Notes

pain.

Searing, inexplicable pain … like he’s been raked across his gut by the razor talons of a panicked animal.

He feels himself stumble backward, the red haze from his eyes lifting to reveal a dark, dirty, confined passageway in a place he can’t quite recognize, the walls and pavement all made of materials unsettlingly foreign to him.

Disorientation and utter confusion clambers to the surface of his tumbling thoughts as he blinks and draws in an agonized breath through his teeth, followed by the quiet shock of how harsh the single flickering light present is to his eyes. Instinctively, he raises a hand to shield his eyes with an exhaled hiss …

… then he stares in horror at what the light reveals.

He expects blood. … and there is blood, but it is not what horrifies him.

It is the hands that the blood soaks.

These are not his hands.

They aren’t hands at all, rather extremities more fit for a rabid monster. His fingers have been replaced with misshapen digits tipped by rending talons and coated in the gore of cornered prey. His mouth and throat turn dry and his breathing becomes labored as he watches the sickly crimson fluid both smoothly and arduously roll past his slicked, trembling palms and down his wrists.

He cannot tell how much time passes as he stands there in this daze, his addled mind fighting to comprehend this physical change, how it could possibly have happened, how he’s even wound up this place at all.

A choked, gurgling grunt of physical anguish floats over to him from a few meters away, interrupts his state of confounded self-scrutiny, and he feels himself reflexively jerk his head into a position of rapt attention toward the pitiable sound. He feels compelled to investigate; perhaps spurred on by pure instinct, or morbid curiosity, or a genuine shred of concerned empathy … regardless the reason, he can feel himself slowly creep toward the harrowed noise.

The sounds come out from behind some large metal receptacle, the contents of which are producing some kind of rancid odor, a stench made worse by the humid atmosphere of the confined corridor. He can barely discern a flutter of movement in the shadows just beyond the reach of that singular, harsh overhead light, and that movement becomes more frenetic the closer he gets in his cautious approach.

He can feel his face scrunch up a little in disgust as another, coppery scent draws his attention down; more blood stains the strange pavement, and his mind turns to a path of ruthless deduction: how the blotches, while chaotic, nevertheless form the pattern to indicate a vicious conflict, followed by a swift retreat. He then notes the presence of glittering flecks of pink mixed into the clotting and dried fluid, and this implication leaves him reeling with thoughts tumbling renewed and confused knots in his own wounded gut.

He freezes, briefly, as the movement behind the receptacle ceases. It’s already abundantly clear that whatever is the source of the noise is also injured; perhaps even severely, judging by the noises emitted so far. Perhaps encouraged by empathy, he makes the attempt to move a little closer, to speak assurance to the obviously quite compromised being hiding just out of sight …

… only to be forced back several paces by a lightning-fast swipe and a horrible, hissing shriek.

… go away!

The shock of the moment is made worse by the surprised low, thrumming snarl he hears escaping his throat.

… no.

The attempted, clearly panicked, attack leaves the other being a little closer to the light and slightly easier to see … and he can feel his heart drop heavy in his mauled torso. Disfigured digits caked in blood and tipped with razor talons. A wirily built silhouette, barely holding itself together and heaving in agony. A fanged maw, slick with fluids, curling open in an expression of bestial threat and defiance. The shine of familiar eyes that stare back at him, not in relieved recognition, but in utter and confused terror.

The eyes. The eyes are the worst. They are almost the same as he recalls, and yet not, with one eye having lost all color and both eyes glimmering with animalistic fear. Not a trace of that familiar warmth he had come to know remained within.

And he can feel the inexplicable grief grasp at his nerves.

… stay away! shrieks the other. … leave me alone! I’ll tear you apart if you come any closer! The threat is genuine.

He doesn’t feel threatened at all. … and if he were to be honest with himself, he has no clue what to feel in this moment. He knows there is something like sadness. He knows there is something like anger. … familiar and comfortable … something he can harness … rage … he knows he feels rage … how dare …

He can feel himself move again toward the other being, slowed by his wounds, yes, but deliberate and resolute as he’s always been, and another growl rumbles forth.

… how dare …

Whatever he’s about to do is interrupted by the sound of something metallic banging above his head, the contact chill of something wet and cold—

—and then he sits up in bed, sputtering and cursing.

Another clang of metal. … rather the sound of a bucket being set down brusquely on the floor of his room. A room he always keeps locked during the darker hours, mind.

Standing with hands akimbo at the foot of his bed is the culprit that (once again!) has jimmied the locks open and unceremoniously dumped a bucket of water on his sleeping head, the intruder’s shining peridot eyes glinting within an expression equal parts thorough annoyance and smug triumph.

—a stark contrast from the cold, terrified, mismatched eyes from the nightmare still clinging to the back of his consciousness.

“Fuckin’ finally!” declares his friend in that familiar sharp tenor, snapping him into full waking. “Ya realize ev’ryone else hasn’t th’ guts t’ wake you up? You sleep like the dead an’ they keep sendin’ me t’ fetch ya! An’ we keep tellin’ ya t’ slow down fer your health’s sake, but no~ ya jus’ have to keep pushin’ ‘til we drag you home and you practic’ly pass out on yer pillow—”

He rolls his eyes at his friend’s—understable and painfully true—tirade, dragging himself out of his now thoroughly soaked bedding, beginning to wring out his sopping sheets in earnest.

“You’re enjoying this more than you let on, brother.” he cooly interrupts his friend with a wry grin.

His friend’s smug expression changes into an amusedly indignant smirk in the blink of an eye. “Shuddup,” is the simple retort, bright emerald wings twitching in playful annoyance. “‘Nyway … th’ Great Light’s risin’ quick and we’re gonna be late at this rate. We don’t want ya to tarnish yer ‘perfect record’ on an account of a terrible night’s sleep, right?” His friend punctuates the statement with a friendly cuff to his shoulder, before turning and striding out the door.

He only chuckles in response to the light punch and watches his friend exit the room, likely to get a literal flying head start. … not that it would matter; there is a reason why he is so rarely late to training, and he had his brother-in-all-but-blood to thank in keeping that reason sharp.

For a moment, he slows down a bit as he finishes his cleaning and preparations, his mind lingering on the last vestiges of the nightmare his friend so ‘kindly’ woke him from by means of ice water bucket. He’s found, quite a while ago at that, that he will simply never have the heart to tell his friends—much less his sworn brother—about these odd, unsettling dreams, and how they’ve been increasing in frequency as of late.

He shakes his head and brushes the thoughts aside, straightens his uniform and walks past the threshold to his room into the commons hall with all the dignity expected of him and his lineage. In his mind, he rationalizes that he’s probably just stressed out. His sworn brother’s words ring a little true—he probably has been pushing himself a little too hard lately, and all of that pent up worry he’s been meditating on … it would be rationally expected that it’d start manifesting through his already stringent sleep schedule one way or another. People—he refuses to name names—are expecting him to be rational, after all; he shouldn’t be worried about such childish concepts like visions and portents.

They’re just dreams, he reminds himself as he locks the doors to his quarters behind him, sprinting out to the gangway and the open sky beyond. He can see the neon green ribbons of light trailing from his sworn brother’s wings in the distance, looping twice in a spirited, unspoken challenge. He allows himself a playful smirk, blitzing off toward their destination in a streak of neon pink—a gesture of acceptance—as he tosses the weight of his troubled dreams to the wind.

After all, they’re just dreams.

… they’re just dreams.