Dreams & Devotion

[Vega]

3rd Trial of Cylus during Arc 718

"If you even feel me gettin' warmer, Arlo, please promise me that you'll wake me an' get out of bed." She was worried, there was no doubt, but she was warm and fed and more than any of those things, she was exhausted. At this point, Vega had not slept for four nights, had climbed the mountain on her own and up until a few breaks ago had been completely unable to control the spread of the molten glow at all. Once he had arrived, stubbornly refused to go anywhere, insisted that he wasn't leaving and she'd finally told him what was happening, it had just strengthened his resolve that she wasn't doing this alone and she had realised that she needed to focus on the scar on the palm of her hand, not her weapon in order to begin to control the spread of molten fire. He'd cooked for them and they'd eaten in this Safe Camp. It was a place, created by his blessing from Cassion which was safe. It had a bed and fire and for the first time in four and a half trials she was warm and fed. Vega's eyes were itchy and gritty and the lids were heavy, alongside which her head was thumping, but she had to get this across to him. She'd washed in warm water that he'd boiled over the fire and mixed with the cooler water and changed into a warm nightgown.

"Alright, alright, I'm goin' stop fussin' so much!" He hadn't said anything, just looked at her and yet, Vega knew everything that he said in that look and she flung her hands in the air. "I'm tellin' you, if I burn you to a crisp, you'll wish you listened to me," she said as she clambered into bed. If she thought for a moment that it was a real risk, she'd be going nowhere near him, and they both knew it.

Outside, out there and where others could see, or even where they couldn't, Vega was very much who she had been when he met her first in Desnind, over an arc ago. In these moments, though, as they lay together in their bed, or their bedroll, just the two of them in their most private and intimate moments, she let down more of the defenses she had built up than she ever did anywhere else. As he pulled her close to him and she felt his arms wrap around her, their legs tangle together and he laid there, Vega looked up at him. For all that her eyes had dark smudges beneath them, her face was pale and all the other physical symptoms of the last four trials, her expression was more relaxed than she would have thought possible. "I'm nervous," she whispered, moving to kiss him with a slight smile on her face. It was something she'd said to him before, in a very different circumstance. "But I won't let it beat me. I promise you. I'm so sorry for all this, Arlo, I really am an' I love you more than I've got words for, g'night."

Her voice was thick with sleep by the end of the sentence and within trill she was asleep in his arms.

Which meant that, relatively quickly, he got to see what she meant when she told him that she hadn't been able to sleep. Within moments she was mumbling, moaning slightly and telling someone, "Gerrof". Her hands moved, flailing against something, or someone, and there was no doubt that she would not sleep, or rest, very long at all like that. Her eyes fluttered in her dreams but he had lain next to her long enough that he knew how Vega looked when she slept and it seemed that, as well as when the sword or bow or knife was in her hand, she heard the voices battering in on her as she fell into Emea. She lingered half ready to wake back up, exhaustion battling with the voices which haunted her and when she spoke in her dreams, she spoke in muttered tones, her body fighting. The dreams came one at a time and, should he manage to keep her asleep in one, she moved on to the next.

The cave was dark and she was cold. At least, she thought that she was cold, but she wasn't entirely sure because she couldn't feel anything. Vega opened her eyes and realised that this was because she was floating above herself. There she was, down there. Laying on the floor. "Gerrof, I need to go down there," she was trapped up here, held down by the spider webs which wrapped around and around her. She couldn't move, but she needed to because she had to be in her body when they came. "GERROF! Yer nasty little bitey things, an' I need to get down there!" She said that, of course to the spiders which swarmed over her. Each one of them whispering as one of the voices. Each one of them speaking aloud her fears and insecurities even as they bit her and the people without faces came to get her body and take it away.

What good was it, without a biqaj soul? But then, what good was she? "Papa! No, it's burnin'!" The little girl she had been she was again and she watched, helpless, as her father swung across to the burning ship. Flames licked up the mast, the sails had gone and Vega's nose crinkled in disgust at the smell. "Let me go! I have to help him! Let me help him!! GERROFF ME!" Hot tears of fury stung her eyes as she tried to get to him but the man who held her was stronger than her. "I'm big enough, I am. I can 'elp him. Please, please let me. PAPA!" But she couldn't save him, the grip on her was too tight. She wasn't big enough, the voices whispered. She wasn't strong enough, he was going to die. She wouldn't help him and he would die. "I won't let 'im die, don't you say that!" Eva whimpered, but she struggled.

But like the voice told her, she couldn't save him he was going to die and she wasn't strong enough. Wasn't it always that way? The hole in the ground was there and he'd fallen down it but somehow she couldn't get to it. "Let me go! ARLO! He's fallen down that 'ole an' I'm gonna rip off yer face Stu!" Frustration built in her and she fought against the feeling of Stu's arms wrapping around her. "I 'ave to. I've never told 'im I love him, an' I do! Please, let me go. GERROFF ME!" Stu's face was twisted and laughing, Jeannie too. Both of them spoke to her, did she not know she was going to hurt him? Everyone around her got hurt and this was how it had always been. "It's not true, it's not. I don't. He needs me." He did, Stu told her, he needed her, but didn't that make it worse? Did it make it even more horrific that he'd fallen down a hole and here, she wasn't helping him?

"Let me go!" She threw a punch at Stu's smarmy, whiny, nasal-voiced face. "Arlo! Hold on!!"[/i]

And so, the voices fell in and each voice brought with it a dream or a memory which it twisted. Or she did. Either way, the result was the same.

[Arlo Creede]

"Go to sleep already, Vega," Arlo scolded her with a deep frown, though there was far more teasing to the gesture than displeasure. Still, he'd promised a half dozen times or more and she hadn't yet been able to stop fretting and just settle down. "Besides, Lyova's here. She won't let me drift off even was I tempted to." He could sleep during the trial after all, when Vega was busy doing what she needed to. And even then his little diri companion would keep watch.

"I've got my books, something to write with, my maps, plenty to keep myself occupied while you sleep." All things that he could do write there, propped up in the bed beside her, that ought to keep his mind busy enough to in turn, keep him awake. "Don't be nervous," he told her once she managed to settle down. "Your mind will never quiet enough for sleep, so long as you're fretting." Easier said than done, Arlo knew. But she'd been awake for trials now and at some point, body and mind simply took over and took the rest that it needed.

"And don't apologize. Go to sleep," he said, having the last word before Vega finally settled down. If her head hadn't already been on the pillow, she'd have been asleep before it got there, and Arlo grinned, deciding to occupy himself with one of his books. There wouldn't be any leftover focus for that though. As soon as Vega was down she began tossing, turning, mumbling and flailing at things that only she could see and hear. If it would have helped rather than hindered, Arlo would have joined her in his her dreams.

Instead, he pulled her into his arms and quietly told her a story. Of course it wasn't the story itself that mattered. It was just the sound of his voice cutting through the chaos of her dreams, an anchor that Vega could grab hold of that would quieten the rest. A story, about a boy and a magic hat. A hat that could beat back spiders, Arlo went on, as Vega muttered about that very thing. A hat that when waved just right, could extinguish even the most out of control flames.

And even a hat that could hover all on its own, to help rescue even the most hapless adventurers from their latest mishaps. And all the while, Arlo talked, telling her the story, changing it in response to her dreams, and held her tight. Still, now and again his eyelids grew heavy, his chin would start to drop and Lyova would give him a mental prod. "Maybe a magic hat that could keep you awake as long as you please?" she joked. And though Arlo grinned, he also shrugged. "Well why not?"

[Vega]

3rd Trial of Cylus during Arc 718

Don't be nervous, he told her and Vega rolled her eyes though she did not answer. The gesture was more than eloquent enough when it came to the fact that she was biting back a response about simply snuffing it out like a candle flame and it not being that easy, but she said nothing and let the eye roll speak for itself, although she could not bite back the grin. As for her mind quieting, well she wasn't entirely sure that it ever really did, but she didn't make that point, instead settling down and she would have nudged him in the ribs with her elbow at his insistence on getting the last word, but her arm wouldn't move because she was already asleep.

Arlo and Vega had slept side by side for long enough now that he knew her and how she was when she was asleep and it was not this. She wasn't resting, wasn't sleeping entirely but was rather in that strange hypnagogia, that state between waking and sleeping that was not sleep and was most certainly not rest. In the same way, she was hallucinating, having visions or... whatever it was, she wasn't dreaming. They bombarded her consciousness and held her in a place between sleeping and waking, not resting until she rid herself of them.

Or, as it turned out, until he did.

They were floating up there together, not trapped at all because they were Arlo's arms around her. That wasn't a spider, although there were a hundred others, that was the feeling of his breath on her cheek. "Arlo?", she curled in to him as he told her the story which kept the spiders at bay.

It was a story of a boy and a hat.... The man was holding her, but the boy was there and she looked at him. He wasn't a boy, she thought, he was big. Bigger than her and with brown eyes, all one colour. That was rare. "Will you 'elp me?" She was still struggling fighting the man who looked like a strange mixture of Huw, Shon and Reese and none of their good features. "Please. It's my Papa, an' I can't get out of the grass." She remembered, it seemed, even as she tried to pull herself out of his arms. "Please, 'elp him?" Her eyes moved frantically beneath the lids which fluttered half open and half closed, but she remained in the almost asleep state and as he continued to speak to her, she slowly started to still. "Arlo, I'm so tired," she mumbled, nestling into the base of his neck as her breathing started, just for a moment, to be more like it usually was when she slept.

It seemed, for a brief moment to be working. Within less than twenty bits, though, she was struggling again, trying to pull herself out of his arms if he'd let her. "I don't wanna hurt you, please, let me go." She was climbing up the mountain, trying to get away from him, from where she was going to hurt him but he kept coming back. Everywhere she turned, there he was, but there was fire and he was going to burn and she couldn't do it. Her mother was holding his hand on one side, like he was a toddler, although the woman's face was blurred, and his mother was there, too, holding his other hand. Reese's nose was bloody and his eye black and her father just looked disappointed.[/i]

Some of them were just dreams, others more of the strange hypnagogia. As the night wore on, he could tell the differences. The hallucinations / hypnagogic state was much more physical, her body tensing and more prone to physically fighting him. Like that what she was seeing and hearing was more obvious from her words. Talking her down from those required stories like the hat, things which kept the narrative of the state, but when he talked her down from that, she fell asleep ~ properly asleep. In that state she had nightmares which were much more jumbled and broken, but they could be easily soothed away.

[Arlo Creede]

The way Arlo saw it, Vega must have been awfully tired, utterly exhausted in fact body and mind, to have stopped herself arguing and fussing. If these were ordinary times, then just for the sake of it as for any other reason. He was right of course. She needed the rest, the sleep, and there's been no logical point on which she could disagree. Would have though, he figured, if the fatigue hadn't gotten the better of her first.

But as much as she tossed and turned, struggling with something unseen, fighting back and shouting out at, he knew she wasn't dreaming in the ordinary sense. She wasn't really dreamwalking, so him doing the same wouldn't have done any good. It seemed more as if she was in sort of an in between place, between dreaming and waking. It made his boy and a hat story a fairly effective tool, thought, for being able to reach and calm her. "I'm right here," he told her when she cried out his name, and wrapped his arms more firmly around her.

It was the boy in the hat in fact that told her, yes, he'd help her father. And so the story continued, its narrative both leading and following, depending on her dreaming whims and how they changed. But always in an effort to draw her back to a middle and peaceful state. Sometimes it worked. But nonetheless, those times didn't last long and he needed to remain awake. A magic hat to keep him awake? That's what Lyova was suggesting and at first, Arlo dismissed the idea as one of the diri's outlandish whims.

But then again, he reconsidered and frowned thoughtfully at the thing in his hands. "It's a magical sort of hat isn't it?" he muttered quietly. "At least it ought to have some essence of Cassion about it." It had belonged to the Immortal once after all, before it had come to him. Surely a bit of the Immortal remained behind in its weave. And now that Cassion had blessed him and a trace of the Immortal's blood ran through his veins? He wasn't anything close to an Immortal of course. Not even remotely. But since the hat must have some essence of the Immortal already, Arlo had an idea.

Pricking his finger with the tip of his dagger, he let a few drops of his own blood fall onto the brim of the hat and watched as it was absorbed. "A bit of wakefulness when I need it," Arlo whispered. "This hat, in your name." The last, a prayer to Cassion himself, in hopes that what he had done on a whim, would take. And whatever it was, whether it was Arlo's blood, the ritual or Cassion's intervention, take, it did.

[Vega]

3rd Trial of Cylus during Arc 718

She was exhausted, there was no doubting it, but there were other things that Vega was. Some of them, in this circumstance, did her no favours. She was as stubborn a woman as could be and in every way possible; every hypnagogic state, every voice that she heard was a fight for her and she fought them all. Maybe, had she given in, things would have changed but she was no more capable of that asleep ~ or nearly asleep ~ than she was when she was awake. It meant that they were both in for a long night. But it was very obvious that, without him there to talk her down from the more violent and physical reactions she had to those moments, she would have been forced awake by them. Partly, that was because she fought them, but what damage they could do if she had given in, who knew?

Frankly, they were unlikely to ever find out. She wasn't giving in any breath soon.

Each time she started to physically fight, to thrash around, his voice calmed her. The stories he wove into what she saw in those states did something which she simply could not do herself. As the night wore on, it became obvious that she could not fight them, those hypnagogic states, not on her own. Each one of them a voice she heard when she was awake. The thing was, when awake, she could recognise them as her innermost fears, her insecurities and more importantly, she could recognise them as not true. When she was awake she could do that and, thanks to her ability to dreamwalk, she could do it also while asleep. But like this, she was neither of those things and was, ironically, more vulnerable than ever. If it were not for him, she simply would not be able to sleep, no matter how she tried.

But the stories he told, his voice speaking to her and the feeling of his arms around her, the kiss he placed on her forehead. Each time, he provided the means to fight - but it wasn't her who fought it. It was him. Whether it was with a magic hat or some other means, whatever it was that she heard when those voices fell in on her, his voice was stronger. Over the breaks which followed, the gap between those hypnagogic states grew and it was in that gap where she slept.

Of course, it laid bare her subconscious in a way which she wouldn't ever do - not even to him. Feelings of responsibility about her mother's death, guilt that she could not say she loved the woman who had perished to give her life, anxiousness about her father and always, of course, the perennial bugbear of just not being a full biqaj. Those he knew about, could probably have guessed had he needed to. But the fear of hurting him, of not being clever enough, strong enough, good enough for him, that by being with her he would get hurt, that her cousins were right when they said that she should not, could not. She didn't talk about those when awake because she knew that they weren't true - but they still lingered in her subconscious and showed themselves throughout the night. The fear of him getting hurt and her not being able to help him, to find him, to save him, that was a common theme, also.

To say she never woke would be a lie - now and then her eyes fluttered more open than closed and once, she woke without a warning with a gasp and a violent spasm in her whole body. As she did, she turned over, almost hiding in his arms and she sobbed, crying for a few bits before she was back asleep. She didn't speak or say why and although she was awake, she wasn't entirely lucid or fully conscious it seemed, yet after that had happened, she slept more soundly.

The dreams and nightmares which came whilst she slept properly, they were more than he'd ever seen from her - but they were the usual nonsensical and often non-sequential strangeness.

But, eventually, she woke up from a deep sleep which had lasted a break or more. Undoubtedly, the sleep she'd managed had been broken, but they had laid there a long time and she had slept more that night than in all four of the previous ones put together. "Mornin'," she whispered, her brown eyes seeking out his as she lifted her head to kiss him. "I feel like I slept." Looking up him she noted the hat, but even in the midst of all this Vega accepted that Arlo Creede was just odd. "What happened, Arlo?" Her gaze was serious as she asked and she added, because she thought he might be inclined to sugar coat it, "really. All of it. What happens when I try an' sleep?"

[Arlo Creede]

It was a long night, and though Vega was never fully awake during that time, from Arlo's perspective, she was never truly asleep either. At least it didn't seem like the restful sort of sleep that left you refreshed when you woke. How could it be when it seemed like she had to actually fight at times to keep her eyes closed? Still, from his perspective, there were times, off and on, when she didn't seem as troubled.

And he was awake for all of them. Embracing her, talking to her or telling her stories. Arlo suspected it probably didn't matter much what he actually said. He could as easily chat about the weather or the color of the walls. So long as she could hear his voice through the chaos and ground herself to it. And it got easier for him, much easier, after he'd dabbled in the unknown with his hat. It was a mystery after all, would the dedication of the hat make a difference. A mystery that could only be answered by experiencing the results.

That in itself was a wonder. A simple dedication, an equally simple prayer and a greater amount of faith overall, was all it took. Of course it had never been just a hat. Somehow Arlo had known it was more even when he'd first found the thing hooked on a tree alongside the trail. His attachment to it had grown sure and fast though he didn't know why. He'd only learned of the reasons later, when Cassion himself had revealed the thing as his own. A hat that he'd worn during his own travels and adventures, passed on for Arlo to find and do the same. And not just worn along the roads and waterways, but in Emea and other places that weren't quite ordinary.

And now, the hat was blessed again in a sense. It was Lyova in a sense who deserved the credit for giving him the idea. Or maybe it was that and a long night of being awake, and needing to be. Either way, it was done, and it was good.

When, off and on, Vega opened her eyes and gazed at him, or on the other hand struggled, Arlo knew she wasn't fully there and merely soothed her back to sleep. Or what passed for sleep that night. And all the while he felt newly alert, so long as his hat was on his head. Was it state of mind? Or had it worked? Souvenir, that was, somehow the phrase seemed relevant though he couldn't say why he suddenly thought so. At any rate, he had no trouble remaining awake from that point onward.

"Morning," he said, smiling and kissing her when she finally, truly woke and looked at him. Did she sleep though? "I guess you did at that. Off and on," Arlo added. As for what happened, again, it was difficult to explain since what he knew was only based on what he'd observed. From the outside looking in. Ordinarily he'd have been able to walk in her dreams and see first hand for himself. Not that night though.

"You fight, just like when you're awake," he told Vega. "But it's different. When you're sleeping, it's that fight, mixed with dreams of the past, the present, with ordinary things. The fight, all jumbled up with the usual dreams," he explained. Whether it worked or not, worked better than when she was fully awake and focusing, Arlo couldn't begin to say. Vega was the only one who could answer that question.

[Banshee]

Their relationship... why do they work so well together? How do you do this? Stop pulling my feels every which way! He's just so good and protective and the whole thing is so cosy! *squishes Varlo, Velo?(??)*

Arlo

Overview

XP: 15

Renown: No.

Consequences

Injuries/Overstepping: No.

Loot: No.

Expenses: No.

Knowledge

• Skill:
  • Endurance: Staying awake when warm and fed
  • Endurance: Maintaining concentration when tired.
  • Sojourn Ability: Safe Camp: Provides psychological security
  • Sojourn Ability: Safe Camp: Allows for more restful sleep
  • Sojourn Ability: Souvenir: Use blood to dedicate your Souvenir
  • Sojourn Ability: Souvenir: Ensure that the item has relevance / importance to you.
  • Sojourn Ability: Souvenir: Personal to you
• Non-Skill:
  • N/A

Comments

Arlo is so good and protective. He can be bloody stubborn as well though, it seems. A subtler flame to him it seems, a hidden glow providing warmth from beneath unlike Vega's bright fire. An interesting contrast, intriguing.

I haven't given you one of the Sojourn knowledges you requested, namely about blood marking the point of a Safe Camp because I couldn't find any allusion to it whatsoever. I might have missed it somehow and if so, you can point it out to me. I've allowed you to keep the others because I think they're relevant here. If you'd like to argue the case and provide evidence then PM me.

Vega

Overview

XP: 15

Renown: No.

Consequences

Injuries/Overstepping: No.

Loot: No.

Expenses: No.

Knowledge

• Skill:
  • N/A
• Non-Skill:
  • N/A

Comments

I hadn't seen a vulnerable side to Vega before but in truth, there's no time of greater vulnerability than sleep. It's more typical for an outside perspective to capture that vulnerability but I liked the way you managed to do it internally. It was very nicely done and I enjoyed it.

If you think that I missed anything or you have any queries about your grade then don't hesitate to PM me!