(no subject)

[misterbkeele.livejournal.com]

Date: April 5, 2003, night
Status: Private (Baraq, Ishtar, Primoris) (Complete)
Setting: Baraq and Ishtar's respective rooms; the Dreaming
Summary: A goddess and a demon share a nightmare, under Primoris' watch.


Barnaby lifted the lid of the steamer trunk and wrinkled his nose. He had been letting things go. With a gesture the stack of clothes was clean, but the musty smell remained; probably it had seeped into the wood. He left the trunk open, throwing the windows open for good measure. The night was chill but not uncomfortably so, and he slept in a bundle of sheets and comforter.

---

Memories are a haphazard thing, even in the best of times; you never recall them how they went. Like a broken clay bowl reassembled in not quite the right way. Dreams, now, dreams complicate matters even more.

The demon moved through the masquerade party, celebrating—what? The royal marriage? A newborn princess? A birthday? The nobility barely needed the excuse to splurge. He smiled and nodded at each person he passed. A woman wearing a frothy wig and a violently fuchsia half-mask dimpled back at him. Her skin was downy as a peach, and a white-tipped tail twitched under her skirts.

There was a heady scent filling the ballroom, too sweet, too cloying, and he needed to get out. He pushed his way through the crowded revelry, past the bull-headed footmen at the doors and the mouse-drawn carriages.

He never could stand polluted air for long.

Presently, he found himself in a different time and place, though still in France, still wearing the fancy-dress from the party. The trade in opiates had bloomed all over Europe, barely needing demonic encouragement. What wouldn't humans do, to themselves and each other? Still, here he was in one of hundreds of smoky little dens in the city, talking to one of his contacts in the business. If you didn't keep an eye on things... He shook hands with the smooth-faced dealer and left.

Now here he was, in the flat he kept his lodgings in while he was in Paris. There was a mustiness somewhere, which was strange—the furniture here wasn't that old, was it? He shook his head, bemused, and lifted a cup to his lips. The black tar dissolved into the drink smelled like vinegar and tasted of cut grass and liquorice.

Comments

[lady-of-nineveh.livejournal.com]

The night might have been clear and chill outside, but in the cocoon of her bedroom everything was a warm haze. The pits and edges of darkness were softened and lifted with perfumed pastel smoke rising from incense burners and flickering candles, forming a pool of shimmering vapours around the bed. Ishtar inhaled deeply, pulling sweet fumes through the water of her bejewelled shisha pipe. Sweat stood in beads on her brow and her eyes fluttered behind closed lids as she cast the mouthpiece away and collapsed back against a pile of cushions, consigning herself to drugged oblivion.

*

She moved languorously through the crowds, adrift on swells of revelry, the complaisant victim of the masquerade's currents. Vivid plumage and vertiginous wigs were the foam on the waves, while the water was a swirl of capes and gowns. Full hoped skirts brushed past suits of armour and elaborate military uniforms. Darting in and out of this strange milieu were the faces – the characters. Peacock faces, clowns, monsters, epic heroes and princesses of old all appeared and disappeared in dances and conversation. Half masks, full masks, oversized Venetian carnival visages mixed with gods and demons, all polite smiles of sharks' teeth and politicking harpy laughter.

The crowd was multiplied to infinity between mirrored walls, the noise echoing under a gilt and painted ceiling. Versailles perhaps? Poppy was thick in the air, and she recognised her own mixtures by scent, but something else, something old and familiar, lay beneath them and made her feel sick to her stomach. Ancient armour flashed in the corner of her eye, and a tremor snaked up her spine. She tried to pinpoint the vision, but came instead upon own her reflection – seeing her not-quite-antediluvian past in quicksilver and glass. Her short hair was hidden under an ornate wig of pomaded and curled obsidian, confined by the royal horned mitre. A plethora of tasselled shawls were held over her long tunic with jewelled belts. But her face was naked. She backed away from the mirror in disgust as the crowd swirled again, thrusting her forcibly among them.

A man made a path in the heaving throng and escaped into the night, creating a wake of stillness behind him. Ishtar forced her back straight, and followed him at a distance to the door. I have stood naked in hell, why should I fear my own naked face? The sickening sensation in her stomach increased and she stumbled at the top of the steps.

A footman bearing the head of an aurochs moved forward as if to help her, but as he came close blood bloomed on his shirt and he fell. She screamed as his blood pooled across the floor, soaking into her slippers as the corpse transformed into the remains of a mighty bull. “No!” she screamed, tears standing in her eyes.

The French nobility turned their false faces towards her. Who knew what watched from behind the impassive wall of masks, moving among the crowd dressed as Gilgamesh. The bull's blood continued to flow - darkening to black in the air, running down the steps in miniature waterfalls and carrying her out into the night along with it.

[safehouse-guest.livejournal.com]

From his vantage point in his own little Dreaming, Primoris almost laughed. The goddess had been almost too easy. Dead bulls and blood and ancient heroes and the vulnerability inherent in nakedness and the absence of a mask... how predictable.

The second minor demon, now, he was more interesting. Primoris rather liked demons, in a way; they had such interesting nightmares. His new associate would probably appreciate this too; two dreamers in one night, one in a drugged stupor, the other dreaming of drugs, to manipulate and feed off.

He delved deeper into the demon’s mind, searching, carefully excavating old fears. Ahh, withdrawal, something else he was rather fond of.

Let him feel the high of the opium for a few precious moments, perhaps… then he would remove it, plunge him into the depths of withdrawal, and savour the delicious desperation.

But wait, there was more… it was not mere fear of the withdrawal, not what it seemed on the surface. He feared and hated being beholden to his infernal masters. Oh, this was lovely.

More withdrawal, then, and perhaps with a splash of his deeper fear mixed with it…

Primoris was still keeping half an eye on the derelict goddess, concentrating on both at once, though more focused on the demon, and didn’t take much notice of the strange rippling spreading through the Dreaming. It had, after all, happened quite a bit when he’d first ripped this place away from the true Dreaming.

[misterbkeele.livejournal.com]

He set the glass down with a musical chink, and closed his eyes. Let the dreamy calm take over, now, to undo the knot at the base of his skull and smooth over the jagged edge of his nerves. Forget the thread of shame that grew in ivy vines, and slip into the undertow where they were no responsibilities to anyone...

The woman's scream cut through the haze. His hand jerked, knocking the glass over; damp brownish blotches spread over his gloves. He half-turned, tried to call out through suddenly numb lips. "What...?"

It seemed to him that the door behind him opened into two paths at once, superimposed over each other: One, leading down to the smoky den with its dreamers passing long-handled pipes around the room, and the other to a night-blotted courtyard. The sounds of the masquerade party could be heard from here, if faintly. It was from there the cry had come.

A cold sweat was beading on his skin, and he moved to wipe his forehead. It was then he realized he still wore his half-mask. What was it supposed to be? Something canine, perhaps. He left it alone and went unsteadily to the door.

"Who's there?" he called, trying—and failing—to ignore the tremors growing in his bones. Something was wrong.

[lady-of-nineveh.livejournal.com]

Ishtar existed in the floating blackness beyond Versailles, deep in troubled thought. She could not see or hear anything in the blackness which pressed on every sense, but she knew the way back to that strange and twisted masquerade. She could almost smell it. Her mind whirled apace, but in the blackness it could have been days or more.

Too much, too soon, she whispered the merest musings of the possibility of a thought of... hush, in the privacy of her own mind.

Gilgamesh, and her defeat at his hands - the death of her own beloved bull, the gift of her great father - had taught Ishtar a valuable lesson on the fallability of godkind. She had learned, perhaps the best of her peers, her stronger, wiser, more powerful peers, to become mutable and mould herself to fit into the mortal realm. She no longer had temples, although she often thought of rebuilding them. Her followers no longer knew her name, now they worshipped her as a feeling in the brothels and the opium dens, in the silence before a gangland brawl and through the frenzied bass notes of the dissonant music of youth.

Too strong, too early on. The death of the bull of heaven had been her own fault, caused by her own pride. She had loved the horse, and given him the whip and saddle and spur. She had not anticipated that Gilgamesh could resist her love for fear of the cruelties it brought. Her family had punished him for the death of the bull, but not for his wrongs against her. She had remedied her overt tactics, becoming insidious. Adapting as the wheel of the year turned. She doubted whether most of godkind would deign to comprehend the little wars of numbers and money, supply and demand.

That she would dream herself into Seventeenth, Eighteenth Century France in less-than-appropriate clothing, in her own clothes from pre-fall Babylon no less, was highly unlikely. Fear pitted in her stomach as she stood. That her costume was twice incomplete - no mask and no ornate carved seal borne on a ceremonial rod - could only mean that it was not her dream. That she had smoked her own blend of hashish, a blend designed to produce soft and restful dreams, yet find herself awash in blood confirmed it. Who could do such a thing?

She heard a voice call out from beyond the darkness and answered it with all the calm she could muster. "I am Ishtar, Lady of Nineveh, Courtesan of the Gods. The blackness I cannot speak for."

edited, sorry

[safehouse-guest.livejournal.com]

Primoris would have frowned if he could. This was... odd. Somehow the veils between dreams had been weakened, it seemed. The demon's and goddess's nightmares were merging, and they seemed aware of each other.

He wondered whether to abandon them and try to repair it, but paused. Perhaps this might be interesting, seeing how they reacted to each other. Experiencing others' fears; it was not something he had considered before, but the possibilities were intriguing. Fear evolved, after all. And who was he to deny the nature of fear?

He decided to simply watch, for the time being. Though perhaps... yes, a little more fear wouldn't hurt... There. And the darkness swirled around them.

[misterbkeele.livejournal.com]

He took one step, two, and abruptly stumbled back on the doorframe. He had only half-heard the reply; a wave of dizziness had overtaken his senses. There was a spike of self-disgust behind the haze: Why was he allowing this to happen to himself? He was more than the meat and chemicals of this human form, so why was he at the mercy of them? (Again?)

And perhaps he had lost control of this body, perhaps he had permanently damaged it, and he would always be this way, overtired and confounded and weak as a wet noodle. And hey, who was to say he wasn't hallucinating as well, from the elaborate lace and bubbly wine of the masquerade to the airy Parisian flat (even now dissolving into inky black behind him) and the dark woman who had spoken?

He gave a high bark of laughter edged with hysteria. Perfect, this was perfect.

He might as well talk to his hallucinations. "My name is--" How odd, the name on his lips wasn't the one he ought to have been using. It wasn't French, for starters. His real one would have to do. (What language was he speaking, for that matter?) "--is Baraq," he said, "Did you know, you're trailing blood behind you, have you noticed?"

[lady-of-nineveh.livejournal.com]

"It won't ever wash off." She said sadly, toying with the fat braids of her wig. Her eyes flickered up at the angular man before her. He didn't seem to belong here any more than she did, there was something around the eyes... She grinned, suddenly. He was real. Baraq was real.

"I really don't like this place at all... I mean, why just re-hash old nightmares? I've moved beyond all this." She took a deep shuddering breath and gave the wig a sharp tug. The headdress came tumbling off with it, and Ishtar dropped the whole mess to the ground. She rubbed blood-stained fingers through her short hair. "Much better."

She began patting herself down, checking the voluminous folds of her tunic, "I really, really need...Aha!" She suddenly grinned, all eyes and teeth, as she drew out an anachronistic zippo lighter and a gold cigarette case. "You look like you could use one too."

She lit up a pair of cigarettes, and proffered one to him, only slightly stained with red lipstick. "You look a bit out of it all. Are you high? Weren't you just at a masquerade?"

[misterbkeele.livejournal.com]

"I don't smoke," he said automatically. He pulled off his own mask to rub his forehead, the papier mache crumpling as he did so. The rest of Ishtar's words took longer to process. His eyes were clouded.

"What are you talking about? I haven't gone anywhere, this is my flat..." His voice trailed off when he saw the way the surroundings were shifting, draped in shadowy curtains, and yes, he had been at the masquerade just a moment ago. How had he forgotten? "This doesn't make any sense," Baraq muttered, half to himself. "No. I'm seeing things. You, this, everything's just a--"

He would have gone on, but a new wave of nausea brought him painfully to his knees, and he clamped his hands over his mouth. "Shit."

[lady-of-nineveh.livejournal.com]

"More fool you," Ishtar grumbled, stubbing out one of the cigarettes in the sticky droplets of blood on her palm and slipping it back into the case. She rolled perfumesd smoke around her mouth, slipping it back out into the protean air through carmine lips.

She watched Baraq's mask crumple into dimensions she couldn't fathom, while the walls shifted and twisted in the darkness at crazed angles. "This place is enough to give you motion sickness. I really don't like it at all," she added petulantly. Still, she sighed deeply, smoke billowing around her, it could be worse. At least she wasn't on her own with this evil, sickening darkness. Even a high and insane man... person... being... whatever he was, who talked to himself and seemed to think she was imaginary was better than no-one.

She looked across at him as he doubled over. "Oh bugger." She crouched down and looked him in the eye. "Look at me, breathe. Slowly. Don't throw up..."

[misterbkeele.livejournal.com]

He bit down hard on his lower lip, focusing on the pain, Ishtar's voice, the floor below him (at least it felt like solid ground, so long as he didn't look at it), anything that wasn't the spinning in his head. The stream of disjointed sentences hadn't stopped, were only half-muffled: "This isn't right. I stopped. I got better. It shouldn't have a hold over me."

Baraq met her eyes, and the litany stopped. He dropped his hands into his lap. After a long pause, his next words were halting and chosen with care, but steady for once. "I would think," he said, "with these surroundings, I was in Cocytus, but I would remember being recalled. And you don't feel like a human soul or a demon." He hesitated a moment. "You're from Mesopotamia, aren't you?"

[lady-of-nineveh.livejournal.com]

"It's flattering to be acknowledged as real, Baraq," Ishtar relaxed, her companion seemingly in no imminent danger of violent illness. "Yes, Mesopotamia, Babylon, Sumeria - Ishtar, Astarte, Inanna... all me, at least now it is."

She stood up and inspected the looming darkness with what she hoped was a critical eye. "I'm as lost as you are... but I'm sure you're right about Cocytus. At the very least I'd need someone with a boat to let me in." She wrinkled her nose. "And I don't think we're alone."

[misterbkeele.livejournal.com]

He nodded. Part of him still thought it was a century ago and wanted to curl on the floor until the spinning stopped, but it had taken a step back.

Baraq got to his feet as well. If he couldn't be in control of himself, at least he could fake it in front of a stranger.

"I can't sense anyone else," he said. "We should... we should try and get out of this place."

[safehouse-guest.livejournal.com]

This nightmare was not turning out the way Primoris had hoped, but it was opening up new possibilities. Shared fears. Being trapped in another's nightmare. The blending of fears.

The fear of the goddess and the demon was so deliciously strong, swirling around them in nearly tangible eddies. And oh, how he loved it when people tried to pretend they weren't scared. This was turning out to be more productive than a normal nightmare.

And if he could pull down the walls between individual dreams, could he also pull down the walls separating his Dreaming from the waking world? The sheer possibility of that... nightmares spilling over to the waking world, the resulting fear and chaos...

The demon would have his wish granted; Primoris decided it was time to end this nightmare, and the darkness began to lift. He had bigger plans to make, it seemed.

[misterbkeele.livejournal.com]

The shadows were ebbing away but the swirling of the environment was, if anything, getting worse. The surroundings were breaking down: Here a scrap of taffeta from a party dress was flying by, there a tile stained black with blood shattering on a wall. Glass and pieces of sky (both day and night) and broken pipes rained down on him. He screamed, cowering into himself --

-- inside a snarl of blankets, lips pressed tightly against each other.

In moments he was out of his bed, bent over a sink, retching with nothing in his stomach to throw up.

"Just once," he said to nothing in particular, "I'd like to wake up without having to run to the bathroom. Is that so much to ask?" His voice barely shook at all.