Caught In the Buff (Sira, Hadrian)

[Hadrian]

This wasn't the Ricky he had known so briefly in their shared dream, that calm version of Zeltiva's harbor when his body and mind had been feverish. This was a dream-fever rather than a fever dream. He didn't recognize the lusting bear, nor the proud eagle of a woman, but, of the three, he seemed most aware that this was a construct on the chavena; had he been ignorant of that fact, he might not have tried to resist that siren song.

But the pair of them pushed the issue, pushed him against the door that wouldn't open. The woman was bolder than Kendall had been, at least until they had known each other better. He yelped at her touch. Even in his dreams, his body knew how long it had been neglected. They moved away, and he was dumbfounded by glyph that appeared, momentarily catching his interest.

It was familiar, but not familiar enough to be his own, surely.

Perhaps something was wrong with him, or his gnosis. He ought been able to escape unless there were another dreamwalker present, more gifted, more experienced. Perhaps that was where the glyph came from, familiar from his own subconscious, if only via a shared link to Lord Nysel. Whatever the case, he did not like to feel powerless.

But here his will was beset by the wills of two others, and his own traitorous mind had stripped him bare of emotional defenses before leading him here. Where there had been solace in the lie, here was something else entirely.

Hadrian didn't say no when the woman pulled him away from the door. He was a man who lived in his head moreso than his body, but here his body was just an emanation of his mind. It confused things, and though he looked back over his shoulder, wanting to investigate the glyph further.

"But..." He frowned, mind for the moment confounded by everything.

[Ricky Maze]

When Sira pushed Ricky for him to back over to the bed, he was happy to oblige as he watched her. His hungry eyes never leaving her georgous frame, he waited eagerly for her and she returned to deliver moist kisses. Those weren't enough to sate is apetite however, only wet it down bit by bit. His lust had now gotten the best of his control, and slowly as he forcefully waited his strength was returning. Each breath inbetween their sweet and savory passion was deeper then the last, but aslo heavier do to the intense growing desire to throw her back on the bed. He could tell that she was curious though for she seemed slightly distracted, she no doubt wanted Hadrian too; but Ricky didn't care for that. So long as he could give everything he had, only then he would be satisfied when he would wake up. For Ricky to feel the odd manner of the dream change or notice the glyph though, none of those things were able to register in his mind. He was a bear on the inside after all and when bears were hungry little else mattered. This was Ricky's mind in this case, he was to lustful for more. How could he not be though, she was more than beautiful to him. When Hadrian would make up his mind was probably when the action could get started, and though the ships rocking was still continuous he was sure there was still that moment, that possibility as to where the three could reach harmony. His mind wasn't able to think clearly as his thoughts were all focused on this one special night, this one unbelievable dream that had to happen.

[Sira]

Hadrian's hesitance was making things worse. Though Sira paid no attention, or tried not to, more glyphs appeared on the floor behind them as they walked, and the wooden walls of the ship almost seemed to twinkle with starlight, though barely noticeable. Sira was determined not to notice, she was determined not to let the recurring dream that she had been having every single night for most of the season interrupt the one she was having now. But Hadrian's reluctance was ruining things, and was causing unease in her subconscious mind. Hadrian was opening a door he did not want to open, but just as quickly Sira slammed it shut when she reached Ricky and the bed. Again she leaned down to kiss the man, still holding Hadrian’s hand as she did so knowing that if she let go he might try to back away again. Ricky might not have cared whether or not Hadrian joined them, but Sira cared. If Ricky wanted things to continue, he would have to accept that Hadrian was joining them. After she kissed Ricky she turned back around, reaching for Hadrian’s other hand and pulling him close to her.

”You don’t have to be so afraid, you know. I promise I won’t hurt you.”

Sira attempted to kiss Hadrian again, though if he wouldn’t let her have his lips she would take his cheek. She raised both of her hands, placing them on his chest, and ran them slowly down his body. Conveniently he had entered the dream naked, and Sira could skip the undressing phase. She was after a certain prize anyway, and her hands didn’t stop at his waste. If he didn’t stop her, Sira would begin to stroke him softly, though firmer if she felt his excitement grow.

”How often do you get an opportunity like this,” she asked, ”You shouldn’t waste it, should you? ..though if you do get it often, I must say I am jealous.”

Ricky might have thought Sira was ignoring him, but the kelvic hadn’t forgotten about the other man in the room. As she attempted to excite Hadrian into action she slowly backed toward the other man, Hadrian in tow, so that he was free to roam her body from behind while she focused on Hadrian in front. Somewhere in the back of her mind she had become desperate, not just because she desired them both, but because she could feel the nightmare coming. She needed to be distracted, she needed Hadrian. Ricky had helped, but she needed more, something that would keep her mind from inevitably slipping into the nightmare that it always did when she slept. This was Sira’s first good dream in a long time, and she had no desire to let go of it. Hadrian’s nerves were making it difficult. Why did he have to question? Why did he have to resist? Sira dropped to her knees, her lips and tongue now taking over for her hands, in a last attempt to stir the manhood in Hadrian and make him forget his questions about why he was there or why he couldn’t get away. If he let her, she would steal him into a fantastic world of pleasure.

[Hadrian]

"I'm not afraid of you," he assured her. It was not a cocky declaration, but a simple statement of fact. She had reduced Ricky to a knot of sexual energy, and Hadrian's body had responded even if he had not given himself over to it the way the fisherman had.

But Hadrian questioned everything, always.

He was not a catch; this he understood with self-loathing. People thought him strange, for certes, and he was. But he didn't really care what people thought, save every once in a blue moon when he wondered what it was like to be normal, whatever that meant.

Her hands felt good on his dreamflesh. The kiss to the cheek, and everything. But he sensed something coming and it wasn't good. If she was distracting him, it could only mean she was trying to make him easy prey for whatever it was. With a sharp intake of breath, he stumbled back from her last ditch effort, crouching down both to be on a level with her and to protect his exposed flesh, whether dreaming or real, from her distraction.

"What are you hiding?" he asked intensely. If he hadn't seen the glyph, felt the foreboding, he still would have remembered this was a dream for the sheer outrageousness of the setting. She was too beautiful to want him unless he had a bag full of gold; he knew how these things worked even if he had never participated in such a monetary exchange for services.

"What is coming?" Then, over her shoulder, "Ricky. Something's coming."

With a thought, his bare skin was covered with strange, black armor. One might recognize Symenestra craftsmanship, and it was his impression of that which Professor Devandil Nightshade had worn back in Hadrian's student days. It had seemed so natural a part of him, and protective of his spare frame.

They could ignore the signs all they wanted, but he would not be caught in the buff. No, not him.

"Wake up," he said, but he was mostly talking to himself.

[Ricky Maze]

Questions. All these questions that kept coming about, it was beginning to become a turn off for Ricky. Luckily Sira was before him looker greater than ever, but even at her lustful attempts to drag Hadrian in he still turned her down. Now the difficult part was to come in, for Ricky knew Sira wasn't going to take no for an answer. Hadrian continued being inquisitive toward her, foreseeing something that Ricky apparently could not. "Ricky, something's coming." He warned over her shoulder, Ricky's mind slowly began to grasp that a situation was present. Now having a lost expression on his face, the lusty mood that fogged his mind was lifting. He looked no longer at Sira but to Hadrian, his urges still strong but finally beginning to be contained. "Hadrian? What's comin exactly?" His confusion grew but now he was no longer dulled by the dream, with Hadrian being present he could feel his senses returning. Or wasn't that the process of waking up? There were so many different ways to keep track of the process, none specifically he could recall due to the memory of the dreams vanishing. When he would awaken a dream could still be fresh in his mind, but instantly vaporize with no trace behind within the next minute. If that were the case then Ricky did not want to forget this...or her for that matter. Yet her name had already slipped his mind. Was it because he was in the lust before they began? Or has the process already started? Whatever the case there would not be much time, if something bad or eerie was hanging about it could put Hadrian at Ricky. When Hadrian manipulated the dream around him stranges forces were at work, creating a unusual armor Ricky has never seen before. His dull senses were now aware completely as Hadrian said these words: "Wake up!"

[Sira]

If people could wake from nightmares so easily, they wouldn’t have them. Hadrian just had to keep pushing. He couldn’t accept that a woman like Sira would be so interested in him, but what he didn’t understand was that like she did with all non-Inarta, Sira found Hadrian to be exotic and that made her desire him. Perhaps in the real world she might not have been so forward, but in the dream she shouldn’t have had to worry about such things. It didn’t make any sense to her. Why wouldn’t he want what she had to offer? Was it because of Ricky? Was he uncomfortable with the idea of sharing her with another man? Or was it just that he was in to men, and would have rather Ricky traded places with Sira. Truth be told, she wouldn’t have minded that at all. She had once found a book, Passions of a Confused Drykas, and the things she read in that book made her want to see them in real life.

”I’m not hiding anything,” Sira responded to the first of his questions, a sour look on her face. She wasn’t used to men backing away from her. ”What is the problem? Is it me? Would you prefer he take my place? I have no problem with that if that’s what you want.”

But he continued to question. He continued to doubt, and then Ricky too began to question. Suddenly Sira’s lust was gone. Her eyes began to swell until tears flowed, and she closed them shut tight to stop the downpour. Sira may not have entirely understood that she was dreaming, but somewhere in her mind she understood that the fantasy was over, and the nightmare was about to begin.

”No… please… not again..”

“Wake up,” he said, and that was the final straw. The moment he spoke those words, everything changed in an instant. They no longer found themselves in the captain’s quarters aboard Ricky’s ship. Suddenly they were surrounded by stars, glowing runes on the floating disk beneath their feet, and far below them they could see the world and the continent that was Mizahar. They were not the only ones on the disk, though all the others were faceless and silent, milling about in a sea of confusion. They kept a wide circle around the three dreamers, who found themselves in the only calm spot in the dream. They were the only ones who mattered, the rest were just background images to fill in the space.

”Why?”

Sira barely managed to get the words out of her mouth between sobs. She took a deep breath, trying to steel her nerves, but could barely manage to stop long enough to ask again.

”Why did you have to ruin everything?”

Waking up wasn’t an option, not for Sira at least. The memory was too strong, the nightmare too vivid. It demanded that it be played out in full, and though it was different every time and not always accurate to what actually happened, it always ended the same way. But never before had she had help. Could the three of them change things? Or was the memory of the Ravarisk stronger even than all of them?

[Hadrian]

Was that the chavena choking off his breath, knotting in his guts? He didn't know the answer to Ricky's question, and the woman -- did he know her? Now he wasn't sure. Everything was confusing here, and he wasn't in control. He was a dreamwalker, but he wasn't in control. If only Lord Nysel had left a manual along with his gnosis...

The woman was phenomenally attractive, and his body wanted nothing more but to take her up on her offer, realistic or otherwise. Perhaps if they had met in life, and circumstances were different. Even now in her fear and her anger she was beautiful, and it distracted him, made it easier for the hypnotic effect of the dream state to tug at his attention. But he had infected them with his doubt, his need to see beyond the veil of the apparent, and even as she pulled him back with her wiles, made him wonder how he could have stepped away from the warmth of her eager mouth, the dream dissipated into nightmare.

It was a nightmare he recognized.

"What...?" He knew this place, but could not say why, the experience having been shrouded and set aside by a mind trying to protect itself from something that would break it.

"What the hell is this?" he demanded in a damaged whisper, his hand scrabbling for Sira's like a child in the dark, seeing vaguely remembered bogeymen lurking.

[Ricky Maze]

Ricky knew not what was happening to him or them as the dream world turned and twisted before him, the dream no longer reflecting his inner spirit he watched in awe at what the dream was becoming. It was now turning into a nightmare.... What ever it was that was now lurking in their midst Ricky didn't know, he hadn't the faintest clue as to where this was leading. Convinced that Hadrian was back in Ricky's dream again there had to be some revelation. There must! For it was the same last time they met, and though the memory of them was to deep for him to recall: the feeling was still there. He could feel recognition in her too, but only twp things that would be recalled. Her firey hair and wild golden eyes. These were the distinctive features burned into his mind, his inner soul, as the two spent the wonderful night in this dream. Now she wept and sobbed as their entire world was no longer the same. "H-Hadrian! What's the revelation this time?!" He seemed rather distressed at what wad going on, his mind lost and confused at where the dream was turning. For no dream he has ever had has become as terrifying as his one was feeling, he didn't even know what they were about to see....but he didn't wish to find out. Slowly his body was starting to feel numb, was this the dream or was he waking up? No it couldn't be both, but what if it was? Would they be all right? Would Hadrian be ok after this event would pass? He wouldn't know for sure unless he stuck around. He would fight to stag asleep if he could, and would see this dream through to the end.

[Sira]

Sira was different now, her physical appearance had changed. She was still naked, and still beautiful, but in a different way, for she was now with child. She looked just as she had the night the towers wept. There were many stories as to what exactly happened that night, when the colored lightning rained down across the world, zapping people out of existence. Many of them had returned, though not all, but nobody knew for sure what had happened. Perhaps even those that were there did no know. Some of them blocked it out of their memory, while others simply refused to talk about it, and some forgot all together. Sira was not so lucky, she remembered everything, and it haunted her. It wasn't until the incident happened that the nightmares began, though. And they were powerful nightmares, ones Sira was unable to wake from until they ran to completion.

Sira might not have been a Dreamwalker, but her mind was not like an ordinary person's mind. She was telepathic, and could project her voice and even images into the minds of others. She could do more than that, with focus and when it was necessary. She could put up walls, or tear them down, and even manifest within another's mind if they were willing as she had done with Aidara and Sairque when their minds had grown to close, and the bond between the twins was threatening to tear them apart. In truth, Sira had no idea what her mind was capable of, or that of any wind eagle's for that matter. She was a guardian of secrets, and the gods had blessed her and all the wind eagles with gifts that no other creature had. Sira was not a Dreamwalker, but she was unsure what kind of effect her mind would have on the others within her dream.

This time things were a bit different for her. She was more lucid than usual, and had control over her actions. And there were others with her, Hadrian whose name she had yet to learn, and Ricky. For some reason she could tell that they were different from the other faceless men and women milling about around them. They were real, or at least as real as they could be in a dream, and were more important than the vague memories of other people wandering around them. Sira climbed to her feet, taking Hadrian's hand and using him to help her up even though that wasn't his original intention when he grabbed for it.

"We are in a place that should never have been seen by mortal eyes," Sira answered cryptically. "This place.. where so many bad things happened.. are going to happen."

The imperceptible rumbling that none of them had felt while in Ricky's dream could now be felt by all three of them, the ground shaking slightly beneath their feet. Sira knew what it meant, though in her strange lucid state she wasn't as afraid as she usually was. Somewhere deep down, thanks to the two strangers with her, Sira realized that it was just a nightmare. A powerful nightmare, but still a nightmare. That gave Sira confidence in the dream world, or at least as much confidence as she could possibly muster. The shaking was the sign of worse things to come, and the memory of Sira's fear was still a powerful thing. She didn't know it, but she was projecting that fear at both her fellow dreamers.

The rumbling increase, and then Sira's eyes widened and she pointed, taking a step back toward Ricky. If they followed her finger they would see the first of the massive tentacles, dark and slimy things excreting thick red ooze that ran down the sides of the invisible barrier that contained them on the disk, keeping the vacuum of space as well as the monster out. The tentacle slammed into the barrier, visible cracks appearing along its surface, and the ooze began to squeeze through. Sira took another step back, bumping into Ricky as she did so.

"No.. no.. I won’t let it have her. I won’t.. I can't.."

Sira was quickly losing it as she always did in the nightmare. Much unlike what happened in real life, in the dream Sira could not stand against the monster. She could not muster the courage necessary to fight against it. In the dream her mark from Priskil was useless, for she did not have it during the time that the memory took place. The courage it should have given her failed her every night, and it failed her again. Sira turned and buried her face in Ricky's chest, weeping openly. She was shuddering from the pain of the memory, and finally, she cried out.

"What do you want with me!? Why does this keep happening!?"

In Sira's mind, and in all of their minds, an ancient voice answered.

”I was here first. I will be here last. I will make your child into something far greater.”

Those were the words the Ravarisk had spoken to her, and those were the words that haunted Sira the most every night since the night the towers cried. She couldn't escape the memory of those words, regardless of what happened in the real memory. The monster wanted her child, and that was a nightmare from which Sira could never truly wake.

[Hadrian]

"Ravarisk," he whispered, but whether in answer to Ricky's question or for his own horror was anyone's guess. The redhead was in Ricky's arms again, and Hadrian felt more naked than ever, but it had nothing to do with clothes. "I remember this... sort of..."

He had lost time in Ravok, been snatched away from Sondra, Kendall, and Ethan by Watchtower light or something like it. Sondra had found him wandering dazed and along the canals, the others having traveled ahead, fearing he was lost. And then... Nysel had come to him not long after reuniting with his friends. There must be some thread linking one event to the next. Hadrian did not believe in coincidence, except when he did.

Daring a glance at the redhead, he tried to place her face in his fragmented memories of that crisis.

"But we survived." He didn't ask 'didn't we?' because that would have called into question their understanding of reality, and that was not a safe thing to do in dreams.

His heart hammered in his chest like a caged eagle, but he squared his shoulders and reached into the air before him, trying to catch at the fabric of this nightmare and open a door back into his dreamscape, where he could protect them.