Dreams Become Reality
Log Info
- Title: Dreams Become Reality
- Place: Alexandria - Inn Room
- Summary: Rune and Harkashan had found themselves trapped within a dream and must face the aftermath of when dreams become a bit too real.
The inn is quiet, the subtle sounds of the occassional owl hooting in the distance, or the creeking of floorboards the only sound. However, that does not mean the evening is peaceful. Not for all of those who slumber here.
Rune's sleep has always been fitful. At first, it seems like a departure from that, a pleasant dream for once. And then, her breathing starts to quicken, soft sounds from her lips as she tosses her head back and forth. The owl-bear plush at her side tips, then topples over.
Then, in a startling burst of motion, Rune is all but shouting the word: "-Home!" The girl sits up, sweat beading on her forehead, tears running odwn her cheeks. Her pulse still races in her ears and the heavy weight of her mother's necklace presses aganist her chest.
It takes a moment for Rune to realize that she is awake, looking around with wild, wide eyes. Then, she's scrambling from her nest of blankets on the floor and up onto the bed where it is all too obvious that Harkashan is still sleeping. He said he would be right behind her.
"Hey!" She shouts. "You have to wake up." Rune starts shaking the Makari, seemingly to no avail. "You promised! Get your ass back here, you hear me? Wake the fuck up." The words are not kind pleadings one might expect, but Rune is hardly a fainting flower. However, she is still crying, tears falling onto the Makari's scales.
Then, she sees a wound seem to appear out of nowhere on his arm, "Shit... shit shit." Grabbing for some of the sheets, she puts pressure on the wound and shouts again, "Alright, enough of this. You got me out, now come back. You hear me? Come back. You don't get to leave me behind. Fuck that!"
Harkashan's own dreams, visible, grow more fitful. The sleep-paralysis stopping him from making sounds at first. But she can see the tears start to stream down his eyes. His breathing speeding up. There's tension growing in his muscles.
As she tries to close the wound, putting pressure on it, it tears open a bit further. She can /see/ the indentation of fingers against it. Fingers that are exactly her size. Her own hand practically 'binding' with her own imprint for that moment. Blood starting to seep as scales are crushed with beastly amount of ease. Tearing into it. Only for his markings to start searing.
One part of the blankets literally catches flame as Harkashan's lava-like flow seems to shift and move even amidst the midnight's illumination. Some of it threatening to sear her fingers where she's trying to stem the wound's bleeding.
Harkashan's muzzle opening. His voice is barely audible. But she can hear him say her name. Desperately saying her name. He's still not away, even as she shakes him. Even as she yells at him. He is not so easy to wake. Held by another force.
The sight of the wounds seeming to echo her own fingers has Rune draw her hand back. Yet, even without the pressure, the wounds seem to be getting worse, as if whatever force held him was actually still ripping into his flesh.
In the next instant, there is a feeling like searing heat against the remaining hand pressing against him, enough so that Rune hisses and draws her hand back, the skin beneath looking burned from the contact. Shaking her hand out, she seems to search for anything that might be able to help at the same time that the sheets tart to catch fire.
Grabbing for the blankets, Rune is quick to tamp out the flames, but she is at a loss for what to do. It only seems to be getting worse and Harkashan is still not waking.
Hearing that gasping whisper of her name, the half-sil's eyes flash back to the struggling Makari. Pressing her lips together, steeling herself for what is bound to be pain, Rune grabs hold of his face, hands pressing against both sides of his muzzle, despite the searing feeling it sends through her fingers.
"You're coming back, right now. Do you understand me? Wake. Up. Harkashan." The panic edging her voice, the tears still falling onto his muzzle, Rune snarls her defiance at whatever force had held her. Whatever force is still holding him. "He's mine! Fuck off!"
There's a small bit of black smoke that drifts along her fingers as she touches along his muzzle. The markings growing so intense. She watches, as something appears on his shoulder. A shimmer along his head. Again, almost like she's seeing double. Something else staring at her for a moment. Listening to her, closing its eyes... nodding its head. Fading away again.
Then a searing 'claw mark' appearing on Harkashan's shoulder. Searing. His scales turning red and black in those spots as Harkashan grimaces in pain. Like something else were helping Rune in waking him...
Then, as she demands that he's mine, this searing light grows into flame, setting his pillow on fire, in the same moment Harkashan suddenly takes a deep breath and his eyes open, fear and sorrow writ all over his face. His heart beating fast enough that he's grasping for that spot. Trying to calm his own heart by touching over the area.
"Rune!" He calls out in waking up. Her looking over him. Some of her tears turning to 'steam' as they fall over patches of his body, though those areas that were previously so intensely hot quickly cool down. Like a volcano calming after an eruption.
His claws reaching out immediately... and pulling her against himself, as the male trembles and holds her. "Rune..." His breath speaks her name again, his body tense. "Don't leave..." He whispers.
Just like in the dream, there is a split second where it seems that something else was there in Harkashan's place. In that instant, she doesn't know if that force is friend or foe. Someone helping her, or someone trying to hold him in the dream space that was clearly harming him. She flashes her teeth in a distinctive snarl that looks far too Makari, a threatening gesture.
Even as the heat sears her fingertips and palms, she holds on and seems about to shout something else when Harkashan bolts awake. The heat beneath her hands immedaitely ebbs and there is a soft breath of relief at that. Her fingers draw away, showing signs of actually having been burned, but that's something that can be dealt with later.
"You need to cool the flames, Hark, or you're going to light this whole place on fire." There is relief and alarm in her voice as she tries to put out more of the ignited bedding. They are so going to have to pay to replace that.
Then, Rune is being crushed against the chest of the Makari, any further protest squeezed out of her in that instant as she quiets. That strong, stable, steady presence that had always felt like home to her envelops her. It washes away some of the fear. A hand, still tender from the burns, touches his chest. "I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere."
Harkashan's tail lists about as he sits up, going THWAP THWAP THWAP THWAP putting out the embers on the pillow as she tells him to cool his flames, but he refuses to release her. His heart feels like it'll beat out of his chest. Were he softskinned, he'd no doubt be clammy. But Harkashan doesn't really have pores or sweatglands. Sith-makar are lucky enough that they can pant.
His trembling hold on her continues for a while, holding her to his chest. Her head close to his heart, letting her hear and feel it slooowly go down to a more reasonable pace.
It takes a while before his shaking arms actually relinquish her and he notices the damage to her fingers. Bringing his hands over the backs of her palms to heal her. He hasn't even noticed the pain in his own arm yet. The bleeding largely stopped from searing heat, but the wound remains.
At least he has enough of his mind about him to set to the task of the bedding which is now more than a little ruined. They would just have to deal with that later. She doesn't try to push away, giving Harkashan the time he needs to calm down. "Deep breaths." It is his own words echoed back to her from so many nights when she woke with those frantic nightmares.
As his magic shifts healing over her hands, Rune's eyes lid slightly, letting out a breath she likely hadn't been consciously holding. Her fingers flex. "We... really have to work on that." Only a few days ago, he had warned Skielstregar about the chance that his outbursts could hurt people, but it seems that Harkashan may very well be in a similar position.
"We were really there, weren't we? In that dream?" She raises one healed hand to wipe at her eyes. "I'm guessing it got worse, didn't it? After you got me out."
"Thank you." He answers with a sigh.
"We were." Harkashan then answers Rune. "Dreams have power in this world. Especially when..." He pauses, considering Rune for a moment, before touching her necklace. "... Especially when Eluna personally invites you into a meeting like that." He finally drops that bomb on her.
"After you got out, I think Caracoroth or the Red Maw decided to enter the Dream and turned it to Nightmare." He doesn't give details on what he witnessed. Rune already suffers enough nightmares, he doesn't need to give her further fuel. "It disoriented me. I wasn't sure if you had gotten out yet or not." He explains, relinquishing his touch from her and leaning back a bit. Hands behind himself so he can still half-sit.
The touch to that necklace has Rune lifting her hand to wrap around it. Though her brows are furrowed, her ersponse to Harkashan's revelation is not quite as extreme as one might have expected. In the dream, she had sensed something about the woman. A familiarity. The fact that the necklace had glowed with the same light, however, that is something strange.
"You didn't tell me." There's no real accusation in her voice, likely realizing full well why he might not do so. "Honestly, it felt like more of an answer than I've ever had to the reasons why I was brought back." Her fingers flex around the necklace again before she looks up at Harkashan. "She wanted to know if we were willing to follow this through. If I would follow this through."
The question was certainly aimed at everyone, but in that moment it did feel as if it spoke to Rune. As she is someone who had been searching for the reasons behind her ressurection and what the Sky-Singer had to do with it.
"Maybe... she isn't something to fear as much as I thought. Even if what lies ahead of us could mean the end of all of Ea." That is a scary prospect.
Then, Rune nudges him, "Your arm is bleeding. So, it looks like whatever it was that followed us has the power to bring those nightmares into reality."
"I didn't." Harkashan admits when she points out that he did not tell her. "I felt time was at a premium, and that there was a chance you might slip from the dream if you were to be shocked with something like that." He admits. Which is why he'd held onto her hand multiple times.
He then nods his head as she mentions that this felt more like an answer. "It did." He admits to her. "It makes me wonder if the draconic was left behind by the little golden one." He adds. He leans a bit closer towards her, looking at the necklace, before looking into her eyes.
"I think she means well for you." Harkashan notes, before Rune nudges him. His arm? He looks down, and suddenly hisses in pain. As if pointing out the presence of the wound actually allowed that pain to come to the forefront.
"Yes... it certainly looks like that." He grimaces. "Though that may mean it's a double-sided blade." He remarks, as he sends a wave of healing energy over his own arm...
Only for the wound to remain open. The male looks surprised, and she can see a bit of panic break out, as he sends another wave of healing over it. But... nothing. The scales remain broken. The wound remains intense. "Help me wrap this... I think we need to see a more skilled healer than myself." He remarks, worried.
Perhaps there is still too much shock having taken hold of Rune as she doesn't seem to show any signs of actually being upset that he kept that secret from her. Instead, she is just left saying, "I don't know. I know so little about my mother's life before settling in Ylvaliel." Even now, she was only finding pieces.
Matters of what the Sky-singer might intend for Rune are left to the side as Harkashan finally seems to notice the injury. An injury that seems to resist his healing. "That's... not good, is it?"
It is at that point that she finally pulls away from his hold, long enough to hop off the bed and grab for one of her knives. She uses it to slice the bed sheets into makeshift bandages. They were already destroyed as it is, it's not as if they could make things worse. Then, with his help, she makes a protective pad out of the cloth and then uses the longer strips to wrap around his arm.
"I did this to you, didn't I?" There's worry as she speaks, "I mean, not the real me but... some version of me. It... almost looks like my fingers did the damage." Though, there is no real way that she could do anything of the sort. Humans don't have those kind of natural weapons.
Harkashan looks at the wound, a bit in a daze still, when Rune rips off the bed's sheets and starts binding his wound. Not the most sterile thing to use in a publically rented room. But right now, he's not going to complain. She manages to wrap the wound and at least staunch the bleeding for the time being.
"Yeah..." He rumbles, as she speaks of her fingers doing the damage. "I barely even noticed at the time. The pain... I was more focused on 'that' you." He explains to her. "The dream state had gotten so real at the time, it was hard to..." He lets his voice drift a bit.
Instead, he puts his hand over hers, as it rests on his arm for a moment at the end of her wrapping the wound. Wincing just a bit. After all, she's tightened the spot over the wound.
"We got out." He then tells her. "Sorry I got hurt after you left."
Someday, people will realize that Rune doesn't really know much about proper wound-tending techniques. It's something she's always left to Harkashan, so any of her attempts are always just her playing at whatever it is that he's done in the past.
"It felt like whatever force we drew the attention of, it started playing on my nightmares." With a sigh, Rune shakes her head, "I can only imagine what you saw. I know mostly it was visions of you dead, dying, turned into a Forgotten." This is far more clarity than she gets from her normal nightmares. Rune rarely remembers any of the details of those upon waking.
As his hand rests on hers, the rogue settles, still kneeling on the bed next to him. "Nothing to be sorry about. I'm the one who couldn't wake up." Her lips press into a thin line. "I guess it's easy to play on the fears of someone who already has nightmares they can't escape from." At least, that's her guess, anyways.
"We should probably get this wound looked at by someone. Do you think the temples will have anyone on staff this late?" Or early. Is it early? It's still night, that much is for certain.
"I know. It's why I stayed." Harkashan answers. "I know you well enough, I feel. I knew you would have trouble waking when the darkness started approaching." He tells her, keeping his hand on her for a little longer. "You've... had to deal with your nightmares on your own for so long. So I was glad that for once, I could help you." He whispers.
"I didn't think my own nightmares would be the ones that would get me. I guess I was... overconfident in myself." He rumbles, before noting; "I am sure we could go into any of the temples. But I'd like to seek out one of my own Kin if possible." He adds. "I feel strange, in those places made by the Softskins." He admits.
"We'll go in a bit. I think I need something to drink and eat to recover my energy first." He doesn't mind traveling at night. And the temples are undoubtedly open even in the middle of the night.
He then shifts his legs to the side of the bed and begins to rise, keeping his arm over his heart's position. "Let's see if the Inn has someone available to just get us something before we head out."
"I'm glad I wasn't alone." Though it had ended up with Harkashan being hurt, there is a very good chance that had he not stayed, Rune may very well have been lost to the dream, to the Red Maw, or to whatever dark force it was that consumed that place.
It isn't something to dwell on, though. "I don't think we want to travel as far as Mictlan with a wound like that, but perhaps we can call on one of the Makari healers?" She pauses, brow furrowing, "I know there's the blue-scaled one, Zeke. Everything I've ever heard of him suggests he's remarkably powerful."
Rune pushes herself up again, scrambling to her feet. "You see about getting us something to eat, I'll clean up here and gather our things." She offers, "Besides, you'll be better able to convince them to let us stay again after the damage." He did have more of a silver tongue than she did, so that will be left to him to negotiate.
"I'll be down in a few minutes." She promises.