Topic: Waking Dreams

Slow Rain

Date: 2009-07-22 17:05 EST
((OOC Note: The following is inspired by - and continued from - Illumination.))

The maze is relentless, a maze of mirrors. Everywhere he looks, he sees the same thing, reflected a hundred times.

Himself.

A dark, shadowy figure he can't quite make out, but that he can instinctively sense is malevolent.

And her.

The assassin, continues following her, stalking her, allowing himself to be lured in - but just as she seems to be within his grasp, she slips away.

In his dreams, he hears her whisper...strange messages, intoxicating rhymes. At times, she is whispering in his ear, so close he can feel her breath tickling the delicate cilia lining the auditory canal.

At other times, the whisper comes from a distance, so faint that it's a whisper of a whisper...and yet he never has trouble making out what she says.

That voice, those eyes, the way she walks, her unique features of face, hair and body, her scent like morning dew and rain...all combine to provide him with a lure that he finds himself unable to resist.

Despite being an assassin, despite being averse and even, for the most part, immune to the calls and pleas of those who seek aid, he finds himself not only enticed by her...but concerned for her plight, as well.

Even as he chases after her in the dream, he asks himself why' Why chase"

And finally, he corners her. He sees her at the end of the maze, standing there, beckoning, urging him to come closer.

He dashes to catch her, only to have his fingers meet the cold, smooth surface of mirrored glass.

He is grasping at a reflection.

And that is when the glass shatters, a million glistening shards of broken mirror raining apart as he hears her whisper a final message, the tantalizing touch of her lips against his ear.

"Sweet Dreams. Remedy."

He sits up, bathed in sweat, in his own bed, the sheets falling away from him to reveal him, bare-chested, to the first rays of the day.

The first thing that registers is the scent of her. Lingering, here, in the room. He immediately looks around the room, dark eyes scanning the shadows.

But she is not there, and could not have been. Everything, as far as he can see, is the way he left it. No alarms have been tripped - he would have heard those straight away.

He sits up on the edge of the bed, the sheet now only covering him from groin to mid-thigh, the cold air of the morning against his sweat-drenched skin driving the edge of sleep from his mind.

Why should he be dreaming of her" She is nothing to him, another face in the hundreds, thousands he has seen, with the same look, the same needs, the same problems.

He is no one's savior.

He is no one's knight in shining armor.

He is an assassin...an agent of death.

He is a killer.

He rests his head in his hands.

If that is true, why does he feel so compelled to find her"

Krysanthe

Date: 2009-07-22 17:25 EST
Awakening.

Ever was it a strange thing for Krysanthe.

Rising to morning dew to find empty places. Fragments.

Like so much broken glass and scattered light in her mind.

Those spirit born blues were carrying the poltergeist of a ghost.

Krysanthe recalled the Straw Man's earnest frustration.

The Mirror Maze.

Did Raine know that in that final moment when fingers near could touch, she had been trapped by the Straw Man.

Caught in glass. Made a reflection?

The jealousy, the possessive urge of a Straw Man was strong.

Stronger then a Palm Reader that each and every night would erase memories.

Traces of opium threaded through the sweet wine like starlight on Krysanthe's tongue.

Yet the Remedy remained.

A fascination.

Far away from the Big Top, a few miles away from Ghost Town but still within the reach of grounds, fell a Fallen Star.

Limbs stretched out.

Reveling in wild flowers surrounding her, enchanted by the clouds above her.

Cirrus and Cumulus and Nimbus to forge a Smoking Gun.

In that field of wild flowers Krysanthe laughed.

Glorious sound.

Star dust fairy tale she wove in her mind.

She would day dream. Think of her life as folklore.

Blissfully ignorant of the fact there was no knight in shining armor, and she was not a princess.

Her delicate fingers brought up petals, scattered them through the unbound liquid gold of her hair like fine jewels.

Maybe just for now, her life could be a fairytale.