Dreamwaking: A Second Chance.

[Kylerryth]

I am but a man without meaning; a face without features; a word without context. In my dreams, however, I am reborn. In your dreams, too, I am something -- no; I am everything.

* * * * *

You are asleep.

You are dreaming.

Once again, you are not certain how you know it, but you know it to be true. Once again, you are clothed but possess no weapons, items or accessories. Once again, you may be somewhat disturbed by your keen awareness of this being a dream, and once again it is of no consequence, because while you are aware of that fact, you will also be aware that this dream is not at all like the last. On the other hand, you may be new to the entire experience -- in that case, welcome. Welcome, and ask yourself this:

Have you ever wondered what you would say to the dead?

In this dream, it is snowing.

* * * * *

Countless and shapeless white flakes fall like a lover's tender kisses; they fall, and in time they collect on the earth below, forming a thin blanket that curved here, rose there. The snow is pure and undisturbed, beautiful; it glitters in the cold silver light of the winter moon, and not just on the ground -- in patches and clumps on the surrounding trees' boughs; as it floated down, like tiny, nearly invisible crystals catching the light just so, just right, before they merged with the rest, vanishing, lost among myriad others just like them.

The sky is black as ink and the air is still, silent -- there are no stars, just the icy crescent of the moon; there is no wind, yet the air is cold, bitterly cold, fogging your breath, biting at your bones; and there are no noises from the woods. It is quiet, eerily quiet, like a kind of holy hush; it is the silence of the sacred, that of libraries, temples and churches, and the grave.

You are in a clearing. More specifically, you stand at its very edge, shaded by the snowbound limbs of night-black evergreens, almost a shadow within a shadow -- the area behind you, beyond the treeline, is a maze of dark forms, all at once beckoning and forbidding. Save for the clearing itself, the trees and the outlying darkness are the same everywhere you look. In front of you the cord of land slopes gently upward, rising to a height of no more than ten spans at its highest point. Which, as it turns out, is the center of the clearing.

The wan moonlight is just enough to illuminate a figure on that snow-covered peak.

Now you are immediately confronted by two distinct choices: do you turn and leave, plunging yourself into the shadowy unknown of the woods...

... or do you approach the figure on the peak?

* * * * *

OOC note: Before replying to the thread, I ask that everyone who wishes to be involved in the dream please message me on the forum or on mIRC so that I may tell you how to proceed. On mIRC I am usually online as Coran_D`zir.

As stated above, your character has two choices: leave the clearing, or approach the figure. Consider carefully.

In addition, until everyone who wants to post has posted their character's (or characters') dreams, the dream has not actually occurred. It is a simultaneous but not collective experience, meaning everyone dreams at the same time but does not share the same dream.

[Vanidor]

Aeryn Karolinger had lain himself to bed in a thicket deep within the woods. A place that was considered safe, even from the predations that lurked through the wilderness and claimed the unwary. Had crawled up into the sweeping branches of a tree, tied his leg into place, and allowed himself to succumb to sleep. And sleep he did. A dream about pies, warm and succulent. Filled with meats and berries and all the good things he enjoyed as a boy. A dream about Agnieszka that.... Ah, but that faded so fast it was not even the memory of a memory.

And then this. It was familiar, this sensation. Surreal and fake, but more real than life itself could be. He could swear he could hear the frost creaking, but it was only the silence of the night. The quiet he recalled that came after his father's lectures upon the Holy Light. The sedate peace that came from entering a place dedicated to such a practice. They were few and far between, worship of the Light itself replaced with other things, other deities. They were all one in the same, the good and the evil tied with the Light and the Shadow.

He paused. Blinking at the thoughts that filtered through his mind at such reverent silence. It had been ages since he had thought about religion. About his father. A breath was taken and then exhaled into a puff of frosted air before his lips. He was glad then, for the heavy clothing he wore. That snugly fitting jerkin with the thick leather sleeves tied to the shoulders. The rugged leather breeks that were bracketed by stout boots at the feet, and a hearty belt around the waist. He noted that his cloak was missing, and his sabre and knife. All his implements, it seemed. But it was a dream. So familiar yet so different from the other, where life and death had been played out in a strange field before the eyes of all to see. Where skin had been branded, and the thoughts of justice dealt out.

So then. The vagabond took a step into that quiet place, his feet crunching into the snow laden earth. Forging a path through that pristine silence. It almost seemed a damning offense. To warp such a place of solace with the machinations of a man. To invade winter's heart, as it were. Yet forward he went in any case. For there was something he remembered about the last dream. About the instances that came from it, and from talking with another who had shared in it. You learned things, here. Learned things or died.

Forward. His feet trudged through the snow and pushed up banks to either side of his path, until he was there at the peak and staring upwards at the ebon sky, with it's moon of argent and flakes of alabaster. They were collecting upon his shoulders now, those flakes, like the caress of a gentle lover. He was besides the figure that stood there silently. A glance sideways, out of the corner of his eye. He did not want to be the one that shattered the quiet. That broke the sanctity of this place. But... what to say? What to do?

But no. It was not he that would break the silence, to unhallow the holiness of this place. It was his companion, who turned a small fraction to show the silvery sheen of an all too familiar mask. To make visible the hilt of a famously courageous weapon. His hand darted to the waist, as if to assure himself tha... But no. He had already checked that, it wasn't there. It had not passed into the dream with him, like it usually did. That figure spoke, and no mist clouded the slot that denoted his mouth. No steam to say that living flesh was contained behind that brilliantly polished mask.

"Aeryn, my boy." His voice was tantalizing. Familiar in the manner of an old memory. Without the madness that had claimed his being for the last year of his life. It was... almost serene. "Welcome to the Edge of Death. Where the Light and the Shadow play, and the Void waits gingerly over the horizon. It is peaceful here, yes? Quiet and serene and saintly." His fingers caressed the sword at his side slowly, a lover's hand against the throat of his magnificent Soria. "At least it is for me, thanks to the Count. A dram of sleep, a drought of kindness. The end of madness. I told him to take me home..."

And for a moment, all that Karolinger could do was stand there in silence, his eyes riveted upon the man who had been his mentor. What was this place? Could it be... could it be exactly what the other had said it was? He took a breath, and let mist form before his face...

[Tebrin]

This felt familiar - far, far too familiar. He couldn’t quite place it, but he was certain he had had this dream before… or something quite similar. The hair on the back of his neck bristled in unconscious remembrance of that dream, and his left hand clutched at the plane of his stomach, at the wound that Jirai had inflicted upon him… then.

Tebrin had not slept unarmed and unclothed since that night – and though he wore only a t-shirt and thin cloth britches, and a dagger at his side, they were far better than nothing. This figure… or the forest. That was his choice. No… he had been in the forest that time – he knew… or imagined he knew, what might lie within that foreboding foliage. No, this time would be different. Uncertain, but determined, came Tebrin across the clearing, towards that lone soul, left hand curled tightly about the hilt of his lone armament.

Why me? Why again? He remembered, now. The forest, the terror, the BODIES… God, the blood… and… shaking his head rapidly, sending ruddy brown curls flying, he breathed deep, chest heaving with the force of his respiration. Jirai was nowhere in sight. There was no blood. There was no death. And this man, with fair blonde hair, handsome, dirt-smudged, blood-soaked features, crimson-stained clothing and the left half of his body quite entirely devoured…

Wait. That wasn’t right. Tebrin paled, stopped in his tracks, looked over his shoulders towards the suddenly-inviting treeline.

“Looking to run again, Tebrin?â€

[ShadowRose]

The night before had been torment enough and the only lasting vision she could remember had been that of a dark elven male with a shock of short white hair disappearing into the darkness of the woods.. and after he had shattered her hand with the swiftness of a downward strike with the hilt of a blade. With gifts bestowed upon her by her new-found goddess, Sarayn Aluna Dala'vaesa had mended her own bones by the use of prayer.. and then had promptly fainted due to the pain, the stress of the situation.. and Phaeragh's lasting memory.

The sensation of cold against the dark cream of her face inspired the white lace of her lashes to flutter open, pale sapphire eyes to witness the gentle birth of snow flakes released by the darkness of mother night. She inhaled softly, the rush of chilled air entering her lungs a welcomed thing, a benevolent gift that betrayed she was still alive. Alive..

And exactly how her newest tormentor had left her. Alone, crumpled against the support of a tree, and now consumed by snow. But when she lifted her arms, begging for her body to move, she felt no pain like she had the previous night--an oddity, she realized, and yet.. She felt that something was amiss, and that she was dreaming. The caress of spider's legs crawled up her spine then, the hunter's survival instinct seizing her mind and limbs. Was she in danger? The line of her sight devoured the scene hungrily--the edge of the clearing with the haunt of shadows behind her, the brilliant shimmer of the moon-kissed snow and.. a figure.

Sarayn narrowed her eyes to dagger's slits, discerning the outline of the silhouette just ahead of her. And she knew, somehow, she had a choice to make. The elegant craning of her dark throat sent her gaze toward the trees that seemed to hiss angrily at her, appeared to reach with endlessly long shadows in essence to rip her to pieces. To the figure then, or through the unknown and suffocating blackness beyond?

With a deep and glacial breath, the drowess rose to her feet all too slowly, gauging and processing every inflection, scent and noise her surroundings drilled into her mind. With careful steps, she approached the form on the incline and, as she became increasingly closer, her mind screamed at her, portraying the identity of the curse.

Mother.

As if she had never died, her mother, Matron of her house, and she named Kyrnill, stood before her with the coldest of grins of her face. With pristine ivory hair, and face beautiful and flawless, Kyrnill held out her arms in a mocking embrace for her daughter.

"My favored child.." she cooed.

Sarayn narrowed her eyes dangerously, and refused her offer with the tilt of chin and a sound of disgust, near turning and threatening to walk away.

".. why..? Why did you kill me, Sarayn?"

The younger drowess whirled on her then, so close to the other's face, and hissed, "You deserved every moment of torture. Mother."

The matron laughed a gloriously triumphant sound, blood-red eyes filled with mirth, "Darling girl, is that the tone to take? Especially when you now follow Eilistraee? Are you not suppose to be forgiving, loving? Encouraging me to change my evil ways?"

Sarayn curled her lips into a snarl, though not truly angered by this one's words--could she ever effect her like she once had? She assumed not. "You know nothing about any of those things. And I will not let you get the best of me, mother. You are dead. And I am very much alive." Snow danced about her feet as she turned to yet again walk away, leaving her dream-inspired torturer behind until...

"He will never love you.."

The young priestess of Eilistraee stopped dead in her departure, still so near to the woman, and arched a cold, narrowed gaze behind a dark shoulder.

"The knight you so fancy..? How could he ever learn to love a disgusting, -weak-, and pathetic woman like you..?"

The very terrible spark of anger flashed in the pools of her blue eyes, seas boiling with the sudden explosion of hatred, hurt, and near truths. With a hiss, Sarayn came in quickly and around, effortlessly side-stepping the whip that was snapped toward her back--a fluid motion that ended with the young drowess behind her tormentor, a gushing of blood, and a dagger in her hand; the liquid-silver sheen of a thing she had lifted from her mother's hip with the blur of her attack.

And her mother? Dead. Again--on the ground with her throat slit. The blood that soaked the snow and spread like a red lake.. a glorious sight.

Even to a priestess of Eilistraee.

---

Startled, Sarayn Dala'vaesa awoke with a jerk and sat straight up in her bed, in her room at the Chapter House, the pain in her head agonizing, and a sensation the caused her to gasp with tight breath. On her hands, blood; wet and real. She raised her delicate hands to her face and peered in the soft candle light at the life fluid there.. until a movement out of the corner of her eye made her pause and look.

Selenthis sat in a chair in the corner, a leg propped up on her night stand while the other rested against the floorboards, casually eating what appeared to be an apple. He grinned widely and, with a wink, said through pieces of fruit, "I believe it is about time we discuss what you have been up to lately, dear sister."

And to that, relieved that he had returned from his hiatus to their homeland, she grinned widely and jumped from her bed, wrapping him in a deep embrace.

[Jirai]

It is snowing.

Feet dug into the cold whiteness, thin slippers doing little against the creeping chill, the dampness that would soak the edge of her skirts, creeping slowly upwards. The girl shivered in the silence.

She had been asleep, had she not? Curled up beneath the warmth of several blankets, huddled in the relative safety of her room. This, then, was a dream.

Or was it?

There had been dreams like this before. Dreams that seemed so very, very real. There had been the one back in her home. The one by the lake. The one taken from a friend's memories. In all of these, there had been one thing the same. So perhaps it would not be quite so surprising to find that true of this dream as well. She moved slowly, carefully towards the center of the clearing. Towards the figure atop the hill. And there was no surprise on her unveiled face when the figure turned, green eyes meeting her own, a silent child held in the man's arms. He had been in every other dream. Why not this one?

"You came." He said simply. "I knew you would come."

The girl shivered, and not entirely from the cold. The cold, the snow... oh, it was so appropriate. So right.

"I didn't, I..." She had left. Left him to wander into the snow, alone save the child. She had turned away. "...How are you here?" Her voice was little more than a whisper, wide eyes unable to turn away from the vision before her.

"Where else would I be?" He asked with some confusion, adjusting the child he held to free one hand, brushing blonde hair out of his face. "Where else did I have to go, Rhaena? You should have come. If you'd come with us, everything would have been alright. We would have been a family." There was longing in his eyes, a hand slowly outstretched to the girl. "...We still can be."

"I couldn't go, I had to... had to get back..." Voice trailed off and the girl stared, bronzed eyes beginning to fill with tears. "...I can't. We... I... you..." The child. "You never..." Her hands pressed against her mouth, his still waited between them.

"No." He said quietly, fiercely. "I always loved you, Rhaena. Always." There was an ineffable sadness about the young man as he slowly withdrew his hand. "...but you never really loved me."

"I did, Bryce!" The girl protested, tears freezing on her cheeks. "I did!"

"No!" Fierce, and this time with anger, hurt. "You did not. If you'd really loved me, Rhaena, you would have stayed with me. But you didn't! You didn't stay, you didn't love me." He paused, and when he continued, the young man was far calmer. "Look at your brother. Kals loved Astri, will always love her. That's what love is. But you..." He extended the hand once again and the infant began to cry. "Prove me wrong, Rhaena. Come with me."

"I can't, I can't!" The girl sobbed into her pillow, the cries of a child that never should have been echoing in a head that throbbed with unbearable pain. Shoulders shook, she curled into a ball, wrapping hands around her head. It had been a dream. It wasn't real.

Or was it?

Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et in semper, et in saecula saeculorum.

Gloria in excelsis Deo.

[Tebrin]

This felt familiar - far, far too familiar. He couldn’t quite place it, but he was certain he had had this dream before… or something quite similar. The hair on the back of his neck bristled in unconscious remembrance of that dream, and his left hand clutched at the plane of his stomach, at the wound that Jirai had inflicted upon him… then.

The treasure hunter shivered - and though he wore only a t-shirt and thin cloth britches, they were far better than nothing. This figure… or the forest. That was his choice. No… he had been in the forest that time – he knew… or imagined he knew, what might lie within that foreboding foliage. No, this time would be different. Uncertain, but determined, came Tebrin across the clearing, towards that lone soul, left hand curled tightly at the fabric of his shirt, hands wringing with anxiety.

Why me? Why again? He remembered, now. The forest, the terror, the BODIES… God, the blood… and… shaking his head rapidly, sending ruddy brown curls flying, he breathed deep, chest heaving with the force of his respiration. Jirai was nowhere in sight. There was no blood. There was no death. And this man, with fair blonde hair, handsome, shining blue eyes…

Wait. That wasn’t right. It couldn’t POSSIBLY be…

Tebrin paled, stopped in his tracks, looked over his shoulders towards the suddenly-inviting treeline.

“Looking to run again, Tebrin?â€

[channe]

High on a hill --

"Holy shit."

Snow falls all around Agnieszka Kaczmarek, who shivers in her nightclothes; a plain shirt and pants, nothing Aeryn would have liked to see -- but serviceable enough now that she's again sharing a room with five, six, sometimes seven people, and for that reason, too, she's started to put away her sword against the wall before bed --

She makes her way up the hill, because she almost can't believe what her brain first registers. The woman is dead, dead as stone; she'd seen the blood pooling at her chest, Dominik holding her head up as if she were still alive. Laranna Kaczmarek stood at the top of the hill in a white dress, her hands folded, her smile somewhat beatific and somewhat pained.

It seems to take forever to get to her, and when she does, Agnie is out of breath.

"You didn't help me," Laranna begins.

"I tried," Agnie says, immediately, putting her hand out to her dead sister-in-law. "Why -- you're dead, this is --"

"You tried," says Laranna, "I know you did. But it wasn't enough. He's still out there, still killing, and the three of you -- you could have had him, between you, and now --"

Agnie just looks at her. "There's so much I didn't say."

Laranna nods sadly. "I know, Agnie. But we have right now."

Agnie takes a breath of searing-cold air, and stares at Laranna, trying to figure where to begin.

[BrokenDreamer]

The first thing that she notices is the snow -it is like frozen fire against bare feet. It is a dream and she is well aware of this as this world is so much more real to her than the waking world. Here is where she can see with all the clarity that everyone around her possesses –and more.

The blind Oracle stands with eyes unclouded, face upturned to embrace the sight of the falling snow. To feel the cool kisses of snow flakes against the pale of cheeks, how they cling to the near white of her lashes and melt upon the soft of plush lips. There is a small and gentle smile, a moment of savoring before she is diverting her attention to the rest of her surroundings. It is a small joy to witness these things in her own time as one gift has been exchanged for another since the moment of her birth.

The fading line of trees behind stretch their skeletal arms above, looming with the imagined threat that they might at any time finally reach down to snap up the small elfling figure who now begins to shiver in her sleeping gown. She is, for a moment, looking back into the darkness of the trees, their shadows that promise to swallow her whole and then across the clearing to the lone figure standing there in the deepening snow. She presses forward, unafraid, the air expelled from her mouth hanging in the night like frozen dragon's breath.

“It has been a long time.â€

[Glenn]

"Hey... Snow?" Was Glenn Burnie dressed for snow? Was he clad in those newly purchased warm, winter clothes? Did it matter? Likely not. The snow was sort of an afterthought, really.

In fact, the young mapmaker did not register the significance of the weather at first, not until after he realized certain other things were missing from this scene. It was no longer every night that he dreamed, but when one occured, it was usually the same exact dream, one not at all unpleasant. Right now there were certain aspects to that singular dream that were missing, the sun for starters. More importantly, a certain someONE was not present. No, this was very different indeed.

And that is when the cold finally hit, and hit hard at that. No, he was not clad in the coat he was quite proud of, not dressed for warmth, not liking this much at all to be honest. Not...

That was when sharp fear welled up in his stomach. Though only two people in Myrken knew it (and one, just bits and pieces) Glenn Burnie had a distinct history of blacking out in one place and ending up somewhere, very, very different. This was a dream, right? But then, the sensation had felt like that before. He's woken up older, months older, and so, so far away, has found himself in another place sitting in the maw of destruction, just like the last. It was his life of the last eight years, his curse, and ... and the rational thing would be to run to that hill, to that person, make sure it was just a dream, that he was still in Myrken. If the thrice-damned object had moved him again... and no, it was not on his body now, was it? Hell. No, He didn't sleep with it anymore. Death before leaving Myrken. A death worth dying over surviving but not truly LIVING. Wasn't that the choice that he made?

Glenn was not currently rational. He had to figure this out, had to make sure where he was, if this was a dream and there... "Hell." There wasn't anytime to waste with people on hills, people who might put a dagger through him. So for the first time in months, he ran. He ran straight past the person, ran into those woods, only looking back once at the very end.

As he did, he saw that the person had taken on a more discernable appearance. He recognized the short hair, the fairly unique slump to her shoulders, the still developing, almost boyish figure, filled in only perhaps where it really counted. He almost recognized her, but only for a brief moment, for he was already into the woods. Even then, the effort of looking back had been enough of a lapse to almost lead him face first into a tree. With deft swordsman's reflexes, he dodged around it, dodged and kept running. Glenn Burnie had never learned how to not look back, but by now, he knew full well how to keep moving forward, despite whatever he might see.

-------

So he ran, and ran, and ran until... pain. "Aggghh!" Pain, sharp lingering pain, but it was well worth it, because there he was, eyes open, in his sparsely decorated room in Esraeux, awoken, sweating upon his bed. That, in itself, was not unusual. Tonight, however, the sensation had been different. He was endlessly relieved to still be there, to be able to look up and see the sword Malaroth gifted him hanging where it belonged, the sole decoration to the living space, to know that just on the other side of the wall, in the next room over, was the shadow of a man he still called friend, even that on the other side of the wall near Esraeux was the workshop of the woman who might either save or doom them all. It was Myrken. This was life in Myrken. It was HIS life. He had not been running from his difficulties, not this time. No he had been running towards Myrken, towards home.

Now, if only the world would stop spinning and the hammering in his head would relent!

[Seth_Bloodmoon]

The tall elf stood at the edge of the clearing, unmoving. His left hand sought Twilight Heart out of habit and perhaps for a bit of reassurance. A deep frown would curl the corners of his mouth downwards as he found his blade was not with him. He glanced over his shoulder, brilliant blue eyes taking in the dark treeline at his back. Moments later hewas casting his gaze out over the clearing, ground covered in pristine, white snow as his left hand simply fell to hang at his side.

"This is a dream..," murmuring absently to himself. However, it was not like the usual dreams that tended to torment him in the dark of night. He was not stuck helplessly watching as the person he had been in the distant past ordered and partook in the slaughter of so many innocents in the name of a dark god in the lands of Ilaria.

For several moments he would just watch the snowfall, it was a beautiful sight. Then his gaze would divert to the dark sky above, studying the crescent shaped moon. The bitter chill, he could feel it to the bone and yet it brought him little discomfort or he simply ignored the discomfort it was bringing. "It is so quiet in this place... so very quiet..." more absent murmuring as he closes his eyes to soak in the silence.

He stood there with eyes closed for some time, allowing himself a moment's peace. Then he opened his eyes once more and spotted the a illuminated form standing at the highest point in this odd clearing within his dreams. Curiuosity caused him to begin the trek towards that figure, booted feet crunching a path through the snow.

As he drew nearer a vaguely familiar, masculine voice reached his pointy tipped ears, "Monster. Murderer. Dog of Ozmosis," it did not shout the words in rage or anger but in a condeming, calm tone.

Those words caused Seth to stop dead in his tracks. Caused elven features to go as cold as the bitter chill in the air. He opened his mouth as if to say something but no words came out and so he simply closed his mouth.

The figure took a step forward, "Puppet of a dark god. Slaughterer of innocents. Foul beast," an elven accent noticeable in the condeming voice.

Brilliant blue eyes reacted to the sight of who was before him. An ilarian elf only slightly shorter than Seth. The elf was adorned in plate armor polished to a silvery sheen. At the elf's right side was a longsword resting in a sheath, the elf's right hand curled about its grip. Emerald green eyes stared into Seth's face, filled with accustation and perhaps a trace of sadness. Dark brown hair was secured in a ponytail that hung to the elf's shoulderblades.

"Talvari..." Seth uttered the name of the one that now stood before him. Talvari, who had been best friends with Seth in youth. Talvari, who had taken a far different path in life than Seth had. Talvari, who had become Seth's enemy. Talvari, who had died on Twilight Heart's blade while trying to defend a village Ozmosis had ordered his champion to level to the ground.

Talvari nodded ever so slightly as Seth spoke his name, "Why did you choose to walk such a dark path?" tone still calm and condeming with the question.

"Power... glory..." Seth's voice barely audible. He lowered his gaze to the ground and tried to keep his expression unreadable.

Talvari shook his head a little at Seth's response, "Power and glory? You could have had glory, Seth. Power, you did not need such. So many died so you could feel powerful. Where is the glory in bringing about the deaths of the innocent?"

Seth shook his head, "I have no way to defend the mistakes I made, Talvari... I have changed, however... I no longer walk that dark path..."

Talvari narrowed his eyes at Seth's words, "No longer walk that dark path? Does that bring back those you killed or ordered killed? Does it bring back the mothers, the fathers, the daughters, and the sons you slaughtered? DOES IT!?" anger broke through the calm and emerald eyes flashed almost violently.

Seth shook his head as he spoke in a quiet, broken voice, "No... No it doesn't..."

Talvari's hand tightened its grip upon the sheathed sword at his right side, "You're damned right it doesn't! No matter what good you might try to do now and in the future will never, NEVER, make up for the crimes of your past!" barely controlled rage in the elf's voice.

Seth shuddered at the words and sank to his knees in the snow, lacking the strength to remain standing, "You are right Talvari... Nor did I ever think it could..." His gaze traveled to the sheathed blade at Talvari's side. Could it provide the only release Seth deserved for his crimes... even if this is just a dream?

Talvari saw that glance to his sword. Rather than draw it however, he released his grip upon its handle, "Oh no, Seth, I shall not provide you an end... Oh no, live... live and suffer with the knowledge of what you were, what you did... Know that you always will be a monster despite whatever path you walk..." an almost sad smile forming as he began to turn away and walk off, "Goodbye... my friend..." perhaps a hint of sadness in Talvari's parting words.

Seth did not look up as his former friend and enemy walked away. He spoke no goodbye to the long dead ilarian elf. He merely stared at the snow covered ground before him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Brilliant blue eyes shot open to stare at the cieling above. There was the wetness of unknowingly shed tears on his face and the pounding of a headache in his head. He would have prefered the usual dream to this strange one. Hands rose to cover his face as he uttered quietly to himself, "Never more than a monster..." a trace of defeat in those words.

[Lent]

A man could get used to sleeping on the ground after a while. Wasn't so bad. Not really. Woke up with a sore back but that had nothing to do with sleeping itself, no. You learn to judge the two things differently. You learn a whole bunch of things if you've got enough time and nothing else to do.

You learn that it doesn't suddenly snow when there was no sign of it before. You learn that there are lots worse things to do than walk towards a person up there on a hill when you're in a dream, especially when it's the first dream you've had since you almost died.

"Seem to be missing something." Lentham scratched at his unshaven chin as he looked to the woman who now stood before him. Long black hair? Check. Healthy curves? Check. No discernible face? Check. "Ellie, then. Right." He sniffed out a loud exhale through his nose as the woman standing before him opened her palms upward, as if she was trying to communicate something very simple.

Lentham stretched his neck about as hard as he could manage. Wasn't much point to this, was there? "Don't remember what you look like, Ellie. Only got this much from what people told me. Puts a bit of a damper on our little talk here, what... you not having a mouth. Sorry 'bout that."

"She was pretty, Kurt." The voice had come from behind him, a quiet, patient voice, and it belonged to a face he knew well. "That's what everyone said at least."

"Son." A grunt and a nod to the younger man as he walked up the hill to join the dreamer. Made sense that someone he DID remember would show up sooner than not. This was all fairly pointless otherwise, even for a nightmare. "You're no beauty. That I know for sure." There was a hint of amusement in his voice, but just that.

That brought forth a sheepish laugh from Charles McCoy. "And you're a beast, a mangy horse who they ought to put out to pasture. Hey, Kurt. I'm sorry I went first. Didn't want to leave you alone again." His body was intact, clad in his uniform as proudly as ever.

McCoy. Cows got put out to pasture. Old horses? They were killed. "Hnn. Look at that." But Lentham was still watching the woman, who for her own part had drawn back slightly, facelessly staring at the two men, the former partners. "All it took was death for you to grow a spine." The Detective Constable started, but almost a moment later, he had spit upon the ground and amending his statement, a hint of pride in his voice. "Not it at all, no. You grew it before that. Standing up to Karolinger and... hell, what's the point to all this, son?"

The shrug to McCoy's shoulders was light. No laugh to go along with it this time. "Beats me, Kurt. Not my dream."

"Not your wife either, huh?" His gaze narrowed upon the woman's face, or lack there of. She seemed less and less comfortable with the attention. "You're dead, right? You know what she looked like?"

McCoy just gave him something of a look. "Not my wife. Nah, but I would bet that you do, Kurt. If you want to. Really want to."

"That so?" Another sniff, but this time it was an inhale through his nose. The exhale came through his teeth. "Stakes?"

"A drink, when we meet up again." Another bet. That seemed to please both men for some reason.

In fact, it brought a wheezing laugh from Lentham "That so? Way costs are rising, what with that harsh summer, with Derry booze being hard to find, way things are going... you're going to spring that on me in twenty years when I can't even afford a drink for myself let alone both of us."

McCoy frowned. That was a lot more words than it would usually take Lentham, and the end result wasn't even all that sharp. Even for a poor detective, it was telling. He put a hand on his partner's shoulder. "You're stalling, Kurt. I know it hurts less if you don't know. No one would..."

A sharp interjection. "Yeah, son." Another spit. "I would. S'nough. All I have left, right? Maybe it is time I took something back." And slowly, very slowly, the woman's features started to come into focus. Green eyes, a nose that fit the rest of her body perfectly, and a thin mouth wearing a very patient smile. "Ellie, huh? Nice to meet you... again." He could feel the young Constables hand on his shoulder. For the first time in over half a year, he could see that loving smile from the woman who stood before him...

... and then came the pain, the pain that caused his eyes to jolt open, cause him to lose the image of the woman's smile. Instead the dark woods loomed around him and above him was the cloudy night. Thing about it, the pain... not so bad. Real small cost. See, Kurt Lentham WAS able to push past the pain, to close his eyes again. When he did, he could picture that face smiling right back at him again. He remembered that face. Hell of a small cost.

[channe]

"... you're quiet," says Laranna, staying still and sad in her white dress, there on the top of the hill, Agnie the only one shivering in weather far too cold for her pyjamas, and then, Agnie reaches out to try to touch Laranna's face, to --

"I'm sorry," says Agnie, and begins to cry.

"You ever think how you could have brought this on yourself? Killing Baker like that? Cinnabar was the one to buy it, the Ashfiend slaughtered me not because I did anything, but because of *Cinnabar* --"

Agnie wipes away tears from her eyes, and looks desperately at Laranna. "You couldn't have known about that."

"I'm dead now," she says. "I know a lot of things."

"Is it all right, where you are?" Agnie asks.

Laranna smiles, and it's beatific. "Yes," she says, quietly. "I'm watching over Mateusz and Jozef. It's wonderful here. You tell Dominik there's no need to worry about me. But this is the last time we'll ever see each other, Agnie."

"Why?" Agnie could hardly breathe.

Laranna just looked away, to a point over her shoulder that Agnieszka could no longer see. "Because you're going somewhere else," she whispers.

---

Agnie awakes groaning, her head throbbing from -- from a headache, from the dream, from whatever it was; she reaches out in front of her to grab Laranna, to call after her, but there's only air, and someone else's shoulder. Petronela's, who rolls over sleepily, and murmurs, "... God, Agnie, go back to sleep already."

But Agnieszka can't. She hurts too much.

Everywhere.

[Cinnabar]

The dream begins as it always does, as it has for as long as Cinnabar can remember: chill mountain air and the smell of damp stone; a pool of moonlight ringed by shadows, the small sounds of his breath and the shifting of his feet echoing from the cavern's walls; the sense of a presence behind him, veiled by the darkness. There's a comforting sense of familiarity to it, and it's been a long while since he's felt anything resembling fear, trepidation. It's a [i]safe place, standing here in the middle of that pool of pale silver light.[/i]

--*--

Except it isn't him standing there, bathed in moonlight; a dizzying shift in perspective at this realisation, a change in viewpoint. What were shadowed cavern walls become a wall of dark trees; what was a pool of moonlight on a stone floor becomes a snow-covered clearing.

What he sees switches from one to the other, and yet there is an unnerving sense that somehow, it is both. The air is chill, fat white flakes drifting down from a clear night sky; and yet instead of forest scents, the tang of pine resin and the rich earthy scent of leaf litter, there is only the scent of cold stone. Sometimes it sounds like the creak of fresh-fallen snow beneath his boot, at other times it's the crunch of grit on rough stone. Through it all, though, there's a presence at his back; something large, something powerful, something watchful. This knowledge brings a small smile to his lips, draws away some of the uncertainty that troubles him.

He steps carefully to circle the clearing, staying within arm's reach of the treeline, eyes narrowing as he regards that solitary figure on the low rise. A young man - barely more than a boy, in fact, maybe fifteen, sixteen summers - narrow shoulders, light hair, dressed in warm, homespun clothes, wrapped in furs, sturdy boots and a thick woollen cloak. Calomel's seen similar worn by those displaced from Derry by the Thessilane invasion. Mountain garb. Some stirring from that presence at his back, a voice quiet but deep, like distant thunder.

"Go on."

Stone and snow crunch with each step as Cinnabar makes his way from the treeline, crossing the clearing towards the figure. The boy. Who glances round at the man's approach, squints curiously for a moment, then offers a broad grin, hand raised in greeting.

"Ha! It is you! You've changed, you wily sod. Taller. Older. Still, the hair's a giveaway. Always is." His tone is familiar, friendly, jocular, a broad Derry accent with it. "Nice coat. Doin' well for yourself, eh?"

"I... you know me?" An obvious question with an obvious enough answer, given the lad's demeanour.

"Know you? 'Course I bloody know you." A narrowing of green eyes, then, a speculative glance before the boy's grin becomes less sure of itself. "Y'don't know me though, do you?"

"I'm afraid not. You're from Derry? I... don't remember much about Derry." A wry grin, self-conscious as he huddles into his coat. "Anything."

"No? Not even your old pal Kenan? Ah. Well, that's a shame. Not you an' me goin' up Trevanson Pass?" He seems disappointed at Cinnabar's blank look. "Nor fishin' on the Crugmere? Or even explorin' the old silver mines above Erdowr?" Some quiet desperation as he mentions these places, these activities, as if searching for anything that the man might remember. "D'you even know who you are?"

"I do." This much, at least, he knows. "Cinnabar Calomel. From Clearwater." There's a frown of vague annoyance as the boy seems to find this deeply entertaining.

"Oh, very fancy. Yeah, an' I'm the Duke o' Derry." He shakes his head in amusement. "You've really got no clue? You're Mergher. That's you." An easy grin, though it fades as the lad glances past Cinnabar's shoulder, squinting into the treeline. Whatever it was he saw, though, apparently it's gone; he shrugs, looking back to Cinnabar again, regretful, almost pitying. "You don't remember a thing. Not even Tecca?" A name. Someone close to the lad, from the note of sadness that comes into his voice. Someone close to Cinnabar, apparently.

"Sorry... no. No, I don't remember." Desperately racking his mind, trying to summon up anything associated with that name. With this strange, friendly boy.

"Ah, well. My sister, that was Tecca. She died, though. Caught a fever just before Midwinter, from bein' out in the snow. Moonin' over you, I reckon, waitin' for you to come an' swoop her off her feet. She was sweet for you, y'know. You an' your laugh an' your clever words." A difficult smile, sad and pained, and the boy glances away, blinking. "You wouldn't know, though. You, up on your mountain. I tried to come tell you, when she was gone. Thought you ought to know. And if you'd not come down yourself, I'd go up to you. Stupid bloody idea." Anger, now, anger and bitterness as he looks back to Calomel. "Like you'd care. Like it'd matter to you what happened to some daft girl who thought the world of you. You who don't even remember her. Bloody pointless thing to die for. Both of us."

A blink at that from Cinnabar, a step back. "...both?"

"Aye, both. There I was, trudgin' up a bloody great mountain lookin' for your cave or den or whatever you call it, an' the worst storm for years comes howlin' up the valley. Froze to death, didn't get found until the thaw." Resentment gives way to defeat, a helpless shrug from the boy, a sullen glare as he looks away to the treeline. "Still don't remember?" A sidelong glance, and then the boy's lifting a hand towards Cinnabar's face.

"Here. Try th-"

--*--

Blankness. Void.

--*--

A cavern of rough, cold stone and chill mountain air. Moonlight filters down through pillars of ice that block the cave's mouth, and all outside of that patch of silver light is darkness. Cinnabar stands alone once more, breath clouding in front of his face.

Behind him, something large, powerful, watchful; it shifts with a scrape of claws upon stone, breathing deep and slow in the quiet of the cave, and he turns to face it, eyes picking out those tiny points of reflected light that mark the creature's presence.

"You stopped him." A question. A statement, just shy of an accusation.

A rumbling sigh from the darkness; the glints of light shift and move as the creature turns away, and heavy footfalls move off into the cave's depths. Its voice rumbles from the cavern walls as it departs, deep and resonant, as if thunder learned to speak, and its speech was a song.

"The past holds no answers worth knowing. Look to where you are going rather than where you have been." Old advice, advice he has learned by heart from the words inscribed upon his journal's first page. "Do not let what was cast a shadow over what can be."

--*--

These words echo in Cinnabar's thoughts as he awakes in the grey half-light of dawn, together with a vague sense of disquiet. Uncertainty.

Doubt.

[Carnath-Emory]

In the dream, it is snowing.

But then, in Ariane's dreams it almost always is. Landscapes as quiet and pallid as she, or city-states of glittering sandstone that shine like ancient gold in the dimming sun; the spectrum of her sleeping world gravitates almost always to these two extremes.

It is snowing, and the sight of it ought to be beautiful to her eyes, but for twelve years she had grown amongst such landscapes, and this was time enough to teach any child the danger of them. That frosty glitter is coldness; that silvery ice which clings to tree-limbs is withering death, and this is her first caution. That the cold is particularly cruel at the ankles and shins, and that a downwards glance discovers night-things and unshod feet, why, this is her second.

It is also the moment at which Ariane knows beyond doubt that she is dreaming.

Veteran of such dreamscapes, she moves through this one with remarkable ease. Wanders light as breath upon the snow's pristine surface, all nightshirt and leggings and moonlit skin; meanders through the treeline with fingertips that trail across coarse, blackened boughs --

There is a figure silhouetted upon the hill.

And because this is a dream, she expects immediately that it will be Beatriz Kanaya, a frequent visitor to this sleeping landscape. And because this is a dream, Ariane takes but a single step, and it closes all of the distance between them both in the space of a heartbeat.

[Carnath-Emory]

Let it never be doubted that even the dreaming world has its deceptions.


This hill is their home, and they sit there after a while, these two. Make black marks of themselves upon the snow that glistens so cold and pale, and when they speak, their breath emerges as quiet words and cloudy mist.

"It was never you before," she begins, and her tone does not quite accuse.
"There never was a Me before," he answers her, and his tone certainly does.

"I'm sorry," she ventures after a time, and
"If there was an ounce of regret in you," he counters, "we would not sit here right now."

"I think that I always wondered," she musingly begins, and
"If you were wrong?" he challenges her, quick and hard as a summer storm. "If you assumed too much and thought too little? If I was something," and here he has sprung to his feet, has lifted his arms like a challenge to the nightmare sky. "If I was something other than what you'd reckoned, if I was something finer, something beautiful and strong and proud -- "

The first splutter of iron in his throat puts an ungainly end to his speculations. Its bubbling intrusion into his lungs prohibits speech entirely, and that comes almost immediately now, for it is a gentle embrace into which she's drawn him now -- a sister's, a mother's. It fills his shuddering body with the warmth of her own, and with the iron of it as well, and very quickly he has become quicksilver slick with the stuff, impossible for her to hold.

But at her thin shoulders, his hands desperately clench, and even when clotted silver erupts from the spine of him, she does not sway beneath his touch; he does not fall.

"I ... did wonder," she murmurs, to an ear from which the glistening stuff pours in a stuttering rush. "That if I'd been stronger, faster, better, this might never have been. Had he fallen to me that night, instead of two years after -- and he did fall; I want you to know that. For my sake, he bled, but for yours as well. He suffered. I made sure of that."

He is failing, then. His body is a field of silver tendrils, and it has sunken slight and broken against hers, given over to hands that are gentle as they lower him towards the snowy earth. It is there they'll kneel through these last, shuddering moments, for there is nothing else to be said at all. 'This might never have been,' she'd murmured to him. 'You should never have been,' she'd meant, and both of them surely knew it. There is no regret in her at all, and to know the rightness of this she need only set her gaze upon his dying eyes, which are as grey as her own; upon hair that's black and glistens like oil slicks.

Behind them both, his shadow has spread great, dark wings.

"Smechka moyo," she breathes, as he whispers some thin cry against her; gentle hands set him down, lay his cheek upon the cold, cold snow. "Smechka moyo," and it is an endearment, it is a condemnation. "Neizbezhnost Raskayanie'," she breathes, quieter than quiet.

Living iron crushes his skull.