Fantasie Nocturne

[Hekatos]

Fantasie Nocturne

Season of Glade, 124th Year of the Age of Steel

Dreams, most often, were the creations of one's own mind. Their logic and lack thereof unassailable by the dreaming mind. There were dreams that came from the Gods, some said, or from one's own personal divine spark, others said. The young elf's dreams were his own, and for whatever reason, he fell into water. Once passing through the surface, however, he was falling up and into the clouds. Roc screams echoed, a solid, sharp thing. Rocks bit into his hands. He was climbing.

One hand over the other, a long, reaching step, and he hoisted himself up and over, and onto a sort of ledge. Everything was limned in starlight, solidifying, allowing a space where his dreaming mind and waking mind met halfway. This was recognizable to him now, for while he was only occasionally a lucid dreamer, he was in love with an oneironaut—his dream king.

There were patches of snow beneath his bare feet, but it was soft and warm as wisps of cotton. The sharp stone felt cool and soothing, caused no pain, no injury. The air was bracing, and should have bitten into his lungs. He was able to feel sensations without discomfort. There was a terrible beauty about this place, but it couldn't hurt him. He was always safe with Ailuin.

Ailuin was there, sprawled upon the bed, admiring his creation. His guest was allowed to admire him for some time before his face—best beloved—turned to smile languidly. Modesty was a relative concept, and elves less prone to worry about minutiae than those races who had fewer moments to spare.

A languid hand rose to beckon him nearer.

Though they were lovers, this didn't resonate with lust, but rather, a desire for shared comfort and communion. While he had more control over this realm than any illusionist in the waking world, he didn't alter his appearance. Such pride he didn't own. This power, though, he did: to reach out and share a dream. Even nightmares were uncommon for the young elf since his first in the Eilranoikos. Ever since, a literal—as such things went in dreams—knight in shining armor always came to slay the mistwraiths and drive the other monsters away.

"I miss you, my Strýchnos," he said, calm, confident, as if they had all the time in the world. "Won't you join me?"

[Rhydian ValKor]

Where had he been before the water? Why was he there at all? These were notions that had so little time to be considered as the splash consumed him and he found himself hurdling, not through water, but through the open sky. With a grunt, his momentum halted seemingly out of nowhere as he caught himself on a promontory's edge and gripped, pulling himself upward. None of it made sense, but all of it felt akin to a compulsion... a natural instinct, perhaps like that of a migrating bird that knew its destination if not the wherefore of the journey.

Pulling himself up and over the ledge, he looked down at himself... regarding his hands as if half-expecting them to be someone else's, or something's. He looked up to the sky, which appeared ethereal and alien to his eyes. He turned that gaze down to watch his feet traverse the virgin snow, impossibly white and bringing red hues to the skin that touched it. It was only when he lifted his eyes to rest upon the profile of the king that Rhydian realised that this was a dream, and simultaneously that it was one of Ailuin's devising. At once, Rhydian bent his knee to meet the soft snow and lowered his head. It wasn't a gesture he'd have felt the need to execute in the waking world if he knew them to be alone, but out of his element and outside the written rules of their court, it was as much a reflex as the urge to climb to this place moments earlier.

He slowly stood at the sound of that voice, sweet as honey with a brandywine burn. He nodded and padded through the snow, reaching the bed upon which Ailuin was splayed, and climbing atop it. He crawled close to the king, before sitting back on his heels, back-straight and eyes adoring.

"I miss you, too, oneiropólos... So much."

[Hekatos]

Of all the Hytori court, one could argue that Rhydian knew him best, albeit through rose-tinted glass. His sovereign's gaze was sober enough as his obeisance was received in the spirit in which it was given. In some ways, he was more himself here in the dreaming land of Nod than he was at court. In Sol'Valen, he was the Phoenix King. In Tronóridan, he was the Dreaming Prince. In Silfanore, he was iereus of Thiovan, master of Eilranoikos, father, leader, and something different to each person—for each role, a mask. Even for Rhydian, he had worn different masks: guardian, teacher, mentor, guide, and later lover, and the host to his family's embassy.

But here, he was still. To other eyes, he might have seemed impassive, but to those eyes, every twitch of an eyelid was true. They might argue once more about the nature of truth, reality, and other such philosophical meanderings.

Here lay his knight in shining armor, wearing no armor in the night. Masks were set aside, and even such bothersome things as time and space were set aside as well.

"Do you think me cruel for sending you out into the world to see and hear for me? Well, perhaps I am at that. Necessity is an exigent mistress, and unless you would rather be my sworn shield and heart's companion, it will behoove me to use your skills for the betterment of our people. If it assuages your pain to know it, know that I suffer in your absence as well.

"Yet I also need your expertise, to know whether we ought to change course with regard to the Free Cities of Karnor, the Gelerian Imperium, and... Well, you have your mission. When you return, we will go to an island for a time. To rest, to relax.

"But I do hope that you enjoy your walkabout with Karrhei beside you. You will see wonders, and you will come home. I will be waiting for you at the end of your journey. Enjoy the road as well as its destination."

That said, he rolled toward his kneeling lover and brushed his lips across his knee.

[Rhydian ValKor]

Rhydian parted his lips in prelude to a protest, but the question proved relievingly rhetorical. His eyes danced down to the crumpled duvet, as the musings meandered on: ‘… and unless you would rather be my sworn shield and heart's companion…’

Even in dreams, Rhydian’s reticence got the better of him. He had responsibilities to his own court… duties he might eschew if he didn’t believe Ailuin would think less of him for doing so. But he didn’t defend his reasoning. Instead he grieved its outcome.

"I do not wish for you to suffer, my reverie." He answered with firm resolve. He didn’t address his own suffering at all. It didn’t exist in the here and now, whilst Ailuin graced him with his ethereal presence and spoke honey-brandy words of much sought-after reassurance. The pinnacle of this was the sweet promise of private time with his loving liege. In another realm his sleeping face flushed, though here he only smiled and looked at his hands.

"Lesser wonders in lesser lands… But useful for context." Rhydian replied softly. For what wonders could overperch those of their motherland? Surely many that existed were products or byproducts of Hytori influence, if not direct action. It had all been theirs— their waking world and far beyond. For a boy who’d never been abroad at length before this trip, it was queer to think that someplace as young and raucous as Kalzasi had been a wilderness well tamed by their forebears.

At Ailuin’s kiss to his knee, Rhydian caressed the king from cheek to jaw and slowly lowered himself to lie beside him. Facing his reverie, he sighed softly. He couldn’t feel his breath, even at this proximity, which felt strange until his consciousness of the aberration revised it and the dream course-corrected with the warm breeze of royal breath gracing his pristine skin. Rhydian craved his touch and slid closer to invite it.

"Do you know when I am dreaming of you whilst you’re yet awake?"

[Hekatos]

"I do afford you some privacy," he assured him after nuzzling, feline, against his hand, then shifting to accommodate the movement of his body. And then the bed was theirs.

The king—just Ailuin here—was quiet for a moment, pondering whether to say and what to say, and finally deigned to offer more to his young lover.

"When you are close, it is easier. Whether that is my mind refusing to let go of the notion of distance or..." he paused and shook his head. "Much was lost. Some I have regained. It is not hubris, I think, to say that I have never met my equal, but I can say with equal certainty that all I have learned has taught me how little I know. When you are in Silfanore, if you fall asleep, I am aware of your dreams because I choose to be. Since you were small and needed nightmares banished. I have grown accustomed to your dreaming, and while I do not endart mine eye deeper than I ought to, I know when you need saving or rousing, and there is a sort of tacit permission your mind offers me to enter." This was easier to discuss with Adamant, but the dreaming dragon knew language far better than a mere elf, even if he was a king.

"I can reach your dreams from Turoth, like this, but it takes greater effort, greater care, to do so safely. I will look in on your dreams from time to time, especially if I find you in the throes of a nightmare. But coming to you like this, I must be careful lest the Watchers decide I have overstepped and punish me—or, worse, punish you—" now it was his turn to caress his lover's face, "for my pride and for my desire. Else I would spend every night with you."

[Rhydian ValKor]

Rhydian almost scoffed at the promised of privacy as he pulled a pillow to prop his head up as he rolled to face Ailuin on his side. That was greater deference than he felt he deserved and certainly more than he required. An intrusion was a kind of connection... it meant he'd been sought out and so it was no intrusion at all.

"You can hardly invade what you've already conquered." He might not have said this aloud in the waking world... perhaps he hadn't said it aloud in his dream, but thoughts were mercurial here and willful in their own right. Perhaps his thought had spoken itself into existence or his beloved had drawn it forth, but if so it was no matter. Rhydian's heart was, in Ailuin's hands, inviolate.

As the king spoke on, Rhydian blushed at the mention of the occasional nightmares that haunted his boyhood and the memories that stirred of a valiant, dreamwalking demonslayer whose attentions were as welcome as they were inexplicable to him- then as now.

"Then let us overperch 'tacit' into the realm of 'explicit'." Rhydian replied, nestling closer and letting his wrist rest atop Ailuin's hip, "I wish to hide nothing from you and sometimes words are a wall I cannot seem to assail. To put voice to some of my thoughts..." He actually shivered at the notion.

"I was fitted for my first suit of armour at a very young age. I find it difficult to doff, even with those closest to me. I truly do not mind if you peek behind the plating. I welcome it... you." His eyes fluttered shut as Ailuin's hand stroked his blushing cheek.

"To know me thus is to know how much I love thee."

[Hekatos]

"You are too generous, my Strýchnos," he said, the mildest of chiding. His hip moved, serpentine, under Rhydian's hand. He settled once more.

Ailuin's smile was fond, even at the embarrassment. To most, Rhydian seemed unassailable. To his king, Rhydian was a pretty, deadly thing, entirely disarmed.

An elegant hand drifted over the prince's belly. At one pass, his hand left impossibly perfect mithril scale mail, shaped like dragonscales, fitted like a veneer of quicksilver. At another pass, his hand left skin, pale as smooth-sculptured stone.

"I do so appreciate the efforts you make to voice your thoughts to me. Your devotion is humbling."

At the declaration of love, he only smiled. His eyes were more present in the Land of Nod than in the waking world, perhaps because he was entirely here and not existing in two places at once. Long ago, he had expounded on his thoughts that love, too often expressed, might lose value, that one must always say it with intention lest it become hollow. He expressed his love to Rhydian with some frequency, but rarely as a call-and-response. His hand remained upon that burning cheek, imagining the fire in his young lover's skin and then it was as real as any waking heat.

"What would you like to dream tonight, my little love?"

The realm was his for the molding, at least as far as Rhydian knew. They could fly like birds, fuck like rabbits, or anything else the imagination could contrive. Ailuin's father and his friend Adamantos had taught him how to avoid the ire of the Watchers, though they were sometimes fickle, unpredictable nightmares.

[Rhydian ValKor]

“Am I?” Rhydian shrugged one shoulder. If he agreed with the assessment it didn’t seem it was with any enthusiasm.

His gaze followed the trail Ailuin’s hand took and his breath caught as his own flesh gave way to metal metaphor incarnate and then back.

“I always find it a queer thing when people claim to be humbled by reverence. Why should you feel humbled by my aggrandisement of you? You should feel powerful, for that is how I regard you. Examine my subconscious, if you don’t believe my conscious mind…” He trailed off.

At Ailuin’s question— or was it an offer?— he frowned slightly. Even lacking the dreamwalking Craft himself, there had been a few occasions in which he’d come to consciousness in dreams and wielded some element of control over the world of his purview. On those occasions he’d always been spoilt for choice. Knowing he was capable of anything was daunting and tended to make his mine mercurial- dancing over one vignette before abruptly daring headfirst into the next whim to cross his mind. It resulted in a chaotic melange of unfinished fantasies that failed to satisfy. This was not like a normal dream, though… Ailuin’s Craft saw to that. There was more stability here to the surroundings and even his own thoughts. He was still in control of himself in a way he wouldn’t have been in the rip-current of an unaugmented dream.

“We said farewell with words ere I quit Silfanore, but not with bodies. I would feel your affection pour over me like warm rosewater in a bath.” Their bodies were leagues apart, but it didn’t feel thus and that was, for Rhydian, a worthy and a worthwhile approximation.

[Hekatos]

"Not for lack of desire," he assured him.

As elegant in a bed—especially a bed in the Dreaming—as any Val'Kor upon a battlefield, he turned over his young lover and the weight of his body pushed Rhydian's body deeper into the accommodating mattress, and deeper still into what the bed had become—an opulent bath carved out of mountain stone and tiled with impossible minerals.

Water that managed to be refreshing even as it was perfectly warm slid up over their bodies. Ailuin kissed him, and the faint scent of roses did catch in his nose. It wasn't the water, however, but rather a delicate rain of petals dancing slowly down from the sky to cling to wet skin, water's surface.

Time was fluid there. They might have kissed for hours.

"I needn't plumb your dreams to know you would never lie to me," he said, lips close to Rhydian's lips, green eyes less jarring here than in the waking realm. Under the water, he held Rhydian close. Their bodies were puzzle pieces, no matter what shapes they took.

Ailuin proceeded to make Rhydian's dreams come true.

[Rhydian ValKor]

Rhydian smiled at Ailuin's rather literal interpretation of his desire. Truly, this prince was a creature of the Dreaming Realms to manifest metaphors thusly. His smile was pressed against a cherished mouth... or at least it felt like it was and that was, for Rhydian, enough. He needn't dwell on the truth of the distance that split them twain, when the fantasy was so pleasantly palpable.

Rhydian moved gracefully in the bed. He may have been a dancer on the battlefield, but there he rarely let others lead. Here, with his king, he could let that part of himself go and let himself be dipped from bed to bath, before things waxed botanical.

"Roses and nightshade..." He replied with a slight smirk, "Oh what a deadly tea you steep." He lifted his knees, creating a valley for Ailuin to inhabit as he settled back and shut his eyes.

To make love in the dreaming with the man of his dreams was a religious experience. As long as he was focused on the good, and Ailuin saw to it that he was, there was none of the awkwardness or discomfort that could accompany the physical act. It was a matter of magic and memory washing over him. Here he could cast off his typical reservedness and be consumed by the feelings that overtook him. And was there such a thing as climax in a realm where the limits of ones own imagination where the sole peak... looming so high above them that even the dreaming eye could not see? At least not Rhydian's eye, which was focused so fixedly upon his love and liege lord.