Dreamwaking: A Second Chance.

[Vanidor]

"He did... take you home, Captain. Him, and Nils and Pasi and Tuomas and Joacim. The Companions honoured you as a Hero, the Duke did laud you as a friend. It... was... ." Karolinger was unsure on how to continue upon this thread of conversation. It was alien to him, to speak of feelings and ceremonies and funerals, especially with the dead. Still. Aeryn licked his lips and found them chapped. Took a breath that was almost painful from the chill in the air. Moisture blossomed before his face, misting the space before him with a quickly evaporating cloud.

"Have you been watching, then. What do happen there in Myrken? In the world?" Eyes were cast towards the dead man, before whom no mist filled the air. Only the slight turn of dark eyes hidden behind the silvery mask showed that there was anyone within the clothing at all. Aeryn pursed his lips slightly, focusing upon the clothing for a moment. The raiment of the Brotherhood of Janeiro, mixed with a little of the colouration of the Companions as well. The duality of Kerrak al'Nerun, that had lain hidden behind a very thin veneer.

"I know no more of what occurs than what it is that lays within your mind, Aeryn. This is all fake, you know. Well, perhaps not -all- fake. But a lot of it comes from within your own mind. To make you think about what could have been, and what still may be. You wanted a way to work out things, someone to talk too that you trusted. And you cannot do that while being a fugitive from these so called Constables." There was a flicker towards Kerrak's eyes, as they danced towards Aeryn once more. The man had turned slightly, the first real motion made since he had been joined at his solitary place upon the hill.

Turned to face Aeryn, now, did Kerrak. That enigmatic mask tilted slightly as if the man behind it was thinking. "You know what it is that you must do. You just do not want to do it. Oh, no. You do want to be the hero. You wish to be just like your father in that regard. To die valiantly, doing something glorious and memorable to those around you. You may still get that chance, young Karolinger. But you cannot do that if the stain of dishonour still weighs upon your consciousness." The eyes behind the mask blinked slowly. Very slowly, and continued to bore onwards at Aeryn.

"Perhaps the young Constable deserved to be hurt, oh, this I agree with. He struck you in a dishonourable manner, but at the same time you called into question his own honour. If you were going to kill him for it, it should have been during a duel, not by stabbing him in the stomach. You could still be out there, helping track this 'Fiend and putting Soria towards better use. Not just using her to hack firewood." Here, Aeryn lowered his head and peered at the ground. His lips pursed slightly, as if looking for something to say. Was there anything to say?

"You will go to the glades, and you will seek out one of the Elves. And there you must decide. Will you be... simply a wandering vagabond, running from the relentless Constable that chases you yet? If that is the choice, than they will keep your neutrality safe, from what I glean from your mind, and what the shred of me knows, not even He will be able to take you from there." Kerrak paused a moment, tilting his head back to upright. He could see the distress upon the younger mans features. "You will never see your Agnieszka again, never know the touch of her hands. Except when she identifies your corpse at the funeral. I know you do not wish this."

"Your other choice, of course, is to return to Myrken. I cannot say if this Governor will be willing to pardon you, but recall that you have secrets of your own. There are those in Myrken who have done terrible things as well, but are as free as larks because of the Governor's good will. Perhaps he knows of this, but has done nothing? It could be your only chance, boy. Not a pretty one, but remember what I taught you when you were learning the sword from me."

Here. Here Aeryn turned and brought his full attention towards Kerrak. For while the man made little noise beyond the reverberation of his voice behind the mask, the next sound he made was unmistakable. He heard it himself, at least once a day since he acquired the weapon. Kerrak had drawn Soria, and he could see the silvery luminescence of the weapon. Aeryn nodded his head slightly. "You must be willing to take the hits, in order to secure victory. You must be prepared to Sheath the Sword."

And the next thing he felt was the razor-keen edge of the sword thrusting through his midsection. The feel of the steel slipping through his torso almost effortlessly. Kerrak had stepped forwards with the motion, leaning in close. Aeryn could see his own reflection upon the silvery mask the other wore. "Don the Mask, Karolinger. Do what has to be done. Even if it means your death. It is not so bad." The sword yanked free, and Aeryn fell limply to the ground. He sighed softly, the last view he had being of the silver mask landing at the ground before his face. His eyes closed.

----------------------------------

Only to reopen with his gaze focused upon the branches above him. He took a breath, long and hard and heavy. For a moment all was serene, for the forest was quiet beyond the chatter of the morning birds. And then, there it hit him. A pain that seemed like someone was stabbing in in the face. In the eyes. Even up the nose. Skull-splitting, almost. He groaned softly and raised his hands to cup his head.

It was here, then, that he noticed the wetness that lingered upon his fingers. Smearing it upon his face with the previous motion, he turned his eyes downwards and saw the cooling puddle of blood that had collected upon his stomach and chest. Fingers fell to his stomach, feeling along his clothing and finding no puncture. No injury. He felt no pain upon his back, beyond the soreness of sleeping upon the branch. No pain beyond the throbbing of his skull.

"Damn you, you fucking ghost. Sheath the Sword, by damn... Did you actually have too?" As he said this, he looked into the forest from where he lay. Go to the Enclave? He was already there, or close enough to make no nevermind. He had crossed the stream and taken up the invitation. He was safe here, more or less. But he still had that decision to make. He considered it for a moment before he closed his eyes once more and fainted from the pain of his throbbing head.

[Wendy]

All is reverent in this small reserve at wood’s edge. Wild horses paw for rotten fruits that lie buried in the snow. It is their troubled breaths that reach her ears, causing Cambree to turn around and view the lowland forestry.

She watches one of these cantankerous beings as it pulls up stringy, dry grass with its squared teeth. There are dozens like it, clomping between the trees, each scrounging for a morsel in these hours that huntsmen slumber. Moon-white pelts are overgrown and matted to protect them from the winter – icy capsules of frost cling to their grubby, black tails and manes.

The woodland boasts of its strength with audacity. Soaring pines stand firm in the freezing soil. These and other guardians – ancient elms and oaks, giant spruce with their arms thrown wide – flood the landscape where the stubborn animals graze. These beasts show no signs of awareness that Cambree is standing in the clearing. They are busy being scavengers, huffing blue, misted breath at the forest floor, and scraping the ground with their teeth.

Her own breaths are trembled, lily vapors stretching from a fur-lined hood. The sound from the horses grows thin as the call of someone familiar chimes from its balance in a snowdrift. The teahouse proprietress is spun around by the jingle.

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

[Wendy]

Nature’s crystalline kisses continue to fall, but it seems that they do not affect the small figure that stands on the rise of a snow bank. He is a short distance away, giggling harmoniously, with a pointed finger petting something that is able to sit in his small hand. Cambree pushes back the hood of her cloak to lift a shadow from her face and studies him. The milky glow of moonlight drapes the boy’s soft shoulders. It tangles in his smooth, brown hair.

Noa.

She rushes for him. Noa. Noa, Noa! Her chest swells. Her throat constricts, as he looks upward at this woman coming to greet him. His eyes are squinting, happy. As if time never passed, he holds out his hand to show Cambree this new find. Crumbs of sand stick to the little one’s fingers. Something sleek and damp slithers in between them.

There is no glance for the pollywog, as this is Noa, being pelted by bits of snow, standing here in nothing but a buckskin belt and breechcloth. Noa, Cambree aches to speak, but it is law that the living cannot talk to the dead.

She falls to her knees and places her hands on his rounded face, green gaze inspecting, guilt piling in the pit of her stomach, but the child is happy to see her. The sheer delight in his eyes shows no concern for the sadness in her own, “Do you know what happened to us, Mommy?â€

[Wendy]

Noa… she touches him softly, and the child does not wriggle. He would never have stood still for all of this touching if he was truly alive. Cambree’s face hosts a wan smile, and a worried, green gaze.

She looks down a moment, seeing a blur of silver where a clasp should be, as her fingers unpin the velvet cloak that drapes her shoulders. She wraps the garment around her son, as if the frigid night could seep into his small bones and snap them.

Come with me, Noa. Wiping her face with the back of one hand, Cambree holds out the other for her son and rises. The biting cold crawls over her skin, but the want for protection for her child shreds the importance of all else. They walk hand-in-hand, both islanders, of bare feet and native costume, tamping snow against the frozen ground. Noa is drowning in the bulk of her dark, blue cloak, yet keeping up with her somehow.

They nearly make it to the tree line, where the untamed Tarpans forage for their meal. They are a noisy grouping whose chorus of nibbling and breathing is distracting to Cambree. She barely hears her son ask, “What about Maska?â€

[Jirai]

It is snowing.

She is in a clearing.

She is dreaming.

She is not alone.

She does not usually dream. This makes the situation all the stranger. Not worrying, not yet, but strange. The worry can come later, will come later, along with thoughts and memories she'd thought banished, eradicated, erased. But not now.

She moves towards the figure in the clearing, light steps barely leaving a trace even in the snow. She moves in silence, as she can do so well when she puts her mind to it. Close, closer.

She stops.

"Hello, Qu'essan." He smiles.

She flees.

[Euphemia]

Viveka

Snow. The freezing chill, softly drifting flakes of alabaster. For a moment it confuses, how she came to this place, and then she's lost in the familiar joy of the wilderness. The crisp, clean scent of fallen white, the woody musk of evergreen. It's some time before she even notices the hill, and the figure on it -- time spent in romping through the new-fallen blanket that coats the earth, in enjoying the pure, playful delights of childish games. Like youth, this cannot last forever. There's something wrong here, everything just slightly out of sorts, slightly off. Easy to miss, but once noticed it stands out clearly. No stars. A subtle difference in the aromas present. And there's someone else. The tawny gold of eyes turn upon that distant figure, and she sets out with an easy stride. A climb to reach it, and the last dozen meters are covered in a sudden rush, a rush that ends with two strong arms wrapping about the woman there, lifting her from her feet.

"Mom!" There are tears, unstoppable tears that pour down her cheeks, an embrace held ever so tightly, crushing the other to her chest. "'m so 'appy tah see yah, Mom. Ah can' belie'e yer 'ere." Because her mother is dead. This is a sobering thought, one that has her extending this woman to arm's length, the sudden subject of a careful scrutiny. Upward glance, towards the barren sky above. "'m dreamin', aren' I? This is all.. 'm gonna wake up an' yew'll be gone 'gain, huh?" "Yes my sweetling," the woman finally replies, reaching up to gently run her fingers through Viveka's hair. "This is just a dream, and you'll wake up soon. But don't worry, my princess, I will always be with you, okay?" A tearful nod responds to this, and they hug once again. It's warm, in her mother's arms, and time seems to drift away. The transition from one state to another is smooth; it seems she'd hardly closed her eyes before they were opening once again, to focus on the fire that crackled merrily nearby, feeding on the wood she'd given it before nodding off. She smiles.

[Elfling]

Snow. Snow was not an unfathomable substance to Rei, though it had been some time since he had trampled through the heavy snowfalls of his home in the Northern Territories. In fact, snow was a familiar enough thing that the dream – and he knew it was a dream – was a thing to enjoy versus a thing to fear.

Even the darkness of the forest beyond only hindered him a moment with the backwards glance he offered it. The thought of flight through those foreboding, leafless limbs was furthest from a mind that did not have anything to fear. Little wonder that Saralyn thought him insufferable.

Instead, he found himself studying the illuminated figure upon that hill, still as death. His breath was quiet crystals in front of him; warmth meeting chill in a small detail that sometimes the most vivid dreams held. Her robes – no, it was certainly a dress – were cut from a fabric more fine than silk and more shimmering than satin. It clung to the small curves of a lithe body; his eyes squinted at the flimsiness of such garb in the cold weather. Platinum hair was swept upwards, bound in a tail with curls at the end, and intricate braids had been wrapped around the leather bindings to hide them.

Suspicion had him drawing closer to that figure, studying the straightness of the back she presented to him. It was only when he was but a few paces that her head turned, and a piercing blue eye stared at him overtop her left shoulder. He knew the face. He guarded its similar – or had, before he’d been sent to Myrken.

“So, you’ve finally decided to keep your oath,â€

[Lamai]

It had been some time since her dreams were filled with snow. It was not a setting usually warred over; especially not something so pristine and untouched as this. Even at Home, one had to go into the high mountains to reach snow that hadn’t been trampled through. However, the fact that it was a dream immediately set her on edge.

Lamai only knew of one person that touched Dreams, and that she had finally collapsed in exhaustion was enough to allow her in.

The darkness of the surrounding forest was enough to send her skittering from its grasping branches before she realized she’d reacted to it. Truth be told, Lamai did not much care for a lifeless, sleeping forest at night. Owls hunted at night, and sometimes, the trees tried to eat you.

She was, therefore, steps into the clearing before she realized that she wasn’t alone. The figure there wasn’t much taller than she, and not much wider, either. A shock of short, dark hair was enough to tell her that her visitor was also not Galacia. In fact, she knew who it was.

.. and who it wasn’t.

“Tag?â€

[Kylerryth]

OOC Note: As of this post, this thread is closed. No more characters will experience the dream.

* * * * *

It is snowing. The endless sky is black, the crescent moon is silver; there are no stars, and yet the world is bathed in pale light. The snow glitters like countless crystals of varying value -- to some it means nothing; to others, everything. The trees surrounding the clearing are dark, skeletal shadows, visible against a backdrop of deeper, darker shadow, and no sound emanates from the depths of those tenebrous woods. The trees seem to be reaching for the sky, for the moon, forever reaching but never quite touching...

He stands on the hill, but not at its peak. He is naked, but he does not feel the cold. The falling snow swirls around him, away from him, as if afraid to land on or near him; the ground around his feet is devoid of white, is a patch of barren earth and withered grass. Similar patches lead up the hill to where he currently stands. He is an outsider, disconnected from the dream yet somehow a part of it, and the dream is attempting to reject him by disassociating itself from his presence. He is not supposed to be here, and he knows it.

Yet he is. After all, the dream is his creation. Why not visit it, see how it functions? But he already knows; he designed it, after all. So why come at all?

He knows the answer: it is better than reality. Than his reality. Here, in the world of dreams, he is like unto a god; he creates them like an expert weaver, starting with a thread, an idea, and in time forms a pattern, a function. It is the purpose which eludes him -- the reason he is compelled to do it at all, any of it.

The golden lines along his muscles flicker to life, emitting a soft glow; he is gently illumined by their light, and had there been anyone to witness it, he would have seemed like a holy beacon, awash in glory amid the snow and silent darkness. It is time to wake, he supposes. Time to go back to the real world.

He looks up, and suddenly there is a single star in the black sky. At first it is barely visible, a faint twinkling that the vast void around it threatens to consume wholly and utterly. Then it is stronger, brighter; it spreads gradually, then swiftly, until the moon is overpowered and then swallowed up. Until the woods are lost, the trees and their darkness alike destroyed by the incandescent light of this star.

This star, whose light is beautiful and terrible all at once, providing illumination and destruction in the same moment.

This star, whose light is the light at the end of the world.

This one, and the other.

* * * * *

OOC Note: Thanks to everyone who wrote a reply! I'm immensely grateful, and you guys obviously put a lot of thought into your posts. See you when Chimera starts!