A Nightmare and Her Brother

Stories, continued and interrupted, of beings from wherever the sky calls to the dreamers, the wind whispers to the wanderers, and the road calls to the determined.

Moderators: Mist Gul, Pharlen

Post Reply
User avatar
Pharlen
Seasoned Adventurer
Seasoned Adventurer
Posts: 323
Joined: Sat Jun 23, 2018 10:35 pm
Location: Hollywood, CA
Contact:

A Nightmare and Her Brother

Post by Pharlen »

Under a bloody sky shivered through with lightning blades of chaos and madness, spreading pools of genius and shatterings of terror, the herd awaited their call. They gathered, singly, in pairs, four in hand and twenty strong.

Some burned eternally, some were headless, others were nebulous black, leprous white, vivid red, sulfurous yellow, the murky green of the swamps, the deadly blue of the seas. Skeletal, mummified, freshly eviscerated, they were each as beautifully grotesque as the next.

And then came Daisy.

Dainty as a Welsh-Arabian pony, pretty as a creation made to have a cutie pie mark upon a flank, lovely as a black rose. She took her place among the ranks of darkness, giggling and gossiping with friends, each awaiting the names of the tormented, the means of their torment, and the doors which they would open in the minds of those they would afflict.

Sooty arrogance, one of the gaunts eyed Daisy's blatant cuteness in deep disdain, tossing her charred and burning head, baring teeth like piano keys with the ivory half scorched away. A switch of flaming tail and she eyed the stallion she just happened to be standing beside.

She just happened to be beside this particular stallion as often as possible, and he never so much as glanced at her glory of desolation. She was just another of the herd who gazed upon his majesty and died. Yet... Perhaps she would find a hoof hold...

"I really cannot understand why Daisy is here at all. She must embarrass you horribly. Look at her! She's cute," the mare burst out, indignant, as she moved closer to the stallion, "However can you bear this? She even talks like a moron when she arrives in this state."

The male seemed to take and exhale a slow breath in the elegant lacework of muscle and sinew, the flayed beast turning his head to regard the mare, eyes of green miasma revealing annoyance along with a dreadful ennui.

"You assume my sister embarrasses me, and insult her. To try and get my attention. How very droll."

Now that the mare thought about it, it wasn't actually the best of ideas.

"It must have been a horrible accident, what happened to her, Coreopsis?" A corrupt and rotting female interjected with a turn of maggot ridden eye sockets towards the charred female, and the sneer was unmistakeable in both the thin baring of decayed teeth and dying eyes before she turned a concerned gaze to the flayed stallion. He clopped a hoof, clearly impatient with these antics, but found fit to defend family honor.

"Father is of the Abyss, Mother is of the Planes. We were born in schism," he responded, "We carry those energies. Long ago, Daisy was entrapped within a summoning cast by an unwise soul. Seeking to punish a female who had spurned his romantic advances, he bound Daisy to that woman. However, he summoned only the abyssal energies."

"People can do that?" the first mare demanded, horrified. There was a gut wrenching wrongness to the very concept, that they who set loose and conducted the night terrors of the dreaming mind could be entrapped by the waking minds of their subjects.

"Indeed they may, Lampblack, with ease if you are without protection of it," Coreopsis responded flatly, "Thus was not only my sister bound to a two legged one, but her magnificence of form was replaced by proximity to the woman by the creature you see today. Or so the mage believed, for he was under the impression that the woman he desired was of a fragile and gentle goodness of heart."

"You mean, this mage believed that the woman was a good girl and made Daisy pretty to match?" the rotting female inquired dubiously. The stallion nodded.

"Precisely. In fact, the woman was technically a planar being, a celestial, and no more good nor evil than we. She repaired what was done to Daisy, binding back her planar self to the corruption of the abyssal, but the damage was done. In presence of evil, she was in her foul glory. In presence of good, she was all beauty. She was released from the herd to assist the woman she had become bound to, for with such a spell, she could scarce do her work here effectively," Coreopsis explained, his head lifting and turning, the vaporous hell of his gaze sorting through the creatures awaiting their word.

"...But... to work for a person, even a celestial. We ride even within the dreaming minds of the gods, how may one such as we be bound to a living person?" Lampblack sputtered, trying and failing not to sound disdainful of such a fall from grace.

"There is no shame to work with one of the Firetakers," Coreopsis scoffed, "How many of us here have applications for just such work? To test every one of our skills and cunning learned within the minds of people against them in the waking world? It is a challenge worthy of any powerful and intelligent night gaunt."

"Shot down again," the decayed female purred to Lampblack.

"Shut up, Lulabelle."

"Daisy must be able to control her form now, I see her often mummified or rotting -- well, she has such an amazing array and control, I am jealous of how easily she manages her form," Lulabelle noted sweetly, batting eye maggots at the stallion.

"She does. That is why she returns here on nights when she is not required in her service to the Firetaker. She tends to the children of her woman now. A cagey move on Daisy's part, it frees her from Mother and Father nagging for foals," Coreopsis replied, his earth sundering bass voice turning conversational, drawing the surprised attention of other nightmares upon the notoriously aloof stallion.

"Well, you know..." Lulabelle pointed out coyly, and was irritated to realize that several other mares had just as coyly, sweetly, importantly, taken up Coreopsis's remark to try and run with. He ignored them all, stepping up as his name was spoken, voiceless and sourceless, followed moments later by the bounce and prance of his sister.

"Traaaddeeee," Daisy chortled, latching wolven teeth into her brother's fetlock and tearing away a few tendons playfully. He turned snake quick and snapped a finger of her bat-like wings clean off. Squealing and laughing, the much smaller mare plowed into her brother, who promptly joined the wrestling match with rumbles of amusement.

Though it was fairly clear that the massive Coreopsis allowed his sister to overpower him, and the only malice involved was playful sibling rivalry, it was still the posturings that mattered. He flattened out on his side under his sister's tiny hooves and conceded victory to Daisy.

"Trade."

"Rawk," Daisy twittered, nuzzling her brother before she was simply gone, sifted away through the doorway she opened with the ease of thought and careening madly into the sleeping mind first assigned to her brother.

Coreopsis slipped away with less ease, finding himself standing within a true challenge to his abilities. Even the gods did dream, and he found himself within the troubled mind of a beautiful war maiden tasked to choose heroes from the battlefield dead. It was an amusing irony that even such celestial beings had entanglements so simple.

The night gaunt amplified the fears for her lover's fidelity and safety into a maelstrom of unresolved jealousy and terror, casting up images until what should have been only a disturbing dream was a thrown halberd of motion and direction.

"Recurring nightmare?" a sweet female voice inquired. Coreopsis found himself gazing upon the soft gleaming and bone chilling cold of the air form of the Valkyrie's mount. As he watched, she claimed the powerful perfection of form of a tall white horse with swan feathered wings.

"It would seem to be so."

"I suppose you have to ride over it and assure it goes the proper way each time," the winged mare mulled, but Coreopsis shook his head, shook away the seeming of a skinless abhorrence, standing as a powerful and sleek black creature, wings folding with a rattling of phalanges and creak of leather.

"Not at all. Deities such as yours have terrifically singled minds. She will chew over this night by night even as she seeks out her missing beloved," he assured her, pacing closer to the mare.

"Helpful hints and pointers?" she inquired with a pretty little turn of her head.

"She'll take longer without them," he pointed out, "But for you, anything."

"Silly. When she is content, she will not ride, she will be content to bear the cups. I didn't dare hope it would be you to come for her," the mare murmured, lifting eyes filled with morning dew to the gaunt.

"My sister hates the drama and the cold. I, however, find it quite ...enchanting," Coreopsis purred, dipping his head downwards in a bowing motion. "Shall we call this a break and take some time to reacquaint ourselves...?"
Fantastically Ordinary
Drop by for a cuppa odd.
Post Reply

Return to “Crossroads”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest