azrael
She asks him where to go, and Azrael does not know. The dark forest is unfamiliar, just as the sea cliffs and Terrestella were… but there is a voice that sounds within his mind – pleading, begging, for them to find her. It drives him onward into the thick underbrush, and his body seems to know the way without his mind needing to see. The two travel nimbly over obstacles, driven onward by the dream figure with an urgency as her voice cries out once more in his mind with pain.
Now, that pain cuts him too – and Azrael stops suddenly, letting out a roaring cry into the silent night. The sound is otherworldly, ragged and raw, tears stinging his eyes as his shoulder burns and a shock trembles down his leg. His turquoise eyes are blind from the hurt, turning upon Elena as he leans heavily against her, breath catching in his throat as he fights to still his breathing.
It’s only a dream… it’s only a dream…
He wills away the searing pain, shuddering as a thin sheen of sweat mixes in his stardust and he gasps to draw the chill of midnight air into his lungs. In that moment, he knew Elena would see his weakness – but it wasn’t his, not really. It was hers – this voice, begging him for help as she whispers to him alone, her voice weak with brokenness.
It hurts… make it stop…
He hisses through the pain, pushing it down as concern rises for the injured creature, his lips quivering against Elena’s mane as he draws in her scent once more – bringing him back from the brink of the dream.
“I can hear her in my mind – not only her, but others too… he offers to his companion with a tortured whisper, “They come to me in dreams.”
They.
It was always someone different – some in need of salvation, some a simple distraction. But this specter was unlike all the others. This dream nagged at him during wakeful times too, breaking through his resolve to find his own well of weakness, projecting the pain through his barrier. If only the dreams could all be of Elena – the sun to his stars, and a pleasant distraction in his dreams of late.
She is beside him now, he mused – real and warm, unwavering in her faith in his lead. How must it be, to trust so fully and exist with such warmth to offer to the world? It was a wonder which Azrael could never understand, but it was also what made Elena such an intriguing and endearing creature. He couldn’t imagine being so nakedly exposed to anyone else, knowing she would not hold his vulnerabilities against him.
They stop together in a shadowed glade, still and sick with a strange and broken magic. For that moment, there is an eerie calm which gives him pause, and Azrael instinctively steps in front of Elena in a protective manner, unsure of what waited in the gathering mist. It is quiet – too quiet…
Until she screams, the sound ripping with an echo through the clearing, as her wide and wounded turquoise eyes flash open in the black night.
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