Sequel

The whole having power bit makes for an interesting life. First off, what you or I would consider a fantasy or day dream can become very, very real. As in. Rel, should he be woken at the wrong time, can awaken in the state that he is in at the end of this chapter. The whole over active imagination?

I've been there and it not being completely real doesn't lessen how frightening it is to be caught in a nightmare of your own making and not being able to escape. Especially when you know so much about it, like Rel does, but are still powerless to change it.

One. They do fall into ... not the dream world, but ... a place between the heavens and the earth. A place that I haven't explored much as Ayato tends not to go there due to ... well his lives tend to be about as bad as Rel's and this is a basic sample of what Rel encounters after one lifetime. So they aren't in reality.

It's... kind of like the Zoozoo that Mik does every once in a while.

There are several "typos" in here that are supposed to be there! The one that pops into mind is eated. There are several mentionings of Sidhe language. Rel counts in Sidhe instead of in people. Rel does not know the Sidhe language. Rel shouts "Zahaassh" which means stop in Muan's dialect and another bit that I believe Rel translates for you.

I didn't get into detail as to the monsters, fill in the "blanks" with your worst nightmare. If possible? Multiply by the last zombie/gore movie you saw.

Oh. And no. The person running above the canyon is not Muan.

This didn't turn out how I was hoping... but it looks like what I saw wasn't Rel's world, it was Muan's so maybe it'll still happen.

Read, Review and Enjoy... er... if you can.

Edited: because there were two typos that don't belong. And yes the repetitive craziness with the creature's head being mentioned twice in one sentence and the run on sentence as Rel is leaping, are meant to be there.




Muan stepped between Rel and the elevator and made a motion to the candles. Rel pulled out a match and struck it, showing Muan how to light a candle with a tea light that was sitting on the table before blowing out the match. Muan took the tea light and the match, relighting the match with the tea light as he went about the room.

Rel moved to the center of the array of candles and looked outward. Illuva’s pattern of power. He wasn’t really surprised, though he knew that he should have been. Rel studied the six candles.

Three deaths, no more.

Illuva had already claimed one. Mik was acting as a death, proclaimed to all the world what he was, even without realising it. Rel lit three of the black candles, one, three and five. The others sat unlit as Rel studied them.

Rahl-ta had said that Illuva could have three deaths. The god had not specified what kind of death, nor had Rahl-ta said that Illuva could only have one or the other death. If Illuva had three deaths, the position, would that not mean she could still have three kills?

Rel blew out his match and set it on the baking pan. Around him the apartment darkened for a moment before his eyes adjusted and the entire place came to life. Shadows danced between pillars and around plants. Muan had been quick and efficient at lighting the candles. The Sidhe settled across from Rel, sitting cross legged as Rel was. Muan took the match box from Rel and struck a match, lighting the other three black candles.

“Lel?”

“Mm?” Rel glanced at Muan, only then realising that for the second time that day he had used Muan’s original name without meaning to.

Muan made a motion to his chest and breathed in deeply, holding it for a moment and then let it out slowly. Rel imitated Muan, closing his eyes as he did so. With his eyes closed he saw a flash of lightning. Rel forced himself to take another breath, to master himself so he could master the world. That was what his grandmother had said. One must master themselves before they can master the world.

The lightning flashed once more, the thunder rumbled through his chest and reached his ears. Like something’s battle cry, it rang in his ears. There was something in the darkness. There was something watching him.

Rel opened his eyes. He wasn’t stupid enough to challenge…

Muan was watching him intently. Rel very carefully put that thought from his mind.

The Sidhe lifted a hand, palm upward and fingers curled toward the palm. Candles flickered across the apartment. Muan took a breath in blew it out into the palm of his hand. Rel blinked at the Sidhe, not understanding what he was supposed to do in response to that.

Not until Muan lifted his other hand and popped the top of a small container of sparkles. The Sidhe dumped the sparkles into the palm of his upturned hand.

And they spun, caught in a sphere of air that turned over on itself. Muan’s fingers moved and the air leapt upward before settling back into the palm of Muan’s hand.

“Wh…” Would Muan know what ‘what’ meant? “te? Te?”

“Uhahya,” Muan murmured flicking his hand and sending the air flying. It spun past Rel’s ear and spread, expanding to put out over half of the candles behind Rel.

The man’s mouth dropped open. Power. Power that could be seen, whose effects could be felt and understood as … power.

“Lel,” Muan made a hand motion, begging Rel to try.

Impossible. It was completely impossible. No person in hundreds of years could use power, if anyone ever could. And he certainly had never shown the signs said to have been present in those who had power. Improbable!

Wait. Had he just… said improbable?

As in. Somewhere in his mind he believed that it was possible?

Rel lifted his hand upward and closed his eyes as he drew in a breath. He focused on his hand, he forced out and when his hand tingled, he concentrated on the tingling, willing it to become something, anything. His hand grew warm.

Completely in his head. He had done parlour tricks that were much the same, mind over matter.

His mind over matter. And there in his hand …

Uhm…

A…

What could power do?

Er….

Air. There would be air. Air … was always in his hand. Rel smacked himself in the forehead with his upturned hand, growling at his own stupidity even as something wet smushed between his hand and his forehead, oozing down his nose. Rel pulled his hand away from his face and turned his hand to look at the palm. Brown muck.

Mud?

Please be mud.

Rel brought his hand to his face and gave it a sniff. Smelt like… mud.

Muan took Rel’s hand and licked the mud off. Once the palm was clean, Muan shifted around the bake pan and wiped the oozing mud off of Rel’s forehead, flicking it easily before eating that as well. Rel grimaced at the thought even as Muan grinned.

The Sidhe bent towards the candles and blew gently. The candles reacted as if Muan had breathed a combustible liquid on them. The cloud of fire lifted into the air before it disappeared. Muan smiled knowingly at Rel.

So it was a show of power. To what end-

Muan reached out and touched Rel’s temple.

It was indescribable before his world shattered and he spun out of control. In the gray darkness that was his true mind, was his existence outside of his creations, Rel stumbled and tumbled, hitting every edge, every jagged rock on the way down.

He struck the ground with a thump and a cloud of dust. Knowing what he knew, knowing how his body worked and how physics worked, Rel knew that he should not have survived the strike, let alone the fall.

He groaned and forced himself to stand.

This sort of thing had happened before. When he had been living with his father. Day after day, when he closed his eyes he would fall. From the sky, into water and ever downward. This was the construction of a tired, weary and depressed mind.

But it wasn’t his.

Rel brushed off his pants and wondered if he should be relieved that he knew it wasn’t his mind, or frightened that he was in someone else’s territory. He focused on the obvious. This was not his usual romps. This was worse than his own romps when he fell like that. It was like…

That time with Rahl-ta.

Rel grimaced and looked around.

High canyon walls all around him. He was at the end of the canyon. Walls worn nearly smooth by wind and sand, possibly by water as well. A blue sun rose over head, its eerie light doing nothing for the pounding fear in his heart.

Because he knew there was something in the canyon with him and it wasn’t nice and it wasn’t good. What was worse was his own fear, feeding the nightmare creature even as it howl broke the silence, as its voice rose. Not its voice. The voices. Thousands of screams, brought together and into a higher pitch.

How did he…?

Something moved above him, moving down the canyon’s length. Rel looked up and felt.

Familiarity.

It was the only word he could put to it. And so Rel moved down the canyon, taking to a run as the thing above him sped up. He followed blindly, having nothing else to go by, nothing else to gain his bearings by. Every way he turned, the sun was there and rock that went on forever. He ran and ran until he came to an opening. The canyon walls disappeared and nothing but sand was before him.

Nothing but sad, loneliness.

He’d rather be in the canyon than take the journey across the sand to the … something that might be on the other side. Rel turned back to the canyon, only to find something big and black and not quite solid standing just down the canyon, tail lashing, eyes of flame and big, big teeth. His heart skipped a beat. This was not the creature that had howled. This was something he had seen before. His mind’s idea of a guardian.

That liked to bite and loved to cause pain whenever Rel did what was supposed to be bad for him. If his own creation was behind him. Then that meant…

Rel turned back to the sands and watched the humped back of … something… break the sand and delve back under, its tail flicking above the sand for a moment as the tail’s four mouths opened and screamed. The scream of thousands of voices. And as the tail disappeared under the sand, Rel’s creature let out its clicking growl. His only warning to move.

Or be eatted.

He glanced backwards once, glanced about and decided that he had … just about one option. Rel took a step back and sent a thought against the creature behind him, informing it of his decision and took a deep, slow breath.

And he stumbled in his thoughts.

Rel gave his head a shake. This was easy. Easy. Simple.

Simple as flying without wings could be. Rel took another breath and urged his body to move. Soh. Voh. Ne. Rel ran, fully aware of how each step he took vibrated through the world below him, how the sand creature was turning, rushing towards him. Rel leapt, travelling a distance before he hit the ground and leapt once more and struck the ground a bit harder than he wanted but he ignored the pain running through his legs as he leapt once more and felt the air rise to meet him. Felt the sand rushing behind him as the sand creature’s mouth gaped wide to swallow him.

For a moment Rel doubted and so he didn’t see the tail coming from the side, hadn’t thought that this was the type of thing that could bite him in the ass, could hit him when he thought he was safe. The tail rushed to meet him two of its four mouths latched onto his side. Cold fear ran through Rel even as he felt everything drain out of him.

He struggled against the mouths, tried to thrust himself back to reality, tried to get away. He was stubborn as hell and he wasn’t going to let some crazy sand creature take him.

“Zahaassh,” Rel’s hand struck the tail’s snouts and thrust with something that was not real, something that was not him. He stumbled out of the tail’s mouths and struck the sand.

He didn’t waste time grabbing his side. He stood and ran. The moment his foot hit rock he stumbled and hit the stone, side numb and leg tingling. It just wouldn’t… work. Rel tried to thrust awareness out of his mind. His only objective was getting out of this and he couldn’t die because.

Because.

“Because I say so,” Rel growled out, forcing himself to his knees as something landed lightly on the stone.

He thrust aside his weaknesses, even as this thing thrust them back at him. He pushed those bad thoughts, those dark things out of his mind as this one thrust it back. Whispers reached his ears as Rel stood, calling his blade to him, black as midnight as he swung upward. His black blade was stopped by one made of white metal. His opponent?

Muan.

The Sidhe looked from Rel to the blade and then to Rel’s side and back to Rel’s face. Muan sighed and gave his head a shake.

Rel would have to be whole or not at all.

Fuck off. Rel could and did function very well without being whole.

Force the wounds out. Keep the pieces.

Fuck.

The struggle was brought to reality, or, as close to reality as this seemed to be. Swords clashing, Rel attacked Muan, not accepting that this creature could master him. Not accepting at all that anyone was stronger than him.

Rel was caught along his arm, a long gash, and the venom worked through him, but he forced power into his limbs and animated a body that should have long ago died.

As if sensing Rel weakening, Muan raised his blade to strike…

And slammed it into the tail of the sand creature and into the stone, anchoring the creature as it screamed its pain. Muan made no attempt to pull out his sword, but instead snatched Rel’s from him and flung it across the sand, spearing the head of the sand creature as it raised its ugly head.

Rel’s chest heaved as he dropped to his knees. He had always been unable to strike an unarmed person that he knew. It was… a weakness. One that he could not get rid of and was not willing to try to get rid of. It was what made him who he was.

“And the scadder-ed bittles?” Muan growled, pulling Rel to his feet, “make Lel, Lel.”

“Rel.”

“Relianos is dead. Father killed him long ago,” one of the whispering voices hissed into Rel’s ear as another said, “Lel, lel, newborn, mesa, neh? Ahahah. Mesa fuhna atzursh?”

Baby needs his mommy?

Fuck off.

Rel flicked the voices away and silence predominated over the sandy plain. Not even the wind whispered to him. Muan blinked at Rel, seemingly not understanding what was wrong with the man. Rel shrugged.

“Get me out of here?” Rel asked quietly, “never liked this place. Why’d you make it?”

As if this were completely normal. As if this had happened before.

Maybe it had…

“Lel,” Muan murmured, eyebrows drawing down as his eyes swirled. The colours weren’t swirled and mixed as in reality, the colours literally moved in his eyes as his hair seemed to shift from one shade to another, as if a wind was playing with the leaves that left the dappled shadows on Muan’s hair, “Muan no make. Lel make. Lel…” a grin, “want see Muan place?”

“Please,” Rel muttered, groaning as pain came back to him, as his chest burned at each breath.

“Come see Muan’s world.”


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