Lunar Eclipse (Alea Davenport)

[Valerius Nitrozian]

„What do you mean, woman?“ the Nitrozian asked. He didn’t appreciate the tone of her voice at all. Didn’t she know who she was facing? He was a member of House Nitrozian, one of the richest and most powerful families of Ravok, a chosen of Rhysol, a high ranking member of the Black Sun! And yet she talked to him as if he were dimwitted. „Denval doesn’t exist anymore. It was destroyed seasons ago, during the djed storm.“ The news had even reached Ravok that hadn’t had any connections with Denval. There had been stories about refugees coming to Zeltiva on a ship. In a way Valerius regretted the destruction of Denval. The city had been isolated for centuries after the Valterrian. Its people might have possessed important knowledge, but it was probably all gone now. He watched her closely as she walked over to the Jamoura. She seemed to know him, but how could that be? What kind of strange magic was that? Was she more than she appeared to be? Was she some kind of powerful mage, a Syliran sorceress that had been sent to kill him or drive him insane? The language that the Jamoura spoke sounded familiar to him. The Nitrozian had recently begun to learn Vani, but how was it possible that this … Louie … spoke it? He hadn’t heard of any Jamoura in Avanthal. Vanari would have told him. As Alea wanted to know what he was doing, Valerius automatically showed her the book h was currently holding. It was a book on the history of Denval. „Books are important“, he informed her. „You should read one sometimes. Or would you rather remain uneducated?“ In that moment he decided that she probably wasn’t an agent of the enemy. She was too immature for that. Nobody would ever send a woman that acted like a naughty child to him. But what was she then? And how had she brought them here? He put the book away and looked at her. „You will tell me how we got here now, woman. If I find your answer satisfying, I might forgive you the tone of your voice. I might even let you live. How did you take us to a city that doesn’t exist anymore? Did we travel into the past?“

[Alea Davenport]

Alea frowned when the man told her that Denval had been destroyed. How could that be, when Denval was right outside? But...something tickled at her memory. She began to recall that Denval had been destroyed. Surely the pain and anguish she felt at the thought was too strong to be merely imagined.

Asking her how they got here troubled her even more. Naturally she had arrived here somehow, or had always been here, but... she could not recall any details. The most recent thing she could remember was something about being on a boat... Could the boat have been sailing back to Denval? That sounded familiar, but then why did she have no memory of arriving on shore?

As she tried to understand what had happened, the majority of her surroundings faded into the background, with the exception of the angry man in front of her. Somehow he seemed...more real than the rest of it. She spoke uncertainly, doubting her own words. "I...think I might be dreaming." It felt real enough that she couldn't be sure, but the world was confusing enough that it seemed a likely possibility. It would certainly explain some things, and if it were true, then nothing she did mattered, so she needn't fear any consequences.

Growing bored of the small room of books, and forgetting her earlier fears, she opened the door to the outside and stepped through. A small cry of distress escaped her at the sight. She had been expecting to see the everyday sight of her home, but instead all she saw was a vast, featureless expanse of white. Taking a step into the nightmare of what her dreams had made of her home, she realized that the white was an unending landscape of snow and ice.

[Valerius Nitrozian]

The woman seemed to be just as confused as he was now. She didn’t seem to know why they were in a city that didn’t exist anymore either. But if she hadn’t brought them here, who had done so then? Had they both fallen victim to some kind of powerful magic? Had another djed storm taken place? Had the gods decided to play with them, to pit them against each other and use the like toys? That was the only explanation that made sense to the Nitrozian. But if this was the result of magic, if the gods were somehow involved, why did he look like a Druvin? Why had all the Nuit decided to serve him? The Nitrozian didn’t look angry anymore nor did he stare at the woman coldly, he looked slightly uncomfortable and confused now. He didn’t know what he was dealing with, and he didn’t like that at all. He was used to being in control of his environment. He was used to being a charge. As the woman spoke again, he made a face. „If you are dreaming, am I dreaming as well?“ he wanted to know. „If this is a dream, why are you in it, and why aren’t you kneeling in front of me? Why can I not simply wake up?“ He turned to the Jamoura who seemed to ignore them for the most part and cleared his throat to get his attention. „You! Do you know what’s going on here? Do you have something to do with it?“ While he spoke, the woman had already opened the door. The Nitrozian shook his head. In his opinion that had been really unwise. They didn’t know what was out there. They had gone from his palace to Denval in the blink of an eye. Maybe there wasn’t really a city outside, but a horde of monsters that wanted to do nothing more than to eat them. Against his better judgement – he should have let her die – he followed her – and suddenyl found himself in an endless landscape of snow and ice. „We are in Taldera“, he observed. „Vanari told me about it. How did we get here? You don’t have Vantha blood, do you?“

[Alea Davenport]

Alea shook her head as the man spoke of waking up. "You don't dream very often, huh. You can't wake up unless something on the outside wakes you up, or until you're body's rested. Sometimes you can wake yourself up, but no method works reliably, and besides, then you miss out on the rest of the dream!" she finished with a weak grin. It was odd, normally she'd be excited about the realms of possibility that existed within her dreams, but for some reason, this one came with an uncomfortable sense of... it was hard to put her finger on,, but...melancholy?

As they stepped out into the snowy expanse, Alea answered, "No, but I lived in Avanthal for a few seasons." She looked around, but there were no distinguishing marks anywhere in the landscape. Even the door they had just come from was gone. She shrugged and added, "Well, nothing interesting is going to happen if we just stay here. Let's go!" She chose a direction at random and started walking.

OOCIf you hadn't noticed, Alea going places tends to be what makes the scene shift Also she's not terribly focused on you at the moment. I wonder if you can change that

[Valerius Nitrozian]

„No, I don’t dream very often“, Valerius confirmed. „And if I do, my dreams tend to follow the same pattern.“ He didn’t enjoy dreaming particularly. In his dreams he was somebody of importance, he was powerful and well respected. He almost couldn’t bear waking up in the real world where he was just somebody’s spoiled grandson again. He didn’t enjoy dreaming because he wasn’t sure if he’d ever attain the things he dreamed of in real life.

„You seem to be quite familiar with the dream world though“, he observed. „Are you one of those people that can manipulate it?“ The possibility that she might have such a gift made him think more highly of her. Maybe he wouldn’t get rid of her after all, although he didn’t share her enthusiasm. He wasn’t particularly interested in something interesting happening, but still, he decided to follow her, again against his better judgement.

As they walked, snow began to fall, very lightly at first. There were still no distinguishing marks anywhere, no houses, no mountains and almost no vegetation. After a while they could see a great shape moving towards them. It was a gigantic stag that looked at them with deep brown eyes that were filled with an intelligence that no normal animal possessed.

It looked at them for a moment, and then it turned around. Gradually a building became visible at the edge of the horizon. It was a castle made entirely of ice. It was bigger and more magnificent than even the Temple of the Black Sun in Ravok, with high towers and spires. For a moment the snowfall became even stronger, and then it abruptly stopped snowing, the clouds disappeared, and the sun began to shine. The ice castle began to shimmer in the sunlight like a diamond.

Valerius stood there for a moment and held his breath. He had never seen something as beautiful before. „Look at this!“ he told Alea. He spoke Vani now, albeit with a strong accent. He waned to see how he would react to it. „We’ll go there. I think I know what this building is. The woman who taught me Vani might have mentioned such a palace once.“ The goddess Morwen, the queen of Avanthal lived in a palace made of snow. She would without a doubt be powerful enough to free him of his dream.

As he walked on, Alea could see that her unlikely companion changed, although he didn’t seem to be aware of it or didn’t care. He was no longer dressed like some evil follower of Rhysol, but in a warm fur coat and seemed slightly more human. Some part of his subconsciousness had remembered what Vanari had told him about her home.

[Alea Davenport]

Before Alea could answer Valerius's confusing question about manipulating dreams, the all-too-familiar Talderan stag appeared. A terrible sadness washed over Alea, and any awareness of her dream-state slipped away. In fact, the sadness was so unbearable that Alea's sense of self began to fade, and where there was once an energetic little girl, there now stood a doe.

Upon close inspection, the doe that was Alea was no Mizaharan creature. In place of hooves she had great claws like that of a wild hunting cat, and her eyes held a fierceness that would drive fear into the hearts of anyone foolish enough to threaten her. She ran after her stag, but no matter how fast she tried to run, he escaped her.

She did notice the red-haired human beside her, who did not leave her side, despite how fast she thought she was running. He was speaking of Morwen's city in the familiar Vani tongue, and though she knew she did not have a very good grasp of the language, somehow she could understand his every word.

Suddenly she felt very homesick, not for Denval but for Avanthal. This was where she had met Yuros; perhaps she would find him again if she went back. She was quite anxious to find him quickly, yet somehow it seemed rude to abandon her new companion. She stepped in front of him and knelt down. "Get on," she said, "Your humans legs are too slow." She was not a kelvic, so naturally she did not need to turn human in order to speak.

[Valerius Nitrozian]

As the girl besides him suddenly turned into a doe, a doe unlike any that he had ever seen before, Valerius‘ eyes widened. She had told him that they were dreaming – and he believed it, to some extent, because this was the only way he could explain the things that had happened – but still, why had she become an animal? He never turned into an animal when he was dreaming. He always looked the same, more or less. Was she a …?

„Are you a Kelvic?“ he wanted to know. Even when he was dreaming Valerius preferred to be logical. „I’m not going to climb onto a woman, even when she looks like an animal!“ he informed her before he realized what she had done. She had talked, even though she was currently in animal form, and her mouth shouldn’t be suited to making human sounds. How had she done it? Was she a witch?

He didn’t trust her at all, but it seemed as if he didn’t have a choice. The palace he saw in the distance seemed to be further and further away with every passing moment, and he didn’t want to die out here, in this white no man’s land. He glared at her, and then he climbed onto her back, hoping that she wouldn’t try to do anything funny.

[Alea Davenport]

She did not understand the human's confusion, though she supposed it made sense coming from someone whose actions contradicted his words. She did her best to explain. "My bondmate is kelvic, and part of him lives in me." She frowned, as if some part of that was incongruous with reality. "Or... it used to..." She did not have time to ponder the question as she took off running. In some way it felt good to be running, though she couldn't tell if she was running from or to something.

The snowy landscape flew by under her hooves, the castle in the distance all but fading from view. Soon, the snow turned to leaves, and gigantic trees sprung up around them. The leaves on the ground morphed subtly into wood, and they were sprinting along a giant tree branch, several yards wide. At the end of the branch, what had once seemed to be a palace was coming closer, and from a distance, it looked like the head of a magnificent stag.

As the got closer to the stag head, it grew larger and larger, until its nose alone was taller than both of them put together. By the time they reached it, it became apparent that it was in fact a stag-shaped house, built into the trunk of the tree at the end of this branch. Alea slowed down and stopped in front of the nose, which turned out to be a doorway covered with a black fur. "This is my home," she said.

She started to walk inside, but a tiny movement in the corner of her eye gave her pause. Suddenly, the whole house was crawling with termites. They devoured the house right before her eyes, making it looks as though the stag's glorious head were rotting away. Alea just stood, watching, not sure whether to feel fear, dismay, or just resignation.

[Valerius Nitrozian]

Riding on a Kelvic or whatever strange creature she was felt different from riding on a horse. Even though he had been hesitant to even touch her a moment before, Valerius held onto her tightly now, worried that he might fall off. She ran so fast that the snowy landscape seemed to fly past him, so fast that his eyes almost couldn’t follow. He expected her to reach the castle – and safety – within a few chimes, but instead it began to fade and finally became invisible as the snow around them was replaced by gigantic trees.

This was not natural! Why couldn’t he control his dreams? Was this her doing? Valerius didn’t like it that for once he didn’t have any say in what was happening. He wasn’t good at dealing with such a loss of control. The only reason why he didn’t complain was that the place they were in now seemed less deadly and he was still sitting on the back of a strange shapeshifter. He had pretended to be a Druvin before, but such thoughts were far from his mind now.

As they stopped in front of the strange house, he climbed off her back and took a look around. „Why do you live in a house that is shaped like a stag?“ he wanted to know „And why in Rhysol’s name is your door covered with fur?“ He made a step towards the door – and froze. Everything around him was suddenly covered with termites. They were above him, below him, left of him and right of him, and soon they would be crawling on him!

For the first time in this dream he looked at her with real fear in his eyes, and then he screamed, „Run!“ even though it seemed unlikely that they would be able to outrun something that had appeared out of thin air.

[Alea Davenport]

Valerius's warning was too late. They were completely surrounded by the termites. Alea merely gazed sadly at Valerius with her big doe eyes, not moving even as the termites began to crawl over her skin. She felt no pain in the dream, though being eaten gave an odd and rather uncomfortable tickling sensation. She watched the boy until the termites crawled over her eyes, and her vision faded to black.

~*~ Alea wakes up. ~*~