lt_safe_house | The Dream lord returns

Time: May 1st 2003, shortly before Dawn
Place: Ground floor
Status: Public
Summary: The Dream lord returns to fix the dreaming

Daniel strode across the fields towards the manor as he had a couple of months earlier when his investigations had first led him here. This time though he wasn't in the dark about what was happening. He knew what the threat to the dreaming was and thanks to his latest information he would be able to deal with it.

Up until now the dreaming in this small area had been cut off from him. He could have knocked down the barriers that kept him out as if they were paper but the dreaming was also the minds of men and he would be punching through their minds as well as through the shields.

Now though his enemy had made a mistake. He had found out that the barriers between the world of dreams and the physical world had been destroyed. His siblings would no doubt show some interest if the mess wasn't cleared up but this was the opportunity he needed.

Once past the barriers he felt confident that he would be able to deal with the problem swiftly and decisively. And now he could simply walk around the barriers. Where once they had stood as an impenetrable, now there was a large opening into the real world and there was nothing to stop him from just walking through the fields of Lower Tadfield and to the Manor which seemed to be the heart of the problem.

He felt it as he passed the threshold - a faint blurring of reality as the world gave way to dreams and illusion. This wasn't quite his dreaming but that didn't matter because he was the lord of dreams, he was Dream of the Endless.

He passed a farmhouse where he heard a scream. Inside he felt two people, awake but at the same time dreaming. He could also feel their dreams and knew at once that they were nightmares. The couple’s fears came to life - zombies pounding on their bedroom door and on the floor of their room snakes and spiders, while buzzing in the air were creepy crawlies causing the woman to scream every time one landed on her skin.

Daniel appeared next to them, conjuring light in their darkness to illuminate the room around him. He waved his hands and in a moment the creatures filling the room disappeared in an ephemeral mist. He opened the door, to the horror of the man who had been trying to barricade it. The zombies outside lunged forward unaware of who they now faced.

Daniel held up his hand and the undead nightmares stopped sharply as if they’d run into an invisible wall. “Come with me. I may need your help.” He closed his hand and as he did so the zombies were disappeared.

The couple stood staring open mouthed. “It is just a dream. Go back to sleep.” Daniel told them.

Almost as mindlessly as the zombies that had been attacking the couple got back into their beds and as Daniel left fell into a dreamless sleep.

“Time to get to the heart of this problem,” Daniel said as he stepped out of the house and onto the outskirts of the manor grounds.

Whatever controlled this place was stronger here. His control of the dreaming was opposed and he couldn’t quite do as he willed. He walked the last short distance. Passing features he knew well that had become slightly distorted in his dreamlike state. The pond outside had gone from being a few feet deep to a bottomless well that went down into a darkness that felt further away than the depth of the water would suggest.

He stepped into the foyer of the hotel, to look for his enemy or somebody that could provide a clue to where he was.

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He had gathered the other two to the pond. Standing this close to it, Trilby could feel a deep sense of vertigo. How far did it go? Where did it end?

He had instructed Raphael and Baraq to stand at the east and west sides of the pond respectively, with Trilby at the south. The living tree (an ash, he noted absently) was at the north end. That seemed right. Trilby had a feeling neither of the two would have followed him half a step if they knew how much he was making up on the spot.

There was something happening at the entrance of the manor, but he ignored it. No more distractions. Aut vincere aut mori.

"In this place of deceptions and trickery," he said, "we come to this place, presided by the tree of life, Yggdrasill's shadow.

"We who have been wronged, who have suffered injuries to the body, loss to the soul, trauma to our minds, we have come here. This is a place of renewal, reflection, purification." He pointed the stave at the center of the pond. "Motion."

Feeling the ache in his head spread with every word, Trilby began the incantation.

He spoke of a place beyond the worlds, beyond any path any sane creature would walk; a place as far away as could be imagined; a place where all the roads turned in on themselves and you could hunt for a way out until mountains crumbled and still you would run in riddles for the rest of time. It was anywhere you never wanted to be.

Feeling as if the words were being dragged out of his throat with fishhooks, he spoke the final words of sending, and then,

"End this madness, so that we might heal! Be gone, Primoris!"

Raphael drew his dagger, clenching it in his fist as he planted his feet at the exact location he was told. The blade conflicted against his weak aura but he didn't care, somehow he knew he had to do this! People were suffering, were awakening to nightmares come alive... Gabriel and Michael and Aziraphale, oh Aziraphale... and Rose... So many livings their most horrific fears.

His crimson hair blew around his pale face as the wind swirled, feeling the energy and power in the words spoken.

Opposite of Raphael, Baraq held the lock over the rippling water. The metal was rusted so far that he might have been holding a clever latticework carved from carved red rock. The wind buffeted at his wings, but he barely registered the ache. Everything seemed very unlikely. The night, this spell, the archangel and human he had somehow thrown his lot in with.

The tip of the stave began to glow, and the waters of the pond parted.

The energy of the spell thundered through his bones, almost bringing him to his knees. He stayed upright. What else could he do?

He could feel the resistance of the entity. It was far older, far more alien than he had thought at first, and yet there was a familiar twinge to it. But people live with fear all their lives, don't they? Fear of death inspires the living, fear of obscurity inspires great deeds.

Trilby wondered, dispassionately, if this would kill him. He had never done anything on this scale before. The presence of the other two was helping direct the spell, but it was still him standing in the metaphorical floodgates.

The waters parted.

If there had been vertigo before, it was nothing compared to now. The wind rushed into the void, rippling the grass and throwing loose leaves and twigs into the air. Strangely, the three of them should have been pulled into the void, but their feet were locked into place.

"Come on," he whispered.

The air above the pond shimmered and slowly and smokily Primoris coallesced in the air, the wind whipping tendrils of smoke from his form. At the same time on the northern end of the pond, next to the ash tree, Daniel appeared as if stepping out of thin air.

"I am Dream of the Endless. I came here to help but it seems that you are not entirely helpless. Finish your banishment and send this nightmare back to the void."

Trilby nodded curtly at Dream. He had no more energy for words or wondering.

He pointed the stave at Primoris' heart and brought it down sharply to the center of the pond.

"NO!" Primoris writhed, the smoke changing form - now tendrils reaching out, now some great hulking beast, now a vaguely humanoid form.

"You cannot banish me forever!"

The spell sucked at him, and he fought, but it was stronger. Dream's eyes were like twin stars, holding his gaze as the blackness of the Void finally reclaimed him.

The wind died down completely, leaves falling to the ground, and for a few moments there was absolute silence.

Raphael was strong against the wind, the feathers on his battered wings ruffling in every direction.

I will not...

Give up!

He's dead he has a gun he destroyed-

-should have Fallen-

Gabriel!

It was a dream... A...

"I may be weak... I may be powerless...

But I will NOT BREAK!"

He clenched his dagger, waiting...

He lowered the stave to the ground, feeling the spell cut off. It had worked. Around him, the landscape had turned back into an English countryside. The sun had risen.

"Well," he said, faintly. "That wasn't so bad."

Then he folded soundlessly onto the ground.

Raphael launched himself at the being and caught him in his arms, jagged streams of crimson sticking to his damp face, tousseled by the wind. He give a smile, feeling... Well...

Happy...

Almost as if he... had...

Hope...

Was it possible...

he didn't need his powers to be able to help others...?

"You did good," he told the being, scooping him up amd rising to his feet. The only thing that stkrred in the almost non-existant wind was the patch of grass -where Primoris, their nightmares- once existed, now forever banished away.

He carried him back to the manor.

Daniel looked concerned as Trilby fell to the ground. He wanted to stay and help him out but he had other things that needed his attention.

"Look after him. I need to clear up the aftermath here. Thank you all for your help."

The air around Daniel rippled as if he was being seen through a strong heat hazy. The blur increased until suddenly Daniel was gone into the dreaming.

Baraq gave a small, slightly sardonic salute at the place where Daniel had been, before trudging back to the manor himself.

Ouch! He was sitting in a thorn bush! On top of all his miseries ...

Wait, if he was hurting that meant he could feel again! A moment of joy followed the pain. His hands tightened around ... empty air. The amethyst was gone!

No, oh no, he couldn't lose it.

He searched frantically, crawling all over the bush, tearing his clothes and skin, but it wasn't there. He couldn't even feel its familiar soothing wonderful energy anywhere.

No, no, no, it couldn't be gone! He could not live without it! His junkies' weak devotion could not possibly be enough to sustain him.

Desperately he searched on, stumbling deeper into the forest, following the strongest link he could feel, even though he knew it was merely some music festival full of pathetic little junkies on ecstasy. If he didn't think too hard he could pretend that it was the amethyst ... at least until he reached it.

The Dream lord returns

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