Dreams of Atlantis:
A Prelude to Awakening
Atlantis Awakening Roleplay Thread found HERE
Rated M for Mature Content

​

​

The Dreams

​

Background Information

​

May 15th, 2005

Leo's muscles rippled beneath his golden brown fur as he sprinted across the wide expansive grassland on his parent's estate. Northern Portugal was mostly hilly grasslands and long mountain ranges, much of it owned by his parents; giving him a lot of play room. He paused to let out a weak roar between pants, waiting for his brother to catch up. From over the spur of the grassy hill, a light brown lynx leapt over the apex, bolting straight for the regal looking lion.

"I win again, brother," Leo spoke after transforming back into his human form, his body naked from head to toe.

"Wait until you grow a mane, then I'll be the one winning," the lynx spoke has he became a leaner looking man than his older brother.

Leo laughed deeply, grabbing his younger brother around the neck playfully. He smiled as Andre grimaced at his knuckles running across Andre's head. Having had enough, Andre threw his weight against his brother's body, causing them to both tumbled to the ground. They laughed as they simultaneously transformed into their respective animals again, pouncing at each other and swiping at one another with meaty paws.

The playful fighting and racing lasted until the sun was hanging low in the sky. They tumbled to the ground as Leo pounced on Andre, holding him to the ground in a show of dominance and power. They both stopped as a high pitched whistling resounded across the grassland; one only their ears could pick up. After a quick glance at one another, they sped off in the direction they had come from; Leo in the lead by far.

It didn't take them long to bound back to the estate manor. A sub-adult lion and slightly smaller Lynx pelting towards the deck was an interesting sight, more so that neither species natively existed in the region. As soon as the pair of cats passed through the hedges that bordered the state, they reverted back to their human forms. Slightly bloodied, bruised and stained by grass, the boys sauntered up to the house, arms wrapped around each other as they both laughed deeply. They enjoyed their brotherhood, seemingly inseparable as they both shared the same lifestyle and similar abilities.

Their mother stood waiting for the two of them, an angry look spread across her face. Beside her on the wooden table were two piles of clothes waiting ready for the boys and in one hand was a small whistle, the other a newspaper. She was a proud and stern woman, always carrying herself high and not very fond of the reckless behaviour both her boys seemed to get into.

"Three sightings yesterday," she scolded them as they each thanked her before putting on their clothes, "three sightings of you two pouncing around in your animal forms. You need to be more careful or I'll have to send you two to your father's."

Leo and Andre looked guiltily at one another; they hadn't meant to burst into the families sharing their picnic in the secluded meadow. As far as they had been concerned the whole place was a National Park and the only people they had to be concerned about were the rangers.

"Sorry mother, it won't happen again." They said in unison. Now fully clothed, they each gave their mother a hug before moving on inside where they could smell the aromatic food wafting in their direction.

The table was laden with several plates of food; enough to feed at least six people. However only Leo, Andre and their mother sat around the circular table. Both boys eyed the food hungrily, their appetites' that of human and animal and after the day of exercise they were almost famished. Before they could grab a single piece of food their mother eyed them angrily, and with heads bowed they extended an arm each to their mother and began the Lord's Prayer. As they bowed heads the two turned slightly to one another, pulling faces as they tried to get the other to laugh while they repeated it from heart.

"So, did you boys get up to anything today? Aside from scaring tourists and locals…"

"I found a nice secluded bend of the rio Cávado," Andre commented with his mouth full of chicken from a leg he grasped in his left hand, "so we spent the morning there before heading into the mountains." With his right hand Andre used his fork to stab at a couple of lettuce leaves.

"Unlike this one," Leo took it upon himself to talk, "I managed to catch us a deer for lunch." He nudged Andre in the ribs.

"Only 'cause it was limping! You've gotta tell the whole story, brother."

"The only reason it was limping was because that fox scared it off just as I pounced on it. You wouldn't have seen since you were so far behind."

"I'm not the one with the fat Lion arse…" Andre and Leo both dropped their food on the plates and began punching one another playfully.

"Alright, stop it you two," their mother sighed heavily. She wasn't Atlantean like their father, yet she was the one who had to put up with their rough housing. Not that she minded their playful natures, but in the end she was the one making sure no one found out about their peculiar abilities. As much as she would rather they stay with Gino, their father, and learn with the rest, Joana had grown attached to the boys being around. Besides, she would rather they live here on the estate in Braga rather than over in England.

The dinner table was nearly licked clean by the boys who had devoured almost every plate. Satisfied, they thanked their mother for the food and began taking the plates up to the kitchen where the two would clean the dishes. Despite there being help around the house, the boys preferred to wash the multitude of dishes themselves considering their massive appetites.

"Did you read the email from Dad?" Andre asked; his brow furrowed as he waited for Leo to hand him a plate to dry.

"Yeah, I don't think mum is going to be too happy about that, especially if we go." Leo moved onto the next plate, keeping his head bent low over the sink.

"It's not like we can't not go, if The Oracle really said those things, then we need to go soon."

Leo simply nodded in agreement with his brother. While Andre was in his last year of High School, Leo had finished studying more than two years ago. If either of them were in a position to move to the Mansion with their father, it was him, yet he didn't want to move so far away without his brother. The two were close beyond comprehension and it just wouldn't be the same. Leo bit his lip, his feline teeth biting into the soft flesh causing blood to start dripping down his chin.

"Sh*t," he cursed as he grabbed a towel, lifting his head up to the roof and putting pressure on the wound. "Could I really leave my brother behind?" he considered as he waited for the blood to stop flowing.​

May 16th, 2005

The wind played with the chime hanging above the door as the young man carefully made his entrance into the small corner shop. Books lined the walls and shelves as he picked his way through the small shop to the counter at the back. To his left, the busy central city streets were reduced to a low muffle preserving the tranquillity of the shop. Previously when he had stepped out, the air had been thick with incense, but now it had thinned considerably meaning they had had several customers stop by. Arranged in alphabetical order next to the cash register was a wide array of colourful crystals containing anything from Azurite right down to Zircon.

"You're late," the girl popped her gum as she continued to read through her magazine, not taking the time to look up as the kid in front of her.

"I know, I know." He repeated as he ducked in behind the counter and through the door tapered with pictures of sacred geometry behind her. "Class finished late."

"Yeah, yeah, whatevs." She cast him off without a second thought.

It was much cooler in back than in the front of the store which seemed to hold in all the heat and Daniel preferred the cold. On the floor was a cardboard box, all taped up with a note attached from their boss. She was a lovely, older lady; the sort you would easily assume to be into the spiritual. Big round glasses, loose fabric clothing, large hoop earrings and the constant smell of incenses hanging around her like she had a couple burning in her pockets; she was a nice woman to work for albeit maybe a little crazy.


She could never really get his name right. If he cast his mid back far enough, he was sure the first week he worked for her she had called him 'Daniel', but ever since then she came up with different names. Darren, Devlin, Dylan, Declan, Jacob… the list went on.


The box wasn't very large, but neither was it small. When he opened it, he let out a large sigh as the box was full to the brim with crystals of all different sizes and shapes. Usually their supplier would ship them already sorted into different boxes according to what they were, but obviously Carolyn had ordered from someone else. Then again, Daniel wasn't worried about sitting out back sorting the crystals out; he wasn't much of a people person so didn't really enjoy being out watching the store and till.

Grabbing a couple of plastic containers from the desk behind him, Daniel organised them into a three by three square. In the first seven containers he placed stones whose colours were the primary and secondary colours of each chakra; Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet. In the last two, he split the stones between clear and dark stones. It was a tedious task, one where he could easily and happily drift off into the corners of his mind as he worked. Hematite into the dark container, Rose Quartz into the red, Amethyst into the violet, there were many different crystals in no particular order in the box; it was going to take a while.

Daniel didn't think anything of the crystal when he first picked it up from the box other than it felt strangely cool in the palm of his hand. Turning it over in his hand, Daniel's first thought that is was Blue Agate, a common enough blue crystal, but something in the back of his mind didn't feel quite right about labelling it like that. He put it aside for now away from all the other crystals but his concentration had been broken. As much as he tried to continue to do the job without a second thought, the strange crystal always crept into the forefront of his mind.

Succumbing to the fact that he wasn't going to be able to complete the task without figuring exactly what the crystal was, Daniel decided to investigate. Opening the door slightly, he popped his head out, "Hey Tiff, do you know what kind of crystal this is?" He held the small blue stone between his thumb and forefinger, extending it out so she could get a closer look.

"I have no clue," Tiffany said without lifting her face from the magazine, "aren't you meant to be the crystal guru or something?" She tsk-ed him, turning the page and burying her nose deeper into whatever celebrity gossip the paparazzi had dug up this time.

Disheartened that Tiffany had no clue, Daniel withdrew into the room, scanning the multitude of dusty, old books that his boss had stored back here. Most of them were about 'how to centre your chakra' or 'balancing karma through meditation'. Daniel wasn't quite sure what he thought of New Age and Spiritualism, it wasn't that he was particularly religious, but rather that he didn't quite know if he really connected with it. Without thinking his fingers ran across an older looking book and stopped; a book that looked a lot older than anything else in the room. Curiously he took the book from the shelf, and stared at the title: 'Myths and Legends: Forgotten Realms".

Sounding like a book from some sort of Dungeons and Dragons fantasy, Daniel almost replaced it until his urge to figure out why exactly he was drawn to both the book and the crystal. Turning it over, he sifted through the index hoping to look for something that would give him a clue as to what he was searching for. Under 'Crystal, Blue', he found a page number: 68. Turning to the page, he coughed as dust found its way into his throat cast up from the pages.


The page went on but Daniel had had enough. Replacing the book back on the shelf, he resumed the task of sorting the crystals. Tossing the crystal in with the rest of the blue ones he started to ignore it, he had spent twenty minutes trying to find something that was just a myth. Tentatively he scratched at the back of his neck, moving along to his shoulder blade as it felt like something was crawling beneath the skin. Crying out in pain he pitched forward, knocking over all the sorted jars as he felt the searing pain in his flesh. It felt like a red-hot razor blade was carving it was path through his shoulder albeit in several different directions.

After about twenty-five minutes the pain came to a dull throb and Daniel pushed himself up off the floor. Gripping his shoulder he ran his hand beneath his shirt trying to feel for any inconsistencies that had not been there previously. Watch made him stop was the moment he brushed over a raised bit of skin, causing pain to shoot from his shoulder and up into his neck. Pulling his shirt off, Daniel rotated his body so he could look at it in the mirror. From the edges of his shoulder blade and up the side of his neck a dark tattoo had appeared looking vaguely similar to the design of his father's iwi. Running his fingers over the lines, he was amazed at not only how perfect the line work was but also the fact that in ten minutes, he had somehow grown a tattoo.​

May 15th, 2005


It was nearing midday, Justin should have been up hours ago to attend class but instead he had decided to sleep in. After his alarm had gone off earlier in the morning, he had decided on a whim not to get up, soon falling back to sleep and waking up a couple of hours later. When he woke up yet again he decided not to get up and simply stayed in bed listening to the trees creak and groan outside his bedroom window. It was peacefully like this, the trees spoke a language only he could understand, and it was the one time he could truly get away from everything.

Then again, all except his sister.

When he heard the knock at the door he anticipated his mother standing in the doorway glaring at him profusely as he lay half naked in bed. Right now the entire mansion could be on fire and he would be content just to sit here and listen to the trees talk amongst themselves. The intruder though, had other things on their mind and soon after knocking, barrelled on through the door, launching themselves at Justin lying peacefully.

"Jay, the sky is awake, so you should be awake!"

A faint smell of marijuana assailed his nostrils causing Justin to screw up his nose. Only one member of the Royal Family had that smell around them constantly and wasn't afraid to flaunt it so. "Rose, why are you here? Shouldn't you be in class with everyone else?" Justin croaked from beneath his sister's smothering weight.

"Shouldn't you be in class with everyone else, too?" She mocked his surfacing British accent in her thick Irish accent.

Opening his eyes he could see nothing but the cascading dark brown hair, letting out a small huff of air to try and remove it from his face. Justin guessed that Rose was bothering him because she missed him. Justin had already graduated from High School, deciding it wasn't in his best interest to study further like his father wished but rather to study and learn at the mansion with his mother. Rose was still in High School, only just over a year between them, and so she was only present at the mansions during holidays or whenever she decided like going on a trip. While Justin got along with his sister well enough, it didn't stop them being at each other's throats. As much as he enjoyed her company, he also enjoyed the lack thereof.

"Rose, you should be in Dublin, Dad'll have a fit if he knows you're here." Justin pushed his sister off himself before grabbing the green t-shirt that was draped over his alarm clock. His tousled brown hair, very similar to the dark brown of his sisters, stood up at odd angles as he sat up in bed. Beneath the hair baby blue eyes reflected back like small ponds beneath his slightly bushy brow.

"I should, but I'm not. I just hate school in Dublin," she whined at him, pouting her lips, "it's so boring and no one else has powers like we do here!" As if by magic a rose grew in the palm of her hand only to fall apart in a small shower of petals.

Justin angrily dusted the stray petals from his bed, "So did I, but I still went. If I can graduate, so can you."

"What if I don't want to graduate? Huh? I'm a girl, and I have good looks, people will just hand me jobs!"

"More like people will hand you money—ow!" He exclaimed as Rose landed a punch right on his sore shoulder. "Plus, no one is gonna want to hire a stoner." He remarked as he nursed his sore shoulder, rolling it back and forth trying to ease out the pain.

Looking at the ground, Rose simply played with a petal between her fingers, mulling over what her slightly older brother had said. She was so jealous of him, getting to live in the mansion with everyone else and not having to hide his powers. "If no one's going to hire me, then I'll just deal what I grow, it's not like it'll cost me much." Rose's eyes lit up as if she had thought of the most brilliant plan out there.

Justin buried his face in his hands, "And that is illegal…" he murmured as he shook his head from side to side in disdain. He could picture it clear as day in his head as Rose was handcuffed by the police and lead away to prison. Of course he would visit her, but how long would she be in there before they noticed her strange ability? Then of course they would come for his family, find the mansion… Justin just imagined all the comic books he had read at school when he was meant to be paying attention and anytime people like them were ousted, chaos and war followed.

"What are you doing? Don't you dare!" Rose grabbed for the phone Justin procured from his bedside table, but she was just out of reach.

"Dad. It's Justin." He spoke flatly, things hadn't ended so greatly when he left his father to come to the mansion so there was still a bit of tension between them. "Yes, Rose is here. She's fine." Any conversation with his father was always short and straight to the point. Never once did his father call to catch up with him or see how he was; it was all about business or to say the courteous 'happy birthday'. "Mum doesn't know. No, she's not in uniform. Yes, I can. Can she stay for the weekend at least? Why not? Dad, just, just let her, it won't do any harm." Having enough, Justin closed the cellphone shut, turning to his sister who quietly sat at the end of his bed.

"So what's the verdict?" she asked him sullenly.

"Dad wants you on a plane, asap. He's really hacked off; you're in so much trouble." Justin stifled a yawn before stretching out his arms. "If I were you," he stopped while he stretched, "I would go see mum before Dad can get a hold of her." He winked at her before shooing her from his room.

Jumping to her feet, Rose bounced on the balls of her feet before planting a kiss on Justin's cheek. "Did I ever mention you're my most favourite brother in the whole world?" She did a little skip as she headed for the door.

"I'm your only brother, egg." He said as he got up, pushing her out the door and locking it.

Turning to his left he looked at the tired figure staring back at him. The tattoo that had formed the day his ability manifested twisted around his upper left arm from under his shirt, finishing at a point that touched his elbow. Taking a closer look in the mirror, he assessed the scruffy tufts of blonde facial hair that sprouted unevenly from his jaw line. Next he pulled his shirt up to look at the vague lines and shadows of his abdominal muscles and further up at the small stands of chest hair. It felt so long ago since he had been a child, how he missed such innocent days. His body was going through its final stages of growth into the man he would become and he wondered just where the small, child-Justin had gone. Standing in the mirror was not the Justin he knew, but someone who looked a little too much like his father.

Ignoring the furrowed brow and angry stare that was so typical of his father, Justin instead turned to the large wooden wardrobe where his clothes sat untidily. Deciding on a pair of shorts to replace his pyjama pants and putting on some socks and shoes, Justin finally left his room. As he walked down the hall he patted his wild hair flat against his head trying to look the least bit presentable as he made his way to class. As he mindlessly walked to class, something seemed to be weighing on his mind heavily. It wasn't that his sister had shown up out of the blue, no that was a common occurrence ever since he had left Dublin. Thinking back to the moment he woke up, listening to the trees talk amongst themselves, he realised exactly what it was.

Turning on his heels, he began sprinting away from the classroom he had been heading to and instead bolted past his bedroom and down the stairwell at the end of the hall. Taking the stairs two at a time, he made it down both flights of stairs before arriving at the ground floor. Taking the shortcut, he sprinted across the concrete from one wing of the house to the other, dashing in through the open door and down the hallway until he arrived at a door. The door was new, but the markings etched into it were old; as old as Atlantis itself.

Knocking politely, Justin didn't wait for an answer before entering; not that he would get one anyway. The room was dully lit and full of smoke from the burning incense. He coughed once or twice but after hanging around Rose for so long he was used to the presence of smoke. Moving further into the room, he left the small entrance and into the larger area where a lone figure knelt on a small pillow.

She was old, millennia old, but looked like she wasn't a day over eighty. The clothes she wore seemed to drape over her frail body like blankets and Justin could hear a faint wheezing indicate she was alive. Out of reverence, Justin bowed before sitting on his knees to look at her.

"Miss Oracle, its Justin here, is it true? What the trees said? Are things really going to change soon?" He looked at her knowing fully well that in her catatonic state, it was highly unlikely that she would answer him back. But he held out, waiting for just a single word to leave her lips and confirm exactly what he had thought.

"Soon." Was her only reply.​