Dark Revelations [Caelum]

[Zandelia]

The Realm of Conflict


The streets were dark, some might consider them foreboding – they were fools. The darkness was a friend, an old compatriot that she had all but forgotten in her quest for pointless tit for tat hobby jobs. How she had got here, where she had come from…these things were forgotten and in any case were immaterial. She had missed the feel of the shadows at her back, had wondered if she would ever truly be alive again and now her answers were both positive and negative. She was alive, she was safe. For how much longer though remained to be seen. Through the fuggy mists she peered around the corner of a dingy alleyway, seeking out her seekers. The irony was not lost upon her as she gazed into the darkness and saw nothing of note.

Sunberth, city of a thousand greedy natures and as deep a pit of hell as anyone could have created outside of the old stories. She still didn’t understand how it managed to keep from burning down every season but for now such considerations were placed firmly at the back of her mind. She was being hunted and that was a terrible prospect in a city where dozens of mercenaries could be hired with little effort. The rattle of a metallic object skittering across the rarity of cobbles lashed out from ahead of her, she ceased the step she was about to take into the open and listened. The rattle came again, echoing into a veritable cacophony that filled her ears too loudly for tis nature. It almost made her stumble backwards and fear gripped her tightly.

What he petch is going on?! she asked herself as she whirled around and ran back into the warren she had tried to leave.

She was safe here, hidden and able to flee anywhere she wished. She knew the streets well enough, she had made them more dangerous in her time after all. She raced down one, dipped right and skidded as she turned rapidly to fly down another. Left, right, straight ahead – they would not be able to find her surely. She burst out of the warren in a random direction and found herself within the Castle Commons.

“Must’ve come through the warehouses, damn. Too open…too” she whispered to herself as her gaze whipped around seeking pursuit.

Her spirits fell immeasurably as she spotted a figure coalescing out of the darkness. It began as one and she readied her tonfa, now at her side she realized, and readier to fight to the death. It was only as other shadows broke off from the singular, spreading out to cover the entire area before her – there was no end to them. She cursed and whirled away, keeping her weapons in her hands for any suicidal eventuality that arose.

Akajia you bitch, where is my cover now eh? she made the oath as she fled.

It was towards the docks that she ran now, breathing laboured and energy sapping from her with every moment. She could see figures flitting around her, slipping out of buildings, looking out of windows. She was alone, surrounded and had nothing to her advantage beyond her own wits – and they seemed to be ebbing away themselves. The pier came into view and she slipped, slamming into the ground hard and sliding a few yards before managing to turn it into a roll. Dazed she shook her head and pushed herself up as quickly as she could.

“Must get out!” she panted to herself, “must get safe!” she all but shouted the last words.

She sprinted, all out now and energy all but spent. A warehouse appeared out of the mists, almost as if it had not been there previously. She slammed into the door and found it miraculously unlocked. She turned, shut the door and barred it from the inside. She was trapped now but at least has a defensible position, her gaze finding nothing in the way of an secondary entrance.

That was when the whispering began and though the words were spoken quietly they drove into her body as if they were nails. Her knees crumpled, her weapons forgotten as she clutched her head.

Such a good spy, such a clever spy. Didn’t see this coming did you? it was her won voice, the words mocking and bitter.

“Shut up!” she hissed.

So sure, so confident. It’s an act. You have no power. No ability the voice was more encompassing now, the tramping of dozens of feet accompanying them.

“No! I know…”

What do you know?! Nothing! You can’t even beat your father. He owns you. He sold you. The debt is still good

“Petch you! You work for my father? I’ll find you! I’ll-“ she growled, picking up her tonfa once more and managing to get to one knee.

The voice laughed and Zandelia could not remember feeling such a fear before.

Time to end this game. You are a fool. Face me! the voice screamed.

Darkness enveloped her and she curled into a ball, trying vainly to bat away the incoming morass of self-loathing. It was herself she knew now, her own worst critic. Somehow she knew, and the judging was vicious. She felt as if she were being ripped apart, the fear filling her and causing her body to tremble. She was weak. She was useless. She couldn’t even lie to herself.

“Leave! Me! Alone!” she screamed, the last of what breath she had.

But she was alone…against the night.

[Caelum]

The warehouse wasn't supposed to be familiar. It was an insidious revelation for Caelum as he swept his surroundings with eyes the color of daylight. He seemed all the more vibrant in the clutch of shadows infesting this place. Winter's grip yielded slowly to spring and the colors of him were therefore in transformation, golden horns blushing with poisonous hyacinth and chestnut hair lightning toward true blond. One hand rose to scrub over his mouth, luminous as the rest of him, and he gazed at the woman on the floor with a thoughtful expression. This was not his dream. He had but stumbled into it. It was the way of his nights since Nysel had summoned him back into his service. Caelum wandered in his sleep as he had once wandered while waking. It seemed he had settled in Riverfall, but old habits resurrected given half a chance and they were crawling out of their graves in dreams to send him seeking through the Chavena for all he had ever hunted before. And more. The ethaefal rolled forward, split soled riding boots soft against the dusty floor. Broken glass crunched beneath his feet, sharpening his passage, and eventually he sank into a crouch beside the stranger and wondered where in the map of his future she fit in. Perhaps she would wind like a river through the forest of his hours, or spike up like a mountain range straight across the path of his ambitions. He knew there were yet hardships to sustain. For all the roads he had already traveled, the dust of a thousand more threatened him to come. He would be ready and, for now, he would be here, assuring this woman was not alone in the dark. "If you stay here like that, you're never going to leave," he remarked at a murmur. His accent was alien even here, but his voice was suffused with unexpected warmth as he made his study of her. Wrists rested limply at his knees. "Your eyes may open to the waking world, but a part of you will still be on this floor." He paused. "Don't stay on this floor. I'll help you up." He knew a great deal about darkness and floors you never really crawled off of, afterall.

[Zandelia]

The darkness whirled, whipping past her and rippling her hair as if she were crouching in a gale. Pure malevolence that sought to destroy her and there was nothing she could do about it. Her ears picked up the crunch of glass and knew that there was an intruder, even from within her self-made prison of loathing. She could not defend herself, she was sure she was about to die – an ignominious and pointless end. Destroyed by pure hate, it was not how she had envisioned her last day to be filled with. She had hoped for more, so much more. It was then that the voice echoed in her ears, piercing the shadows and parting them as if they were naught but a thin veil. She stayed upon the floor still, lungs heaving and sweat dripping from her brow to patter the floor beneath her. She did not look up, not then, she dared not to dream what had found her now.

What the…petch was that? Where is this place? How in the…just how?! she raced through everything she knew in her mind and found nothing to help her. A poor store of knowledge she seemed to have at this juncture.

“I think…that a part of me will always be locked in this petching floor no matter what I do. That was,” she began, her mouth twisting in distaste at the very recollection and a further shudder wracked through her form, “well…I won’t forget it in a hurry” she clenched her fists and slammed her knuckles into the floorboards.

She had been found weak and pitilessly at the mercy of something unknown by a stranger in her own damned city. This was far from her best showing in her lifetime. She shook her head and gathered up her tonfa, keeping them in her hands in the eventuality her wold be rescuer proved to be another dark onslaught. She waved him away and pushed her feet beneath her before standing up a little more unsteadily than she had hoped to.

“Why would you help me? Why are you here? Where is here?!” she challenged him before she even met his gaze.

She rested her back against the nearby wall and closed her eye momentarily before it flashed open, the imprint of darkness lurking behind the lid. She brushed her damp hair from her brow with the edge of her weapon and finally took in the man before her. No…he was no man. She had seen his kind before. The horns, the beauty and the general feeling of perfection.

Ethaefal…what in the name of the gods is on if his kind doing in this cesspit? she wondered, aware that she was being watched in turn.

“Ethaefal…no! Stay back. I’ll use these if I have to. I don’t know if you are friend from foe but I’m damned well going to find out! Did you have anything to do with…this?” she gestured around to the world at large. It seemed a foolish act but she was far from possessing a rational state of mind, the fear was too close at her heels.

She glared at him and looked closer. He was tall and reasonably muscular as far as she could make out. He was beautiful of course, his kind were always beautiful apparently. At least the one’s she had met were so. Logic dictated extreme luck of a common trait in that regard. His garb seemed more expensive than the usual Sunberthian thug or chancer. No, he was different. She thought he somehow didn’t belong, as if he were…apart. The idea flickered, glowed briefly within her skull and then died just as swiftly. She scratched around for something to hold on to, to analyse whilst she got herself together once more.

He said something…waking...something about waking… she tried to centre herself.

“And what the petch did you mean about waking?! I am awake!” she snapped.

The darkness was gone for now but she would be ready for its return, she vowed it to herself as she gathered her wits.

[Caelum]

The darkness here was patient. Caelum watched it linger at the edges of everything, blurring the borders the warehouse walls created for this dream. It disliked the light of him, but he knew from experience that it would find kinship with some of what still lurked within. He unraveled slowly to his feet and flipped up his hands, palms out, when the woman waved him away. The flash of her tonfa drew his attention, and he gave it a healthy heed while stepping back. "Parts of us are left on these floors," he acknowledged, voice quiet and measured. He pitched it towards the calm competence that served him best with all manner of patients. "But not all of us. I'm Caelum --" He dropped his hands, strong shoulders shifting in a sort of shrug. His hands slid into the pockets of worn leather riding pants, bitter bark brown. It knocked back the split skirts of his jacket as he slumped, unaccountably comfortable in this shadow riddled place. "I've nothing to do with this." The promise came and the look he delivered her from behind loose strands of hair invited trust. "This is your dream, lady, not mine. It came out of you. Do you know which part?" Curiosity spiked and he stepped back again, the heel of his boot curving sharply against the floor as he looked around. One eye squinted at the door in the far wall, and there was something about the slightly crooked line of the jamb that scratched at the back of his mind. "This is dreaming," he murmured. It was almost absent, that answer. He glanced back at her. "But what place are you dreaming of? What city is this?" Why was it familiar to him?

[Zandelia]

The answers were riddles couched in simplicity, the most cunning kind and also the most vexing. She opened her mouth, closed it, extended her still weapon-filled fist and then looked at the tip of her jutting tonfa and let it fall without a word. She was alone, correction…had been alone. She was wary enough not to trust the mysterious stranger not without proof he meant no harm and despite his look. It was a look perfected by those good at earning trust and it crawled at the back of her head with two conclusions, neither of which could be proven in this cursed place. She sighed sharply and slipped her tonfa into their sheath at her right hip.

“Stop stepping backward now or you’ll end up walking through the damned wall” she stated simply, green orb glistening as she looked at him sharply before spreading her arms in the universal gesture of peace, palms out and empty of threat.

What the petch does he mean that I am dreaming? What in the world…no! No it can’t be. I know when I’m awake and yet… she mused, running through just how often she had ever been attacked by a black mist with malevolent force.

Well, it had happened once before but that had been the Craven. This time had been altogether different. It had had her own voice, knew her internal bitterness far too well. She considered the puzzle and found the logic wanting but couldn’t find a fatal flaw within it either. How had she got here? She had fled, okay…but why? What had she been doing before she had been in the warrens of the alleys? She scanned her memory and found nothing. She rubbed her temples with the heel of her palms.

“We are in Sunberth, or at least my version of Sunberth, if you are to believed. My home. Or it used to be. It will be again. You know what home is right?” she was a little more snappish than she intended, but then she had not had a good past few chimes at that.

She looked at him, calculating and trying to read him. He was difficult. He seemed blaze, as if he didn’t actually care about where he was. He was curious but his gaze shifted about as if it were just a minor consequence of his current situation more than anything truly concentrated. She could have been wrong of course but she found herself relaxing slightly now that there was no immediate danger and he did not seem to wish to attack her.

“Alright, let’s say this is a dream. Well this darkness can petch off. How can you make it go away? I have more important things to do than torment myself whilst I am sleeping. I do it enough whilst I am awake. Can you like…make it disappear?” she asked and noticed that there was a ripple, a faint ripple but enough of one to lend credence to the stranger’s words.

Rooms don’t tend to ripple as if they were water… she thought to herself as she looked around and tried to make sense of what she saw. The room was…melting? Not gone but less solid?

“Okay okay! I’m bloody well dreaming then! How do I get out of this room before it collapses on me?” she asked urgently, leaping to the door and swinging it open.

She stepped through and the proof was then self-evident. It was daytime now, the docks filled with life and the scents of salty breezes vying with the stench of freshly caught fish. Or almost freshly caught.

“What in the…?” she was shocked, stunned into absolute silence for the first time in a long while.

Two figures caught her eye, one a woman and the other but a small slip of a girl still - it was her. Her mother.

"Nononono, not this. Anything but this! This can't be right!" she whispered frantically to herself, trepidation filling her just as much as the curiosity.

[Caelum]

Zandelia was the recipient of a narrow glance when she snarked at him about knowing, or not knowing, what home was. A grin had quickened when she told him to stop stepping backwards, but that died now as he watched her search the shadows of the warehouse for a way out or, perhaps, just a way to survive. His hands remained in his pockets and his stance casual. He tracked her curiously with his eyes. "This is a dream. If you want out, step out." His eyebrows rose, but his expression failed to gentle. Zandelia had bumped into one of the deeper bruises of his soul with her casual scorn. It was with approval, though, that he watched her burst out the door; and he followed her into the daylight, hands still in his pockets, his gait lazy as a sailors which was that loose-hipped roll had begun years and years now gone. Nevertheless, he somehow managed to keep up with her, stepping all over her shadow. He stopped close to her, behind and somewhat to the side, the faint scent of green things and daylight that hung about him almost working to protect them from the reeking quays of Sunberth's ports. Yes, he realized while taking in the lawless city, this place was familiar. He had been here before. A frown started to riddle his brow, but his regard bounced to the woman and the little girl at his companion's frantic whisper. It took a few beats of his heart, but eventually he realized not only what they were watching, but also what this dream must be -- a jigsaw piece of his companion's past. "What happens next?" He asked. His words were pitched low but they were not unkind. There was the steady edge of something like guidance or that ever more elusive certainty balanced in his words, in the mere fact of his presence. "Are we going to merely observe? Or are we going to change the past, Zandelia? It doesn't have to be futile." Sunstruck eyes slid from her profile to the woman and the girl and then beyond, his line of sight expanding to encompass the city surrounding them. Facts lined up in his mind like prayer beads, and he looked back to his companion with their conclusion. "This is a mystery, isn't it? And we're here to solve it."

[Zandelia]

It was like something out of her worst nightmares, made all the harsher for the fact that it was not an illusion – it was a memory. She could have dealt with the fact that she had spent an evening dreaming about nebulous shadows and running from the hunters. Many things she could have dealt with but this was not one of them. Like a bubble breaking the surface of a bog it has leaked out of her, rippled into existence before her gaze and now there was nothing but the knowledge of what it represented. Her last day as a free person. After this day, in reality, she had been a slave. First to a master and then to herself.

No….no I don’t want to see this. Change! Stop! she shouted internally, trying to force it away but nothing moved. She licked her lips and ran her fingers through her hair as she tried to top the tears from forming, eye misting but not tearing for now.

“What happens next?” she asked the world, laughing darkly and turning to her companion, “what happens next!? My mother dies and I become a slave. That’s what happens!” she turned her head back to her younger self, walking hand in hand with her mother out of the Seaside Markets.

She followed as if in a dream state, ironic considering their location. She listened and heard the words spoken between them, loving and each one stabbing at her heart. It was a promise, a promise her mother had made to take her to the bath houses the following day for some fun. She had promised to take her father too, always out on business as he was. It would have been funny had it not be so tragically real. She followed them through the streets a score of paces behind them.

“How can I change what’s already happened? What do you mean merely observe? I can’t change my past! Can I?” she asked, her thoughts were too fragmented in this place. She was too close to the scenario, too involved.

But doesn’t that make me the best to try and change it? Gods what does this damned Ethaefal mean?! she thought, stopping and turning to face the one that would be her guide.

“I’m tired of the riddles Ethaefal, tired of running and tired of being at the mercy of others. You think this is a mystery? You tell me why. You obviously know more about dreams than I do so tell me” she all but demanded, there was a desperate edge to her voice.

“You tell me how I stop something happening that already has! How can I solve something that I can’t solve!? All I can do is ram my dagger into my bastard father’s heart in reality – something I plan on doing by the season’s end. I need…I need to sit down. Come on, if this is a memory at elast I know there will be somewhere to sit” she sighed.

She led the way to the old home of the Sansom’s. It was a small hovel but it had been filled with so much love. As they arrived the shutters were open and she leaned against the wall, looking in and inviting the other to do so too. She watched as her younger self played with her mother – simple games but they had been fun at the time. Treasure hunts, games designed to get jobs done at the same time like making up songs whilst cleaning.

“It was such a nice place to live at one time. Such a nice home. I wish I had never had to leave” she muttered.

“Okay, so you tell me right now. What should I do?”

[Caelum]

The dreamwalker slumped against the hovel wall, a handful of long fingers hooking into the low sling of his weapons belt. It was apparent as such suddenly, in the fading light of a far flung day. A long sword hung at his hip, it's hilt wrapped in well worn leather to conceal whatever designer markings would have otherwise been apparent; and in the pommel was a chunk of amber, rough cut and immuring within at a glance appeared to be a glittering insect. The lapel of Caelum's long coat shifted to cover it again when he shrugged and looked over from his observance of child Zandelia to the grown woman bubbling before him. "When you change what you know of the past, you change what it is," he answered her at length, golden eyes intent upon her. "You solve the unsolvable. You do what you could not do. This is not the riddle, Zandelia. Your past is." He reached out to snatch her by the front of her shirt, the muscles in his arm tightening as he dragged her closer. Yet he bent to her as well, apparently no longer in fear of her tonfa or her ire as expressed through them. Their noses almost brushed, so intimate were their circumstances while the figments of Zandelia's dreams played inside the last true home they had ever known. "We all have to leave home, sweetheart. The difference between you and I right now is the fact that you have the ability to change what happened." He released her with a sudden ferocity and as he did so the city around them shifted and swelled. Sunberth spilled out beneath their feet, the horizon panning outward until the docks were once again within their line of sight but were just as close to them as was the Sansom's hovel. The wind plucked at the roof with invisible fingers, peeling back shingles one by one to toss them into the great jaws of Tent City that chewed them up like cud. "Go back." His voice was at her ear. He stood behind her, close enough to brush up against, sturdy enough to shield her. Vision swam, spinning in a rewind of time until outlined before them was the image of a young child Zandelia and her mother on the docks. "And look again. Not at them --" He reached up and stabbed a finger lightly at her shoulder. "At everyone else. You know how this is done. You have followed this road in your present but never bothered to travel it into your past." There were longshoremen bellowing up at boatswains and ragamuffins dashing underneath the swaying death of crate hoists. Fishermen unloaded their nets and wheelborrows navigated narrows paths through the chum of citizens and foreigners with an absent expertise. "How do you see what doesn't want to be seen?" Caelum coached her patiently. "How do you spy what's trying to be hidden? You know this. The answers are all still inside of you, and now you have the skills to suss them out. So look --" He splashed his hand across the screen of their dreamscape. "Look for everything that doesn't belong."

[Zandelia]

The next series of chimes, or what passed for chimes in this dreamed up landscape, swept past her like a blur. Everything shifted, changed and her mind rebelled at what it was seeing. Shingle topped roofing plucked away piece by piece without meaning, streets shortening and widening in distortion as the pair of them moved and yet stayed perfectly still. This wasn’t magic but something profoundly more alien, it pulled at her consciousness and prayed it with its shredding of reality as if it were mere parchment. Her eye couldn’t keep up with the changes and her stomach heaved mightily as dizziness enveloped her and she stepped backwards only to be stopped by the firm torso of her visitor and rebounded back to her feet – swaying for a few moments before bending over and pushing the back of her hand into her lips. Just because it wasn’t real didn’t stop her from reacting as if it were.

The world gave a lurch as the butterflies swept up from her stomach, were vomited out and then…flew away upon sickly sweet yellow wings. Her eye widened and she sought for stability, for anything that was remotely normal as a handle for her mind. Him…he had grabbed her and all but brushed their noses and growled at her like a damned dog! Then asked her to solve a puzzle too, the bastard. She wasn’t in the mood for this and as soon as she could she turned and grabbed him by his petching dashing coat and lifted him into the air with a strength that outside of this dream she would never possess.

“What the Hai do you mean and who the Hai are you? You just…I mean it was all…oh Akajia’s tits!” she growled and the strength left her, his feet slapping back into the imaginary floor as she turned away and sighed, hands upon her knees as she drew in deep breaths to calm herself.

What does he even mean? No…wrong question. Anyone can throw out philosophy with enough inflection to make it seem deep and thought provoking. Better question…why? Why do this? What does he gain? she asked herself as a cloud appeared around her to write out the thoughts and betray her inner-processes. She snarled and waved her hands through it until it dispersed like so much pipe smoke upon the winds. She turned and stared at him flatly, he would have seen it.

“Don’t you say a damned word,” she huffed as she was finally forced to accept his challenge, “fine. Let’s play it your way as you seem to know so bloody much. Your sword. Yes you heard me, give me your damned sword!” she snapped, her mind pulling it from its scabbard and into her hand.

“Huh, not bad. Wish I could do that for real. Now, seeing as I just threw up…butterflies…I can’t be bothered to stand” and as if her subconscious sensed it a chair was made by the distending dirt street, rising up and a rough chair shape appeared just before she sat upon it, with great relief.

She brought the hilt of the weapon to her eye, looking upon it and taking it in as she considered it in all its glory – it was a glorious if rough item. It hadn’t been there before she thought, spying it slip in and out of his coat, and as such she found it curiously interesting. You could tell much from someone by their weapons she knew. The chips in the edge of the blade that showed use, the wear and shine in the leather handles that betrayed the way it was gripped – one hand or two. The sharpness or dullness that spoke of care, or lack thereof. She glared at the weapon and slowly a smile came upon her lips. Notched in places, worn handle and so possibly a warrior. Worn leather so much used but it seemed to be covering something more gaudy than practical. She wondered if it were a reflection of him, so sparkling and yet crude at the same time. Then there was the amber, or what she thought was amber, and the insect trapped within. Self-portrait? Perhaps.

Really it was a simple trick she had picked up and used in times of stress and uncertainty. Evaluate something small,thne move on to the large.

“Observation, the least used of arts no? One question, who is the insect in the pommel? Me or you?” she asked as she stuck the point into the ground and cupped the butt in her palm as she turned her attention to the rest of the environment and it…stilled, “you want this then fine” she whispered almost absently.

How does one pick another from a crowd? It wasn’t the details, they came later. It was the instinct that first gave warning to what was out of place she knew that well enough. The set of a body, the turning of a face. Even the clothing could tell you if you were willing to be pedantic enough. The question was not what was out of place, because everything could potentially be such. Details could be extrapolated into infinity. The question was more what sought to belong. Her gaze widened, phasing into that stage between no vision and full vision, everything becoming semi-blurred outlines as she scanned the environment. She concentrated, thought honed to a razor’s edge.

Street seller standing behind her stall, hawking necklaces and concentrated upon customers. Gaggle of children running around in play as parents talked about the latest news perhaps. Sailors and dockhands, drunks sitting in the street lazily…wait…closer. Not drunk, one of them. Acting drunk but not very well. Watching something…what…widen. Turn to see what…no who…my mother. Back. Has a partner, looking somewhere else. Also not drunk. Armed…not unusual here but hand on hilt…readying? Where? Back. Back to stall….nothing. Shopkeeper just storing gold. He belongs. Next stall? No, old woman talking to children. Nothing. Nothing.Nothing the mental game of spot the strange came up against a wall.

She frowned and desperately tried to see the secret, the piece within the tableaux that was there but not obvious. Why wasn’t it there? What was it missing?

Wait…wait. Not part of the crowd? Something outside it? Back. Beyond crowd. Alleyway. Three men. One against wall. Familiar….FATHER and there her analysis ended and she launched from her makeshift chairand ran towards the alley, veering around the stopped multitude as fast as she could.

She pointed the sword at her father. That familiar and yet almost forgotten face.

“He…he…is my father. But these men, and those at the taverns’ wall – Fish Bowl – I don’t know. I remember this one though,” she pointed at the man not holding her father, simply watching. He killed my mother the bastard!” she all but shouted the last words.

“Why show me this?” she turned and asked the question she had formed in the air before, “why do this? What can you possibly have to gain? How do I even know this is real?” she asked, her mind just wouldn’t accept the scenario placed before it.