Prompt# 161 - Fool’s Paradise - Greatness - Tekia - original

[tekia.livejournal.com]

Title: Greatness
Fandom: Original
Prompt: Fool’s Paradise
Warnings: Continuation?
Rating: G
Summary: This will actually be the start of Jacky’s story. Jacky faces off with a strange cat to find his destiny.


Jacky had dreams. Always had. Probably always will. They were bothersome, in fact, sometimes they were so fanciful he would wake up and lay in bed, reliving the most recent dream.
Some were disturbing in that they left him wondering if they were only just dreams at all.
He was in his first year at college, still searching for his major, when he first dreamed of the human-faced cat. And clocks. He found himself surrounded by sand, gears, and the oppressing, steady tick tock. The giant cat sat in the sand, its back to him, tail idly making trails behind it.
Jacky had always been far too curious for his own good, so he approached and stared at the pair of dark eyes set in a human face.
Suddenly, he was seated before the cat, legs crossed, comfortable, unaware of when he had moved.
Face to face with the cat, Jacky felt safe despite the cat’s unnerving, unblinking stare. As if the cat were studying his soul.
The cat returned to his dreams often after that initial visit, always silent, always watching him. It snuck into the background where Jacky often missed spotting it, unaware of its presence. It was in those dreams, when he didn’t see the cat, that Jacky wondered if the cat was a part of his mind, or something else.
His dreams were of far off lands, exotic people, and adventures that were better fitted to moving picture shows than real life. He loved every dream and it wasn’t until high school that he decided being an adventurer wasn’t a practical career choice. Then he was in college and he didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life.
Until the last dream he had with the cat. Two years into college with no goal in sight, he was spending more and more time dwelling on the future, on his future failure so to speak. He worked part time and studied late into the night nearly every day, looking forward only to the dreams where he was a prince in an ancient city, a guard in a holy citadel, a hero with mystic powers that awed everybody he came across. Somebody.
His friends didn’t notice his listlessness, too caught up in the partying college lifestyle that Jacky had quickly found more troublesome than it was worth.
Then something changed. He had given up on being amazing at anything, merely working at the local fast food joint and finishing school. He had forgotten how much his dreams had inspired him to seek and explore.
The cat hadn’t been happy with him, then.
As he dreamed of being in a whirlwind romance with a person he never saw in his dreams, as the dream showed him adventure he had only read about in silly romance novels, the cat scowled at him, suddenly present in his dream.
The beautiful images of exotic sands and heady incense faded away and it was only Jacky and the human-faced cat. The cat glared down at him as it sat before him. Jacky could feel the anger rolling off the cat, its tail thumping heavily on the ground that wasn’t there, shaking Jacky until he felt safer sitting than standing.
He couldn’t meet the dark eyes, fearing that if he did, he would truly lose himself into the cat’s world of mystery.
They sat, facing each other for ever it seemed to Jacky. Then, abruptly, the sound of clocks returned. He frowned, looking around and slowly they were once again where they had first met, in the sand pit, so different than those hot sands of the previous dream, and gears surrounded them once again.
Frightened, Jacky looked back to the cat and opened his mouth. “Time’s running out, isn’t it?”
The cat blinked slowly, then it smiled, revealing sharp fangs and a wickedness of spirit Jacky hadn’t noticed before. A chill ran down his spine and he gulped.
A sound rumbled from the cat, so low and mumbled that Jacky couldn’t understand the words, if words they were. He shivered and ran his hands up his arms, seeking warmth. The cat’s frown deepened and it stood, looming over Jacky and it snarled, making the area rumble with its anger.
Jacky fell back in the sand. “I don’t understand what you want!” he cried, flinging his arms over his head. If the cat grew too angry with him, would it harm him? Eat him perhaps. Would he die?
The cat resumed its seat and its tail thumped heavily in the sand. Carefully, Jacky sat up and hunched his shoulders.
“Find me,” the cat suddenly said in a clipped, easily understood accent. Startled, Jacky looked up and met the dark eyes. They glowed with wisdom beyond the ages that frightened Jacky more than its rage had.
“Find me,” it repeated. “I will make you great.”
Jacky stared in shock. What did it mean?
They stared at each other even longer, the cat silent and waiting, Jacky unsure and trembling.
Find it? Such things like human-faced cats didn’t exist outside of his dreams.
Could he do it? Could he go out and search the world over for this mythical beast? Could he brave the thought that his dreams weren’t just his fool’s paradise and there was something out there for him? Something grand?
Someone.
He licked his lips, suddenly hungry for whatever it was this cat was offering him. He nodded his head and stood on shaking legs. He wiped his hands down his pants and nodded again.
“I will. I will.”
The cat smiled, a smug, haughty smile that left Jacky feeling that he had just been played by a master.