azrael
Twilight fell like dew upon the summer grass, still and silver with a hazy sort of mist. It drew forth all manners of night creatures, blinking against the dying sunlight as they took to the darkness. Bats chirruped as they dove for lightning bugs in the cobalt sky, mice scurried through the dense underbrush, and even the dreamwalker descended from the heavens to follow the swirling fog, leading him far from his mountain home. He walked with an unharried step, turquoise eyes peering seamlessly through the darkness, watching his surrounding as he pressed onward as if summoned by a beckoning song.
He did not know where he was going, only that the whispers lingered in his mind – whispers from the dreamscape which had plagued him for several days now. There is an urgency to the undertones, a quiet plea for help. It is enough to drive the magician to wonder, curiosity piqued as he leaves Denocte in search of answers.
Across the Bellum Steppe he crept, skirting the arenas and striving to ignore the cries of those who labored and lay wounded on the bloody ground. He shivered quietly, noting not for the first time that his talents lie far from the battlefields, and whispering a prayer to Caligo for those who fought for Denocte to prevail. Onward he continued, southward to the crashing sea and tumbling waves. Deep in the heart of Terrestella, his mind began to wander and his dreamscape began to play out once more – now in real time.
A voice cried out in the darkness, afraid and alone. It is a cry of pain and loss, a cry which beckoned him to help… That voice had haunted him in recent days, whispering in his mind even through his wakefulness. Please… please…
Azrael is shaken by the plea as concern creases his brow and he turns to the heavens for guidance. Stilling his racing heart, Azrael counts the constellations to quiet himself. Cygnus. Sagitta. Lyra. The stars seemed as close here as they did in his mountains, peeking through a hazy layer of clouds to shine upon Vespera’s cliffs. Before him, the sea stretched as vastly as the sky, dark and shadowed save the white foam which crashed against rock. For a moment, there is only the magician and the sea… but then, there is another.
The shed-star senses her beside him before she speaks. He turns and blinks slowly, afraid to shatter the dream – for it would be too much of a coincidence to find Elena on another star-flecked night. Still, he can almost touch her golden warmth, the illusion too real as he breathes in the scent of her – sunshine and summer breeze. If he were caught in a dream, it was one so real, he had to marvel at the complexity of it all. Azrael cannot help himself, reaching to Elena, caressing her withers in a gentle touch as sea breezes whip in his mane.
“Did you hear her?” He asks quietly… “The voice?”
He didn’t question the foolishness of asking aloud to a figment of his dreamscape, lost in the fantasy but seeking – always seeking – answers to the unknown.
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