• Mature • 3. Dolls and Toys

[Llyr Llywelyn]

Previous: Chapter 2

Chapter 3
3 Ymiden, Arc 720

It was a calm and beautiful third of Ymiden in the arc of 720. Since the night of the second, it felt as if time went rather slow for Llyr. Plenty of waking life demanded his attention, yet his mind – as it so often did – wandered elsewhere from mundane business. Sailing on water often brought a contemplative air to his trials, and this only exacerbated his consideration of the dreamer who he’d branded the night before.

Something different about him, but Llyr couldn’t quite place his finger on what it was or why. It couldn’t be the feminine gown, for he had encountered such men before. One of his very first initiates had proclivities that appeared similar, and that he learned well of through the observation of their dreams. It was not as uncommon as some would believe - for men and women to flirt with expression of the self as opposite sex in their dreams. Some even extended this outward into their lives, and none of them (from what Llyr could tell) were even Becomers. Simply exploration of fashions, cultural mannerisms, and dynamics of identity in relation with others; and for seemingly no reason other than it satisfied them.

Perhaps if Llyr had been an ordinary mortal, he could understand the reluctance that some others expressed toward such open exploration. He wasn’t, though, and a part of him recognized that encountering such individuals brought forth a deep satisfaction and fulfillment. He wondered if maybe it might have to do with lineage… not on his mother’s biqaj side, but on his father’s Immortal nature. Was it something like his father's domains, in that he could not control it or dare to change such instinctive attraction within himself?

Whatever the case, the dreamer known as Lars provided something undeniably nourishing to the mortalborn. Llyr couldn’t stop thinking about it, either.

So, though he hardly needed to sleep these trials, he retreated into his cabin. He settled in the corner, seated upright with legs crossed and back rested against the adjacent walls. His eyes closed, and Llyr incorporeally entered Emea.


It took him little perceivable time to locate the brand and slide into the other dreamscape.

Like before, he entered behind the actual structured creation that housed the dreamer within. The same ballroom could be seen by the same tall mirror that he’d peered through upon his first introduction to the dreamscape. As if he were nothing more than a reflection, observing a world that he might never know except in the mirrored mockery of the real thing.

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Beforebeforebeforebeforebeforebeforebefore…

The dancers fill the ballroom, the gossipers behind their feathered fans, the elaborate outfits twirl and glimmer with the reflection of the intricate gold engravings that make up the extravagant architecture. Something is different, though. Llyr sets a hand on the mirror. It feels cool to the touch. He slides his hand through, then his arm, the silvery material gives way like a curtain of oil around his watery self. The mage steps through. He slowly turns his head, in search of the dreamer. The dancers seem sluggish, compared to the swiftness of the dream before. Their twirls are nothing more than stuttered jitters of broken imagery.

He walks. Without concern, he passes by the constructs but there is something about the dream that brings the ethereal color of his eyes from blue to red.

Where has his new initiate pet hidden?

Llyr rolls his neck from side to side, then tilts his head to the right. From the pin in the center of his high collar, the silver shape of a crow lifts away. It bursts into metallic feathers, the size of a large bird, and takes off through the scape to locate the dreamer.

Hands fold behind him, Llyr admires the open-air to where a ceiling might have been. The night sky glimmers with stars and hints of mist that trace over the light. The mist lowers into a fog that tints everything in the cold hues of blue and purples. White is no longer white, but a crystal blue. He follows, in methodical steps, the bird. Halo bright, gossamer wings against his backside like coattails, he is dressed in the same attire… like before. Yet the white silk is pale blue and the gold has a coppery tint instead.

“LARS,” he calls, soft voice deep but gentle. “do not make me wait to find you.”

[Lars]

3rd of Ymiden, Arc 720

in the madness of this sentimental state

The shaking stops when he sleeps. Only once his body has fallen deeply into that state of rest does his mind begin to slow… and slow… and slow to a near stop for how serenely Lars slips into the glittering realm of dreams.

There is something different, however, about this dream. Control is beyond his capabilities even now that he understands its possibility, but he knows, innately, this shift. A golden ballroom spins around him in a flurry of twisting skirts and cloaks, an elaborate dance that he is once again denied. His mother has not found him yet, not tonight, and for once in his recurring dreams he does not wish for her discovery. He breathes deeply despite the constriction of his hidden, ever-present corset, and walks outwards from the center of the grand hall unnoticed.

As he does, the scene behind him slows. The dazzling dancers around him are dragged by his departure, tugged in all directions until there is nothing left for them to do but stay in place – almost. For as the music swells, echoed and distorted through the glimmering golden halls, the faceless constructs move almost imperceptibly through the graceful steps of a waltz, blissfully unaware. A singular moment stretches to the length of arcs. The dreamer himself does not appear to notice, as he disappears behind tall columns where shadows lie in wait.

A gentle wind drifts in from the open ceiling above, cooling not only the air but the colors all around them as well. Amethysts, opals, sapphire blues – Lars feels another shift that does not emanate from within himself, and his head turns to the side as he awaits confirmation for something he shouldn’t. Something dangerous, and distracting, and for all of his waiting awake to avoid this storm, a part of him knows what he hopes for. Would he have succumbed so easily to rest if he did not?

The farther his guest ventures, the more the world around him moves. As if searching for guidance not from the dreamer, but from the winged intruder, and their limbs begin to move a little faster through their motions. Stilted, awkward, and wrong despite their beauty, as if torn apart and sewn back together by someone that could no longer recall what they were meant to be. As Lord Charon and his winged creature walk the lavish hall, the shadows shift behind their pillars in a curious dance, watching the dreamwalker move.

“We would not deny ourselves the pleasure,” returns a soft chorus of voices.

Lars steps forward and falls from the balcony just above the door. In a dark, feathered plume of his skirt, he lands before the lord and his bird, heels clicking against the crystalline floor. With the sound, there is a short, single trill in which the realm of his dream is moved again, pulled to proper speed and sound in a rush of twirling skirts and tapping heels, but it is dragged back into near-stillness immediately after.

A smile pulls at the corners of his mouth. His eyes are masked beneath his soft, snowy hair, hidden by the same dark lace that forms his long-sleeved dress. Dripping downward from the lace of both, tiny jewels sparkle in an iridescent gleam beneath the lights. Lars bows, practiced and elegant, before he straightens again. He takes a step slightly closer to the tall dreamer, and he greets, “you should learn to waltz, Lord Charon.”

[Llyr Llywelyn]

3 Ymiden, Arc 720

Many voices speak, softly but omnipresent. Denial, pleasure, ourselves...

Llyr pauses, then stops as Lars drifts down from the balcony to land before him. The metallic bird circles around the dreamer, then lands to the mage's shoulder in a perch as prim as its creator's posture.

The world moves, quicker, with the sound of heels upon floor and then it returns. Llyr surveys in a sweep of his gaze, then smiles in return of the expression to the other blond. The white hair hidden behind dark lace, the eyes of silver... and the sparkling glimmer of jewels...

Polite and insincere, Llyr keeps his smile. He watches the bow, then merely nods with unequal response. As if he could not possibly be bothered with bending his spine like that. He lifts his hand instead, and lightly pets the bird on the feathered breast before it reverts to the pin it had once been. He returns the silver brooch to his high collar.

"Learn to waltz? Whatever makes you think I cannot?" offers Llyr in an unassuming tone of voice. He looks down, red eyes return to blue. Llyr knows what he said last time. He remembers. Part of him is surprised that the dreamer remembers, too. He examines the other, then turns away to survey the room with hands folded at his lower back.

"Is this you attempting control?" he inquires without care for the subject of dancing. He doesn't bother with a gesture. It is obvious what he is referring to while he glances at the nearby constructs who struggle through the motions of their dance. "Resistance is to be expected, especially here, with a dreamer like yourself."

"Why don't you show me that which is meant to hide, Lars?" Llyr turns his gaze back onto the inexperienced dreamer. His smile has disappeared. Where it went... unknown. He blinks once, but only once, and otherwise stares with his ice-blue inner light that whorls in mist around his dark lashes. His deep voice stays gentle in its command, "Show me."

[Lars]

3rd of Ymiden, Arc 720

.

Lars continues to smile at the other dreamer. Whether or not the expression met his eyes was unclear, obscured as they were behind a layer of dark lace, but he does not seem to mind when his greetings are dismissed. He remembers well the disrespect he has endured, though he does not recall from whom. Little in the way of unmatched politeness bothers him anymore, and the world holds steady as he stares at Lord Charon.

With a crossing of his arms, covered in the sheer sleeves of intricate lace, his hands rest over his elbows. His rings have not been forgone in this dream, but replaced by darker stones, polished fire opals glinting in the skewed crystal lights. As his guest surveys the room, Lars’ gaze does not stray from the taller blond, as he glances over his elaborate, well-tailored attire and his pierced, pointed ears.

When asked of control, Lars is quiet. He has not even considered that he might have affected his dream somehow; the drag of the dancers and echoed instruments had seemed but a natural progression to him… but he considers, then, the other factions, the other fractions that form the whole of him, and he inquires in a singular voice, “like myself?”

A dreamer such as himself… whatever could that mean?

Yet his solitude of mind does not last for long. It flees from him completely as he is faced once again with Lord Charon’s icy stare. The other’s smile has dropped, left behind somewhere that Lars would never find. His own has faded as well, in the allowance of an open, if partially masked, expression. He is left unsure of what to say when he is given the quiet command, but he knows that he must listen. It is what he is always meant to do, regardless of dream or waking reality, but he knows not how to obey the lord’s request.

So, as his fingers begin to tap against his arms, the dreamer hops. It is the only thing he knows to try. His skirts, his hair, everything seems to move as gracefully as the man himself, as if aided by the strange sense of gravity in his dream. As his sparkling black heels hit the floor, the world repeats, quickened by the sound but only for a moment. It is not enough. He hops again, and this time, it does nothing at all. Even the sound of his shoes is quieted, lost in some vacuum with the rest of their misplaced time.

Another hop, another tap of his fingers. Lars catches, through the lace, the fleeting image of the ballroom left in disarray. Washed out like a painting in the rain, the vibrant colors of the hall are dulled and dampened, covered by the tangled, twisted forms of his dancers. In that trill, they lift from where they laid over one another, a mess of limbs and missing faces, before the slowed crystalline world covers them again.

He hops again, in veiled frustration, and each time he does, a different layer is peeled from the grand hall’s visage, only to be painted over again. Though his eyes fail to glance down and notice, his dark rings are lit up in sequence, a different one brightening in an iridescent gleam with every hop.

“I don’t know how,” he finally says, and the polished marble beneath his heels is cracked as he lands again. Delicate, decorated hands are drawn together, and fold before his corseted waist to contain his frustration. Lars ignores the shadows that hide behind the pillars, carefully observing them both, though they dare to venture outwards in the slowest inching into the room.

[Llyr Llywelyn]

3 Ymiden, Arc 720

"Yes, like yourself." returns Llyr without a bit of explanation behind the confirmation, as if Lars only asked to find out if he'd heard right. He has answers, of course, but he does not supply any then.

He cannot see the other man's eyes. This does not bother him. Their smiles, gone. The veneer of cordiality more tiresome than beneficial, in Llyr's view. It was not as if he needed to maintain closeness to brand the other dreamer. He already had, and it did not seem that the other blond had even the slightest understanding that such was the case. When would he figure out that Llyr could find him now? Whenever he wanted; wherever Lars went.

Lars hops in place. Llyr nods in time with each lift and drop of the tiny jump. He glances around in simple observation. The fleeting image is dark and it is somber, it is reasonably unexpected given the beauty of the dream before... or it might have been, if Llyr had been anyone else but himself.

No longer nodding, he looks forward in observation of the dreamer and the little gleaming rings that brighten in sequence.

“I don’t know how,” finally says the pale dreamer.

"Very well," accepts Llyr without complaint. Instead, he offers, "Perhaps, you might learn in due time."

Yet he realizes the frustration in the other man. He shakes his head, and though he notices the motion of the shadows, he ignores them as well. Instead, he approaches and takes both hands into his own. He is not without his own rings, tonight, as golden as the architecture of the ballroom in its glory. Except for three made of bleached bones and one of a seashell.

Llyr leans to whisper in Lars' ear, while he keeps their hands between their bodies. "You want to see, don't you? See so you can see more, and see what no one else can? So, of course, so do I."

He lifts to look down at the veiled blond and explains what he didn't before. "Like yourself... a dreamer like yourself, one who can see. Who dares to choose lucidity while remaining trapped in their own subconscious. And yet, for as much as your eyes are open, you have so little control. Most unusual... You should know how dearly unique you are, Lars. Most people, even dreamers who can see, scurry and hide in the comfort of the layers of their own mind. They'd rather be blind than admit to themselves who or what they are."

"You seem almost natural in it... in a way that reminds me of someone," he muses aloud, then guides Lars' hand to rest on the crook of his elbow. He draws a crystalline dagger and offers it to Lars. "Would you like to be the one to open the way to the Veil this time? Try to remember how it felt last time, try to think that you want to travel out... that you want to become more than just yourself. That you want to fly and explore... or however it feels until cold feels warm, and warm feels cold. Go on.... Stab the very reality of your own mind to move past into the worlds unknown. You don't need to know how, you merely need to do."

[Lars]

3rd of Ymiden, Arc 720

.

Patience, or perhaps a simple lack of interest in the result of his attempts… whatever keeps Lord Charon’s deep voice so calm, Lars is glad for it. He is grateful not to be scolded, or otherwise made to feel useless, regardless of what the other dreamer truly thinks. Through the mask of dark lace, he watches his approach, and his hands tense where they link to one another until – they are taken into Lord Charon’s hold, and the simple touch is enough to release him from his growing anxieties.

With his head held higher, his thoughts again steadied, he thinks he can imagine the feeling of breath against his pierced ear. As Lord Charon speaks, Lars wonders if it is but another simulation of the real thing, another sensation pulled into his dream not by truth but by his own expectations. As their hands hold together between their pale, ethereal bodies, he wonders if the touch is only grounding because his sleeping mind has deemed it so.

Lars’ eyes peer upwards through the lace. His guest has graced him with his gaze again, misty and whorling in its icy blue light, the antithesis of the dreamer’s dark veil. He does not understand; he does not know if he is meant to. For all of his experience being shamed and enslaved for his differences – the word dearly unique held a kinder ring to it than most, as if the term was not meant negatively. It confuses the older dreamer, that much is clear despite his mask for the subtle downward curve of his lips.

His hand is guided to the patient dreamlord’s elbow. Something tells him that it has been there before, in the shadow of a dream half-remembered. The feeling is familiar; it reminds him somehow of the life he lived before, in a world nearly faded to dust.

The crystalline dagger is accepted without pause, without hesitation, without the anxiety of someone unsure. Held in his practiced hand, his thumb smoothes over the blade while he listens to the deep, guiding voice. Guidance – if he had only known such guidance before, he thinks he could have avoided such resistance.

Go on…. Stab the very reality of your own mind to move past into the worlds unknown.

Next: Chapter 4

[Doran]

Llyr:

Knowledge:
Discipline x2
Etiquette x2
Rhetoric x2
Persuasion x2

Loot: -
Wealth: -
Injuries: -
Renown: -
Magic XP: -
Skill Review: Appropriate to level.
Points: 15

Laures:

Knowledge:
Acrobatics x3
Etiquette x2
Discipline x3

Loot: -
Wealth: -
Injuries: -
Renown: -
Magic XP: -
Skill Review: Appropriate to level.
Points: 15

- - -

Comments: I found Llyr’s thoughts about Laures as well as expression of the self quite fascinating to read. I wonder which aspect of his mortalborn nature brings him such deep satisfaction when dealing with such people though. I thought switching from past tense to present tense when Llyr entered the dream was an interesting and effectful technique.

I loved the ballroom. Both of your posts were very atmospheric. I also enjoyed the description of Laures’/Lars’ outfit. He must have been quite a sight in that dress and with those sparkling jewels. Lars’ attempt to control the dream and hopping in the process amused me slightly, I have to admit. That part of the thread was very well-written though!

Llyr’s talking about dreamwalking is always interesting to read. I never considered using a dagger in order to open the veil. Anyway, I look forward to reading the next thread in this series. I’ve enjoyed the previous threads and their dreamy and somewhat mystical nature so far.

Enjoy your rewards!