There's been little for me to worship, in this life. And anything I have worshiped - though love be a better term for the concept - has been for far different reasons than perhaps this man's.

My familial bonds are thickly veined and coursing with vitality. My young brother, tucked safely between his parents - he has been in my dreams, a shadowy figure that I find myself inexplicably protective of. He is mine.

I come here now, for the shadows - Khaedrik does not yet accompany me, but he will. My eyes - nutmeg, glimmering - are half-closed, caught in some type of day dream. There's no explanation for why I have sought sleep so hungrily as of late - but there is something, a feeling, a growing. I am changing - and I see that in my dreams.

When I come upon him, he is the opposite of shadows (though perhaps that is why he seeks them). The look of an unconscious wanderer alights his features, and I fancy that that must be the expression I wear, too. My figure, slim next to him, twitches now and again as both our legs stop, as I lift my eyes to meet his. The shadows play tricks with his skin - on mine, I am but a darker nothing.

"Hello.."

I have already experienced what it is like to have my family be gone - and I reacted nothing like him. I am dependent, tethered, disapproving of solitude. In a way, aren't we all?
Chance meetings can be avoided.
This one was not.

His smile disarms me (why did I expect him to be less... civilized?), and my lips become a mirror. They like to see themselves reflected in me, the others. At least, the parts of me that I've shown have been less warmly received. I step closer to him.

"I'm Kagerus," I reply, the low husk of my voice mingling with his in the silence that steadily grows between us. My eyes sit weighted on his for a time, a leaded sort of connection that feels comfortable, but only because there's no where also to look.

My skin twitches. Eerie.

"I came here to dream," I allow, feeling as if I exist above my body - dissociated. My head feels too light, my legs altogether numb. I can't help it, sometimes. The drifting. Mind pulling away from body as if their connection could withstand such hardship.

"Why are you here?"

Is this where you always come to dream?

"No matter where I go, the dreams follow." As of late, this has been the truth. Before now, before the change, my dreams were insignificant. Forgettable. A hazy sort of memory that left me quite the same as when they found me. Now, the dreams are more insistent. I am the host, possessed by dreams that are not my own.

He doesn't need something special. My eyes cannot leave him, over-dilated pupils transfixed on what little of him their is, in comparison to the everything that surrounds us. Yes, there is an arcane quality to our situation, a deadness in my eyes that I see reflected in his, too. I step closer. There's worlds between us.

"I... Could show you," I breathe, barely even knowing what I speak. My eyes travel to his sunlight-spine, dampened now in shadows. The sturdiness of his bones, the way his smile leaves me knowing that there's more - and yet far, far less. My own smile dwindles, but the expression left in its place is not unwelcome.
I want to take him with me.
To see if I can.

"It's not always been here," comes my answer. "Your home, I mean. The lands - changed." He is old enough to remember, though when I step closer and press my lips to his throat, he tastes young.

I remove myself, but our proximity is his to dictate. Our reality - our level of consciousness - our mindless travellings --

His.

"That's what I thought, too." The void runs its fingers down our spines, and we shiver in unison. I hear his words as if they come from above me, a godly whisper. My own from all directions.

A refusal dances on his tongue: I am close enough to see it, to feel it. The part of me that knows we are already dreaming grasps at the loose threads of his mind and connects them as I see fit - he speaks, then, as the threads bond. He has already decided to follow.
My smile returns.
(I am not myself, here. The dreams change me - I - I shouldn't be shaping his mind this way. I shouldn't --)

"Yes," I murmur, star-glazed eyes now firmly fixed on his, which widen in his hunt for danger. In my mouth, my teeth lengthen. Fangs. "Our dreams."

He doesn't notice yet, however - his eyes are elsewhere, memories of a birthplace summoned to the conscious mind for appreciation. I allow his mind to wander without any interference, curious as to what shall become of us lest I leave our dreams to his liking. The silence between us is tangible - truly, really, the air becomes viscous, with sparks snapping here and there.

What do I have to do? He asks.

Trust me, I answer, without moving my lips. My voice resonates in his mind. Our peripheral vision becomes fuzzy - a dreamer cannot focus on all the details.
And... Dream.

Beneath us, sand rolls, the change subtle, though I notice before he does. When his eyes do bounce up from the granular earth, our surroundings are completely different - in every direction an endless stretch of desert sand with no discernible features - the sky so blue that it hurts to look at, though no sun is visible in its entirety. My fangs gleam - his golden coat shines.

Do you see how They follow? I ask. My lips are on him again, my tongue - running up his neck. At his ear, I do open my mouth to speak, and my sharpened teeth graze the thin membrane of his ear.

"Do you see?"

And from where I lead his eyes to gaze, It rises.

From where our eyes linger, granules of sand shift and shimmer, parting as the womb of the earth will in order to birth its next monster. The rising creature is a hideous thing, all smoke and horns, the image of what must haunt this boy's mind day and night. In my stomach, a forgotten part of me screams and cowers, but I ignore her. She is no dreamer.

My smile is wide, distorted, filled with too many teeth. To think that such a quiet, meek fellow could dream up such monstrosities - I relish the sensation of surprise. I want more, I want to be shaken. I glance back at him, breathing heavily, admiring the way his golden skin trembles and quakes, the way his eyes glow. On his tongue, reverence.

Above, the sky silently shatters. A hole is rent in its middle, folding in on itself, compressing and distorting and shriveling up until nothing of the deserts remains except for stray granules of sand at our hooves. Around us, now, the Abyss - my favourite place to come. A nothingness so intimate that one can almost forget - anything.

But today, we come to remember. I can see that in his eyes.

"Rapt, my little boy," I whisper, possessive. That other worldliness has entered my voice again, and it shall be in his too. It is a nonnegotiable quality of the Abyss. "Won't you say hello?" The creature stands where he was manifested, but now, a step forward. Eyes, glinting. That smile... The granules of sand vibrate below us.

"Monsters don't like to be kept waiting."