Nightmares....
...they had plagued Blaze for near all of her long life though in immortal terms she was still in the flower of her youth. But far more that nightmares they were, far more than a minds unexplainable ability to terrify its keeper.
As the shroud of slumber drew past her eyes they would came creeping into her mind like the cold hand of death, hesitating upon the edge of her consciousness waiting cruelly for the opportune moment to strike. Irony always played part as of course with all such things, when the weight of her waking life bore down upon her this was the time they choose to descend and in their torment add to her burdens.
Only recently recovered from the horrific and tragic loss of Tarrund, her first and beloved home in Ambrea and the city that she led proudly through times of change and progress, she still found it hard to let sleep embrace her. Always the dark luring fear of what vision might she next see, what haunting pictures might fortell another tragedy, another impending doom? She still held a guilt deep in her heart that the rising waters that had tormented and cornered her behind closed eyes had not been interpreted for what they truely meant. How many lives she could have saved instead of forever seeing the faces of those who lost the fight, dragged under and forever claimed by the swirling depths, forever to rot in Tarrund's aquatic graveyard. It broke her heart to consider the difference she could have made.
Sometimes their embodiment would be the resurrection of horrors past, dark memories reconstructed in a frightening new guise. They were often so vivid that her screams would awaken her in ironic self preservation.
Other times theyformed haunting prophecies. Sometimes as if her mind’s eye looked down from above, observing the shadows rolling across the planes. Other times she would play the lead in her own twisted and surreal exploration. Images flickered, faces would float and she'd awaken with a terror that repelled even the darkest corners of her soul.
They came often with no warning and depart with no sorrow for the havoc they created. They pierced through her sleeping dreams and frequented her waking reveries; day or night it mattered not...
~~~
Stillness fell over the cave as deep within the Avathar's den she lay perfectly still curled close to Alastair's side. They were alone in the shadows which snakes over the walls from flickering torches almost burnt to their end. the rest of the pack off in their own private homes or out hunting in the twilight.
Faint purple haze drifted down in a dusty beam from a crack in the rocks overhead, diluted moonlight that cast a surreal light over his sleeping form, ashen skin though scarred bloodied and bruised began to softly glow in beautiful elven splendour. It drew her like a moth to touch at his markings, trace cool fingerlip lightly along its intricate patterns with featherlike touch so not to wake him from regenerative slumber. Tired eyes drew up to his face, smiled for that swell she felt in her heart yet also deep inside her, curious flourishing passions which had ensnared them lately like never before.
She mused upon it for a while, decadant memories which almost had her rouse him with needful kiss yet his wounds were grave, even for his standards, crushed knee that had him unable to walk at all. And so she let him sleep on contented herself with watching over him switching the usual roles and taking pride in being his guardian for the evening.
Thoughts of Eoin's return nagged at her, disappointment and regret over choices past and that unsettled feeling of something different that she could not put her finger on. Feeling herirritation at it grow she pushed it from her mind, trusting in her pack to have him leave her be. So easily was she drawn back to Alastair, slipping tighter to his side she shrugged the fabric off her shoulder, neckline plunging and laid her cool milky flesh against his chest so he might draw rejuvination from her in his special intimate way and in turn drain away her worries and her insecurities. Pressing pale lips to his skin she lay her head at the curve of his neck and gazed off across the
cave.
Her muscles relaxed and she felt his presence sooth and calm her. His rhythmic breathing lulled her to the point where she clungto the edge of sleep with hooded eyes, her view melting and fading as eyelashes fluttered closed. the last thing she saw was that glittering beam of light, seemed to melt from a calm lilac haze to a shimmer of amethyst...a sinister hint perhaps of all that was about to seep into her dreams...
~~~
The velvet curtains of slumber encompassed her; in their ethereal folds was scorned the cloud-edges of amethyst that forged the night sky. It was slow, the transition of being without sight to that which could see too
much. For there before the dreaming Blaze was lain an empty horizon that held no promise. The soil upon which her bare feet rested was not dead, not barren… it was worse, like sand robbed of its cool blankets of water it did not wish to live. And there were voices, distant and calling. But they were not despairing, they were not lamenting nor were they the psalms of joy. For all gods were dead and song held no meaning anymore.
Within her breast was struck the spark of fear, and before her eyes it consumed her hands like the thinnest of parchments, melting into drops of violet fire and then she was gone, gone… sliding through stone as a ghost. The ruin of Karamoon was before the creature she had become. She was hooded, and her cheeks did not feel the wind that rippled the monastic robes that were tied against her fleshless hips. And as she walked she glided, feet barely touching the ruined, sodden earth. Surely, surely she would die if she continued to walk so quickly to the vast expanse of black water that was the dead, broken place where bloated corpses floated.
Tarrund's fog-wreathed spires peeked from the unnaturally still surface of the lake like its last breath. And she would drown there if she did not stop, yet the horrific feeling, the enthralling inhumanity that she possessed now stepped upon the water as if it were marble… And in her reflection…in the single, spiralling ripple in the water's mirror her face was not that of a woman but a monster. It was carved of amethyst, sculpted in angelic beauty, dark and terrifying in its silence that rangin her head. Because she was that creature, but she was also Blaze.
Waking fought to take her. Her screams began to rouse her body who's soul was locked in this awful place. But a cold, merciless grip clasped around a place on her spirit she did not know she had and the violation was so complete it rivalled hell because it infected every memory and thread of reason with hopelessness so much so that her eyes were forced to stare into the bleak hood and bear its lipless words like a maiden raped and
forced to bear the seed of cruelty. Genderless, the choir spoke and thisis what was heard:-
"…All the naked and the dead
Are clasped hand in hand…
…The prophecy greater,
Than you will understand...
…And to those that survive
know that death is still alive…
There is no more time to barter,
to beg steal nor borrow…
And when you halt your screaming,
In voices dry and hollow,
Mortals cursed to stand in lines
Of the following and the followed."
The cold hand unclasped and compared to it waking to the curse of the Vampyr was bliss.
...they had plagued Blaze for near all of her long life though in immortal terms she was still in the flower of her youth. But far more that nightmares they were, far more than a minds unexplainable ability to terrify its keeper.
As the shroud of slumber drew past her eyes they would came creeping into her mind like the cold hand of death, hesitating upon the edge of her consciousness waiting cruelly for the opportune moment to strike. Irony always played part as of course with all such things, when the weight of her waking life bore down upon her this was the time they choose to descend and in their torment add to her burdens.
Only recently recovered from the horrific and tragic loss of Tarrund, her first and beloved home in Ambrea and the city that she led proudly through times of change and progress, she still found it hard to let sleep embrace her. Always the dark luring fear of what vision might she next see, what haunting pictures might fortell another tragedy, another impending doom? She still held a guilt deep in her heart that the rising waters that had tormented and cornered her behind closed eyes had not been interpreted for what they truely meant. How many lives she could have saved instead of forever seeing the faces of those who lost the fight, dragged under and forever claimed by the swirling depths, forever to rot in Tarrund's aquatic graveyard. It broke her heart to consider the difference she could have made.
Sometimes their embodiment would be the resurrection of horrors past, dark memories reconstructed in a frightening new guise. They were often so vivid that her screams would awaken her in ironic self preservation.
Other times theyformed haunting prophecies. Sometimes as if her mind’s eye looked down from above, observing the shadows rolling across the planes. Other times she would play the lead in her own twisted and surreal exploration. Images flickered, faces would float and she'd awaken with a terror that repelled even the darkest corners of her soul.
They came often with no warning and depart with no sorrow for the havoc they created. They pierced through her sleeping dreams and frequented her waking reveries; day or night it mattered not...
~~~
Stillness fell over the cave as deep within the Avathar's den she lay perfectly still curled close to Alastair's side. They were alone in the shadows which snakes over the walls from flickering torches almost burnt to their end. the rest of the pack off in their own private homes or out hunting in the twilight.
Faint purple haze drifted down in a dusty beam from a crack in the rocks overhead, diluted moonlight that cast a surreal light over his sleeping form, ashen skin though scarred bloodied and bruised began to softly glow in beautiful elven splendour. It drew her like a moth to touch at his markings, trace cool fingerlip lightly along its intricate patterns with featherlike touch so not to wake him from regenerative slumber. Tired eyes drew up to his face, smiled for that swell she felt in her heart yet also deep inside her, curious flourishing passions which had ensnared them lately like never before.
She mused upon it for a while, decadant memories which almost had her rouse him with needful kiss yet his wounds were grave, even for his standards, crushed knee that had him unable to walk at all. And so she let him sleep on contented herself with watching over him switching the usual roles and taking pride in being his guardian for the evening.
Thoughts of Eoin's return nagged at her, disappointment and regret over choices past and that unsettled feeling of something different that she could not put her finger on. Feeling herirritation at it grow she pushed it from her mind, trusting in her pack to have him leave her be. So easily was she drawn back to Alastair, slipping tighter to his side she shrugged the fabric off her shoulder, neckline plunging and laid her cool milky flesh against his chest so he might draw rejuvination from her in his special intimate way and in turn drain away her worries and her insecurities. Pressing pale lips to his skin she lay her head at the curve of his neck and gazed off across the
cave.
Her muscles relaxed and she felt his presence sooth and calm her. His rhythmic breathing lulled her to the point where she clungto the edge of sleep with hooded eyes, her view melting and fading as eyelashes fluttered closed. the last thing she saw was that glittering beam of light, seemed to melt from a calm lilac haze to a shimmer of amethyst...a sinister hint perhaps of all that was about to seep into her dreams...
~~~
The velvet curtains of slumber encompassed her; in their ethereal folds was scorned the cloud-edges of amethyst that forged the night sky. It was slow, the transition of being without sight to that which could see too
much. For there before the dreaming Blaze was lain an empty horizon that held no promise. The soil upon which her bare feet rested was not dead, not barren… it was worse, like sand robbed of its cool blankets of water it did not wish to live. And there were voices, distant and calling. But they were not despairing, they were not lamenting nor were they the psalms of joy. For all gods were dead and song held no meaning anymore.
Within her breast was struck the spark of fear, and before her eyes it consumed her hands like the thinnest of parchments, melting into drops of violet fire and then she was gone, gone… sliding through stone as a ghost. The ruin of Karamoon was before the creature she had become. She was hooded, and her cheeks did not feel the wind that rippled the monastic robes that were tied against her fleshless hips. And as she walked she glided, feet barely touching the ruined, sodden earth. Surely, surely she would die if she continued to walk so quickly to the vast expanse of black water that was the dead, broken place where bloated corpses floated.
Tarrund's fog-wreathed spires peeked from the unnaturally still surface of the lake like its last breath. And she would drown there if she did not stop, yet the horrific feeling, the enthralling inhumanity that she possessed now stepped upon the water as if it were marble… And in her reflection…in the single, spiralling ripple in the water's mirror her face was not that of a woman but a monster. It was carved of amethyst, sculpted in angelic beauty, dark and terrifying in its silence that rangin her head. Because she was that creature, but she was also Blaze.
Waking fought to take her. Her screams began to rouse her body who's soul was locked in this awful place. But a cold, merciless grip clasped around a place on her spirit she did not know she had and the violation was so complete it rivalled hell because it infected every memory and thread of reason with hopelessness so much so that her eyes were forced to stare into the bleak hood and bear its lipless words like a maiden raped and
forced to bear the seed of cruelty. Genderless, the choir spoke and thisis what was heard:-
"…All the naked and the dead
Are clasped hand in hand…
…The prophecy greater,
Than you will understand...
…And to those that survive
know that death is still alive…
There is no more time to barter,
to beg steal nor borrow…
And when you halt your screaming,
In voices dry and hollow,
Mortals cursed to stand in lines
Of the following and the followed."
The cold hand unclasped and compared to it waking to the curse of the Vampyr was bliss.
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