Topic: What Dreams May Come

NightRunner

Date: 2008-07-20 16:58 EST
What Dreams May Come

"I am a grounded dreamer. I am loyal to that which earns it, merciless to that which mocks it."








The People never dreamed much.

They rarely had a need to dream.

Renne knew he didn't need to dream much; really he still feared sleep like a plague. He'd grown accustomed to going without sleep for days on end but no life-form could go too long without it.
Not even him.

When exhaustion took over and forced him to sleep, he didn't expect to dream unless it was of the Hunter. He didn't expect to dream unless it was of thunder, rain, fire, smoke and screaming voices.
He dreamed of that. Of all of that.
He dreamed too, of happier things.
Brighter, warmer things.

Tonight, the capricious Hunter had no chance against this dream.

------------------

Renne stood on powder-fine sand and listened to the deep, rumbling roar of thick, black ocean waves. They called to him, sang to him, laughed at him, taunted him, soothed him. The burning red-gold sky above howled with never-ending stratosphere winds and the afternoon screams of the crels.
Such odd creatures, crels.

They screamed so horribly, hunted viciously and even fed upon one another. And yet, those beasts took to the Mountain Tribes like tame dogs to loving owners.

He stood there, listening, and shed a single tear as a voice called from an unknown distance -- calling with a song as sweet as these endless oceans. She called the same being but never saw this tall, straight-backed, upright creature.
She called the skinny, small thing that was truly himself. That was himself after Amadeus Night.
Renne turned around, sang a little song to the sea and felt himself shrivel, shrink and twist into the creature he knew himself to be.

He was no handsome knight in shining armour.
He was no sin-free being that had some kind of purity.
He was just very innocent, even stupid, of the worldly things Outworlders -- Humans -- had exposed him to.

He was just a hopeful child/not-child caught in the grip of that tempest called love-of-all-kinds.

Renne left the roaring dark oceans and burning, howling skies and went to another place. A humble stone-and-wood place with Elven ladies and irascible, heroic Vikings. A place of mortal, deity, angel, demon and everything in between.
He lingered there, knowing he'd return. Faithfully, he'd return there as he would the black waters and gold skies.
She kept calling. Singing.

He moved on.

Renne came to another place, a tall place of oak, gunpowder and coffee. He lingered here, too. He laughed. He wept. He kept company and he was alone here.
Renne crawled out the back door, went down to the sea and found her.

When he cried, she sang. When she wept, he whispered.

When he dreamed, he sang to her.

~<>~

What Dreams May Come began as a single-shot idea that turned into an entire dream-sequence. Dreams in different segments occur on different nights.

NightRunner

Date: 2008-07-27 02:59 EST
What Dreams May Come
A Midsummer's Nightmare
(Warning: Possible strong language and things of graphic nature ahead. Read at your own risk!)

"I feel like I'm Han Solo, and you're Chewie, and she's Ben Kenobi, and we're in that fracked-up bar."
--Jason Mewes; Jay and Silent Bob in Dogma









Stormhoof came from nowhere.

He cried out, screamed as he watched Varn fall into the pint of writhing, seething, living flames. He stood there, helpless and knew his BondMate was gone. Stormhoof could do nothing about it.

Somewhere across the stars, someone heard that scream.

-------------------------

He tossed restlessly in sleep.

The scream, the cry, echoed as if he'd uttered it himself. He heard a dead man's voice from ages ago and reached out to recapture it. The little being reached out in vain to recapture something long, long gone.
These mist cover'd mountains
He wasn't at the Evergreen and he was. Part of him was here with the Human, a demon, a ghost and someone else. Part of him was far away in some nondescript, mundane place conversing with a gray unicorn about age, wisdom and things long gone. He was there with this unicorn, learning what a unicorn was.
He learned of a hero called Varn and he wept with Stormhoof as the tale unfolded.

Stars winked out.

Clouds faded away.

Tears were rain.

Renne lay dreaming in an inn in a town far to the north and he cried in his sleep. He wept as the voices echoed in his head. Stormhoof and Varn raced together, unicorn and dragon, side by side. Clouds parted for them. The seas stilled for them.
And Varn fell dead to the earth.
Blood spilled from a great open wound and fell like rain upon barren ground. Bones came out of the black earth like sick, twisted imitations of dead trees decorated with the slain enemies of wars past. Skeletons whispered at the blue creature that crawled through these forsaken lands in search of dead men from long ago.
Through these fields of destruction
Baptisms of fire
Renne dreamed, didn't dream, lived and died.

Within the walls of the Evergreen, he ended up sprawled on the floor with unexplained changed. A silver collar-like necklace lay beside him. The left leg lay twisted at an angle even his legs aren't supposed to go. Renne lay there breathing as if he'd fallen flat upon his back.

Useless eyes opened wide and he was suspended between dream and reality.

NightRunner

Date: 2008-08-14 23:49 EST
What Dreams May Come
Sleepwalking Ishmael

"Do they know
Where do unicorns go?
Where winged horses fly?
Narwhals lost at sea
And never seen again."
--America; In the Sea










"Hail and make port!"

The call was one that was heard periodically across the sea; one that seasoned mariners knew not to answer. It was a call any smart seafarer knew to turn from and flee at its first uttering but the voice that uttered the call knew that it wasn't dealing with any seasoned mariner.
It was dealing with a greenhorn whose mind and heart had been systematically shattered over the course of a year.

It was dealing with an easy picking.

"Hail and make port!"

-----------------------

The dreams were shattered, broken things.

He didn't have any real awareness of where he was, or even when he was. Awareness was fickle at best, sending his mind spiralling downward one moment, then up the next. The dreams danced and laughed at the edges of his awareness, taunting like a White Whale to a driven mariner.

-----------------------

Thunder clashed above him.

And all he could do was run.

He heard the sound, hating it, loathing it, fearing it. He fled from it, running as fast as his crawl could take him but never entirely knew what he was running from or why. All he knew was that thunder was a bad sound. Thunder meant pain. Thunder meant heartbreak.
Thunder meant death.

Renne moved onward across a ground as cold as ice and as smooth as polished crystal. Behind him, above him, around him, the thunder crashed and rolled. Sometimes it was deafening and other times, it was a faint rumble in a pseudo-sky.
He didn't know how he managed it; keeping ahold of a small miniature plush. He felt its hair tickle his skin where it lay tucked protectively under one folded arm. It was a silly thing perhaps, to carry around a doll. Silly.
He didn't care.
It talked to him. Laughed. Joked.
It spoke to him of colours and sensations and covered his ears to prevent him from hearing only the gods knew what.

"Off the starboard bow! Two points, you dartha-eel scum!"

The thunder clashed as a bell rang behind him; the sound like a blade of shafted light turned into something the ears could perceive. It wasn't a soft, welcoming sound in some forgotten belfry.
It was the sound pallbearers cringed under yet it paled in comparison to the voice thundering orders after it.

And as the voice rang out, Renne no longer crawled across frozen crystal but struggled, trying to half-swim in a churning sea.

"Ahoy! Make you port?"

NightRunner

Date: 2008-08-18 23:29 EST
What Dreams May Come
Under a Broken Sky

"The cold face of blue
Staring down the human race
I never knew. I never saw"
--I Never Saw; Renne(author)









He heard the call and turned to it.

Silenced by the mounting confusion and the insanity dancing circles within him, Renne silently sat in the sea and listened. He no longer knew what was dream and what was reality.
He only knew three things were certain.

'Chee and Cinder were Brother-Friends.
He was certain of that.

'Nathan was his BondMate.
He was certain of that.

His world had once again been broken by Humans.
He was certain too, of that.

Renne's head dipped down over the golden-haired doll cradled against himself and his hand continued to stroke its tied-back hair. Tears streamed down his face as they almost always did now, seeming to create indented tracks down the cheeks. As his hand stroked the doll's hair, his mind wandered down another path; thinking of 'Nathan and that night he'd been called the Harvest King. He thought about that ridiculously funny time they had played Pirate and it was she that swept him off his feet.
Two of his nine wings sprouted from his shoulders.

--------------------

"Ahoy!"

"Why d'ye want this one so bad, Sir?"

"Look at his heart, Mate."

"He don' have one."

"Look again."

The voices chattered all around him as wet sand turned into a wet deck. He heard them, knew they stood towering over him. Renne didn't care -- his two wings held his golden-haired doll as his hands fashioned something out of what looked like pure flame and water.
"His heart..."
No one said a word as they watched the creature work its design into solid metal and gem. Some smiled as they saw the work -- a head decoration meant obviously for a lady. A lady of high standing perhaps -- even royalty, some fathomed. No one said a word as they almost crowded 'round in a ring.

And no one said a word as they backed up and watched the blue creature fling the finished work into the sea, bound for an unknown destination.
They hoped it reached wherever it was supposed to go.

------------------------

He had never heard any of the superstitions that mariners often have. He'd never heard any of the legends, not any to understand them.
Renne sat in the sea, wings gone again, and held his doll. As the moon rose to midnight, he sang to it. He sang to it of days gone by and dreams yet to come. he sang to it of tragedy and triumph somewhere far away.

He kissed its brow as wet sand no longer existed.

He whispered hereos' names as reality threw him off.