[WP-005] Strange Creature

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Scaramouche Fandango
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[WP-005] Strange Creature

Post by Scaramouche Fandango »

[imgleft]https://matope.pixel-blueberry.com/imag ... uncert.png[/imgleft] When Strange Creature dreamed of the obelisk, it was usually a nightmare. Usually it began with a piercing pain in her sides, the stabbing pain of enormous talons and the rough, leathery feel of an ever-tightening grip. She screamed silently but couldn't draw more air into her lungs. It felt like she was drowning, and the air itself was burning her with how cold it was. In these dreams, she could see a shadow play of kin on the ground, moving in slow motion as though underwater. She could see herself, hounded by spectral beasts, some of which were real, and some of which were not. She saw herself driven to fight with other kin, circling and rearing and lashing out past the point of exhaustion. She saw herself doing impossible things, things she'd hoped her body wasn't capable of. She saw herself ravaged by ice and other kin and the sheer single-minded bloodiness of it all. She saw the great bloody battle against the pierced eagle, though she didn't see herself fighting it- because the dreams never ended the way the actual battle had.

The dreams always ended in blackness, in fear, in fire and ice and pain and the horror of witnessing your own death over and over and over.

But that wasn't what really happened, and that wasn't how tonight's dream ended.

Tonight, she wasn't watching herself die. Tonight, she was fighting back, just as she had when she went on the expedition to the mountains. She felt the talons scrape through her fur and hide as she forced her way out of them, felt the pounding, erratic heartbeat of the great bird as she hauled up its heaving sides. She saw the battlefield below come into focus and sharper detail, and not just because the eagle was spiraling lower. Rather, it was the dream changing, the nature of it shifting and tilting from feelings into a more realistic depiction of what had actually happened.

When she dreamed, she never dreamed of her own strength. She dreamed of her fear, of her helplessness- but never, ever in her dreams did she remember the tenacity and resilience she never attributed to herself in her waking or sleeping hours. They weren't things she thought of as hers. But still, she had them- and this night, she did dream of them.

She saw herself after the brutal battles, saw herself laughing with Unquenched and leaning on Story. She saw herself flying, as the great eagle lifted them at the end, not in its talons but with the strength of its heart. She saw the whole group coming together to restore the obelisk, to help the eagle, to fight the shard-crazed beasts. She saw the meals they ate together, the water that was gathered.

It wasn't just death that frightened her- it was the powerlessness, and feeling so truly alone, even among all of those others. But it hadn't really been like that, had it? At least not as much as she thought, because in this dream, for the first time since they'd returned- in this dream, she was winning.

A roar, and a flash, and the dream changed entirely. There was a new creature now, not a bird and not a lizard. It had come to her once before in a dream, or in the place between the waking world and dreaming, and she'd almost forgotten it... and how it made her feel. Once again she was bathed in the warmth of its breath, and once again it presented its dangerous teeth and its massive bulk. This creature, far deadlier than any eagle, was knowable and unknowable to her, a strange enigma. The mighty tyrant, the king of the lizards, formed from reptile and avian alike- at the time when her spirit was weakest, when emotion had drained away and she was left with nothing at all, it came to her and carried her away. She still had no idea how she'd returned from the mountains; surely she'd walked. Surely she hadn't been carried away by her own imagination. Surely the huge purple beast (and yes, it was purple, for reasons unknown) hadn't actually picked her up and walked her back to the swamp.

Surely this could not be true.

But here was the beast once again, in her dreams. Those amber eyes, just like her own, only more intense. The hot breath, like a kin's moreso than any reptile. The strength, the power... those couldn't be hers.

She awoke to the sound of the creature's roar in her ears, and she rose with a jolt, startling the pile of lizards she was sleeping under. Tegus scattered as she rose to her feet, an annoyed dragon hissing in her ear. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and she felt wrong.

When she dreamed of the obelisk, it was always a nightmare. She didn't win. She woke up feeling small and afraid.

This time, she woke up feeling... brave.

And that was a problem, because bravery led to stupid risk taking. Risks were ok, some of the time, when they were calculated and when you thought them through. Bravery was far more often bravado, a false courage fed by impulse and the need for some instantaneous gratification. It was the kind of thing that led you to make decisions that led to you never seeing your family again, and she couldn't deal with the thought of that.

She didn't know why she dreamed of the obelisk and the eagle now. It had been ages since the last nightmare. She thought maybe the Motherfather had decided to give her a break, to give her the gift of moving on and forgetting the intensity of those emotions. She thought maybe, just maybe, she'd be allowed to leave that terror in the past. What could a new dream about the obelisk possibly mean? Why this, why now?

She tried to put it out of her mind as she went about her morning. Perhaps a trip down to the basking rocks would make things better. She'd have to go down there later today and lose herself in a sunbeam. That would make her feel better and let her put this whole awful thing out of mind. Surely the tranquility and the warmth would bring her comfort, and nothing would be down there to dredge up any more memories of the whole ugly affair. It was only a dream. She'd be fine.
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