#dream sequence arc

[roetrolls]

Somnia, you have a key to Nymira's room, correct? Would you mind making sure she's still in there? I think she's in a much worse place, and I want to be sure before I start panicking

"You can't tell, but I'm rolling my eyes right now. I've been outside her door all damn night. She's fine."

> He fishes a key from his pocket and turns it in the door.

"If she'd come out of her room, I would know. Look, in her bed, fast--"

[utterlyhooked]

Ahhh... I wish!

I wish that he had just hugged her, kissed her, said sorry because he thought he was going to die and he did not want her to be alone, and that he loved her, all of her, completely...

I wish.... :(

His self control though!!! For anyone, the initial reaction would just be to hug her and never let go!

[roetrolls]

(Been wanting to get this lore out here for a while. Consider it... a Dream Sequence epilogue of sorts)

Hard Truths

For all her beliefs that the House of Restoration would make for a valuable point of contact amongst her fellow witches, it has taken Finala a remarkably long time to actually set foot in the place herself. 

She never was one for the city, even after the Restorer deposed of his predecessor, and the sweeps have changed her little in that regard. Still, a call from Weaver was not something to ignore. Finala was more than happy to make the trip for her former flame, and one glimpse of the young godling was enough to answer any pressing questions she may have had.

This conversation was going to require a more delicate touch than even Weaver could provide.

Father Roatus was content to set aside a room for them when she arrived, his trust in Weaver enough to negate any concerns he may have had about her. Finala suspects he did not have many, though. The man seemed a remarkably good judge of character, and she has always liked to think herself good-natured enough.

Settled in a small workroom with the woman, Finala watches her animated companion flit about the table in hopes of earning a smile from his creator. She gives him one freely, and the witch suspects this is a currency she is not reluctant to dispense.

“Lady Dreamcatcher,” Finala begins, twinkling voice pulling the goddess’ attention from her familiar. “May I call you Nymira?”

Nymira nods eagerly, folding her hands in her lap.

“I am told you are divine.” 

“Yes,” she answers slowly, the burden of her role seeming quite heavy on such delicate shoulders. “I am… the bridge between worlds.”

Finala smiles warmly at her, though the edges twinge with sympathy. “Truer than you realize, starlight.”

Nymira hesitates, uneasy to be spoken to in riddles after such a lifetime of deception. The older woman extends her hands across the table, eyes kind enough to smooth her discomfort, and the goddess places her fingers in Finala’s.

“I am a witch, Nymira. There are many places one can draw power from, but I prefer the stars. It is a magic that finds its strength in belief. I draw on constellations, clusters of energy that hold no meaning apart from those we give them. But when enough eyes turn to heaven and see a bear amidst the sky…”

She withdraws one hand to twirl it through the space between them, fingers plucking out some invisible melody. Slowly, a vision begins to manifest, an ethereal, star-studded paw condensing itself into shape around her palm. She flexes her fingers, moving each claw, then tosses her hand as if to wave the thing away and dispels the image she has conjured.

“Belief can be made manifest.”

Large black eyes bore into hers, so full of delicate hope and swirling uncertainty that Finala feels a pang of guilt tug at her heart. This is not an easy truth to share.

“You are not a goddess,” Finala admits, returning her grasp to Nymira’s and giving her fingers a gentle squeeze. “But you will be.” 

Once again, she peers into those shiny eyes, this time swarming with both confusion and relief, and the witch reaches for every soothing magic strand she can follow to weave into her words.

“Your… family,” she says, hesitating to use such a word on the duplicitous things that have so distressed such a gentle soul, “could not have believed you a goddess when they found you. You were not hatched one.”

As difficult as it is to speak, it is harder still to hear, Finala reminds herself. She owes it to the child to press on.

“But… They were convincing. They farmed belief. Whatever you began as, you are well on your way to ascension, my little godling. I know it does not erase the deceit. But I hope that, at least, is some solace. You are something more than mortal. Your identity remains.”

Nymira says nothing, staring at the table as she processes the claim. Her companion throws himself upon her hand, a hug as large as he can muster, and looks to Finala with worry.

Finala does not break the silence, waiting patiently for the godling to speak.

When at last she does, her voice is shaky. “I don’t… That can’t be true. What you are describing, your stars, surely our–– their congregation could not have been large enough.”

“I would be inclined to agree, truthfully. But I can see it in you, dear one. Some of us are more inclined towards matters of divinity, I am sure.”

“Then he could have… Father could have sensed this in me, surely? This does not make it… It was not all built on lies.”

“I suppose that could be possible, yes,” Finala concedes. To further dash the poor thing’s hopes would serve only as pointless cruelty. To ensure they are not left room to lie to her again, though, is a matter of safety. “But I do not know that he was ever aware of just how far you evolved. I do not know that he ever expected as much.”

Nymira blinks, struggling to stave off the inky tears now welling in her eyes. “This was not… Destiny, then. This was not my purpose.”

“I expect not.”

Once again, there is a silence, another question forming on the godling’s lips. Her voice comes out impossibly small. “Do I have a purpose?”

“I do not believe so. And that is a gift more beautiful than anything.”

[roetrolls]

Squabble

It’s Nymira’s second time bursting into her brothers’ kitchen in twice as many days, but tonight she is not here for comfort. The godling is stiff when she enters, hands wrapped so tightly around the book she carries with her that it sends tremors through her limbs.

“You stole her arm.”

Cylion looks up and furrows his brow, his face the perfect picture of innocence. 

“What?”

“Marrie’s arm. Why did you take it?”

He rises to his feet to approach her, letting his expression morph into concern. “This again? Marrie’s fine, Mira. It was a dream.”

She squares her jaw, eyes widening in indignation, and Cylion must beat back his irritation.

“Mira,” he tries again, maintaining his patience with practiced ease, “you’re confused.”

“You… You’re lying,” she accuses him with a shaking voice, the strength of the statement superseded by her own disbelief. “Why are you lying?”

“Did you just wake up? Are you feeling alright?” He reaches out to lay a hand on her forehead, but is blocked when Nymira flings open the book and turns it around to thrust the pages in his face.

M A R R I E.

The doll’s name is scrawled across the journal in thick and shaky script, the paper warped by tear stains and blood.

Cylion freezes like a deer in headlights, mouth falling open without an excuse to stand on. He needs to rectify this, now, but the only thought rattling around his head coherent enough to verbalize is…

“Where did you get that?”

The question, quiet and tense, serves only to fuel her anger.

“She gave it to me. For my pens.” Inky tears begin to well in the godling’s eyes. “You hid my pens.”

“Mira–” Cylion tries, fighting to keep his voice level. He can fix this. He just needs to think.

“Y-You lied,” she chokes again, breath becoming rapid. “You lied to me.”

The prophet’s head pulses with the feeling of phantom claws around his skull, their father’s warning suddenly feeling far more pressing.

This wouldn’t be happening if it weren’t for Favion. And now Cylion is going to be blamed for failing to clean up his messes. His entire life given to their father, to her, to this thankless fucking job, all for a puppet to be his undoing.

Were this happening to anyone else, he’d call it comical.

His sister is bordering on hysterics, shoulders shaking with stress and rage, and her gaze is almost pleading. What she wouldn’t give to be wrong right now.

“You’re a liar.”

His eyes bore into hers. She swallows a stormy sob and squeezes the journal, her lifeline, to her chest.

“You’re a liar!” the mutant cries, voice breaking with the pressure.

Cylion opens his mouth, preparing to deny, minimize, console. Then the frustration swells in his chest like a wave, and he feels his mouth break into a nearly manic grin. 

“Yeah? Welcome to Alternia.”

The anger vanishes from her face, overtaken by confusion, and whatever confidence she had been counting on for this confrontation goes with it. He takes a heavy step forward and unfolds his wings, flaring them out behind him to enlarge his frame.

“What are you going to do about it, Mira?” he sneers as she stumbles back, intimidated.

Before he can make use of the change in her demeanor, though, she plants her feet and fans her tail in a threat display of her own, matching his size. “I… I’m going to tell Father.”

Cylion clenches his jaw until something pops, annoyance quickly giving way to fury.

It was never supposed to be like this. She was never supposed to have this kind of power over him. How is it fair, that she can make a threat this effective? Why does she get to turn his own ancestor against him?

“Did you already forget you’re mad at him, then?” Cylion advances another step, looming over his sister with a dark, brooding look behind his eye.

“Father didn’t lie to me!” she howls, striking at his chest with an open palm. 

He catches her wrist and snarls, nostrils flaring. “Do not. Hit me.”

Nymira’s face falls. Whatever expression Cylion is wearing, it’s finally enough to rattle her. She tries to pull her arm away, but he holds firm, clawed fingers curling tighter around her skin.

“Cylion,” she whimpers, voice suddenly very small. “You’re scaring me.”

“Good.”

Her breath catches in her throat and she jerks her arm again, still to no avail. “I’m going to tell Father you’re scaring me!”

A low growl rattles in Cylion’s throat, and without a word, he tugs his sister into the hall, dragging her towards her room. He ignores her as she beats her free hand against his arm and shoulder, sobbing at the consequences of her own petty threats.

“Stop it! I-I’ll get Somnia!”

He lets out a cold, humorless laugh. “You think Somnia listens to you?”

At the door to her bedroom, he releases her wrist and storms inside, tuning out the godling’s panicked questions and frantic pleas as he throws open her desk drawer and scatters their contents to the wind.

Before long, he finds what he’s looking for, turning around to show her the shiny blue doll thrashing uselessly in his fist.

“Little Friend!” she wails, stumbling forward and swiping at Cylion’s hands. He raises the thing above his head, out of her reach, and glowers down at her. “Put him down!”

“Father stays out of this,” Cylion warns her, shoving past his sister to return to his own room with the toy still wriggling in his palm.

[roetrolls]

Warnings: Um. Gore. Lol. Mainly the bone breaky type.

Mad Dash

This isn’t the first time Archie has woken up tied to a chair. He can feel his faculties returning, but his eyelids are slow on the uptake. Fighting the exhaustion in his limbs, the purpleblood rolls his shoulders and lets his head lull back, taking a deep breath as he tries to force his eyes open.

He’s remarkably calm for the situation, but then, he’s never been one to panic. He’s still waking up when a hand roots itself in his hair and holds his head in place, a blade coming to rest against his throat. That’ll perk a guy up.

“No funny business, got it? I see your eyes start glowing, you’re dead.” His assailant gives his head a jerk and Archie grunts in response.

“Fuck... Be gentle. M’tired.” He squints in the light of the room, grimacing slightly. Before him stands a goldblood, his god-awful haircut only slightly less notable than the pitch black pools where his eyes should be. “Hell d’you want?”

"I'll ask the questions," Somnia grits, his voice lending far more gravity to the situation than it frankly deserves. "What were you doing in my sister's room?"

"Your sister?" Archie slurs, brows inching together in confusion as he racks his foggy brain for context. It washes over him slowly, more a trickle than a pour, and he chews each word thoroughly as it leaves his mouth. "That's right. I'uz lookin' for your sister."

Somnia's empty eyes narrow. "Funny. I remember telling you not to do that."

"And I 'member tellin' you I'd do it anyways," he bites back, evidently more irritated by the rejection than he'd realized. Really though, what kind of brother turns away help when his sibling is in trouble?

The memory is coming into focus now, though not as sharply as he'd like. Weaver had finished Marrie's arm, right? Then it was back to his hunt for the missing godling.

He'd teleported without checking the destination. After half a week spent battering his powers against the strange psychic block that seemed to be blanketing her, Archie wasn't going to risk waiting when a clear vision of Nymira finally appeared before him.

And then he woke up here, lashed in this asshole's kitchen with a knife against his jugular.

What happened in the interim?

He doubts he'll get any answers from Somnia. Even without pupils, Archie can tell the goldblood is glaring daggers at him. Nothing but drama, these guys.

He can feel Somnia's tension plainly, carried through his hands and straight into the blade that threatens him, but the purpleblood is shockingly nonplussed. In fact, Archie is about as relaxed as Somnia is stiff, a fact that only loosens him further.

"First time?" He croons.

"What?"

"Look, we can take it slow if y'need to. Your first time holdin' a guy at knifepoint, I mean... It oughta be special."

Somnia stares at him, doing little to hide his disdain, and Archie offers a salacious grin in response.

"S'matter, baby? Not feelin' it?"

He wrinkles his nose, though he has little time to rebuke the taunt before another voice joins the fray. Dressed down more than Archie has ever seen him and looking exceedingly fed up with the commotion, Cylion steps from one of the adjoining bedrooms into the kitchen.

“Don’t answer him,” the winged troll grunts as he passes to the sink. “He’s just being annoying.”

“Plenty enough to go around.”

Cylion rolls his eyes and turns his back on them, Somnia’s interrogation now accompanied by the quiet clinking of dishes and steady pulse of water from the faucet. 

“Do you have to do that now?” Somnia huffs, angling his head towards Cylion.

“You put him in the kitchen. I’m going to use my kitchen.”

Archie studies Somnia with an intensity typically reserved for admiring his father’s craftsmanship, trying to assess where exactly those tarry eyes are pointed. Is he looking at Cylion or at him?  Could he get away with using his powers right now?

“Sounds like y’want me outta your hair,” Archie offers cheekily, watching for a shift in Somnia’s focus. What does that look like? “How ‘bout we pick this back up some other time?”

Cylion tosses a sneer over his shoulder. 

“Couldja least call off Ringo here? This whole hostage game seems a bit excessive.”

“Does it? You’re not exactly predictable.” He turns his attention back to the sink and shrugs. “For all we know, you were behind Nymira’s abduction in the first place.”

“Man, c’mon.”

“It happened outside your church, didn’t it?”

“You think I’m in league with Persep fuckin’ Lycaon? I ain’t that kind of crazy.”

Cylion’s wings twitch slightly, though he neglects to respond. Archie sighs, glancing between the brothers as he speaks.

“Look, I see the play. I get it. You got no clue what you’re gonna do with me, right? But your hands’re tied. You warned me once n’ I still came back. Can’t let your threat be empty, so now you gotta play warden.”

Both Somnia and Cylion seem to stall, the latter raising his head as if to listen for something and the former’s grip becoming less incensed. 

“Let’s just skip to the part where you tell me to fuck off n’ stay there, yeah?”

As if to punctuate––or perhaps mock––his mild attempts at diplomacy, a thud spills into the room from outside, soon accompanied by a quiet shuffling by the door. Archie realizes then, all too late, that he is not the one giving them pause.

Favion must crouch to enter the kitchen.

Once he is past the threshold, the hulking goldblood straightens his shoulders and grinds his jaw, eyes locking onto Archie as if he is something to be consumed. The clown shifts against his bindings as Favion lumbers closer, his sons watching on with shocked faces and bated breath.

Despite the danger he knows Favion to pose, Archie greets the man with a glib smile. “Aw, shucks, a petting zoo? You didn’t tell me this was a party!”

One massive, clawed hand stretches forward to grab Archie by the chin, fingers pressing into his jaw with frightening strength. When he opens his mouth to fire off another taunt, Favion’s hold grows tighter, sending a flash of white-hot pain searing through his skull.

He grits his teeth, bracing against the mounting pressure of Favion’s crushing grip. Then something crunches, audible to Archie from the inside out, and the taste of blood floods his mouth. 

Archie grunts, a lipless noise set somewhere between pain and surprise, breath rattling as he tongues the bone fragment now sticking through his inner cheek. Favion rumbles his pleasure, jaw clattering in a crude mimicry of the break.

“No jibes this time,” he gravels, tugging Archie from the chair by his shattered mandible. 

The transition is less than gentle. The violent motion sends a mouthful of blood washing back towards Archie’s throat, and the purpleblood suddenly finds himself choking on it as Favion begins to drag him from the room.

With a sputtering cough, he flings his roped-up hands towards the monster’s wrist, scrabbling to dig his nails into flesh in hopes of alleviating at least some of the pressure on his broken jaw. He gurgles around the blood still seeking entry into his lungs, heart pounding more from adrenaline than fear.

Favion carries on unbothered, tugging Archie to the door in slow, lumbering steps. Cylion and Somnia, on the other hand, appear absolutely horrified, both pale in the face and looking more than a little sick. He still can’t tell where exactly those eyes are looking, but Archie is almost certain Somnia meets his gaze before he is unceremoniously pulled from their view.

He doubts either of them will get much sleep.

---

Archie is no stranger to pain. Hell, he sometimes goes looking for it––getting his ass kicked might as well be one of his favorite pastimes.

This, though… 

He can’t exactly call this fun.

A brutal pop echoes through Favion’s dungeon of an abode, one more in the long list of sickening sounds to come from Archie’s body tonight. The pain in his jaw has ebbed somewhat at least, fading into background noise amongst the litany of other injuries he’s incurred. Favion holds him to the wall with a hand against his throat, at this point doing more to keep him standing than his own legs, and Archie wheezes softly around the blood that’s made a game of encroaching on his lungs.

The lack of air has made him lightheaded––too much so to focus––but he’s fairly certain he has not suffered any loss of consciousness while Favion has had his fun. None of his injuries seem a mystery to him, at least.

The one he’s just acquired is a freshly mangled arm, bones snapped at the elbow and shoulder wrenched from its socket. It’s a miracle the thing is still attached at all. Favion releases the limb to fall limply to his side, and Archie brays at the sudden motion. 

This is a bit much, even for him.

Even without the man’s nullifying psionics in the way, Archie doubts he’d be able to activate his powers in this state. He can barely picture where he is, let alone imagine where he wants to go.

Being unable to see his family doesn’t strike them from his thoughts, however.

Sorry, pops. I think I really fucked up this time.

A wet cough paints Favion’s wrist purple. The other hand aims above Archie’s line of sight, and soon even his inner monologue is silenced by the excruciating pressure that blossoms through his skull. He barely has time to guess what the man is doing before a snap fills the air, sharp and crisp, and Favion draws both arms back to admire the bloodied horn within his claws.

Archie slumps to the floor, groaning as his battered body folds in on itself. 

Looming over him and shrouded in darkness, Favion works his jaw until it forms a smile, the hunger in his eyes finally replaced with cool satisfaction. He ponders his prize a few moments longer, then shifts his gaze back to Archie, voice low.

“Run home, little Roatus.”

Archie’s eyes widen. He wastes no time in staggering to his feet and limping towards the stairs, breathing heavily as a trickle of blood begins to blot out the vision in his left eye. He clutches his shoulder and braces his back against the wall, practically floundering up the steps as Favion calls after him once more.

“Run home.”

---

There is no moonlight on the street. 

A thick blanket of clouds stamps out both moons, and Archie is left with only the soft glow of the streetlamps to guide him back.

Does he know his way?

Has he ever needed to?

When has Archie walked anywhere?

He teleports. He teleports ten, fifteen, twenty feet at a time, flashing forward only as far as his unmarred eye can see and stumbling into each leap like he expects to collapse. Blood pounds in his ears, faster than he’s ever felt it.

Dad.

He can feel his breath picking up as his surroundings become more and more familiar. 

I need you, dad.

He sees it. Just a few blocks away, standing regal and proud, Archie finally sees the church. A guttural cry rips itself from his throat, and he blips onwards in a rapid succession of bursts to fling himself up the steps to his home.

There, standing at the threshold to the House of Restoration, Archie grips the ornate handle and, for the first time in his life, stumbles through the door.

The next minute is a blur. Someone screams. Another races down the corridor shouting for the Restorer. Archie barely acknowledges the whirlwind around him as he blunders on, mind dazed and body beaten. 

Then Ailzea is in front of him, collecting Archie mid-collapse with worried hands and a hurriedness that marks yet another first for the night. 

A million apologies rush to Archie’s tongue, all of them dying on his broken lips.

Ailzea shushes him, cupping his battered face and smoothing his bloodied hair. Then, with a fervent kiss upon his forehead, Archie’s father snaps his neck.

[roetrolls]

Do you have any idea where he took you, Nymira?

"Um..."

> Nymira glances over her surroundings, taking her time to soak in the details and really understand what she's seeing.

"A very sad room. Sad, and..."

"Poorly furnished."

[roetrolls]

Desperate Measures

A bad dream will not be hard to come by in this place. Dread poisons every corner of the dingy apartment, as heavy and saturated as the cloying scent of vanilla that seems almost to seep from the walls. Both cling to Nymira like a veil, constricting around her with each breath she takes, and she knows before her head hits the pillow that this sleep will not be a restful one.

How could it be? Visions of a tight and hungry smile flash behind her lidded eyes, glinting fangs only growing sharper each time she expels them from her thoughts. She can almost feel his cold mirth washing over her, ebbing like a wave that threatens to drag her out to sea. He is a demon far easier to vanquish in her own domain. A flash of her tail, a moment’s shelter for whatever sorry soul she visits, and peace is restored.

If only it were so simple here.

She wants to go home. She wants to make up with Cylion and sit with her father and push this dreadful week into the depths of her subconscious where it belongs. 

She wants someone to save her.

And as always, that’s what does it.

Nymira grasps at Cylion’s dream with practiced, instinctual ease, warping it around her like a scattered beam of light as she-- Cylion’s dream? No. Cylion doesn’t dream. 

What is this?

It is a dream. Of that much she is certain. She feels aware, lucid, in a way that is at once both completely alien and utterly correct, as natural as taking breath into her lungs. A dream. She has never felt more awake.

But where is she? A look around gives little answer. She stands at a cliffside, a deep black sea lapping at the sands beneath her feet, but details are sparse. It feels almost unfinished, as if she has wandered onto the very edge of this reality. Above her, atop the craggy outcropping, a more tangible hive sits perched and overlooking the shoreline, a dreadful, icy cold creeping out from its looming silhouette.

“Back again? You’re starting to look desperate, my friend.”

Nymira’s veins turn to ice, Persep’s dulcet words filling her head with such proximity that she almost feels as though she is speaking them herself. She whips her head around, fear gripping at her lungs, when another voice rings through her skull just the same.

“You can’t have expected to be left completely unsupervised with her,” comes her brother’s terse reply.

The godling tenses. She did find Cylion.

Visiting her captor.

Did she do this? Bring them together somehow, through all her drifting thoughts of rescue? Surely that can’t be. 

Again. As the word finally registers, Nymira finds a deep, gnawing pit expanding in her stomach. Back again. 

“You’re not here to grant me a few days more, then?” Persep asks, voice light. “Pity. Distance makes the heart grow fonder, after all.” 

“Don’t push your luck,” Cylion growls.

Nymira’s heart swells, the growing void in her gut quickly replaced with its light. He knows. He’s been here already, of course he has, to demand her release. Even at rest, he is looking for her. 

Hope soaring, she gathers her skirt into her hands and scans the beach for a way up, certain the men must be conversing in the hive overhead. Cylion’s name rises to her lips, she is about to cry for him when he speaks again.

“I gave you four. That was more than generous.”

The call dies in her throat.

“Worth a try.”

Whatever Cylion says next, Nymira struggles to hear it, his voice drowned out by the ringing that suddenly fills her ears. Anguish expands to cover her like a thick and rolling fog, choking out what little comfort she has found and curling like a plume of smoke into her lungs.

She wakes up gasping for breath, hands clutching at her chest and throat as if to claw away the pain, and a horrified whine falls uselessly from her lips. 

Back again.

She has always heard of hearts being shattered. It’s such a common turn of phrase. Common enough to dilute the true weight of its violent imagery, to cover it in a veneer of mundanity thick enough to mask its gut-wrenching reality.

I gave you four.

To call Nymira’s heart shattered would not do it justice. Pain radiates from her chest and digs into her core, coursing through her veins like an army of glass shards. 

Maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe she didn’t reach him at all! Yes, maybe it was truly just a dream, a manifestation of her own worst fears, concocted by her fearful mind and Persep’s suffocating apartment.

Cylion would not put her in danger.

He would not give her away.

Just like he wouldn’t lie to you, right?

A wave of vertigo washes over her as the Dreamer pulls herself from the sofa and staggers towards the bedroom, stomach sloshing angrily all the while. Head swimming with nausea, she braces herself against the wall and sucks in a deep breath, only to gag at the acrid taste of vanilla that hits her throat. 

She stays like that a moment, head hanging low and shoulders shaking, before at last she straightens and throws open the door to where her abductor sleeps, hands rising to grip the frame.

Before she even has chance to speak, Persep begins to stir, responding to her intrusion with more alertness than he has any right to at this hour of the day. He sits up and turns his gaze to her with an eager curiosity.

“You have two days,” Nymira announces from the threshold, fighting to keep the tremor from her voice.

“Hm?” 

“Cylion gave you four,” she warbles, vision fractured by the tears that rush to fill her eyes. “And it’s been two. Y-You… You have two left.”

Persep regards her silently as he processes her words. Finally, his lips part into a grin. “Eavesdropper.”

She gulps down a whimper, shoulders buckling slightly. Any hope that the dream was a fabrication of her own design diminishes to nothing.

“You have to let me go.”

“Mhm.”

“So I… I have no reason to comply with you. I will go home whether I help you or not.”

His grin widens. “But?”

Nymira swallows thickly, shaken further by how quickly he has read her intentions. Though she cannot seem to quell her trembling under the weight of her recent discovery, she forces her back straight and raises her chin, summoning as much confidence as she can muster.

“I want to know… Everything. What you’ve learned about my abilities. How you are manipulating them. And…” She pauses, taking another breath to steel her quaking nerves. “You’re going to teach me.”

Persep hums in response, obviously amused by her attempts at conviction. “Am I?”

“You’ll get what you want. I’ll make it for you.”

She did not think his smile could get wider. Brandishing the same shining white fangs she has so come to loathe during her stay, the purpleblood rises to his feet and strides towards her, spindly hand outstretched and waiting. 

“Very well, Dreamer,” Persep coos as she sets her palm in his. “You have yourself a deal.”

[roetrolls]

Candy and Crocuses

“Cotton candy. A big, big pile of cotton candy. The blue and pink kind.”

Asleep but not deeply, Nymira’s ear twitches in response to her brother’s whispers, held aloft between his thumb and forefinger as he tries desperately to drill the thought into her subconscious.

“Cotton candy,” Somnia whispers again, “just a big huge mountain of cotton candy.”

“I’ll give you an easy one, Dreamer. You’ve done it before.”

Her ear twitches again, this time as if to flick away the venomous honey that drips from the hypnotic voice above her. She feels a vague sense of movement, not her own, and the image of a vulture drifts to mind. She is used to prayer.

She feels like prey.

“Cotton candy! Really, really sweet. Lots and lots of cotton candy.”

“A crocus.”

“Cotton candy!”

“Six petals, pointed up.”

“All stringy and soft and fluffy.”

“Purple. Yellow center.”

“Pink and blue!”

“Picture a crocus.”

Nymira opens her eyes to find Somnia staring at her, black voids shining expectantly. Blinking off her sleep, she turns a droopy gaze to her hands, staring curiously at her tiny palms and the short, stubby fingers that curl towards them.

“Did it work?” he asks excitedly. “Did you see a crocus?”

Confusion muddles the godling’s features. She raises her head to look once more at her brother’s eager face and the purple flower that adorns it, brilliant color shimmering faintly in the low light of her bedroom.

“Cro…cus?” She mumbles softly, the word oddly intrusive on her tongue. 

“Six petals,” he reminds her, “pink and blue.”

Her attention drifts back to her hands, cupped gently around the flower she has summoned. Its golden center stares back, reaching out as if to touch her.

“Yes!” Somnia shouts, laughter bubbling from his chest. He slips his hands beneath her arms and pulls her out of bed, swinging the young goddess in a circle before hefting both of them into the small reading nook set into her bedroom wall. 

She stares at his face, at the petals where his eyes should be, and struggles to make sense of him.

Ignorant to her befuddlement, her brother plucks the flower from her palms and splits it in two, pausing to compare the size of the pieces before holding the smaller of them out to her.

“‘Cause you’re littler,” he explains as she takes her share.

“For Cy?”

He frowns. “No, just for us. He can have some next time, okay?”

“Not sharing?”

“This one’s special for us. We’ll share next time.”

“This time just Poppy?”

“Both of us! We’ll try it on three. Do you wanna count to three with me?”

Nymira flexes one small hand, fingers splayed awkwardly with muscles she is still learning to use. She can count to three. She’s good at counting.

“Six petals. Ready? One, two…”

“What is that?”

A sharp voice jolts Nymira to her senses, eyes snapping open with a start. Persep looms over her with a frigid scowl, his shoulders tight with annoyance. The godling furrows her brow, too disoriented to be intimidated, and turns her gaze to the wispy bundle in her hands.

“It’s…cotton candy.” 

“Cotton candy,” the purpleblood echoes, lips contorting into a snarl.

“Somnia likes it.”

“I didn’t ask.”

Nymira blinks softly, vision still trained on her palms. With two slender fingers, she lifts the morsel and turns it in front of her face, expression somewhat distant. Finally, she turns her attention back to Persep and holds it out, eyes large and innocent.

“Would you like some?”