Domestic Bliss

[Vega]

16th Cylus 717

"This is nice." Vega lowered her head onto her husband's shoulder, feeling his arm around her as they lay together in the field. The cornflowers were everywhere and the suns were shining down on them. Contentedly, she wrapped her arm around his waist and lifted her head to kiss him softly, propping her head on her hands. "It's been a lovely trial. Thank you so much." Evidently, there had been a picnic and they were laying together in the high grass and cornflowers on the cliffs whith looked over the sparkling sea. Not that he could possibly know it, but just that trial Vega had listened (unwillingly) to the tale of how a man had proposed to a woman. This was it.

"We should go back to the boat, soon, don't you think?" She didn't seem inclined to go, quite content to be warm and comfortable with her husband here on the cliffs. Nestling her head against his shoulder, she looked up at the sky and sighed. The feeling of tranquillity was overwhelming and she allowed herself a moment of just laying there.

As they lay in an apparent picture of domestic bliss, a black plume of smoke began to rise out at sea, becoming visible in the sky above them. Vega sat up, straightening and she looked. "Husband! There's a boat ~ Immortals, there are pirates!" She clambered to her feet and looked at him in horror as, in standing, they got a better view.

Down there was a ship ~ their ship ~ and true enough it was under attack by another ship made from black wood. It had black sails and exuded an air of ominous. Vega looked at her husband with an expression of absolute panic on her face. "The children! Oh! What do we do!?" They could get down there, but if they did then they would almost surely end up fighting. The ship next to theirs was the cause of the plum of black smoke as its sails burnt. They had only a few moments before it would be too late.

Dreaming she might be and, as unlikely a prospect it was that the young Biqaj woman would ever marry, she was still herself and so she bent and grabbed her longsword and her bow and had every intention to make her way down to help her family. With, of course, her husband at her side.

[Doran]

In Andaris the son of Ziell was lying in his bed alone, as he had most of the time since he had arrived in the city a few arcs prior. There had of course been a few women as well as men in the course of time, but those encounters had been fleeting, and none of them had ever touched his heart, apart from Beira. Beira had chosen another man though and was far away in Uleuda now, in a city made of crystal that he had not been able to reach so far. These trials the only constant in his life was a demoness with eyes of fire.

In the dreaming world neither the demoness nor Beira had any significance to him though. There was only one woman, a Biqaj whose eyes shimmered in all the colors of the rainbow and whose smile made his heart melt and the darkness inside his heart go away. She was his light. When he was with her, he felt content and happy, in a way he had not thought possible. He had not thought that he would ever get married again, not after his first marriage had ended in a disaster, and his daughter had died, but she had given him hope and made him believe in love and that people were genuinely good again.

For a while he just lay there, with his eyes closed and enjoyed the warmth of the sunlight on his face, the sweet smell of the flowers around him and the presence of her next to him. “I wish this moment would never end”, he whispered to her and kissed her as she had kissed him before he put am arm around her and simply held her. This, he thought, was the closest thing to perfection that he had ever experienced in his life. “I don’t want to go back, but I suppose that we should. They are probably already worried about us and wondering where we are. Besides, we have work to do.”

As he reluctantly rose to his feet, he could see it as well. His heart skipped a beat as he met his wife’s gaze. His shock only lasted a moment though before he abruptly drew his sword. In the dreaming world his life had taken an entirely different turn, but even here he knew how to handle a weapon better than most others. “We need to help them! Come, before it’s too late!” With that he ran down the cliffs as fast as he could, towards the beach, to save his children and keep the boat that they depended on from being destroyed. He didn’t look back to check if his wife was still following him. He knew that he would be able to rely on her and that she would be by his side, as always.

[Vega]

Although neither of them knew it, they were dreaming and dreams have strange ways of doing things. So, they started to run and then they were there, standing on the beach. The ship next to theirs was sinking into the water and theirs was on fire, although only a little. Vega cried out in frustration at that sight, but somehow, by the strangeness of dream, the people from the ship, their family, were on the beach. Over there, her father was standing in front of two small children. One, a girl with long red hair just like her mother and her younger brother who had dark hair and wore a hat. Her father was fighting off three pirates.

Thankfully, both Doran and Vega could tell who was a pirate and who was not. They were attired very suitably with scarves tied around their heads and the number of them with eye patches was statistically very unlikely ~ close to two thirds, in fact.

For all that the clothing was stereotypical , the situation was dire. They were horridly outnumbered and the pirates were winning. There were cries and shouts. Vega put her hand on Doran's arm as, somehow, they had time for a brief chat. "I'm going to help my father protect the children. Go save the ship. Only you can, look." Their ship was starting to burn, but it was salvageable. However, there was a particularly large and nasty looking pirate with bad teeth, an eyepatch and dressed all in black. His black silk shirt was billowing in the wind as he cackled manically and pointed at Doran, beckoning him forward. Vega stepped forward and kissed him ~ when she woke up she would cringe at the memory of that moment. The wind whipped around them, flames danced and she kissed him. In the moment of the dream, though, it made perfect sense and as she pulled herself close to him, it was the only acceptable course of action.

"I love you. Go save us. I'll protect the children." She turned and ran, moving to help her father protect the children who could only be theirs. "Hey you two!" Vega smiled brightly at them as she stood next to her father, with whom she shared a much more grim glance.

She glanced and saw Doran on the deck of their ship, engaged in a dual with the man she knew only as the Dread Pirate. Vega's heart jumped into her throat but she did not have time to do anything other than pray that he was victorious as five of the ugliest looking pirate-caricature fellows she had ever seen advanced on her and her father and she lifted her sword, determined to battle them to the death. Theirs, she was quite sure.

Except, she couldn't lift her arm. Her sword was heavy, heavier than anything she had ever experienced before. The pirates were coming closer and she opened her mouth to tell her father that her sword was broken, except she couldn't speak because there was something in her mouth. Raising her other hand to in front of her mouth, Vega spat out first one and then a half a dozen teeth. Which was even more strange because they were still in her mouth where they should be, too.

The pirates continued to advance and she let out a scream of fury as she lifted her sword, now without fuss or bother, and she deflected the blow from the first one. Battle, it seemed, had begun.

[Doran]

In the waking world the Mortalborn grimaced at his dream-self’s behaviour and his appearance. His facial features, his hair and his eyes and the general shape of his body were much the same, but there was something about him, a lightness and a softness that he had never possessed in the real world and that reminded him so much of his weakling father that he almost woke up right then. He had never wanted to become like him!

In Emea Vega’s husband felt none of the condescension and the contempt of his real self, but simply breathed a sigh of relief as he noticed that his children and his father-in-law had somehow made it off the burning ship and were waiting for them on the beach. He couldn’t stop staring at the little boy that looked so much like him. Even after all the time he sometimes found it hard to believe that the life he had now was real. Whenever he looked at his children, he knew that he had made the right choice all those arcs before.

He only pulled his gaze away as his wife touched his arm. “Be careful”, he warned her and pulled her close to return the kiss before he stepped forward to meet the so called Dread Pirate and looked directly into his eyes. He knew that the pirate meant to frighten him, but he couldn’t help but laugh. Perhaps it would have worked with others, but it took more than a man with one eye and bad dental hygiene to make him tremble in fear!

The fire behind them seemed to grow stronger and hotter with every passing bit. For a moment it seemed to him as if he could see a face in the flames, the the face of the demoness that he had given himself to in the waking world. For the fraction of a trill his eyes flashed crimson to mirror hers, but that moment when dream and reality seemed to clash was over as soon as it had begun, the heat grew less intense, and he brought his sword down on the pirate.

He didn’t have time to savour his triumph though. As he looked around, he saw that his wife and her father were facing five pirates at once. He hurried to them then so that Vega and he would be standing with their backs facing each other, fighting the pirates around them, supporting each other, as it should be.

[Vega]

They fought together, the two of them. To her sleeping mind this was how they worked and, as her husband joined them once more, Vega's dream shifted and the pair of them were standing and fighting the pirates alone. It was a different beach, but still a beach and they stood, back to back, slicing and hacking at the apparently endless stream of pirates which came at them. The bright twin suns of Saun were in the sky and the heat was sweltering, almost unbearable. In the haze of heat rising from the sand, all Vega could see was pirates, attacking and trying to kill them.

"There are too many of them!" All over the place, from all directions, it seemed, the pirates were coming but then, a few moments later, the last one died. It was over, and she turned to him, checking that he was alright, one hand lowering her sword as she put her other hand on to her husband's arm. "There were too many I'm sorry. I'm so sorry! They took them! The children. They've taken them to the Flame Caves I'm sure." It all made sense, of course, to her and how she knew that their children had been taken was not important. She simply did.

Her hand on his she looked up at Doran with a grim determination. "We have to face the three trials and pass the Weeping Statue. Then, once we've done that we can save them. That's how all the legends tell it." Her eyes were swirling with colours as she said that, her confusion and worry was evident on her face. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a book, which she handed to him. "That's the story of the three trials. I read it to them every night. We have to get them back." Tears stood in her eyes, but she wouldn't cry. Not yet.

When she woke up, Vega would wonder just why she'd forgotten about her father, but then, none of this dream made any sense at all to her. "The first trial we face is how to travel the Sea of Seas without a boat or ship, not swimming or floating." A frown of concentration on her face, she looked up at Doran with hope in her eyes.

"Can you still call the dragons? Love, if we can fly to the Hidden Isle, we'll have beaten the first trial. Can you still do it?" He would be able to, she was sure. She slipped her hand into his and squeezed. He would, he'd have to. Their children would be so afraid and Vega had to get to them.

Off Topic

Sincere apologies, Doran! Thanks for the nudge - really, very sorry about that! I would have sworn it was your turn.

[Doran]

For every pirate that he killed, another two seemed to take his place, and the sun burned down on them relentlessly. The Mortalborn who was likely one of the most skilled swordsmen in Rynmere, in Emea as well as in the waking world, found his strength to be slowly waning. Black spots began to dance in front of his eyes, he was drenched in sweat, and his sword as well as his clothes were covered with blood, but he didn’t stop. He would only stop fighting when he was dead. His children’s lives were at stake!

All his efforts seemed to be in vain though. No matter what he did and no matter how hard he fought, the pirates kept on coming. It seemed as if breaks had passed since they had arrived on the beach – no, it almost felt as if he had been trapped there for seasons or arcs, as if he had spent his whole life in this nightmare. For a moment he struggled to remember those peaceful, happy moments that he had spent with his wife in the meadow and the laughter of his children. The blood and the screams of the dying were the only things that existed.

And then it was over, as quickly as it had begun. As the last pirate died, the Mortalborn slowly lowered his sword and turned to face his wife. The other Doran, the one that was lying in his bed somewhere in Idalos, would have laughed as she mentioned the Flame Caves and the Weeping Statue – he had lived too long to believe in such legends – but this version of him only nodded and took a look at the book that she had given to him.

No matter how different the two versions of him were otherwise, they were both utterly confident in themselves and their abilities and willing to do whatever it took. “I can”, he assured her, looked into her eyes and held her hand for a moment. “I still remember everything.” With that he let go of her again and stepped forward, arms raised high and began to call them in an ancient language that was both chilling and hauntingly beautiful at the same time. For a moment it seemed as if nothing would happen – the beach was almost eerily quiet now that the pirates were gone – but then the sound of great wings could be heard.

A single dragon appeared. The magnificent emerald creature landed on the bloody sand in front of them and looked at them expectantly. Doran walked over to it without hesitation and without fear and stood in front of it for a moment, whispering soft words to it and admiring it – even he had not met many of its kind yet, even though he had been alive for centuries - before he extended his hand. He would help his wife onto the dragon’s back first and then climb onto it himself.

“Hold onto me so that you don’t fall!” he warned his wife a moment before the dragon suddenly took flight. The beach that was covered with the bodies of the dead grew smaller and smaller behind them and eventually disappeared completely. There were only the vast, deep blue sea now, the flapping of the dragon’s great wings and the roars that it occasionally let out. There was something strangely peaceful and hopeful about it.

[Vega]

He remembered, of course he did and Vega held tight to his hand for just a moment, looking up at him without doubt as she spoke just to him. "I've got faith in you. We'll get them back." They would, she didn't doubt. There was nothing that the two of them couldn't achieve Vega was sure of it. In the morning she would groan in despair at these ridiculous notions of romantic, but in the dream she was as sure as she could be.

The song of the dragon he sung was haunting and beautiful and Vega stood back and listened to it, trying as she always did to memorise it, to make sense of it. She couldn't this time and more than she could any of the other times she had heard it and so, she listened and she felt it infuse her being. She thought, as she always did, that she was prepared for the sight of the dragon but it took her breath away.

Taking his hand, Vega climbed on to the beautiful creature and then wrapped her arms around her husband and held on. For all the worry that she had, for all the concern for their children, she couldn't stop staring at the view. "It's so beautiful!" Holding on to him, Vega rested her head against him and just kept telling herself that it would be fine, all would be well.

Soon, the unending blue on the horizon changed and there, in front of them was a small island. It was dominated by an enormous statue which stood, hundreds of feet high. "That's the Weeping Statue!" Vega probably didn't need to say it, what with it being a statue of a woman, weeping.

It took a split second, although they both knew it had been longer than that, and the emerald dragon landed. Vega took both of Doran's hands and jumped down. As the dragon flew off the wind from its wings whipped around them and then they faced a very dark, very ominous forest. "It's the Wildwoods." Vega slipped her hand into his, nervously. "They say that you face your fears in there and those who draw steel never leave. The horrors of the Wildwood have to be faced with heart and soul, not sword and shield. We'll have to protect each other." Looking up at him she smiled slightly. "I love you. We can do this, together, I'm sure. We just have to keep hope alive, the book says." Not knowing just how ironic that statement was, the young woman looked to her husband. "I have faith in you and in us. We will find the children. I think the trick is to not fight, but to walk."

The forest before them was the very epitome of deep and unpleasant and it emanated danger. It was, fundamentally, a spooky looking place. Her hand in his tightened, and Vega stepped into the Wildwoods.

[Doran]

For a moment as they flew across the deep blue sea the Mortalborn was at peace, and he was confident, confident that they would find their children again and that it would all work out in the end. How could it not? His wife was with him. Together they would be able to accomplish anything. The first sign that things were about to change, that maybe it wouldn’t be as easy was the small island that appeared in front of them. He knew her.

Even his dream self that had very little in common with the man that he really was instantly recognized her. It was the first woman he had ever loved, almost four centuries before. He had faked his own death and left before it had become obvious that he wasn’t human, and she had wept at his grave. She had never found out the truth about him.

The dragon landed though, and he pushed the memory back into a corner of his mind. He needed to stay focused. He couldn’t let the memory of her distract him from the task at hand. “If there is no tangible enemy in this forest, then we will be able to conquer it”, he spoke to his wife and stepped forward. In the waking world he had recently gained the ability to turn off his emotions, and he was confident that he would be able to do the same here.

He couldn’t see any of the horrors Vega had mentioned. The forest around them was beautiful and green and full of life. He could hear the birds sing. He could see a squirrel, scurrying across a branch. The sun was shining, and the sky above them was a clear blue.

Gradually though things began to change. The leaves of the trees changed color. They turned red and orange like in autumn and then black and gray before they finally fell to the ground. Clouds began to appear, first only a few and then more and more until they covered the sky completely and obscured the sun. All the animals disappeared. There were only those shapes, rocks littering the ground. Still, the Mortalborn moved forward, holding the hand of his wife – and then he abruptly stopped and looked around.

What he had thought were rocks at first were actually gravestones. The forest was full of graves, half hidden behind dead trees that raised their barren branches towards the cloudy sky accusingly. Doran didn’t fear Xiur, he didn’t fear his father and all those people that wanted to see him dead for what he had done. He feared no mortal and no immortal man. His fears were different, but no less intense. His greatest fear was for his family and himself to die for if he were dead there would be nobody left to continue his mission, and it needed to be finished. He was, as far as he knew, the only one that was capable of changing the world.

In that moment dreams and reality mixed. He saw Vega’s grave. He saw the graves of his dream children that had died long before their time. There was the grave of the only child he had ever had in the waking world as far as he knew, a little girl that hadn’t lived past infancy. There were the graves of all the men and women he had loved in the course of the centuries, and in the middle of them was his own lifeless body, with a noose around its neck, hanging from a tree, a warning for those that sought to attempt the same. He had died, and Xiur had won. Vega and he were only ghosts, pale shadows of their former selves.

He let go of Vega’s hand abruptly and reached for his sword before he remembered her warning, a warning that was most likely pointless now. “It’s over”, he whispered to her. “They are already dead. We are all dead, and they have won. There is no hope, for any of us.”

He didn't know why he didn't simply break down. Perhaps a small part of him still refused to believe what had happened even though the proof that he had failed was right in front of his eyes. There had to be a way. They hadn't been supposed to die. This hadn't been supposed to happen. He had been supposed to succeed and rise above them and live like a king.

There had to be a way to make things right again, but he couldn't see it.

[Pash Raj'oriq]

Thread Rewards

Vega

Skill Knowledge:
None requested.

Other Knowledge:
None requested.

Loot: N/A
Injuries: N/A
Fame: N/A
Devotion: N/A

Points: 15 | These points cannot be used for magic.

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Doran

Skill Knowledge:
None requested.

Other Knowledge:
None requested.

Loot: N/A
Injuries: N/A
Fame: N/A
Devotion: N/A

Points: 15 | These points cannot be used for magic.

— ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ —

Comments:
This was an unexpected dream thread for me, somewhat dark and sad and yet beautifully-written insights into both characters. Thank you.

If you see anything I’ve missed or have a question, please feel free to drop me a PM!

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