<span style="font-style: italic">(OOC Note: In this post, Nikolai is speaking Russian, but I’m just going to write it out as English.)</span><br/><br/>Nikolai opened his eyes, filled with an eagerness that he rarely felt when performing the same action in the real world.  Where would he be this time?  What adventures would he have?  A small smile curled Nikolai’s lips as he found himself lying on his back, gazing up through the foliage of an impossibly tall forest.  Far beyond the tree tops, bright stars tumbled and danced, tracing brief maps in the pink sky.<br/><br/>Nikolai knew this place -- this deep, dark woods where stories were born.  Excitedly, he sprang to his feet.  Tonight he would meet talking wolves, chase birds made of fire, and outwit evil magicians who hid their hearts in eggshells.  These were his favorite dreams, the ones that sprang from the Russian folktales his mother had told him when he was young.  And, as always, he summoned her to be his guide.<br/><br/>“Mother!  Mother, come play with me!  I’m over here!”<br/><br/>But this time, she didn’t appear.  And his voice sounded strange -- or rather, it sounded too familiar.  In these dreams, he was always a boy again.  But the voice calling for his mother was that of a young man.  Glancing down at his body, Nikolai confirmed that it didn’t resemble a child’s.<br/><br/>Somewhere in the distance, Nikolai heard a woman’s voice, and hope briefly flared up inside his heart.  But it died when he realized the voice didn’t belong to his mother.  In fact, the woman wasn’t even speaking Russian.  Nor was she speaking the nonsense which sometimes took the place of dialogue in dreams.  Her cry had been in English.  Why?  Nikolai knew some English, but he never dreamed in it.<br/><br/>With a growing feeling of dread, Nikolai began pushing through the trees, trying to locate the woman he’d heard.  “Hello?  Where are you?”