Fragmentarium
Nov 5, 2021 13:23:44 GMT -6
Post by Noa on Nov 5, 2021 13:23:44 GMT -6
(Sever Bond is in effect)
Noa didn't dream, just as he didn't cry at the death of his parents, or flinch when a drake roared full in his face. It was something missing, someone had said once. He didn't feel the loss of it, whatever it was. Sleep generally found him like the pull of gravity, and he was sluggish to escape its orbit on the best of days, but when he slept, he slept the sleep of the dead.
Mostly.
"Will this work?" he murmured under his breath, but there was no one here to answer. The absence of Rhys's weight on his shoulder felt like a gap in his person, as though he was missing a limb. He didn't know where Rhys had gone, only that at some point the Faeron had disappeared.
Yet another reminder that he wasn't supposed to be here. But they had exhausted every other means, and the opportunity had been too precious to turn away, even with Rhys's misgivings.
Whatever unease he might have felt was dampened here, like a tincture dulling the ache of a wound -- or perhaps like a strong wine that dulled the senses instead. The hush of this place was remarkable, but not as novel as it might have been to someone else. He had felt the blanket of Rhys's influence in his mind before, weighing down stray thoughts; being here reminded him of that, and he knew this peace to be artificial, just as Rhys's was.
But then again, perhaps not. Draconics were heirs to a magic older than he knew. He had sought them out for this, hadn't he?
Where he slept hardly mattered. He opened the first door that came to hand, checking carefully for locks before leaving it open behind him. He half expected to find his own bed at home, sprawling and expansive in the cold stretch of what had once been his parents' bedroom, but it wasn't. It was a child's bed, set to one side in a small round room. He was too tall to fit, almost, and yet when he unfolded himself upon it his toes didn't quite reach the end.
He stared up at the ceiling, then closed his eyes and sighed.
Very well. He was tired enough. And perhaps the magic here would draw something out of even the barren landscape of Noa's mind.
There is no beginning; you are in the middle of it before you realize it had begun.
You are kneeling. The floor is wet.
The floor is cold, littered with shadows, shapes and suggestions in the darkness, and you know without looking that they are bodies. You know, in the way that one knows in dreams, that you must not look; that if you looked upon them something terrible would unravel within you, you must not, must not, must not look -- and yet they are everywhere, on the walls and hanging from the ceilings, dread things at the periphery of your vision, everywhere, everywhere.
You try to close your eyes but you cannot. The shadows dance, taunting, tempting. Your fault, they whisper, and you bury your face in your hands, only for them to come away wet, wet and dripping.
Blood. Blood on your hands, blood in your mouth, thick and coppery and sick-making. It runs down your face, from your eyes, your nose, oozing out between your lips.
You cannot scream, and yet you do: a long and voiceless howl, more sensation than sound. The knowledge that everything is wrong -- and you want out, out -- held down, as something is forced upon you -- all your limbs trapped, restrained -- cold, cold that pierces you, permeates you, spreads into your skin even as you twist and struggle, cold that seeps and creeps and stays.
You are becoming something against your will. The screaming does not stop, but rises to a fever pitch, the ebb and flow of it shifting into a crescendo. The cold burns in your veins, pain and pain and white-hot pain, consuming everything at once.
You are on the floor, and the pain is your reflection in a shattered mirror, just one too-bright shard among the scattered and missing pieces.
You pick up the shards: here a peal of laughter, there the sound of birds. You assemble them, edge by jagged edge, around the biggest piece, until nothing else remains.
The kaleidoscope of your reflection stares back, blurry and indistinct, eyes filled with unspeakable yearning.
You close your eyes. You cannot bear to look. You close them and you step into the mirror.
You are floating.
You are weightless, and everything is a distant impression: the sound of voices filter in as if from a long way away. Your thoughts are slow, colors and shapes without names. There is no up, no down, nothing but yourself and the faintest of light. Perhaps there is not even that.
It is darkness, but it is the comforting dark; here you don't have to be anything. Here you are resting. There is a melody, you think -- a pulsing rhythm.
Maybe it's yours.
If you stay long enough, maybe you can find yourself again.
You are kneeling. The floor is wet.
The floor is cold, littered with shadows, shapes and suggestions in the darkness, and you know without looking that they are bodies. You know, in the way that one knows in dreams, that you must not look; that if you looked upon them something terrible would unravel within you, you must not, must not, must not look -- and yet they are everywhere, on the walls and hanging from the ceilings, dread things at the periphery of your vision, everywhere, everywhere.
You try to close your eyes but you cannot. The shadows dance, taunting, tempting. Your fault, they whisper, and you bury your face in your hands, only for them to come away wet, wet and dripping.
Blood. Blood on your hands, blood in your mouth, thick and coppery and sick-making. It runs down your face, from your eyes, your nose, oozing out between your lips.
You cannot scream, and yet you do: a long and voiceless howl, more sensation than sound. The knowledge that everything is wrong -- and you want out, out -- held down, as something is forced upon you -- all your limbs trapped, restrained -- cold, cold that pierces you, permeates you, spreads into your skin even as you twist and struggle, cold that seeps and creeps and stays.
You are becoming something against your will. The screaming does not stop, but rises to a fever pitch, the ebb and flow of it shifting into a crescendo. The cold burns in your veins, pain and pain and white-hot pain, consuming everything at once.
-----
You are on the floor, and the pain is your reflection in a shattered mirror, just one too-bright shard among the scattered and missing pieces.
You pick up the shards: here a peal of laughter, there the sound of birds. You assemble them, edge by jagged edge, around the biggest piece, until nothing else remains.
The kaleidoscope of your reflection stares back, blurry and indistinct, eyes filled with unspeakable yearning.
You close your eyes. You cannot bear to look. You close them and you step into the mirror.
-----
You are floating.
You are weightless, and everything is a distant impression: the sound of voices filter in as if from a long way away. Your thoughts are slow, colors and shapes without names. There is no up, no down, nothing but yourself and the faintest of light. Perhaps there is not even that.
It is darkness, but it is the comforting dark; here you don't have to be anything. Here you are resting. There is a melody, you think -- a pulsing rhythm.
Maybe it's yours.
If you stay long enough, maybe you can find yourself again.
Name: Never
Body Type: Amorphous
Affinity: Remnants
Nature: Lingering
