ungentlemanly. Then the sound erupted again in greater force; that pig-ish groan which, despite its ugliness, she couldn't help but be enchanted the more she thought about it. Especially when she realised how long it had been since she felt safe enough with a roommate to throw something- even something soft -at him. Thus she decided, as a volunteer, to let him snore and sleep until he felt like waking up. That being said, it was still a very ugly sound so she promptly got up to pass back through the painting and explore the Overseers' palace.

Fortunately for her, Guardian had been very occupied since they came into the room the night before and had forgotten to lock his painted door. So it was that Cindy simply stepped out and delighted in the sound of the snoring disappearing as she passed through the painting. From that disappearance, she made the following deduction: Since she could not hear him from her end then he could not hear her from his end; and since only he could hear her, she was quite free to make as much noise as she wanted. Thus she began running round the ring of her level and taking good looks at the paintings on its walls.

Then something she had never seen before flew towards her and so caught her attention, though it certainly did not intend to. With a sort of wizzing noise, what seemed like a little sun grew larger and larger as it came closer and closer. It wasn't as bright as the sun. Then again, it wasn't as big either. It looked, in some ways, like how you imagined a star to be before you learned that it was just a faraway sun. The little ball of light zipped and whiffed until it came right to the tip of Cindy's nose and there it stayed for a time. Nearly cross-eyed, she looked at the very odd flame and noted that it seemed to be studying her. Then, when a few seconds had passed, it went backwards a little in a way that seemed like a double take- as if it had just figured out something important. Immediately afterwards, the little sun cuddled up to the girl between her neck and her chin before flying a little higher and kissing her cheek. With every touch, the star gave off a very peculiar tickle as if its flames were not fires, as they appeared to be, but feathers. Then it began to fly, higher and higher, revolving round the girl in a spiral as she turned again and again to keep focus in stupefied adoration. Cindy could not help but let out a little, gleeful laugh as the creature flew up and away, up the bifrost and beyond the upper pool, squeeing as it went.

When it was gone, Cindy's thoughts shifted to the pool itself and she saw that the silver on the heart's perimeter was slowly turning to gold. And when she looked down she saw that the gold round the bottom pool was slowly turning to silver. Having spent time reading the right stories, her instincts had been trained to recognise precisely what was happening.

It is the dawn! I must hurry now or I will miss it!

I will not say that the prospect of climbing the bifrost (if you can call that climbing) became less scary or that she became less scared. It was simply that she didn't make her choice in those terms. It wasn't the prospect of climbing the bifrost that chiefly concerned young Cindy. Rather, it was the prospect of seeing or missing the golden star drift under and then above the floating island. It was with those terms that she made her decision.

With a few steps back and clenched fists and a very deep breath, she ran up to the edge of her present ring and leapt off onto the second-closest bubble of (what seemed to be) glass, having overshot the closest one. When she finally landed on the bubble, she found that it didn't quite feel like glass; although it still looked like a ball of blue-stained glass. It didn't really feel like anything. In fact, she felt as though she were standing on nothing at all and became very afraid that the bubbles were illusions of some sort and that she was going to fall right through. Of course- and you may have guessed this if you've read the right stories -she only began to fall right through after becoming afraid that she might.

She was perfectly capable of guessing this herself afterwards but it was very hard to get herself to think anything else other than "aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh" whilst free-falling and passing through bubble after bubble after bubble before landing in the pool at the very bottom; where the tree's trunk ended and its roots began. When she finally stepped out, she experienced, for the first time, that really funny feeling of having all the water she had stolen from the pool slide down from her hair and her skin and her clothes, leaving her quite dry in the aftermath. And not only dry but less smelly and less sticky than she had been since- well, since her days at the Gibbs' estate; when her baths were long and warm and her days were not at all as demanding as they had been of late. And not only was she better off but her clothes seemed by far more refreshed. Promptly, the droplets all made their way back to their own little aquatic home, grumbling as they went, as though the girl had done them some great inconvenience.

Thank you.

The words came blurting out. And just as soon as they had, she wondered if they mattered at all- if water droplets could hear her voice at all. And it was a fair question.

Grumblings without mouths... Could they sense me without ears to hear- or even a voice to hear -or eyes to read my lips?

Then she saw all the droplets gone away and, with a little shake of her head, she decided to stop bothering about it.

Looking up, it was very clear to see that the silver was half-way done replacing the gold and so she, very sensibly, guessed that the dawn was itself half-way done. A little upset, she let her heart settle for a moment as her fingers danced on the moving, sparkling edge between the two colours and felt the sparks dance with her; leaping all over and around her hand. She could feel them through her gloves. They were not burn-ish but very ticklish- in much the same way that the little sun had been -but she felt far too sad to laugh then because she was sure that she would miss the dawn. Then one of the bubbles brushed against her hair on accident and made a little bounce, though she didn't feel it. At once, she pulled her hand from the sparkles and reached out to poke the pink bubble in front of her and when she did, she saw- though she did not feel -that it was very solid and very real. And though she did not feel anything stopping it, she was unable to move her finger past its outline. Then and there, she came to understand that feature of the bubbles which I have already told you; since she was perfectly capable of figuring it out.

When, at last she, knew that it was possible to leap from bubble to bubble, she reached out with both hands and grabbed on to the pink one and, though she felt nothing, pulled as if something were there and she managed to pull herself and her feet onto the bottommost step of the bifrost. From then on, it became very hard to keep her balance, as it generally is when you want to stand on a sphere; and that is when you can feel the sphere against your feet and against your palms.

After three or four tries at getting upright, she found that the closest thing she could get to a stable stance was one where she was essentially lying face-down- with all her limbs stretching out as if in a vain attempt at wrapping round the bubble. She made a few attempts after at reaching out to touch another bubble, which was a very light yellow, but it was far too far away to grab onto securely with both hands and only barely close enough to touch with the tip of her middle finger. At last, she became very dizzy and slipped off the bubble, falling back into the pool before climbing out again and apologising again to the very grumpy waters. She tried this twice more before feeling very silly and very upset.

Each time she climbed out of the pool, she became more and more like the pool in that she hated falling in it as much as it seemed to hate having her. What made it far worse was that the tickling of the droplets went from funny to itchy and, although she was very quickly dried, it was still not much fun to be, involuntarily, dropped in and out of water very suddenly several times in a row. Yet, the thing that was actually the most upsetting was that each time she got out, she was forced to look at the outline of the bottom pool which was becoming more silver moment by moment.

What a bother...

As she laid flat next to the pool, feeling the water rush out of her clothes, she found that she had become very tired of the bifrost room. What was once a beautiful tower now seemed like a judge looking down on her with a teasing tone; as if the whole structure had been built for mockery (and so, by instinct, every Overseer- living or dead -nodded sadly in agreement).

She got up, at last, on her own two feet and began studying the bottom floor, which was not a ring like those above it but only a circle with a heart-shaped pool at its centre. Yet, like all the rings above, there were many paintings of doors and tunnels and gates. She first tried going through a certain door which looked like it belonged at the edge of a mine, with wooden planks on its edges and a very makeshift-looking knob. However, when she reached her hand through it, she was made to stop at the glass surrounding the canvas. She tried the same with the door to its left and to its right and then on and on and on.

It became very clear about a quarter of the way through that she wasn't going to get into any of them without a bracer of the Overseers. But, she was far too low to return to the blood-red door without using the bifrost and she was coming to her wit's end. Then and there, she only really wanted an excuse to run around and push and pull on the paintings to let out her frustrations. Afterwards, she felt very fortunate that she did not accidentally break one (not knowing yet, that she really couldn't have done so). She did, however, at one point, become irked enough to rip off a very nice depiction of flowers to ram against the ground but it remained perfectly intact with the only noticeable effect of the effort being a very loud "smack" which made Cindy very scared, then very ashamed and finally very amused at her own silliness.

When she had returned the painting to its place, she leaned on the wall right beside it and slid herself down to a seat. In such a posture, she began to wait for the Guardian or his mother or any of his stock to come and get her. Then another wizz came by. And another. And another. And when she finally got it in her head to look up, she saw a handful more little suns emerging from this painting or that. Two were already on their way up when she had pulled her face up from the pillow of her crossed forearms. A third had just left its painting and so promptly left that lowest level without issue. The fourth, however, had come out after Cindy had lifted her face. And it seemed to notice her face right upon its arrival from beyond the painting. And it seemed to be looking at her very quizzically from afar. The fifth emerged shortly afterwards, and it seemed to notice its forerunner's notice. And then it appeared to ram the fourth and scold it before both stars, together, started flying up and away to the upper pool.

If only I could join you.

This room and all the others are yours to enjoy... You are the only person who gets a say in the manner.

The boy's words roared out of her tell-tale heart with such a ferocity that she echoed them with her jaws, saying...

This room and all the others are mine to enjoy... I am the only person who gets a say in the matter.

She began to feel very angry toward the plain fact that she was at the bottom and not at the top. Then a few things began to happen. The young Cindy took notice of the pool and saw that it was nearly all-silver. Then she got up. And then, determined to see that dawn and very certain in her dislike of the bifrost room, she rushed with all her might towards the pink bubble from which she had been constantly thrown off, and made a very fierce leap. When she landed, she wasted no time and instead leapt immediately to the next bubble and she did the same again and again and again, racing higher and higher and higher while spending no more than a moment on each colourful bounce. And indeed it did feel like bouncing.

It began to feel, not from her feet but from her speed and height, that the bubbles were causing her to bounce higher and surer with each passing step. Furthermore, they seemed to be spinning her, so very gently, to wherever she meant to go. There were times when she became afraid that she might be slipping, and I will not say that she only ever got higher throughout since there were moments when she fell a little lower, but she never got to the bottom pool for the rest of her climb. Whenever she did fall, she had already gotten so far that she could find herself falling on a lower bubble from which she could promptly resume bouncing and leaping and jumping and climbing and, all the while, cackling as though she was quite insane.

Though her climbing, quite obviously, took more time than her falling, it did not seem so to her at the time since she was having a great bit of fun. So much fun, in fact, that she did not even notice when she had passed over the painting of the blood-red door; the only unlocked door she knew of. Her eyes, then and there, were fixed on the heart above her and she was fully determined to leave the entirety of the bifrost room beneath her feet. Although the vast majority of the steps disappeared into a blur, the last few lingered powerfully in her own heart. As soon as she saw that she was near the finish, she suddenly became most afraid.

In battling the last four steps, which were red and blue and yellow and green respectively, she fell through to lower bubbles more often than she did in battling any of the others. In any case, the secret had already been revealed to her and the falls did nothing to deceive her. She held onto every hard-earned pace with as much fervour as she could muster until, at last, she stretched out both of her hands to pierce the bottom of the upper pool in the fully-golden heart.

A moment later, she felt her whole top submerged in the warm waters which crowned the ladder of coloured bubbles. Soon enough, all of her was completely submerged in the waters above. A blue light, dim but shimmering descended from the surface to kiss her all over her as she drifted beneath the waves. She chased after it. With what strength remained in her arms, she pushed herself further up and further in. But even after five or six strokes, she seemed no closer to the upper surface than when she had first begun. Even after a dozen strokes, she seemed no closer.

The reason actually had very little to do with the vigour of her movement as such. In fact, she had moved impressively far for her size and skill, and if she had looked back she would have noticed as much. The reason was simply the deepness of the pool itself. Had she been at her full strength and attention- had she been fully rested and full of energy -she still might not have made it even a twelfth of the way to the top. And she wasn't at her best. Rather, she was tired from the crawling and the leaping and the falling and the waking up less than an hour ago. When she had gone a certain distance, she became very afraid because she found that she could barely move. By then, she was already very far from the bottom but farther still from the top and her breath had become eager to burst out of her hold. At last, she gave in. And she was forced to swallow a gulp of water. But before she could take a second gulp, she looked and she saw the silhouette of a Mermaid moving and eclipsing various parts of the shimmering roof as it rushed over to her and took hold of her and carried her the rest of the way up to dry land. It looked- but did not feel -to be made of glass.