The dream shuddered. A riptide tore through its very fibres, dragging souls in its wake as though they were nothing but debris. The pull was immense, and startled her eyes wide as it passed. She twisted around as though to follow. Yet for once Nimeda did not let herself become swept up in an unknown current just for the thrill of seeing where it led.
Perhaps because it did not feel like chance or invitation or adventure, but control.
"What was that?" She murmured the words aloud, distracted by the sensation, her senses flaring out to discover a new and strange silence – like the quiet after a storm. It took her a moment to realise why that was, after which she shifted in perplexity to the nexus formed around the Watcher.
She left wet footprints as she passed across the ash. People lay like felled flowers in a fairy ring, something she witnessed with dismay. The faces were low, but she knew some of them simply by the way they felt here; the very essence from which they were made. At their centre loomed the Watcher himself, dark and immense, his distant eyes as red as the poppy woven amongst the other fauna in her dripping hair. His Will pressed still, like a hand held down on a drowning face. She could certainly feel its weight, even as she cleaved aside its hold from herself. She came here because she wanted to. But she did not wish to bow.
Resistance was something Nimeda rarely executed; she had no reason to usually, and even the last time they had met in this form she had allowed his mastery to tumble her around with the others, to be ultimately discarded alongside them. She hadn’t minded. Nimeda went with the flow of this world, not against it. Hidden amongst the warp and weft.
She knew the man at the Watcher’s feet; had entered his dreams before. A cord had existed between them for a while now, though he was no natural born dreamwalker. Nimeda did not even know his name. Usually he stubbornly refused to be calmed, but she soothed the remnants of his nightmares sometimes; made them drift like smoke when he woke, to lessen the sting. She’d offered to take the memories entirely before. But he’d refused. It was why her touch remained light, born of love and familiarity she could not explain but simply accepted. Though she wished he’d let her do more.
The Watcher had in fact missed quite a few of his names, though she was only half-listening; the imperious and commanding tone said enough, really, and she was more consumed in those few seconds with trying to understand what was going on. Meanwhile, she leaned a little to offer the kneeling boy a hand up.
Nox laughed and rolled his eyes. "So you're a tyrant king who's lived a life of myth and legend and thinks it's his god given right to make people bow. And you are the reason the Atharim hunt us. Because you got too big for your head. It's why they'll hunt us till we are all eradicated again. Thanks for that."
A hand extend to him and he looked up to see a familiar face. He smiled. It wasn't Thalia, but it was her otherself. The one who followed his dreams -- the one who experienced his dreams, his nightmares.. He took it and looked back at the demon with a smirk glad someone could fight whatever control he was exerting over them. Nox disliked bullies but he was a stranger in this land and he had no power. His will exerted only so far.
Nox said looking around with a sigh. "Send me home if you have so much power. Make me wake up so I can get on with my miserable life."
The Sandman cared not to engage in philosophical conversations over superiority. He was the greatest force in the Dream, and he used that power to ensure its integrity; such was the burden of all kings. It was the Dreamer’s denial that led to this moment. If he was displeased with the demonstration, he should have shown deference sooner.
He felt her before the rubies of his eyes glimpsed her in the crowd. He watched her weave her way through their unmoving forms, flowing straight to the Dreamer whom she helped climb to his feet.
He could banish Nox, but a snarl twisted his lips into a fanged smile instead. “The Dream is stable,” he declared as though it was the obvious answer.
In that moment, the humans were released. “Be gone,” he ordered them, and their forms flowed through his will like sand falling from his claws. Nox was free to depart if his mind willed it, nothing held him here, but only a few remained: those whose souls gleamed like gold in comparison to the duller Dreamers that dissipated.
“It is time you recognize your king,” his voice shuddered as he spoke to the natural born Dreamers. The tips of his wings dragged through the ash behind him as he paced.
They were free to stand though he would hold them until his commands were issued. “Do not battle one another. Do not rile the wolves. Do not approach the Troll Stones. Do not threaten the integrity of the Dream. When I call, you will come. All else is free for you to dream.”
At least this interaction stopped the nightmares -- maybe whatever Ezekeil had given him would work another night. But he wasn't sure he wanted to have this tyrant visiting him again. He issued orders like he truly was a king and Nox turned to his knight in shinning armor with a smirk. "He's bossy, isn't he?"
Nox didn't truly care what this demon did to him living or awake. He doubted he'd remember anything from this anyway -- he rarely did. But they'd been dismissed and orders issued. Nox turned his back on the demon and looked around at the remnants of his nightmares. The bodies were no longer recognizable. He sighed and knelt in the ash and he pulled upon the non-existent power and changed the lights to the cool blues and greens of his waking days. The calm of his mind didn't exist. But for now the horde was gone their voices fearful of the fire that raged through him. If only he could keep it that way. But he didn't want to rage with fire. There had to be a better way.
The Thal version placed a hand on his shoulder. "I can send you to slumber."
Nox looked up. "I'm good. It'll be empty here soon enough unless these people want to take up residence in my head." Though Nox knew he wasn't exactly in his head anymore. Stories of what happened in the dream being real were part of his training. Nightmares and dream visions, prophecies and walking through a dream were all powers of the god wars. Powers the Atharim had sought to eradicate -- those things that made men powerful were danger. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. But this is where the remnants lay and he wanted to think about it all while his body rested.
[[ nim modded with permission ]]
The boy talked about things she did not understand, of death and hunting and tyrants. Meanwhile the Watcher himself spoke with booming decree, like he did not even hear the accusations. The do nots spurred a virulent memory from old depths; nothing specific, but it felt as if it was a litany of control she had heard many times before. But where once she might have known and trusted this soul, now he was a resonance that spun on the axis of many different Ages, and it all blurred to her with a sting of surprising rejection. Those red eyes narrowed distant disapproval, and even his other face only found her tolerably vexatious while she was of use to him. Yet crowned with paler wings Nimeda had seen that other face beckon a woman from the cradle of rest and bring an axe to her head. A dreamer who had done nothing but quietly dream.
For the Watcher was not the only one who knew how to observe in this world undetected.
The deference she was prepared to give because it cost her nothing slipped a little through her fingers. Nimeda did not turn her face away from death, nor did she judge its act, and truthfully few questions had bubbled from that witness until now. She smiled a little at the boy by her side as he interjected into the confusion of her thoughts, but it was sad at the edges. "Oh always," she agreed lightly. As he turned himself away she stubbornly paused for him first, a hand on his shoulder, to see if he wished to leave. Not everyone understood how, and he had found himself here by no natural means. The self-declared Sandman did not hold him but neither did he make any attempt to help ease the passage back to true sleep. When the offer was declined she only nodded, ruffling a damp hand distractedly over his head. “I like your head,” she said affectionately in response.
Nimeda still was turning the word tyrant over in her mind like a new possession when she turned back. The frown that tugged her expression was more melancholic than accusatory as she searched that large black form for something she recognised. The Watcher had hurt no one here, but neither did she like the cage of his will or the way he used it. Then there was the common thread to his commands, and she was uncertain if that was intended or coincidental. But it was true all the same. “It does not need to be stable,” she told him. No power bolstered her voice. She would not fight for attention he gifted so sparsely, though she recognised now that his neglect had left an injury in her – to have felt absence replaced with disdain. To feel unsure what she had done to deserve it.
“The dream is chaos, wild and restless and free, the place where all possibility meets. It needs no control, only tending. You asked me for truth, before. And it is this. I recognise no king.”
The Sandman remained distant, his attention far removed from the ongoing conversation below. Having already proven himself to the Dreamers, he had no inclination to further incite any provocations, but amidst the chatter, the familiar voice of Nimeda emerged, and if the Sandman could express weariness in his current form, he might have sighed. Instead, he casually cast a glance downward, unperturbed by the declaration, as if a wildflower had proclaimed its sovereignty, and at that moment, a poppy appeared nestled upon the crook of her ear.
Within the demon's study, there was no trace of animosity or aggression. “Hmm.” He let out a contemplative growl before suddenly springing into the air. The mighty force of his wings beating sent their hair into a graceful upward dance, and in the blink of an eye, he vanished before their very gazes.
Nox chuckled as the demon king left them in a flurry of wings and wind. "He throws temper tantrums like good kings do too. I'm surprised he didn't take off our heads."
Nox sat down amidst the ash and willed away the soot and grime and wished for someplace serene. Oddly the darkness changed to more darkness -- a different kind, the shadows of tress in the distance and a ring of light from the campfire just out of his vision. Home had always been where his family was, and that was usually around the campfire in the middle of some godforsaken wood where the animals lived and few people disturbed. Cities held monsters, but that was a different kind of life -- one he lived now, but he hadn't realized he longed for the emptiness of the woods. He needed to remedy that should he wake in the morning remembering.
"Been a while since I've had peaceful dreams. Too bad it's drug induced. Not that the nightmares won't come back. No way I can shut off the thoughts that cause them to be drawn to me. But it's good to know the really bad nights are their fault and not mine."
Her head tilted, and she did not reject the addition to her person as the poppy bloomed behind her ear. The Watcher was gone a moment later, whipping the air up as he did so, presumably so that those who remained could not possibly miss the grandeur of his departure. It half made her smile. Afterwards her gaze crossed to the rapidly depleted dreamers, most of whom had escaped the moment the Watcher released his hold on them. There had been plenty she recognised, and their absence now stung a little as she sought and failed to find the familiar faces that made meaning of her life. Mara remained though, and it softened the blow of sadness, if she suspected her sister’s curiosity was piqued more by the troubled boy who remained in their world.
“If he took our heads he would have no one to boss around.” When next the dreaming boy blinked, he would find Nimeda sat at the fire with him. Darkness and isolation surrounded, but it was the restful kind. She tinkered with the flames, made them spark into whimsical shapes. Her chin rested on her knees. “I can give you peaceful dreams if you ever wish them. Mara’s pets avoid me, even when I reach out to them, and you would not be so difficult to hide. Although you could just ask their Mistress.” Her gaze flicked to the woman in question, and a fond smile softened her features.
She played with the flames. He wondered if she thought it was the power of the gods or just a trick of the dreams. He didn't bother asking, Thalia didn't know she dreamt, barely knew she could weild the power of the gods. No point in trying to figure out what was going on here.
She spoke again about relieving his dreams -- his nightmares. Everything was all very deja vu in the dream when she was around. Like he'd said something before, or that he'd lived it again with her. He wouldn't remember it when he woke. He would have vague ideas. But he knew he was dreaming, and knew he couldn't wake just yet. "The nightmares would still come. My own guilty conscious. All creatures need to feed as long as they don't try to kill me I'm okay with someone benefiting from my torment at least. It's not going to stop until I have some sort of epiphany or something about what they all mean and why I'm feeling guilty. Other than the obvious reasons."
He did glance back towards the figure still with them. The others had departed. "I'm Nox, by the way. Your friends seem to like my dreams. Figure knowing my name might find it easier for them to find me." It was a joke, he was giving her his name because it was the polite thing to do.
Mara’s pets were long gone at the Watcher’s bidding, but Mara tarried. She would linger where Nimeda did, but there was something interested about the boy she talked with. She tilted her head when his attention turned to her. Mara was distinctively Chinese in physical appearance, and this particular night, she wore black spaghetti strap dress, but she spoke flawless English.
“Hello, Nox. I’m Mara. However, I am told my name is Daiyu.” She was straight-forward with the contradiction in her identity. She sat down at Nimeda’s feet, criss-crossed her legs, and twirled her fingers through the hem of her clothes. As she looked up at him, she found his melancholy aura handsome. “Thank you for letting my pets eat. I’ll make sure they nibble on the extra bits and leave the main meat alone.” She smiled a toothy smile as her eyes roamed the periphery of his body like she might be serious. She was joking, though.
“Do you live in Moscow too?”