Marina Mert

Enchanted wanderer from the Valley of Dreams

[miarenmert]

Self portrait 2025

This is me, pouring in only one side of life that brings me pleasure, while the other is more vital, but all my attempts to approach it end painfully.

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Crystal Dream Throne of Olkyon – part 14

Olkyon returned to the dream world and learned that everyone had turned into pathetic mutants. The Bloodsucker maintained balance in the dream world in her own way, but now she is destroyed.

Olkyon found herself in a pile of corpses of those she killed, under a bloody rain of those she tried to save. She tried to restart the dreams, to see what new era would grow out of the flesh and blood of the last.

She began to collect parts of the old world to build something better on them, but the scientists who went with her were devoured by unknown monsters that came from the swamps, which soon filled the entire space. Olkyon took refuge in a tower with a family of wizards.

Olkyon watched from the tower as the world around her went wild, the father of the family was taken by giant insects, and a cocoon was hung in front of the window. Olkyon had hope that he could be saved, but days passed, and the cocoon was out of reach. Finally, he broke out as a horrible insect man.

Olkyon sped up the revival of the world and found a simulation of anything in the center of the planet. They could create any life, even make people in the image of fleas on sheep's wool. It was all decorations for the same routine life, where you had to work in an office.

Olkyon was interested in other worlds, like the one made of crystals and corals, and this attracted its inhabitants. One gentleman pushed her to operate in another country, but she refused. Seeing other victims of the operation and unchanged leaders, Olkyon realized that it was a deception.

Olkyon then entered a world where everyone can be a vampire and live in a luxurious mansion. But behind the romantic princesses and witches were mutants and corpses sacrificed for the eternal life of these vampires. Olkyon killed those who could only prosper in this way, no matter how cute they were.

Then she visited the mansion of the pirate queen. A captain, a regular guest, would come to her palace and fill her pool with mollusks that died immediately after breeding. He was considered noble, but he molested a girl, and his ship was full of captive women, so Olkyon made him ask the queen for the most painful death.

One museum owner used women as faceless exhibits, but he admired a masked serial killer. Olkyon arranged for them to meet, from which he would not leave alive.

After all, Olkyon saw where the deities from the temple who allowed all this to grow had led her. She was grateful for what they gave her, but now it was time to leave them in the past.

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Happy International Women's Day

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Crystal dream throne of Olkyon – part 13

Finally, Olkyon realized that the time had come for her to plunge into the darkness and fight the Bloodsucker. The Bloodsucker covered her tracks with precious turtles and lion cubs that walked in rows in the labyrinth.

In one of the caves, Olkyon found a girl who considered giant insects her parents and didn’t want to leave because of this. Olkyon killed the giant insects in the dump, wanting to free the girl. But she had to dance the enemy dance with her.

In the halls where they’ve been fighting the undead for years, there was a black ghost, surprisingly persistent and slow. Olkyon stopped being afraid of the ghost, deciding that this presence could be gotten used to, but then the ghost changed tactics and threw Olkyon to a completely different place.

In the cat temple where people disappeared, there was a white ghost, frantically jumping around the halls. In that place, memory disappeared, and desire appeared. But did the missing people come for this and did they get what they wanted?

In the gym, the coach set a condition that when the bars moved out, anyone not on the bench would be tortured. When the benches were regularly occupied, he began to invent privileges for masochists. The nun closed Olkyon's eyes while she was torn between curiosity and unwillingness to see it.

When a game was opened in the shop where dismemberment was supposed to be for losing, Olkyon turned it against the administrator by endlessly repeating the beginning. She tormented his every form until he lost hope of winning back. But wasn’t it more harmful to her?

In the ancient city, Olkyon found a book about creatures that could change bodies as they pleased, but the further she went, the more unbearable it was to read this book. The scientist finished reading the fourth part, where the secret of turning into this creature was revealed, and died while trying to transform. Then Olkyon visited the city under the dome that protected from these creatures, who lacked the whole world outside.

Finally, she found the Bloodsucker on the edge of these dark worlds. And killed her. But dying, the Bloodsucker opened Olkyon’s eyes to her past exploits. Olkyon destroyed everyone who changed her world for the better, because their appearances were distorted by crystal glasses. And the Bloodsucker was the very witch that Olkyon wanted to save.

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Crystal Dream Throne of Olkyon – part 12

After defeating the two protectors of worldly vices, Olkyon faced those who stood behind them. The third was the Blackbooker, who molded worlds to her wild thoughts and holy texts.

In her story, Olkyon was a cursed princess in love with a forest nymph. Her lineage was destined to end because she was unable to love a man. However, she learned that the nymph was the progenitor of every generation of her cursed line. When the nymph became a man, Olkyon's heart was broken. Then she killed the male version of herself, ending the cursed line forever.

On the island of fairies, there was an unknown disease that was spread by mad scientists from the castle. Olkyon had to return the souls of the stone angels to deprive the scientists of power.

In the forge of heaven and hell, Olkyon had to choose between an angelic staff or a demonic sword. She chose incorrectly, and was about to fall into the cauldron. However, she used the sword against an angel, the staff against a demon, and realized that the right choice was none.

In the end, Olkyon banished the Blackbooker with her desire to idealize and distort worlds.

The fourth was the Torchbearer, who hated civilization and everything unnatural and wanted to set the worlds on fire.

Olkyon hid in caves with the dwarves who were looking for their king. They saw an endless army of undead and a dragon from under the ice. They were looking for the missing king to kill him.

Olkyon was an inventor in a small workshop. Alien Queen with a cursed heart fell in love with her and took her as a pet on her spaceship. Olkyon could not love her like that and wanted to escape. With the help of her family, she escaped from the ship. The queen chased after her, but with the help of her grandmother's ritual, Olkyon broke the queen’s legs. Now she could continue to live a quiet life in her workshop.

At the orphanage, everyone began turning into helpless amorphous creatures, so Olkyon and the others went beneath the orphanage to find the cause. There were traps, lava flows, and a sorcerer fueled by the power of the dwarves.

In the end, Olkyon stopped the Torchbearer and her boundless hatred for everything she could not appreciate.

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Crystal Dream Throne of Olkyon – part 11

Olkyon saw that powerful entities were concentrating nightmares around themselves and entered into battle with them. The first was the Contrarian, who strove for the primordial nature, but was too dependent on the benefits of civilization. Olkyon found her school, where the teachers summoned a demonic serpent for the war of the worlds, and the children began to glorify their dead. Olkyon found a fairy in a book that could control the minds of students, keeping them from warlike intentions. But the effect was short-lived and soon forces were sent for her.

Another dream close to the center returned Olkyon to an empty school, where on the table was a statue of the purest being and the stamp of the dwarf. The stamp could grant wishes, but all of them turned to the worst and inevitably led to the destruction of the school. Having returned time once again, Olkyon took the purest being out of that cursed place and saw in the courtyard that same dwarf and the spirit of nature.

The last dream led her to a cave where the scientist was experimenting with robots to create invulnerability, abusing the forces of nature, and the warrior defended her cave with golems, convinced that life was a chain of traps.

In the end, Olkyon defeated the Contrarian with her painfully imperfect world, in which she could never find what she loved.

The second was the Devourer, who drained everyone's time and magic, wanting to endlessly increase her power and get rid of all vulnerability.

The first dream led Olkyon to teenagers who accidentally found a secret space organization and became spies for fun, but the missions quickly consumed their normal lives, making them accustomed to destroying the culture and killing innocent creatures that were valuable to their enemies.

The second dream made her a visitor to the theater, where she was asked to replace the royal granddaughter, but was drawn into a mysterious scheme, as a result of which Olkyon never found out who she helped and why.

In the third dream, Olkyon came to an ancient temple to steal an artifact from bandits, although she was captured, for some reason she was left alone, and then she discovered a creepy doll that turned the whole world into a desert of bones, on the other end of which there was only one museum, where the doll was placed as in a tomb.

In the end, Olkyone overthrew the Devourer, along with the meager world from which she had unwittingly suffered and from which she had taken all the good that was still remained.

[miarenmert]

Self portraits 2024

When darkness fades Let the dreamworld end

(Offended – Dreamworld)

This year I was able to understand so much more of what was angering me and find inspiration in what I had been missing all this time.

Bracing myself to say goodbye To pack my bags, run out of sight All of a sudden I realize it's all lies That's my mind playing tricks on me  (Moonlight Haze – The Dangerous Art Of Overthinking)

Also this year the internet brought me the greatest anxiety and suffering from isolation, but in the end it also helped me find accepting people and the hope I thought I had lost.

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Crystal Dream Throne of Olkyon – part 10

Olkyon wasn't ready to die. When she saw her head slip from the hands of the Death Goddess, she caught it in mid-air and returned it to its place. Her world was shattered, but she saw another world behind it, and she made glasses from the shards so that she could always see only that world.

Olkyon saw two moons in the sky, the light moon always shining in the sky, and the dark moon appearing and disappearing. When the dark moon appeared in the sky, chaos reigned, but one day the moons aligned, and that night a statuette with an infinitely black shadow appeared. It attracted evil to the places where it appeared, even under the moon of order, and could move on its own when no one was looking.

Olkyon walked through the temple of knowledge to solve puzzles and receive gifts from the god of madness, whom she hated, made from those she felt sorry for. But now a wise girl came to her who knew all the ways. With her, Olkyon easily reached the room where the deity sat decrepit and powerless. Olkyon took nothing this time, but the deity was not helpless after all. Olkyon didn’t find the way back and found herself in an unstable space.

An old man led her out of the unpredictably changing corridors, into a desert where he could drink sand. He promised Olkyon eternal power if she didn’t let her sister kill her mother. The sister came at different ages, she always reached for the clock that shouldn’t be broken. The old man ordered to cut off her hands in order to gain power over time. But looking at the aged wizard, Olkyon realized that eternity was a lie, since he couldn’t get it for himself. She regretfully turned back time and gave power to her sister.

She wanted to get far away, to a suffering kingdom ruled by a sickly prince who had an unhealthy relationship with his mother. He brought a prosperous kingdom to the brink of extinction, but he himself was barely hanging on to the brink of demise. When he saw the cursed statue, he threw himself from the tower.

The empress who took his place was obsessed with beauty, secretly suffering from her own imperfections and hiding them behind the most extreme beauty practices. Just beneath her throne was an abyss of flesh, all the vile things that the empress tried to oppose herself to, and there Olkyon learned that court attire is armor.

Behind the stations of the amusement park train was an invisible industrial system that everything worked on. Unlucky visitors to the rides fell into traps, from which, if they didn’t escape, they became fuel. However, the slaves of the internal mechanisms worked to improve themselves and turn the system to their advantage. There Olkyon turned a souvenir pendant into a sword.

In the temple of ancient technology, there was a puzzle made of stone blocks that moved out in sections, so explorers could climb up to the very top. However, each part of the puzzle summoned demons, and Olkyon wanted to fight them all. One adventurer went the other way. He climbed onto the ceiling and jumped straight to the central part of the puzzle, opening a portal to a paradise island. Olkyon followed him to watch him meet the main demon that lived there.

But the paradise island was an illusion, and there only a desert awaited her, with visions so abysmal that Olkyon's crystal glasses were not enough to protect her from them. She turned them into a shield.

After walking through the desert, she found the last temple, where she recognized all the deities she had met along the way. They were a painful hope, but hope nonetheless. So Olkyon accepted the mission to free them.

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Crystal Dream Throne of Olkyon – part 9

In search of the keys, Olkyon went to the gate of the past, which required the key to the theater of masks. She played a game where only one side always wins, and she lost the point. She had to look for herself again in many reflections. And the theater of masks turned out to be the royal palace.

One sickly boy wanted an elephant and thought that he couldn’t live without it. One day his wish came true. The elephant destroyed his house, and the family went on a journey on the elephant. The boy's sister was still miserable, and Olkyon gave her magic glasses to see the world in a better light. But she herself saw a glimpse of what she was missing. Lady Land. Two lovers temporarily became their guides, but due to the children's deteriorating health, the family had to turn back and go to the hospital instead.

Since then, Olkyon has tried to find Lady Land again, but to no avail. She joined an expedition searching for the treasures of an ancient civilization. To prevent others from claiming the treasure, they pretended to be the descendants of ancient people. However, an explorer came, interested in the people themselves. In the end, he wanted to stay with them, but they could not explain to him that their findings were more dangerous than expected.

Olkyon found isolated housing on the island. There was a real woman of the ancient civilization there, and she kept a museum of ancient cinema and photography. Olkyon wanted to show it to her friends, but under their touches all the expositions disappeared. The owner of the museum made the uninvited guests disappear in a flash, but she liked Olkyon and didn’t want to let her go.

Olkyon became the maid of the best sorceress at the magic academy. She was tasked with bringing the blood of one of the students. A student from the library invited her to play decoding runes, but was disappointed in her knowledge, and Olkyon didn’t dare to attack her. She filled a pipette with the blood of a random student in the corridor, but then saw an experiment on turning people into fuel, and decided to stop her mistress. She pierced herself with a pipette and became a monster capable of defeating the sorceress who commands the spirits of the dead.

Olkyon became the favorite of the headmistress, who had a penchant for authoritarianism. But she protected her from prosecution for her past abuses of power. One winter, the headmistress caught students after a medical examination and forced them to attack the bases of the unwanted ones, but someone sent planes to her base. Olkyon realized that she would be one against all and ran down the slope, pursued by the ice giant. She summoned a purple fire in his path. The fire that will never go out. But it also cut her way back.

And Olkyon ran across the field from the lion pursuing her. She came across a transparent dream wall and walked through it. Behind it were lost children who couldn’t get back, but behind the wall they could play and have fun forever. Then it turned out that the children were not alone. A mysterious caretaker looked after them.

Olkyon has already spent too much time on the island. She was hiding from the pirate captain in a shipwreck, trying to figure out how to fix it. The children brought her feathers so that Olkyon could distract the captain with beautiful new outfits so that she wouldn’t touch her. The sea threw up the heads of the captain’s victims, and one day another captain showed up. Then Olkyon decided to take over her ship with the children and finally sail away from the island.

Olkyon found herself on another island where marine culture was worshipped. She was invited to a festival where she went through many ceremonies before it turned out that they were preparing her for a gladiatorial battle with a serpent man who had already defeated the sea monster. The Queen mournfully threw herself on the edge of the balcony, because she foresaw the sunset of Lady Land. The end of matriarchy.

Olkyon saw the faces of Lady Land, poisoned by the need to fight against the whole world, and realized that the splendor she sought was too distant in the past. Following the remaining tracks, she began her ascension. And she was ready to join lost souls if that was the only way to be with them.

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Crystal Dream Throne of Olkyon – part 8

After Olkyon returned to where she studied, she realized that she hadn’t completely recovered. Everyone looked at her strangely and cautiously said that she was too thin and her neck was too long. Olkyon saw herself the same as always. She didn't understand what the others were talking about. It was as if she had taken a bath contaminated by radiation, hoping to look the way everyone perceived her...

Olkyon knew that there were two staircases in her orphanage. She thought that it didn’t matter which way to walk. She spent the time before class in her room and then returned. Everyone screamed and ran away at the sight of her. She came back again through another staircase and everything was fine. Then a partition was built between the stairs, which had to be bypassed far through the basement. From there, Olkyon saw herself from the outside, and realized that one of the stairs was turning her into a zombie.

The orphanage mistress always considered Olkyon special and allowed her what she didn’t allow others. The others were jealous of her, but since only Olkyon could communicate with anyone, over time she found friends who not only wanted to take advantage of her privileges. Gradually the orphanage became limited. Doors and passages to other rooms disappeared, but for Olkyon everyone pretended that nothing was happening. She began to find hidden passages by touch and tried to save the other girls. She failed before the mistress organized a bride fair. Then Olkyon rushed to the computer lab and began to try different sounds that would bring everyone out of their trance. In the end, words from a children's book worked.

And so the students set off with eyes full of hope for the last stage of their studies. To an ancient temple in the mountains at the end of the world. One of them finished the program much faster and he disappeared. The priestess said that he had passed beyond this stage. But Olkyon knew that this was the last stage. She didn't have time to stop the others when they were killed after passing through the gate. Olkyon couldn’t live with this, so she also took the risk of moving to the next level.

Olkyon found herself in an abandoned laboratory with an amputated arm. She walked through the lab, lamenting the fact that her dominant hand was missing, but it couldn't be changed. In the last room there was a music box full of blood playing and undead beings chained to the walls. When Olkyon closed the music box, the undead turned into dolls, and her hand grew attached.

Hearing footsteps, Olkyon hid in the closet. From there she saw the scientist commanding the mutants. The girl, who was also hiding in the closet, gave her an invisible hat and they ran away. But the one whom the girl called the Bloodsucker followed them and found by scattered beads on the ground. The Bloodsucker was invincible thanks to the crack with runes. But this can be changed if four keys were collected. Olkyon found two keys alone, but when she met the mysterious girl again, she took the keys from her and disappeared.

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Crystal Dream Throne of Olkyon – part 7

Olkyon decided to deal with the dark past that she had forgotten about through dreams that strongly reminded her of something.

The black cat's apartment - that's what everyone called the apartment, below the one where she lived. She didn’t know who lived there, but the apartment was considered abandoned. It got the name because of the emblem with a cat's head on the door. One day, when Olkyon and her friend walked past, the door was ajar, and she pretended to drop the camera there. Now she had to go in to get it back. Inside, everything turned out to be much more mysterious, and at the window stood a boy, made of stone, but with real hair and in real clothes.

Olkyon remembered one boy from her childhood. He was always sad and tired, but he always played with everyone. She saw him when she got older, but he hasn't grown at all, and still played with other children. Then she forgot about him and became a scientist in a secret organization. One day she was involved in the dissection of an alien, and it turned out to be that same boy. Still unchanged, but now it was clear to her why he was sad and where he got his scars from. She did her job and quit. However, at home, while she was celebrating her family reunion, the same boy showed up on the doorstep.

At another time, Olkyon was in the hospital reading a book about how adventurers crashed a hot air balloon and ended up in a hospital where they were experimented on, preventing them from recovering. Olkyon realized that she had been in the same hospital, but she was really ill, and she felt that she was getting better. One day, patients from a nearby ward conspired and planted seeds in the structure, from which giant stems burst out, destroying the building and killing all the doctors. The last survived head doctor mourned her life's work, the achievements she had lost, and Olkyon could not help but sympathize with her.

One day, a guy came to where Olkyon studied and was introduced as a celebrity. Although he was famous only for being Tom, who lived in a house with a sign that said “Tom and his friends live here,” the next one added “Who quarreled and left.” The third sign read, “No one lives in this house now.” He said that he was being pursued by monsters that didn’t cause harm, but created great inconvenience. Because of them, all his friends disappeared. He wanted Olkyon to find out what the problem was, and together they returned to his house, where he dug up a crystal in the garden that summoned monsters. However, he did not know that Olkyon was the one who planted the crystal, because he was one of those who destroyed the hospital.

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Crystal Dream Throne of Olkyon – part 6

Olkyon fled from a cruel world where her life was in constant danger to another. She found herself in a school where her problems were unknown to anyone. All that occupied their minds was the confrontation between the two girls. One was against relationships and believed that it was better not to date at school. Another girl kept falling in love, but could never stay with anyone because she fell in love with others. The warriors chasing Olkyon found the passage to this dimension, and came to bring their war here too, so Olkyon had to take them to the next dimension, the magical one, where she turned them into insects.

Olkyon made another attempt to stay in the prosperous world, but her views were not accepted there. She joined a role-playing club where one girl tried to get to know her, but changed her mind after learning that Olkyon was much older. Olkyon tried to join the others, but in the end she was only entrusted with taking the shield to the ice cave. She went to explore the club dungeon by herself, and learned that the largest cave led to a boss fight, where most of the players were going. She hadn’t intended to go there, but she followed the hidden passage surrounding the cave and found herself in the kitchen, where captive slaves were preparing bloody food for the creatures who were the owners of this club.

Olkyon then joined a performing group that presented the story of the merfolk. The Sea King brought his beloved a golden comb, and she cut her throat with the sharp end, and scattered into many seahorses. In another version, he, on the advice of a catfish, tried to give her a crown, but did not know that it would turn her into a golden statue. The mermaid knew this, and before he placed the crown on her head, she pierced her heart with a shell, turning into golden sand. In another version, her scales turned into water lilies. Olkyon could not find a single version where everything would end well for the mermaid.

She left and joined the bikers who were traveling through the lands of the ancient people. There she met a woman whose sisters wanted to sacrifice her to the serpent of the pyramid. Olkyon killed the serpent, but that woman still decided to die in flames for the sake of prosperity. Olkyon couldn’t stand to see her humble smile. She went back in time and decided to kill the serpent before the ritual was announced. She began to be chased by those who saw the serpent as a deity, but Olkyon killed them all. She didn't want to go back because she was afraid that that woman might decide to die again, or that she was dooming her to rebuild the population.

Olkyon renounced her crown. She had no place in any of the worlds. She couldn't live in a peaceful place because she didn't fit into society. She couldn't live in the legendary era because women there always suffered and she couldn't do anything to stop it.

But all these were dreams of people who slept in crystals. They went to sleep with memories of a worse life than they had, and they can bring it to the new world when they wake up. Olkyon began to create her own happy stories to replace the outdated scenarios, but they all burst like bubbles, because she couldn’t know whether they reached the sleeping ones.

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Crystal Dream Throne of Olkyon – part 5

Here Olkyon tries to put the destroyed world in order that she never truly knew.

Through dreams, Olkyon returned to her captured homeland to finally drive out the vampires. Olkyon wanted to destroy all the ghouls on the street ruins, but when there were too many of them on the radar, she had to wait for reinforcements from space. Her goal was to destroy the vampire king. He pretended to be a fairy king who wanted to restore nature. But only to further exploit what they had already lost once.

After the death of the vampire king, Olkyon took the planet throne, where all eras were mixed, and the cosmic face took an angel form. Now she was deciding the fate of the ogre, who could become the heir, being the chosen one of the sleeping queen. He was a good ogre, but after the vampires, Olkyon could not give up the throne to him. The crocodile played with the kittens, but it was unknown whether he would attack them the next moment. As a result, Olkyon provided the ogre with goods and kittens for company, choosing a prison cell for him.

A meteorite fell on the Skull Fortress and froze it. Olkyon had to move to the abandoned fortress on the other side. The jungle was filled with unseen creatures, like the fiery undead, the fox troll and the silver giant. Olkyon was able to reach the Skull Fortress again, but the gates were locked, and she realized that she had not yet finished her work. And she fought with the monsters that were born from the imagination of the sleeping ones.

Behind the gates, Olkyon became just an actress, a student escaping from a closed academy into a magical forest. She was picking oranges when she was caught and returned to the academy walls. From her room, she heard the other girls getting ready to fight the harpy. Olkyon wanted to join, but she was left to do it alone. The harpy broke through the garden wall, and Olkyon had only the key as a weapon. However, hitting the crest, she sent the harpy falling. The harpy fell into a wooden box, turning out to be a mad scientist, who then was taken to the clinic.

Olkyon fled to the magical forest. Through a tree trunk she entered the caves of the gnomes, and then spent the night in the blacksmith's house. There were children there who wanted to look at the ghost of that blacksmith. When Olkyon woke up at night, she saw the owner of the house, so scary that she rushed into the forest. But in the forest, on one side, a waterfall with creepy bunny creatures awaited her, and on the other, shapeshifter trees.

Olkyon went to the well of healing, where young people were having fun cutting each other. Their legs always grew back, so they became more and more reckless, until one of them had no bones left to which legs could be attached. Nearby lay a dragon that the huntress had killed. She said that this wall fed the egg of ancient evil, which Olkyon came to destroy. She walked past the gnomes and giant insects worshiping the egg, and broke it without wasting time.

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Crystal Dream Throne of Olkyon – part 4

Olkyon sought solace by becoming a hero in other people's dreams.

A suspicious person asked her to go under the garages. Olkyon knew that in the old world she had to be afraid of such situations, but now she was in no danger. She agreed, and the man ran forward. She found him dead in a strange place that looked like the creepy senior annex at her school. When she reached high school, the annex disappeared. It turned out that they buried it because terrible things happened there, like murder with knitting needles, sneaking in poisonous snakes and wild dogs luring.

At the bazaar during the lunar festival, Olkyon bought spices and traditional clothes. Suddenly everything became foggy and the merchants turned into rabbits. She fought a giant bull with a sword and a handkerchief soaked in spices. However, as soon as she strangled the bull with a handkerchief, it turned into a man. And everyone else turned into people condemning violence.

In another place, at another time, she was an heiress who had to arrange a test for the suitors in a high tower. When the tower was attacked by a serpent, all the suitors fled. This wasn’t part of the test. But the polyanitsas came. Female warriors: one with a braid lashing the eyes of a serpent, the other with a club crushing the spine. Olkyon took the sword and shield from them and became the third Polyanitsa.

She didn’t want to part with her fighting sisters. One was sweet and awkward, the other was proud and stern. They jumped on the crystal pillars above the waterfall and saw the enemy's face in the sky. Returning to the castle, Olkyon recognized him in her stepfather, who was going to marry her to his dark friend. She escaped them unnoticed. After all, she was never noticed when she wasn’t needed.

She became the servant of a young princess who played with other princesses, pretending to be the queens of the past. They discussed history books and argued which queens of the past were lesbians. One had a husband, but her lovers were only women, and the princesses argued whether this was an ascribed rumor. Olkyon said that books are not edited like their magazines, then her princess' friend gagged her and the princess laughed. Olkyon hid in the attic and lost herself in translating the tale of the maiden who gave up her voice and failed to save the heart of her love. The next morning the princess didn’t remember why Olkyon was angry with her. Olkyon gave her the translation, saying it might help her understand.

Olkyon returned to the kingdom from which she had escaped and now was preparing for her coronation. She didn't have to get married. The prince received the crown, she received the sword. While she was waiting on the balcony, someone wanted to steal the sword under the floor. She went down and found the servant boy and his father, who promised to keep the sword for her. In the dungeons, she discovered body parts, one boy still alive. He was not the same one, but asked: “Are we just dolls with interchangeable parts for you?” With his help, Olkyon found the vampire that was lurking in the castle. The bullets didn’t hit him. He was about to shoot her, but Olkyon could slow down time by touching the nerve at the back of her head. She run away and returned with the true sword to kill him.

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The Ballads of Nocturnal Fairies (pt.4)

“Lady of the Ruins”

The rustle of leaves faded.

The white silhouette flashed.

In the ruins of overgrown houses

From the roof the girl jumped.

She wasn't under the rubble,

Her laughter rose higher.

She had the special power,

And waved from another roof.

The house hasn't collapsed yet

For a long time I ran to her.

Climbing on bent scaffolding,

But I didn't find her there.

Sitting on the crumbling balcony

I was holding on to the thin trees.

In the next earthquake

I saw her face again.

She jumped over buildings,

Effortlessly and nimbly,

Out of sight in the greenery,

While I was looking for her.

May the lady of ruin be treacherous,

But she loved playing with me.

I believe that my last ploy

Won't leave me to die.

“Convoy across the desert”

Even before we were sent to a distant battle,

My humble village has long made me worry.

Everyone around only glorified military exploits,

And they completely forgot what wasn’t worth it.

I didn't want to go with them, but I was alone.

If they had listened to me, they wouldn't be trapped.

In unity and numbers we were given strength,

With women's wisdom we would protect each other.

There's a stop in the desert – I stepped off the train

And met a fairy who asked me to dance.

So I twirled with her in the sands by the platform.

For the last time I forgot that I would have to fight.

She bestowed on me the hypnotic frames,

Those whom I led through became peaceful.

So I turned all the soldiers into zombies,

But the real zombies they were before me.

Every day I had to bewitch them again,

Every day they came to their senses earlier.

I was ready to repeat everything endlessly,

But soon my artifact lost power over them.

I listened with anguish as they discussed the explosion,

When giant spiders got into battle on the rails.

That nothing will stop the train, they let me know.

But now I'm convinced how powerful my fairy is.

“Changeling in the nursery”

I helped in the nursery, read books to children

They cried the day the fairy queen came to them

She said she would leave her useless child with us.

A lanky, hooded fairy with darkness instead of a face.

Like a barely noticeable shadow she slid through the room,

We tried in vain to involve her in activities.

The fairy queen demanded to make this nonentity smart.

I didn't think like her, and this matter was entrusted to me.

I sat next to her knowing her real mind was invisible.

She bent over the poems, forgetting about everything.

I knew well the love for silence and solitude, but didn’t say

How wrong her mother was, so as not to scare her away

That her true life is inside, I was trying to say,

While nervous words were whispered incorrectly.

She asked if I spoke with mouth full of roses,

Quoted the unspoken words in poetry.

I wasn’t happy with the result for long, we were interrupted

By those who wanted us to write down those fair poems.

The embarrassed fairy could not repeat them again,

And I blamed myself for not remembering either.

She never appeared in our nursery again.

I wondered what the fairy queen's threat was.

Now only a shadow remains of the mysterious fairy,

I still see her in the golden stains of the moon.

“Two sorceresses”

I lived in an abandoned temple as a renegade sorceress.

I was friends with a dragon that could turn into stone.

At night we snuck into the new temple to visit a neophyte,

Whose magic I wanted to secretly devour.

In the guise of stone I merged with the stairs of dragons,

Waiting for a bronze-skinned student in the hallway.

She took me for a priestess of the highest powers,

Who I was before I was exiled from the temple.

I said I feel the succubus in her powers,

Said that I see her desire to kill.

With an ingenuous smile she objected to me,

But couldn’t refuse an invitation to drink.

I slipped her pills that reveal the true nature,

And with conversations provoked her to cast spells.

All she had to do was sneeze to dispel the magic.

She could easily turn my spells into dust.

Returning to the dragon, I spoke about my failure

And passionately assured that I would not give up.

The neophyte turned out to be an empath who didn't kill.

With this knowledge I will return to her again.

[miarenmert]

The Ballads of Nocturnal Fairies (pt.3)

[miarenmert]

Crystal Dream Throne of Olkyon – part 3

Trying to reunite with her family, Olkyon joined her grandmother and sister on the death train. It was a ride to another world, where people die in their sleep. But Olkyon couldn’t sleep and couldn’t convince the others not to sleep. She was always the only one awake. And she was rescued from the train by warriors fighting against the end of the magical world.

Her home was now overrun by vampires and their icebound servants. The people were left with a small floating fortress, made of flaming blood crystal. Ghost armor protected people from the cold, but there was not enough for everyone. One day the commander left the fortress and didn’t return. Olkyon found her key ring and went looking for her in the vampire ice castle. They couldn't freeze her, so they put her in a cage made of blood crystal. Olkyon opened it with a ring. In the middle of the courtyard there was a fountain of blood. Olkyon dropped the ring in it, and the fountain turned into the commander.

In the end, people left their home world. They fell asleep in blocks of ice to wait in their dreams for the world renewal. Olkyon had to set up the life support system herself, and she felt that she hadn’t been taught how to do it. She tried to make sense of the cramped capsule with dim lighting, but everything was hopeless. She still couldn’t sleep, even realizing that only those who sleep have a future.

All this time, Olkyon was on the crystal throne. She couldn’t fall asleep, so she stayed to look after the sleeping people. The armor that kept her alive chained her to the throne. But through the reflections in the crystals, she could travel through the worlds of other people's dreams.