Waking Dreams: Chapter 2 - Nightmares and Dreamscapes

Tired blue-gray eyes blink in the stillness.  Darkness is illuminated by explosions of color as a myriad of roses in sapphire, amethyst, and shades of sunset explode along the walls and floor.  Water falls like a river from the pond to northwest flowing in a stream to the southeast, before snaking its way across the ground to run along the steps that lead down into the labyrinth of greens, blues, and violets. 

The roses hedge in twisting pathways that lead down and away as a girl follows the moss-slick cobblestones.  Massive trees reach toward the open skies above him, streaking past intricate bridges of masonry that feel as though they've been folded back inside themselves.  The stones themselves creak under the weight of something half seen as it lashes against firmly bedded chains. Something small scampers across the ceiling before vanishing  behind a hedge as it runs toward the wall.  Shaking her head, Elise stumbles forward a few steps before a crisp crunch whispers up to her.

Encroaching on the moss-strewn bricks, the flowery heads of clovers peer up at her from further down the path, away from the nearby bridge and the stream.  She pauses at the crossroads, considering, when a gentle breeze carries the scent of honey to him and his feet begin moving of their own accord.  The ebbing water fades into the distance and as he moves deeper into the green arms of the labyrinth, her perfume chokes his breath away.

Crunching and snapping, needles spring toward her and bite deeply onto her arm.  She stares at the strange creature as it coalesces into a clawing, tugging drake.  Her arm shines silver as the drake's claws scramble uselessly seeking purchase on her flesh.  Her free hand moves toward the creature's eyes as she mutters something quickly under his breath.  Leaves and nettles blacken, smoldering under her touch, but refuse to catch fire.  The drake whips around, throwing Elsie to the ground before its bunches into itself, ready to spring.

She stares at her arm in half recognition.  "Moonsblood?" she whispers as the drake launches toward her.  She falls away from its grasping claws before finding her knees and standing.  A wave of vertigo washes over her as she looks down the side of the walls she's standing on toward the drake.  She backs away as the drake hisses and her foot comes out from under her on the leaf-covered path.  Bending down on her knee and staring the beast in the face she knows that she needs a weapon to defend herself with.  Her fingers grasp around something cold and the drake springs, bounding up the wall toward her.

The drake's head parts from it's body and it explodes, a pile of leaves nettles left unattended on a late fall afternoon.  As the wilting cloud settles against the wall, a silver bladed katana glitters in her hands. Entranced, Elise doesn't see the wilt spreading through the clover and moss or the bushes beginning to blacken.  Chains rattle and a snap echoes through the air.  Looking toward the source of the noise Elise's eyes grow wide.  The chimera's chains hang limp and empty.


Elise bolts upright in her sleeping roll.  The light from the early morning filters into her tent and her face outlined in a halo of deep red fire that quickly darkens to chestnut.  She's panting, staring at her arm.  The dream had felt so real, but it was just another dream.  There had been such power.  Such freedom.  She sighs softly as the dream begins to slip through the fingers of her waking mind.  Tonight, I'll taste a different freedom.  Smiling, she rose to start her day. 

She knew the coming night was for her and the stars above alone.

Waking Dreams: Chapter 1 - Bound in Blood

Chapter 1 - Bound in Blood

While you or I might find it strange to cough out dirt and blood, it wasn’t the first thing on Jimm's.  The first thing on his mind was an angry boy with a complexion as dark as his temper towering above him and kicking him violently in the ribs.  Things two through seven in no particular order and varied degrees of desperation were: Please, don’t let me pass out; fuck, that hurt; I think I’m going to piss myself; Venn is such an asshole; did Serra see that wince; I’m so glad I turned down that ale; and damn it.. 

That’s odd.  Why am I coughing out dirt and blood was thought eight and was immediately followed by his ninth thought, which he said out loud, “I’m going to fucking kill you if you kick me one more time Venn.”

Venn flinched as if he'd been struck and turned to look over at Jimm.  When he saw the blood dribbling out of Jimm's mouth all of the was fury forgotten, his face bloodless and nearly bone white against his black hair, at  before he stammered out, “I ain’t been kicking you Jimm, I was just kickin’ da mutt’s whelp…”

Jimm stood a solid five feet eleven inches tall and Venn towered above him in much the same way an oak might tower over a pond, but this was the first time the boys had ever spoken to quite like this.  In fact it was the first time the two of them had spoken to each other since Venn had walked in on his little sister Serra straddling Jimm in the barn that morning back at town.  It was also the first time that Jimm’s eye had ever blacked itself without anyone touching him or his lip had spit open without a fist to assist it.  “Blood magic,” Serra exhaled, eyes wide in rapt fascination.  Her heart beat even faster than when her brother Venn had walked in on their performance earlier that day, drawn as inexorably toward the forbidden as a moth to any flame.  The girls in the group had been hanging back, not wanting to see what the boys were going to do to the pup they had found.  It was an excellent vantage point to see exactly how Jimm had taken the alleged beating so far and injuries blossoming out of thin air.  A number of them had already turned away from the scene and started back toward camp.

“Quite right,” Jimm muttered, glowering at Venn, “I’m sorry you had to find out you know what you know how, but I swear if you keep me bound to that mutt while you beat it I’ll fucking kill you.”


The exchange sounded playful enough but the air around the two boys was charged with something otherworldly.  Jimm’s beating heart was tied to that miserable dog through his friend’s animosity, barely controlled rage fueling a link between two fleshes and transmuting all of Venn’s fury at it’s real source. 


“But- but Jimm,” Venn muttered, fear overpowering the hatred that had consumed him earlier, “I- I don’t know how I did it.”

It had been nearly seven weeks since they'd stumbled into the abandon, burned out old library.  They'd taken dares on who could run in the furthest, grab a book from the rubble, and get back out when one of them had emerged with Histories de Magicis.  Venn had taken the Mayor's daughter Tandy for a tumble in the barnyard afterward and convinced her to steal her father's latin dictionary.  After that it hadn't taken long to gather the attention of half of the kids in town.  They'd only had one bad scare when half a wall had collapsed while some stupid kid was messing around but in the end they'd found two dozen books that had rubbish fairy stories in them and half a dozen more books of real, honest magic.  Everyone had found a spell or two that they could work in one of the books and Venn's favorite had been Ligatum et in Sanguinem from a roped off section labeled "Restringitur" but this was the first time he'd done anything with it that Jimm had known about.  If he had done anything.

Over the last few weeks there had been mishaps that needed covering up before the adults found out what they were doing out in the woods.  All of the boys and girls in the field and in the nearby camp had grown close these last two months, learning and playing games of magic.  The silence that followed Venn's confession spread from the field toward the camp and their friends came streaming through the tall grasses, whispering to each other in hushed voices.  One of the girls, Elsie, tapped on the side of her glasses and muttered "Conspectu esse vera," as Tandy jumped to Venn's defense, stepping between the two boys before she let out a voice that was a little more than a squeak, "Venn wouldn't never- I mean he wouldn't ever-" 

Elsie cut off Tandy squeaking stuttering defense with a rather girlish squeal as she fell back onto the ground.  She’d had a stronger talent in examining magic than working much of it it herself but there were moments that everyone wondered if she'd been staring into the void a bit longer than healthy.

“Of course Venn can’t break the link,” Elsie laughed as she dusted off her dress before standing up, “It’s your familiar after all!”

“Well he bloody better break the link before that mutt dies,” Jimm replied sourly, “If he doesn’t let it go I’ll-“ 

Jimm stopped suddenly as something clicked, words sliding into place like a puzzle block falling into an open space in his brain. “The fuck do you mean it’s my familiar?”

As Elsie dove into her explanation of the complex mechanics for forming a bond with an animal, the factors that enhanced that bond, and the myriad of ways that the bond could impact both parties, histories and mythologies, Jimm realized he was fucked.  His breathing was already becoming shallow and he could feel broken ribs scratching at bits inside of his chest.  Terror mirrored across two beating hearts as Elsie explained that when a link was established even an unconscious empathy supported by the proper magics could form a bridge when once hadn’t already existed.  Had he felt bad when Venn started in on the pup? Of course he had.  He knew who Venn really wanted to kick in.  All of this was exactly what-

Turning, Jimm placed his breakfast as far away from Serra as possible and he was only mildly upset that he hadn’t had the foresight to aim closer to Venn’s fucking boots.  He dropped to his knees and coughed out a red-black liquid, his mouth tasting strongly of iron or copper, he couldn’t quite place it.  Around him shapes moved in the darkness while the sun beat down overhead, a single point of blinding brightness in a world of gray. 

A gray haze is a terrible thing to use for telling time, so he had no idea how much time had passed when he began to stir. A taste of honey filled his mouth, filled his entire chest with warmth, magic thick on the air.  Hungry lips pressed against his, sucking greedily as if they might swallow his soul out through his throat.  The smell of clover and licorice filled his nose as he took a breath and he smiled, reached up to grab the soft, firm flesh of the shape on top of him and hold her close.  Small, powerful hands held off the advances of his too short arms and oddly inarticulate hands.  At his insistence one of those powerful hands parted his lip against the sharp fangs in his mouth.   

 “Eh uck wahz hat tor?” he muttered as he opened his eyes.  He was in some kind of tent and Elsie fumed above him.  She spat a mouthful of blood across his muzzle before she stormed off.  As he scratched himself behind ear in confusion, he heard her call out from around a nearby campfire, “the fucking dog’s awake, how's Jimm doing?”

To call one so bonded super human might not be a stretch, but for the first few weeks it was apparent that humans have their limitations for good reasons.  When you’re young you might recall those days when you would spin and spin until the world spun around you when you stopped, some internal compass knocked outward in both directions to leave you unable to cope with maltreatment of our body's sense of self location, a bodily system designed to make human beings superior to automatons like the golems of old.  It was always incredible fun, until you threw up your breakfast or broke your ankle.  Sometimes it’s still fun after that, particularly if you learn to cope with the sensations that wash over you as you bring yourself back to center. 

As he woke, Jimm felt through two sets of conflicting senses that the world had stopped spinning and he had been left trying to find his feet. The process was much more brutal than any of the books they had gathered suggested it would be, though it seemed to have more to do with the kind of binding than the bond itself.  It was not unusual for a master to link minds with a familiar so that commands or suggestions could be nudged into the other’s mind or a call of warning could reach the master’s thoughts.  Even using a familiar as a conduit for magic, a protector of sorts against the surges of backlash and a battery or generator for magical energies, wasn’t unheard of, but no true master would merge his flesh with that of a beast.  That was stuff for druids and savages.

He was stuck fighting an odd sense of bio-location as he saw with two sets of eyes, heard with two sets of ears.  His nerves were the pups nerves, the pup’s muscles his own.  Thoughts didn’t travel but rather mingled and when he moved sometimes the wrong body moved instead of the right one.  He had to relearn how to walk, how to talk, how to shut his mind away from his new companion.  It was easier when the mutt was asleep and he was tempted more than once to just start drugging him, but Serra was too amused by the little tricks he was learning to work to go through with it and the power it was giving him.  He could feel it growing inside of him like a living thing, wild and free.

A week and a half after the accident, in the deepest darkness of early morning he could smell the dew on the grass and through his nose almost see the shape of the wind that had carried the grasses pollens about that evening.  And as he looked at the tapestry the wind painted he saw a silhouette in clover and licorice break through it. The moon had waxed a span ago, leaving a crescent sliver of white against a backdrop of diamonds and darkness.  Through the grasses and woody groves the girl’s shadow beckoned and danced the woods alive with countless mysteries.  Beside the clover and licorice girl’s foot a rabbit had crossed just the afternoon before, falling in step before and after her on the trail she took were the musk of deer, birds everywhere and nowhere caught and scattered by the flow of the wind through the boughs above in patterns too complex for his nose to follow.  His feet moved ever further onward, carrying him closer his clover and licorice girl.  As he neared he heard a small sob and grew still before creeping out and pouncing on its source.  Elsie smiled up at him.

"You stupid mutt, always coming after me when I'm running off to be by myself," she scolded gently as she scratched behind his ear, her bare body bathing in the waning moonlight and her clothes a pillowed against her.