The Ugly Child - A Dream I Had This Morning

[X-posted to Livejournal and Dreamwidth]

I was a part of some sort of extended travelling family, run by a triumvirate of old matriarchs, adherents to this belief in something called "The Ugly Child." They had a mythology, relics, everything. The relics looked like scrimshaw sticks and little figurines, and they could have been very old ivory.

They and I moved into the house next door to the folks', the old place where we used to live before Dad was forced to sell the old place. I was in the kitchen, watching as the matriarchs laid out the various scrimshaw relics and placed them on a sort of shrine.

A while later, I bumped into a beautiful local girl, and took an immediate shine to her. For some reason, the matriarchs did not like that, so they arranged for the two of us to play a video game, and rigged it so she would win.

Next thing is, the matriarchs were all taunting me, saying things like "Go on. You wouldn't want it to be said that you got beaten at a video game by a girl, would you?" and things designed to drive a wedge between me and this unsuitable candidate for mating. It did not have the desired effect; I figured the game had been rigged, but not by the woman I fancied, and I told the matriarchs what to go and do with themselves. Next thing I knew, everyone was packing up their scrimshaw and making tracks.

In the next part of the dream, I was merely observing as the girl came into the house, which was now empty barring some small items on the kitchen table - a video game, a small figurine, a letter from me and the deeds to the house, signed over to her.

The letter told her that the house has been mine, but I had now signed it over to her instead, and that she should look after it well, and hopefully that it would give her good memories to cherish. I then told her that I and the matriarchs had parted company, and that I was off to find my own fortune. She would not see me here in this place again.

I also told her that the myths the matriarchs had been telling had all been about me. I was their Ugly Child, and they'd wasted half my life secretly trying to cockblock me from falling in love with, and becoming attached to, any woman who came my way because they, in their haughty arrogance, had secretly decided that no woman was ever going to be good enough for their chosen one - their Ugly Child.