Originally posted by Nanill

These days, my life is a blur. The line between my dreams and reality dulls as my conscious fears and desires manifest around me. An unusual kind of control that feels new but not unnatural radiates from within. A push against every pull. Without a shortage of either.

I came home today with a pile of skeletons that could fill more than a closet. A smile on my face, an unusual parcel in my hand.

“What is this?”

“You tell me. It’s a bottle of perfume made by humans.”

I chuckled.

How could I not laugh? I’m a drow covered in at least a dozen different bloods and jagged scars. I’m more than a fish out of water.

I hug her, and I’m immediately assaulted by a sensation I can’t understand. My mind and my vision blanks, and by the time things aren’t so blurry…

I’m on the ground. A familiar and hard dark stone. The air is cold, and my head aches with the intensity of a pain that I don’t remember having. I try to pick myself up, and fall over. My left hand is gone.

With a pathetic type of frustration I pull myself upward to look, and grit my teeth. I don’t remember it being so hard to see. But I know why it is.

I’m looking at my own temple, and the mangled corpse of the first person I can ever say I really…

“No… “  I choke “This is not… This is all….”

Wrong. It’s all wrong. The wrong kind of blood is spilled all over my floor, and the black that my memory offers only infuriates me further.

I crawl towards my altar, growling like a caged animal. The bone in my arm scrapes against the stone loudly. I throw up. But I don’t care. I don’t stop until I hear a sickening voice.

“You were betrayed.”

I stop, and look up again. To the left is my brother’s sword and my missing hand. Stuck in my arm and shoulder are three arrows from a familiar quiver. I realize the sound of scraping on the ground isn’t my bone, it’s a long-knife stuck in my liver. I’m sure the other is in my back. My eye shudders, and I see the image of violently powerful spells being cast around me, and being blasted into the foyer wall.

“Are you so surprised?”

Surprised? I continue dragging myself. 

“Where is Aven?”

“Who?”

I scream.

“AVEN.”

The ground shakes, and I lose control. I try to pick myself up again, and slump over. I shout in frustration, and try again. And again. But it won’t work. It feels…Wrong…

This isn’t happening. My brain feels as though it has short circuited.

“Everyone is gone. You are alone.”

No. I’m not. Whoever is fucking with me made the wrong choice of words.

Get up.

How?

…

I only have one good hand. My body is –

So?

…

I start to laugh uneasily. I start to push myself up with my right hand, and reinforce my movement with the stump on my left arm. Where my hand used to be is the rotted and bony frame of a skeleton’s. I can feel the intensity of artificially tense muscle strings and bits of tendon or ligament. I pull the arrows out of my arm, and pull off my cloak, and armor. I pull the knives out of my body, and throw them on the ground. I realize that any kind of burn would sear my wounds, and the wooziness and headache goes away. Now I can truly see.

A figure cloaked in total shadow is between me, her, and… I walk defiantly down the corridor, up to it face to face.

“I know where I am.”

I grab the figure by the throat with my bony hand, and raise it above my head.

“I know what this is.”

I blast him with the lightning bolt I remember I have stored in my gloved hand. The darkness crackles with a blinding blue light that encapsulates the figure, and shatters the visage to aetherial pieces.

I knew all along. That this was a-

“Dream!!!”

I snap back to our reality. I’m in my bedchambers,staring at my own mirror. My left hand is bloody, and bits of glass are stuck in it, as the entire thing is smashed. She’s standing behind me with the same look on her face.

“It’s just a dream.” I say aloud.

“What the hell happened?”

“Something that you or I will never see in person.”  I tense, and ball my fists. “I’ll make it so.”

“Come back to bed. You need to rest.”

I look at her with the same look in my eyes.

“I can’t.”

“Yes you can.”

She’s right. “I can. And I will. But not now.”

We just look at each other for a long time. I don’t really know what to say, and she knows that.

She smiles.

I start to feel more uneasy than ever before. My heart feels like it’s going to explode in my chest, and I choke, but…

“I love you.”

I just kiss her, and even though I wish it would last forever, I know it won’t if I ever stop. So I won’t.

I pull away, and I grab my bag, reaching for the pile of notes I transcribed during the raid. I pull out my chair. I carelessly scoop everything off my desk with arm.Then I carefully place the notes on my desk, sitting down.

I don’t have eyes in the back of my head, but I know she’s watching me. That’s fine. She’ll pass out again soon. But as long as no one else has to do this studying…

The edges of my lips curl. There’s silence that could cut glass. Some time goes by. I read some pages. I cave.

“I assume the boy is -”

“In the study, where you told him to go.”

I smile. I drop my quill, and the pages fall out of place. I knock over my chair, because it’s in the way, and I just don’t care. I give her a strong kiss, and move her so I can get into my bed, burying my face in my pillow. She puts her arm around me. In my darkness, I see something different.

I see a black cathedral surrounded by polished metal firmaments. A blue sun on the horizon, and my brothers, tending to their stations within the keep boundaries. Simple but sterling foliage and water features livening the otherwise dreary and dismissable atmosphere. I feel her by my side, and see Aven tending to a crowd of people. I’m in control. But for a moment, there’s another flash of blue.

I look down, and see that I’m not wearing armor, but standard robes. I can see the flesh on my arms melt away, the skin peeling, falling off in fragments. Some of my muscles break and curl, some don’t, and what’s keeping me together is a mess of string and meat.

I pull away, and look at her face, laying on the other side of the pillow.

I hear lightning strike, and the loud patter of rain outside the windows.