• Mature • 5. S E P E R A T E

[Llyr Llywelyn]

A Dreamscape, Emea: 3 Ymiden, Arc 720.
Continued from here.

Llyr Llywelyn Lord Charon observed from the balcony on the eighty-eighth floor of his estate. Of polished fine gray stone, what cracks it had only added to the beauty of the architecture. He stood with his hands folded on his gold-topped cane, the filigree knob housed a dagger hidden within the obsidian length. Gloves of... he glanced down... black silk. A wind brushed through the countryside, the vast barony of his purview. To the north was the forest, and to the east was the lake, and to the west was the place he didn't look anymore.

"Sir," whispered a small voice behind the door frame. He didn't need to glance to understand it was a servant. The pitiful nature of the voice made that fact obvious. "The others are waiting for you... want to know how much longer you'll be out here?"

Charon pinched the bridge of his nose, the sense of a headache stung at the back of his eyes. Why couldn't he... right, he had left to get some air - or that had been his excuse to get away from the talks with the other lords. He couldn't stay any longer on the balcony though. His gaze swept across the estate gardens, and paused momentarily while he looked through the maze of hedges. Silhouette shadows slipped through the geometric formations, chasing each other? Playing? He didn't wonder much farther about it though before he turned, stepped through to enter the mansion -

- and the next step took him right into the parlor lounge where the other nobles awaited him. A handful of them, in various adornments of high-class fashion and traditional accessories. The firelight warmed the otherwise darkened space. On every wall, heavy decorative papers and gilded framed portraits covered from ceiling to floor.

"We were wondering if you had slipped away with Lady Adina," said one of the lords while he held up his crystalline goblet of wine in greeting. The heavily mustached man - what had been his name, Lord... Heber? "She hasn't come back either."

Charon said nothing, while the pale-haired tall man surveyed the room. It felt crowded... the furniture of velvet plush but pressed up against the walls and each other as if the space were no more than a tiny closet - but that couldn't be, because there were so many of them inside of it and a fireplace as well. He struggled to make sense of the fluxed perimeter, and- and- something. Something wasn't right. His hand gripped tighter to the top of the cane. Why did his hand feel empty? Had he lost something? It was an odd feeling... and Charon turned away from the other nobles, to leave the room.

"Where are you going, again?" asked one of the ladies with a quick whine, "Don't you leave us again. No wonder you haven't been able to sell this estate yet."

"Think you've had enough to drink, my dear Emma," interjected Lord Heber. "Let the t H i n G be. We are guests, aren't we?"

"What did you say?" asked Charon in an absent-minded tone, though he didn't glance over. His sight stuck on the lintel, and noticed it was made of stone rather than the expected wood. Small engravings formed patterns in it, and they felt familiar.

"Only that we a-"

Heber never finished when a scream pierced through the estate. It interrupted the somewhat languid nature of the room while some of the nobles got to their feet.

"Did you hear that?" whispered Lady Emma.

"Of course we did," snapped Heber. "How could we not?"

"Do you... where is Lady Adina? Oh, someone should go look for her..."

"I will," stated a younger man who fixed his jacket, then headed past Charon to leave the room. He glanced at the blond and asked, "Coming?"

Charon hesitated, then he nodded and followed through the wall to pass into-

-a corridor of sorts... but it was difficult to make sense of it, other than it felt as crowded as the room before, though nothing but stone was in it from ceiling to floor to the cobbled brick walls. The younger lord - what had been his name, Charon could not recall - held up a small lantern of crimson glow while they started on their way toward the direction of the scream.

[Lars]

A DREAMSCAPE, EMEA
3RD OF YMIDEN, ARC 720

A chill kept washing over. It was not felt in the air, on the breeze, within the gray stone architecture that loomed above and all around. Laures Enyo could not tell from which direction it came or which way it was going; it passed over and through her at the backs of her arms, the tops of her shoulders, the places were sharp bones met joints beneath shivering skin, and then it left, dismissed, and for a few trills then it was calm. But it always returned, in a slow and steady wave, and the expectation only worsened each occurrence. Colder this time than the last. Fanned over the side of her face from above, or from somewhere approximately so, and it lulled but it always returned.

In, In, Inner plural fixes spirals twisting shatter breaking not the emergence of cold shadows at the midpoints of the corners. Into every apex of a room the ceiling collected more. Enyo shook her head and the shadows followed with it, clinging, attached, unforgiving. The air was colder within her lungs than it had been without. Pulled dusty rose over her nose, over the bridge of delicate feature, cold and colder still. Between two opened doors her feet settled on the floor, but memory failed to tell her which she’d come from.

Noise, like a bell, echoed off the walls of the leftmost room. A table long and wide ran the length of it. Plates of silver, bronze, and gold, ornate as the dark finished trim that spanned the walls. But dark… darkerdarknessfilledherheavylungsthebellowsthattheyweresosuddensuddensudden and

Dry, her throat convulsed against the slip / she swallowed / saliva seemed to vanish from her tongue within her mouth. Enyo shook her head. Bronze was done away with, banished from her sight. Disgusting, it disgusted her to see, the faking focal point of moral disagreements. Another breath bellowed out of her silent as the grave, pushed her white hair above her like an undersea commotion. “Gold,” whittled outward from her mouth. From the base of many strings and many thoughts and none as simple.

Legs carried away from her the silver-painted plate. Belonged to someone, faceless someone, dressed in servants’ cues. She shook her head at them, at the back of them, they didn’t see. Enyo shook her head and tapped her nail against the gold.

“Sir,” they said.

Sir, the voice misspoke. Enyo shook her head at them but didn’t disagree. Faceless someone, she saw herself reflected in the plate’s golden surface. White hair, not hers. She breathed and looked away. The servant wanted her to leave.

“Lady Adina was meant to speak with me. You haven’t seen her?”

“I have not, sorry sir.”

A scream cut through the silence, not too distant but not too near.

Fists made of the fingers under black tulle cuffs, fixed at the ends of his long dark sleeves. The sleek fabric of his dress made a little swishing sound when he turned and -

- stepped into the hall, where his shoes tapped against the cold stone floor. He could have sworn that he had just been there, standing in the dark and elegant hall, but his departure from the dining room said otherwise. A release of conflicting thoughts came with a slow, uncertain blink, and then Enyo dismissed them entirely. The talks should have been nearing conclusion, and Lady Adina should have found him already. He looked from one end of the… empty, stone hall to the other, and found no evidence of her.

Out of the fists his hands uncurled. Empty, they felt as if they were… missing something, but… no, he had not brought anything that was not on his person. Sure of this, Enyo continued, with his fine features set into a look of vapid thought. Wherever had that scream come from? And where was the Lady Adina? With the assumption that she would be still where he had left her, in the lush parlor lounge, he went in that direction -

stepping through doorways and -

dis_orienting -

halls until he saw a warm red light.

Was this not the same hall he had stepped into before? Yet it couldn’t be, he had not seen anyone in there before. Enyo stood while the figures grew nearer, and did he recognize them? Had he seen those faces before, had he seen their shadows? He must have, when he had stepped into the hall. He looked to the left, where the long dining table stood within the other large room. Of course - he had only just stepped out to clear his mind, before he had to decide which plates to use. He slipped quickly back into the room, as if he had never stepped out -

- and the bronze and silver plates were done away with already, what did he go in there for?

^and he turned too quickly on his heels to leave the room, and stumbled backwards through the door -

^and straight back into the cool darkness of the stone hall, into the tall figure passing by, where his hands clutched for purchase not to fall.

[Llyr Llywelyn]

A Dreamscape, Emea: 3 Ymiden, Arc 720.

Walking continued but Charon questioned if they were getting anywhere at all. The stone corridor all looked the same. The sounds, though, changed and flitted around as if bugs in the walls. About to go to a wall itself and explore, he startled slightly when a person stumbled out from a door the stones and stumbled right into him. Hands grasped for help to not fall, Charon felt the pull of gravity...

...and his gossamer wings burst out in full display behind him. With a flutter, they counteracted the pull, and his arm wrapped around an impossibly slender waist to lift the blond out of her unfortunate tumble. Llyr- Charon- tried to focus, with eyes that turned blue...

...like that he broke through the haze of non-lucidity with as much determination as the spread of his wings. Here was the dreamer he'd lost, though he knew not how. He couldn't recall that part, after they'd stepped from Veil to dream. A dream they still remained in, quite obviously.

Llyr looked to the... faces? face? the pale visage of the other dreamer seemed to struggle to maintain shape. A blurred confluence of features and eyes, but beneath it all he could see the shimmer of the brand he had set on Lars' lips once. The fixation point that reminded him of where he was.

"Open your eyes," he told Lars, with a jolt to hopefully also bring the initiate into lucidity as well. He turned to look at where the other lord had gone...?

...Where had he gone?...

The lantern light flickered out when Llyr realized that the lord had kept walking along without him and now had gone so far that the light didn't extend. Left in darkness, Llyr kept a tight hold onto the blond's waist while he kept the dreamer near. He could only open hope that the other's non-lucidity wouldn't persist and cause problems.

But they had problems enough, it seemed. When a wrangled wrench of a shout echoed ahead, followed by the crunch of bones, and then wailed sobs for help. Something was there, too. The red-hued lantern rolled along the floor, back to Llyr, abandoned with splotches of blood on its handle. In the moment's illumination while he stopped the lantern with the sole of his boot, he could see sleek shadows cross above them.

[Lars]

A DREAMSCAPE, EMEA
3RD OF YMIDEN, ARC 720

Safe, secure, something close enough to both were the arms that slipped around Enyo’s waist. They kept him from falling farther to the floor, and his fingers clutched, still, at the black silk of his savior’s attire. Closer he pulled to the tall, pale man, whose wings flitted outward behind him in a mesmerizing flutter. “Pretty,” murmured Enyo, momentarily distracted by the sight. The reddened light bounced off of them for just a trill, maybe two, before it faded farther down the hall...

OPEN YOUR EYES

...and with a sharp, sudden tilt of his head, Lars looked into Llyr’s eyes and awoke from the blur of non-lucidity.

Silver eyes wide, he stared through the sudden darkness at the man that had caught him. Had they not just stepped through the archway? How… he stood up a little straighter, so as not to lean the entirety of his weight against Lord Charon, but he did not move away. The long, sheer sleeves of his dress failed to keep the cold dreamer comfortable in the odd stone hallway, and he did not wish to sacrifice that warmth.

Another sound cut through the cool, damp air. So unexpected in his recently-reacquired lucidity, it pulled a soft gasp from Lars’ lips – the roll of the red-lit lantern turned him farther into Lord Charon’s hold, as he instinctively sought security in the dark. “Oh,” he breathed, glancing over the blood-spattered lantern. He relaxed his nervous hold on the other dreamer’s clothes, smoothed his fingers over them, and ignored the crossing of impossibly-dark shadows above. They slithered over and away, behind them, but something told him that it wasn’t any better than if they’d simply stayed.

Lars leaned down and retrieved the lantern. Cool air hovered just above the stone floor, like an unseen cloud of mist, and he lifted with a shiver down his spine. The wailing up ahead cut off with a scratched, strained shriek, ripped out from its host with force… but the dreamer did not startle this time. In fact, as the sounds of distress were drowned out by a distant gurgle and growl of whatever laid ahead, the faintest of pinks dusted Lars’ delicate features, though he paid no attention to that fact.

“We only need to find NoThing,” the blond said mostly to himself, and then looked back to Lord Charon in what dim light still remained. “Right?”

That was all he could remember since stepping into the dream. Lars’ gaze was drawn back to the lantern as the light flickered out again in a wave of cold air. Stale, damp, it smelled somewhat of soil and stone… and the human was quickly disoriented again as the low, gurgled sound seemed to reverberate off of the walls and shift his sense of direction. Where was it coming from now? Which way had they come from? The path forward had only just been ahead, yet the hallway stemmed off to their left instead, leaving them with nothing but cobbled stone in front of them.

His hand fumbled in search of Lord Charon’s. Couldn’t lose him, not now, not when the noise was getting nearer, the dark ever colder, and -

- a wetness dripped downward from above, slow as it hit Lars’ cheek and rolled in a streak of dark red. The stones were… bleeding? Or was there something up there? But there couldn’t be, there was hardly even enough room for them to stand anymore and when the fuck had the hallway gotten so narrow?

[Llyr Llywelyn]

A Dreamscape, Emea: 3 Ymiden, Arc 720.

A quiet pitter-patter sounded like rain around them. It was not rain, in the pitch darkness. Llyr’s halo remained above his head, but it did not illuminate anything. Merely a ring of non-illumination as if painted into existence, rather than formed by the sparkling ether as it was in the waking world. In fact, much of Llyr felt merely painted or placed together as a mockery of what he was. Nothing acted like it should. His eyes filled blue, but they did not glow. The silvery-blue dust of his skin seemed to fade and then brighten in spots with a churn of internal bioluminescence and yet did not provide respite from the opaque darkness of the dream.

“NoThing,” he agreed while he reached through to try and find the other’s hand again. He had not wanted his initiate to distance from him, but Lars had moved to retrieve the lantern before he fully realized what had even happened to stop it. The shadows distracted him, and how he could see the darkness move in shapes around them. That he wore black silk didn’t help while he extended his arm only to see his own hand appear to disappear into a shadow that fluxed around the limb. It felt cold, as cold as Videnese ice. He drew his hand away, whatever he had touched had simply felt so cold that he couldn’t help but recoil from the touch.

“NoThing, first. Then the dreamer,” he informed Lars with explanation in a rather calm voice, in refusal to express his own uncertainty and wariness about the nightmare they found themselves in. It would do no good for Lars to panic, so he tried to maintain an attitude of confidence. It wasn’t his first time stuck in a terrifying dream, either, so it was not a stretch to do so. He just never had to concern himself with such an inexperienced dreamer at his side, before. “Without the dreamer, then we won’t be able to find the gate to return without potentially harming the dreamscape and Veil, or attracting those which would prefer to devour us.”

“Lars?” he queried while he swept his hand through the dark in an attempt to find the familiar shape of the other woman again. The sound of rain increased, while the blood dripped faster down through the stones. He felt it dampen his hair, bangs stuck to his brow, and drip over his pale lips. The sound of claws scuttled behind him and brought him to turn to look through the darkness and abandon his attempt to find the other dreamer.

He held motionless, instinctively, and searched what he could see through the dream… and a glimmer of blue mist showed in the corner of the darkness. Llyr approached, and his head brushed against a low ceiling so he lowered into a crouch. He reached out to the thin fissure of light, then felt a rush of gravity.

The floor gave out, or more accurately, the floor had never existed. Light expanded out around him to reveal this fact, while Llyr plummeted into a vertical tunnel of illumination so bright that he had to cover his eyes. What was this? Was the dream trying to eject him back to the Veil?!

“

No,

” he spoke in a firm demand to Emea. His wings fought, in flight, against the emereal gravity. He would not leave Lars behind to fend for himself in the dreamscape.

In refusal of the departure, of the dreamscape’s owner trying to rid it of his presence, he edged his way back into the dream. Stones crumbled down around him. Stars glittered in a foggy cloud around his slim body while he crashed through – to wherever Lars had been taken.

[Lars]

A DREAMSCAPE, EMEA
3RD OF YMIDEN, ARC 720

NoThing first, and then the dreamer… but what did the dreamer matter to them? Lord Charon’s calm explanation only somewhat made sense to the silver-eyed blond. He could easily agree to the idea knowing that they could attract worse creatures on their own, but when it came to damaging the dreamscape… it was not his, nor Lord Charon’s, so what would it matter? Regardless of his curiosities, Lars kept the questions to himself. If Lord Charon had felt the same about his dreamscape upon entering it, if he had simply left the older blond to his dancers and gold, it would have been a terrible shame.

Lars attempted to suppress the rising panic within him, that only seemed to reach its peak when his hand did not find his companion’s. He heard his name in that familiar deep voice, yet it sounded almost wrong, and faraway, and had Lord Charon left him? He would not do that so soon, would he? Arms pulled inward, Lars hugged himself in anxious posture. The sounds all around him raised in volume as the slow drip-drop of scarlet blood rained down. Over his cheeks, his nose, his mouth; it streaked his pearl-white hair and dampened his dark dress.

“Lord Charon?”

Claws. Scratching, scraping against the stones, getting closer by the trill – or were they getting farther away? He turned and saw nothing; his skirt flared out against the stone walls with a harsh swishing sound. “Sir?”

Grasps into the darkness proved fruitless, as his cold, trembling fingers found nothing. With another turn, his nails scraped over the wet cobblestone wall, and Lars’ hand was jerked quickly back. At his corseted waist, his blood-spattered hands came together and held, as if that would keep them from their tapping. It did not.

He was alone, alone, alone again and he could not even tell where he was! White lashes fluttered as his eyes were closed. Lars swallowed hard, shook his head, hugged himself again. Every passing trill (if trills had even passed at all, since he had stumbled into the terrible hall) saw more of the pale dreamer drenched in blood, uncomfortably cold and sickly warm. Somehow the sound of footsteps reached his ears, and he knew that they were moving away from him. Lord Charon had not abandoned him entirely, had he? Or was that his patient guide, instead, that he felt looming just behind?

Tendrils of cold, dense shadow slipped over his shoulders like spindly fingers. A quick, shaking breath was drawn into his lungs, for it was not his guide.

It pulled him back as if it were. Resistant to the tug at his shoulders and arms, Lars attempted to shrug off the incorporeal touch, but succeeded only in ensnaring himself more. The tendrils slipped around his waist, his neck, his ankles and wrists…

...and when he opened his eyes again, he could see. Not much, not far, and he did not know how. No source of light made itself visible, yet the long, narrow room of solid stone housed light enough to see. Lars narrowed his eyes and stared across the room, to the wall that seemed to rest hundreds of feet before him. A quick glance backward and whatever had grabbed him was gone, replaced by a wall against his back. He pressed back against it, spine arched, as his nervous gaze flitted about the empty room. No one, and no thing, resided in there with him. But something felt wrong about the other side.

“Lord Charon?” whispered Lars. His voice never left his throat, or if it did, it was muted before he could tell. He could not hear… anything.

Pushing hesitantly away from the wall, the pale dreamer took a step forward. As he did, the other end of the room grew far nearer than expected… or had he simply turned around? Now the wall ahead sat right before his face, and the wall behind was impossibly far. Lars’ plush lips were drawn into a pout with a soft, unintentional whine. A strange, unnerving sense of dread had entered him through the restless tips of his fingers, and crept up and along his limbs once he had stepped to the other end of the room. Without any doors or other visible exits, how was he meant to find his guide?

The tall, winged blond did not leave him to wonder for long.

Right before his eyes, Lord Charon appeared, entering the impossible room through the wall. Lars latched onto him immediately, without any intention of letting go again, and held close to the other man. The wall he had emerged from began to ever… so… slowly… fall apart, stone by stone, until a dark gray door stood in the same place Lord Charon had crashed in through, a mirror of those he had seen before in the estate. A pale light shone through the gaps between door and stone, and though the room had muted his voice, Lars gestured towards it.

[Llyr Llywelyn]

A ǝ dɐ ɔsɯ ɐǝɹᗡ, E_mea: 3 Y^miden, Arc 7 2 0̷̫͔̞͎̝͙̳̦̹̼͉̝̤̰̓̒̉̋͊͝.

Drip...
NoThing first, then dreamer…

d ^R i i i i i i i i i i i i ii i i i ii i _p

“L o r d C h a r o n?”dr iiiii ii ii i ii i i ii ip

d^p...rip.

^“Lord Charon?”
alonealonealonealonealonealonealonealone

Hands upon him, long cold fingers clutched through the very silk of his attire and dug into the emereal flesh on his bones. Llyr returned the touch with a grab of his arm around his newest initiate's shoulders. He lifted Lars away from the harsh stone floor of the nightmare, and held him close like one might when they sought to protect something worth treasuring.

Llyr had encountered so many dreams that he did not need to hesitate to identify who was worth a treasure and who was not. The light of his halo illuminated the area around them, and he glanced down to see that the pale blond had turned red... from blood?

He need not say anything. He knew that Lars knew to keep close, now. They couldn't release each other, even if the physical nature of their bodies was nothing more than illusion stitched together by mere belief.

Lars gestured toward a... mirror? Not the sort of mirror that they could see any reflections through.

The biqaj nodded, and simply turned with a rush of his wings against the impossible currents of air that didn't exist. He set them through the momentary opening, and through they went. His patience had worn thin, though. He did not know why NoThing had taken them to this dream, nor why the diri hid within it either. Did he think to teach something? If so, Llyr would correct that notion in the spirit so that it would never happen again. This was not the sort of thing he needed.

He stepped through, and nearly dropped Lars when his feet didn't meet any kind of floor. Caved-in dirt tunneled downward in a steep cavernous drop. Llyr's wings went into a flurry to keep them up, and his other arm wrapped around Lars' narrow waist to keep the other dreamer near. His breath caught, involuntarily, from the sensation of being so high up - even if it was a dream and illusion, it felt higher than even the highest tree or mountain and to fall would mean certain death... after however long it took to plummet downward.

Now, Llyr clung to Lars. He rarely had a companion like this, in a dream as dangerous as this one proved to be. It restricted him, from certain techniques he took on his lonesome.

"Dreamer, first," he amended his plan. His eyes glowed iridescent within the elfin shapes and he scanned what he could see of the dream. "We must... calm. Begin anew. We've broken the dreamer's grasp on their mind too much. We have to let it... play... out... Hold tight to me, this time."

His wings folded behind him. He hugged Lars close, while they started to fall. Not unlike when he'd fallen through Lars' dream, upon entering the Veil the first time, Llyr shut his eyes and he focused...

...and when he opened his eyes, he found himself on the eighty-eighth floor of his estate. He overlooked the shadowy labyrinthine garden and felt on his hand... not his cane, but a delicate gloved hand. Llyr glanced over to see Lars, though their attire had changed and refreshed. No longer bloody, one of noble attire and the other of... servant? The dream had dressed Lars like a maid? Llyr paused at this, but it kept him lucid rather than slipping back into the non-lucidity of before.

"Keep your eyes open, Lars," he informed the other blond. He turned away from the balcony, and he kept hold of Lars' hand, while he led through the walls and into the cramped lounge full of nobles.

"We were wondering if you had slipped away with Lady Adina..." greeted Lord Heber. "She hasn't come back either."

[Lars]

A DREAMSCAPE, EMEA
3RD OF YMIDEN, ARC 720

Lars clung to his new companion as if his life depended on it – and in a way he supposed it did. He knew not the limits of dreams or their effects on one’s waking state, but the world around them felt dangerous, in a way that simple dreams did not. With no objections to being lifted, the graceful blond slipped his arms around Lord Charon’s neck. His legs did the same at the other dreamer’s waist, holding on quickly and instinctively.
HE CAN PROTECT US HERE. YOU FEEL IT TOO.
Silver eyes watched the rapid flutter of gossamer wings. Lord Charon turned and took him through the door, the mirror, the gateway to whatever the dreamscape’s creator had imagined it to be, and an audible gasp escaped his mouth. It was the first sound to reach his ears since the muting of the room, along with the beating of insectoid wings and the catch of his companion’s breath. Lars did not look down; he did not want to see whatever laid beneath them, but infinitely more frightening was the notion that nothing did.
YOU FEEL SAFE WITH HIM. YOU WANT TO STAY CLOSE TO HIM.
“Dreamer first,” easily agreed the older blond, his soft voice scattered through the syllables. He was afraid, but he could not help but trust Lord Charon’s judgement. Lars held close to his guide as they held above the impossible drop, his fears somewhat calmed by the arms around his waist and the clear, instructing voice. Even if Lord Charon was not sure of what to do, his deep tone served to reassure the nervous dreamer. To let the dream play out meant surrendering themselves to the whims of someone else’s imagination… but Lars was no stranger to that.
STAY WITH HIM
They fell. Another gasp caught in his throat like a sharp and sudden blade. With his head leaned in close to Lord Charon, he ignored the fluctuations of his rapid beating heart, the jumps and stutters of panicked weightlessness. It took everything within his power not to keep his eyes open, to watch the dream around them blur with the quickness of their falling forms, but they fluttered shut with a soft, slow sigh...
NOW OPEN YOUR EYES. HE’S THERE.
...and when he opened his eyes again, he was greeted with the sight of an expansive, shadowed garden beneath the balcony. Lars was still, not daring even to move his head while his starry gaze overlooked the estate’s grounds.

“Keep your eyes open, Lars.”

He turned his head, and only then did he notice the touch of their hands. One gloved in the finest black silk, the other in delicate lace. Long fingers curled slightly in Lord Charon’s hold, and then tapped in familiar rhythm against his hand. Lars glanced over himself then, in expectation for the scarlet stains to have been cleansed from his dress – but rather than the intricate designs of a dark lace gown, he found himself clothed in a maid’s uniform, and the color quickly fled from his face.

“Uh–” Lars bowed his head, “right. The dreamer.”

There was no time to worry about what he wore. What role the dream had placed him in. What the unknown dreamer had thought suitable for him. Lars tried to swallow the lump in his throat, but it was dry, and awkward, and he only succeeded in letting a look of discomfort paint his delicate features. High cheekbones dusted with the faintest of pink hues, he held a little tighter to Lord Charon’s hand, his fingers unmoving within his grip. As his guide brought them into the room, Lars walked ever so slightly behind, as if uncertain about whether or not he was meant to be seen. He did not raise his paled silver gaze to look around the cramped lounge.

"We were wondering if you had slipped away with Lady Adina..." greeted Lord Heber. "She hasn't come back either."

Lady Adina. He had heard that name too, in his own corner of the dream. Without making eye contact with any of lounging nobles, Lars tried to survey the room, but it felt so… crowded. It felt small, as if the walls were pressing in on them again, but none of the lords or ladies seemed to notice or care, and in fact, the walls did not appear to move. His dark brows furrowed slightly at this, and he hesitantly looked to Lord Charon, as if looking for confirmation that there was indeed something off about the room.

“Do come rejoin us,” insisted one of the ladies. “Don’t you leave us again. No wonder you haven’t been able to sell this estate yet.”
this is wrong, this is all so wrong
“Think you’ve had enough to drink, my dear Emma…”
we aren’t meant to touch the lord’s hand
Lars bowed his head again; the colorless waves of his hair fell over his forehead and almost hid his downcast eyes from view while he listened to the nobles bicker amongst themselves. It felt like everyone was staring but he knew that they weren’t, they couldn’t be. They were not even real. He reminded himself of that fact and–

– a scream cut off Lord Heber’s voice. Eyes wide, the pale blond lifted his head and watched as a few of the lords and ladies rose to their feet. Their voices hardly filtered through the dreamer’s thoughts, until a younger lord passed by. The man looked to Lord Charon and asked, “Coming?”

Unwilling to speak, but clearly not unwilling to leave the cramped room, Lars stepped forward to follow after the young lord. Holding still to the other blond's hand, he stepped into... a corridor of sorts, with stone floors and cobbled brick walls that felt just as crowded and cramped as the lounge before.

[Llyr Llywelyn]

A Dremeaescape, Emea: 3 Ydimen, Arc 720.

The dream played like before. Llyr ignored the walls and how the dimensions created an impossibly cramped space yet remained still. Emea was the realm of the impossible, and there were certain things that made Llyr grateful that they could even make sense of what was around them.

He kept held of Lars' hand. He'd felt the tapped rhythm, but he did not fault the inexperienced dreamer for such nervous behavior. How could he? The dreamscape was likely the first that Lars had visited, and it was a fairly mind-bending nightmare by comparison of so many ordinary and mundane dreams out there. Not the worst that the mortalborn had encountered on his own, but there was still much unexplored and thus undiscovered with the dream so he didn't assume they had encountered the dream in its entirety.

The tapping of fingers stopped soon enough, instead changing to a tight hold anyway. He noticed the hesitant look and met it with a small nod of assurance, for whatever it was that Lars required assurance for.
calm, don't let go
Llyr glanced between the paintings on the walls rather than the chattering nobles. He interwove his fingers with Lars' fingers, for a firmer hold on his hand.
there is no such thing as right or wrong, not here
The scream cut through the little scene playing out among the constructs. When requested by a construct, he nodded and followed while they stepped through the walls. He led Lars while they entered the corridor.

Red light bounced off the cold stone walls, while the construct led them down in the direction of the scream.

This time, he kept close to the construct rather than letting him walk too far ahead. At least until he noticed a flicker of light from between some of the stones. He paused, and stared at the seam, then looked at Lars and asked in a neutral tone of his deep voice, "Are you scared?"
no need to be frightened, I am here with you
With eyes of crystal blue, he surveyed the feminine servant attire and the pale blond wrapped in the cheaper fabrics. He paused to await an answer. Regardless of whatever it was, he led them in their walk again after the construct-lord that held the lantern.

In a step, though -

- a simple step like any other step -

- the corridor extended so rapidly that time proved indiscernible. The construct was ahead of them, in the darkness, and the lantern light flickered out. Llyr's grip on Lars' hand tightened. His wings fluttered and halo flickered.

The wrench of a shout echoed, followed by...

- "Hold on," warned Llyr. He pulled Lars close, lithe arm wrapped around the slender waist when he lifted the effeminate man up again. The tall biqaj's wings went into a frenzy of flight and he darted forward through the corridor. Shadows screamed past them, as if in fury that the intruders forced past the dream's boundaries. A few hands lifted from the darkness to try and grab onto them, but Llyr dodged the grasps. It required him to twirl, and spin, while they horizontally flew in the direction of -

...the crunch of bones and...

- a vine-like appendage snapped out from the shadows, extended longer than the humanoid arms and hands, and Llyr careened into an uncontrolled spin to avoid it. His wings acted independently of each other in desperation to reclaim the momentum. He managed enough to turn just as they reached the stone wall. Protective, he embraced around Lars shoulders and his gloved hands covered the nape of the neck. Llyr's back slammed into the cold, hard wall. One of his wings crumpled into a crinkled mess of gossamer.

Llyr didn't gasp or shout from the powerful impact, though. He didn't wince. A flash of annoyance showed on his ethereal features. They slid down to the floor, and he quickly grabbed onto Lars' elbows to help the other to stand with him. -

...a wailed sob for help. In front of them. The darkness vanished from the red light that fanned out from the fallen lantern. The young lord crawled toward them, body partially torn apart at the torso yet still alive due to the logic of a dream. Blood streaked wide in a long trail from his path, that led to... a twisted shape of a figure that had more fanged teeth than recognizable humanoid traits. It appeared to be eyeless. Spindly appendages scooped the trail of the lord to scarf down the red mess.

"...Merda," whispered Llyr while he moved Lars to stand behind him, though he kept at least a touch on the other man at all times. His fingers traced down for their hands to join again.
That's impossible, though.
"Do you know who I am?" asked Llyr to the nightmarish creature, tone stern.

The eyeless monster contorted in a way that might have been a backflip, if there was any directional sense to be made from the figure (which there wasn't). It scuttled forward and reached into the construct-lord to continue its feast.

Llyr took a few steps closer. His wings tried to flutter, but the crushed one hung limp. He spoke in a quiet, almost gentle voice, "Have you ever had the pleasure of seeing yourself?"

That got the creature's attention, as its many mouths paused from its devouring. Slanted smiles of pointed bloodied teeth and long tongues slipped between some to lick at the air.

"You already know, don't you?" returned Llyr while he observed this. "You know how beautiful you are."

Llyr knew then. He smiled, a thin affair but sincere, while the creature made bizarre noises that squelched and hissed. He glanced at Lars once, then turned his attention back to the monster and said, "I can lead you there, to the rest of them. Follow the song."

He turned around, with another glance at Lars. His grasp on the other's hand tightened, then he led them back into the darkness while he started to hum. The humming turned to singing, of a voice that was not anything like the biqaj's. For it was a woman's voice, and melodic, and quite lovely as it echoed off the stone walls while they retraced their path back to where they'd come from.

[Lars]

A DRE∀MSCAPE(?), EMEA
3RD OF YMIDEN, ARC 720

Are y_ou
Are ^you s
Are you sc
Are you sca
Are you scar
Are you scare
Are you scared
Are you scared ?

No. No, he thought as he stared up at the taller dreamer, he was not scared, but he should have been. Everything in past experience told him he should panic. But the gloved hand that held his own, fingers entwined, said not to worry. So Lars shook his head, hair tinted pink in the lantern glow.

“No. Not anymore.”

His cheeks were colored rose under the lord’s examination; his shoulders lifted slightly as if he sought to hide himself away. For all the confidence he had worn in his intricate designs of lace and tulle, he felt bare in the servant’s attire. More so than he might have felt if the dream had simply stripped him of everything. Lord Charon was not meant to see him like this. It was but a projection, just another outfit for just another dream, but in spite of the feminine cuts and tall white socks and garters and why couldn’t he have worn this every day instead, back then? At least it was prettier than those plain blue shirts – the silver-eyed blond could not wait to get out of it, to stop ruining the other man’s view of him.

There was a light flutter in his chest with his next inhale. Lord Charon looked away, but the human’s gaze followed a moment after, distracted -

- and the corridor shot forward in impossible distance -

- and Lars was already grabbing onto his guide’s silken clothes before the arm ever wrapped around his shoulders. Ever quick to latch on, to cling, to pull until he could get no closer to his source of security, he was fortunate for the fact that Lord Charon did not seem to mind. It would have made things easier, still, if he had never set him down at all. Lars did as told and held onto the biqaj. He did not think that he would ever get used to the feeling of odd weightlessness that came with the flight of gossamer wings – but they had proven themselves necessary more than once already, as they escaped the grabbing, greedy hands consumed with shadow. By the time Lord Charon sent them into a spin, Lars’ eyes had squeezed shut in some attempt to block out the predatory nature of the dream –

“Nnnh!–” a short whine escaped the delicate blond as they met an abrupt stop. Lord Charon’s body was slammed back against brick and cobbled stone; Lars’ breath escaped in a sharp sigh against him. Cold fingers pulled on the silken fabric as they slid to the floor, as if pulling his winged companion closer would save them from the stone… and of course it did not, which left his restless hands scrambling for something that would. Like a man being pulled beneath the water, clawing for air, he sought stability in Lord Charon’s shoulders, his neck, wherever he could reach – until the hands upon his elbows guided him up and back into composure.

Lord Charon’s gaze was far away from him, facing forward to some unknowable t H i n G but Lars could not bear to look, not yet. It had not escaped his notice that the other dreamer’s wing had met its crumpled fate, and he did not want to worry for something that he could not get away from… but the dream would not have it. Lord Charon moved him behind, and Lars reached to grab onto the hand that wandered down, before he opened his eyes.

“Do you know who I am?”

The tall biqaj spoke to the creature. A bundled mess of mouths and limbs. The crimson stain of a construct’s blood. Lars’ eyelids fluttered and stuck and opened again, a batting of long white lashes, as he examined the bizarrely-shaped being and its many sharp-toothed smiles. His head tilted to the side while he peeked out from behind Lord Charon, pupils dark and wide amidst the starry, silver sea. The poor, poor construct of a young lord was still alive, trying so hard to pull away from its demise… and the pleasant sensations that provided were almost enough to make him forget about the rest of it. The nightmare, the uniform, the crumpled gossamer wing... but a glance from his companion grounded him again. Lars dared to smile – or rather, did not attempt to fight the involuntary curving of his lips – and the expression only brightened with the lord’s next words.
you are playing a dangerous game
Whether unafraid of the eyeless beast, or simply unconcerned with his safety, Lars followed after the other blond, back into the darkness that had trailed them all night.
BUT WE ARE PLAYING IT SO VERY WELL.
Feminine and melodic, a voice carried through the shadows of the stone corridor. Quite clearly not the deep voice he had come to know, and yet the tall biqaj commanded it all the same, as easily as he had done anything else. How curious…

Gloves of delicate lace against those of black silk, Lars interwove their fingers again as they continued down the hall. The dream was not so infinite as it had once seemed, and soon enough, they would arrive... and did his patient guide intend to let the creature be? To allow it to devour lords and ladies, one by one? The silver-eyed servant looked back over his shoulder for a glimpse of the eyeless thing, and his tapping resumed, in a somewhat calmed rhythm with the other man’s song. A change from the slow, stilted tapping of one-two-three, one-two-three… but it might have fit him just as well.