when the night calls; kagerus - any

[abysm]

He dreamt up a mother for himself.

(Never knowing that dream and reality would collide and so soon!)

He dreamt them together in other forms - a sleek fox and her kit, a rumbling bear and her cub, a woman brushing her hand against his tender child’s cheek. No matter the shapes they wore, there was always love radiating from her even though he never saw her face. It remained hazy and vague as if memory and dream wouldn’t let him make her up any further.

But one thing always stood out in these dreams he dreamt himself into:

a sigh -

“hyaline...”

a squeal -

“Hyaline.”

a shout -

“HYALINE!”

Until the day he asked his father about that word and learned it was the name of a land. But his father said no more on the subject and Abysm knew better than to ask about it. Perhaps he sensed how heartsick Rapt would be if he told him. Perhaps he knew it was best just to lay a kiss against his father’s cheek in the midst of the night and leave him with a good dream that can’t be remembered the next morning except for that feeling of goodness, and be off on his first journey away from his father’s side.

Hyaline. 

It stayed with him. A word. A thought. Until it became all consuming and a decision was made as he took off in the dead of the night. It was not hard to find that land - he’d found it often enough in his dreams after first hearing the name of it. That and others knew which way to point his eyes and his nose when he asked them about it. Soon enough the peaks of the mountainous stronghold loomed before the colt but he was unafraid. 

So much so that he charged the rocky slope of what seemed to be a path and scrambled up it until he stood looking down on the world below. He could imagine himself with ropes of muscle trumpeting his unshakable spirit and freedom to the eagles and the sky. Except Abysm was just a scrawny little thing still as he flung himself up and over the lip of dirt and rock. His descent was not entirely graceful but rather left him with a scrape on his butt from the half-sitting slide he managed amidst the loose shale. 

His abraded skin smarted as he shook himself off like a giant dusty dog then peered about with as much childish curiosity as one like him could muster. Which was a lot. His eyes were practically bugging out of his head until he remembered why he came and knew he couldn’t let his mother - if she existed, as he’d begun to doubt - see him like that. So with a snort, he pulled himself together and set up at an easy lope until he hit the source of many scents coloring the air meaning that many cane this way and he’d likely happen upon someone soon. Or they’d happen upon him, whichever occurred first.

@[Kagerus] figured you’d still want to do this even though she’s not queen any more? and the posts will get better, hopefully. <3

[Kagerus]

He dreams of me, and I of him - occasionally as separate entities, with full control. But especially when he was still too young to remember me, when I made frequent trips to feed him in the river where Rapt carefully raised him while I was off with my political responsibilities (excuses), it was especially then that our dreams were neither of our own. The sensation of having another manipulator amidst the dreamscape, which I've come to know as exclusively my own, terrified me, and guaranteed that I would never spend the night with my little family.

Eventually, I did not spend time with them at all - and this is why my son must dream. Because the reality of me is too much of a nightmare.

I never expected today to be the day he comes to find me. It's been on my mind, yes - in my dreams for sure - but it'd never occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, my son might feel the undeniable pull of familiarity between us through our dreams. Usually I must be touching another to bring them with me - but he was inside of me while I dreamt for nine months, he knows my dreams just as I know his. I could spend time with him in the womb while I was dreaming; we are so intimately bonded that it makes sense that he would come to find me.

It makes sense, but it doesn't make this easier.

Ilma's rape had left me wondering why exactly I found my own situation so repulsive, but that questioning hadn't lead me to any great action in regards to it. Fucked up, I know, that that wouldn't immediately change my mind. But in the meadow with Hephaestus, watching in a dream as he relived the moment when, minutes after his birth, his parents had tried to murder him - that changed my mind. The black stallion is scarred from that experience, and if I have already bestowed even an ounce of that self-hatred onto my son because of my own vanity and confusion, then I just... I don't know if I'll be able to handle it.

(You won't be able to.)
The voice is hard to ignore, when I get thinking like this - about Rapt, and our son.
(Say his name you fucking coward.)
It's just - the fact of his existence - the way I had to rip his little body from the depths of myself, crucifying the vulnerability that we shared as a mother and son -
(Mother? Mother?! Hah! You are foolish to even liken that word to your worthless self.)

"Stop overthinking," comes her soothing voice, breaking the grasp of the darkness' hand around my throat. My nutmeg eyes blink rapidly from where they'd been fixated on the little gold-white figure sliding down the rockface, finding the breathtaking depths of my lovers cerulean eyes. "I'll be here; it's time, my love." With a last kiss goodbye, the heavily pregnant queen fades into the shadows of the woods, glowing only slightly as she emits the softest of lights to reassure me of her presence.

With a deep inhale, I go.

He's bound to notice me right away, standing out starkly against the remainder of white snow atop regrowing yellow grass that covers this expanse of Hyaline. This fact leaves me choked and unsure of myself, ears flickering back as if to catch a final word of advice from Solace - but my son, he exists outside of that reality. I brought him into this world before I knew of the love that I would find in the heart of this land's queen - but hopefully, it won't be long until he crosses that line.

A part of me squeezes, wishing I could bring Rapt here, too - but we must take it one step at a time. One broken hearted boy at a time.

We are close now - close enough that I could say something, that it would be appropriate; but I don't. There's vapour rising from my lips and mingling with my horn, as if perhaps I want to say something; but instead, there's silence until I am standing directly in front of him. Tears threaten to well in my eyes, and I can't quite be sure I resist them entirely.

(He almost killed you.)
For a moment, I feel as though I might be sick.
(Repulsive, traitor, killer, why do you love him?)
A part of me hates him, hates what he stands for - hates what I stand for in reference to him.
(Kill yours--)

"Hi," I whisper, cutting off the maniacal voice in my head before it can finish its command. My eyes slowly refocus, expelling the darkness, concentrating on the beautiful boy before me. Beautiful, like his father; beautiful, like his mo - like me - but mostly, beautiful all of his own accord.

"My name is Kagerus," I offer with a tremulous smile. "And you are my son, Abysm."

--
@[Abysm] She's Queen Consort still Just no purple name until Scorch steps down. Also, sorry for this trainwreck :| Again, you inspire me to write novels.

[abysm]

Rapt birthed him. 

This he knows as part of the gospel of himself. What he doesn’t know is the how or the why of it. Why did mother not stay after carrying him for months on end? How much magic and dream is he really made up of? 

Sometimes he’s not sure he’s really real but father always made him feel real enough. With father, his existence was never questionable. But as he lopes through the trees, he’s not so sure if he’s started to dream this all up or if he’ll really find her welcoming him. After all she was the one that left them. 

He can and does blame her sometimes. 

Abysm never blames Rapt though.

Never.

Abysm might blame her for leaving but he hasn’t learned to hate her for it. He hasn’t learned hate at all. Just blind and blatant adoration for his father. Maybe he won’t ever come to hate her or himself for being the cause of the disruption behind Rapt and her. He does think that his severance from the abyss must have something to do with it.

Something cannot be called up from the abyss and the dreamscape without there being consequences. He is just one such consequence of a visitation like that. But what does it all mean?! Therein lies his own conundrum as he slows from a lope to almost a dead standstill as he realizes that his though had taken a darker turn. With a shake of his small head, he hopes to clear them and restore the sunlight to his mind.

It takes just a little bit of dreaming.

Then he’s all smiles from cheek to cheek.

But she’s there. Materializing out of shadows and air as if detaching herself from the very dreamscape they can share. He cannot help the way his jaw drops open at the first glimpse of her face. Why she’s even more beautiful than his dreams would ever let him imagine! Once he realizes he can feel air on his tongue and that he’s unabashedly staring, his mouth slams shut like a steel bear-trap. 

No amount of dreaming could have prepared him for this moment. There was no possible way it could. Will this be sweet or bitter? he wonders. 

It almost looks like she wants to say something but it’s so quiet and that quiet grows tense for him. Then all of a sudden she’s whispering and smiling and talking and somehow, Abysm knows it’ll be all right for right now. Maybe not always and maybe not for forever. 

But right he’s just a boy standing before his mother. 

And she’s just a woman smiling back at her son.

“I know who you are.”

It comes out blunter than he meant it so he softens it with a smile. 

Now how do they go on from here? 

Because he doesn’t rush right up to her - can’t. Decorum prevents him from smothering himself in her embrace. Would she even embrace him as freely as she acknowledges him as her son? So all he can do is look at her - stare really, and wonder about what will happen next. He’s a little nervous after all.

@[Kagerus] I don’t know what this is but I look forward to your novels! <333

[Kagerus]

He stares at me with the wild abandon of any child, except for the twinkle in his eyes - mirror images of mine in that they carry the spark of a dreamer. I can't help but to smile as his jaw clicks shut, to admire my womb's handiwork even though I don't deserve to.

But that's why we're here - to try and make up for it.
To try and make up for everything I've thrown away.

I know who you are. He talks like Rapt, with a bluntness that becomes him - still, it's sharpened edge cuts me, though not deeply. For all I've done, he ought to be screaming, crying, attacking me - but he is a sweet child, that much already is apparent. Sickly sweet; the reality of him must be exposed to hardships, or else he'll be lost to this world like his father before him. And I - I can't let that happen... Not any more.

"Can I hold you?"

I'm whispering still, but with the authority a mother ought to carry. I take a step towards him, but no more. It is not my place to force anything upon him, to push him further than he wishes to go. Our boundaries are none existent, we forge our relationship one word at a time and right now, each word carries the weight of a missed childhood moment.

My eyes scan him carefully, catching the upturn of his lips and the staring vacancy of his eyes. Twinkling, dreaming, a little boy whose life I owe to someone entirely unconnected to me. I yearn to take him into my embrace, to feel him fit perfectly beneath my neck and against my chest while he still can; I'd held my brother Khaedrik that way when he'd been Abysm's age. But this is different. The golden boy is not my best friend or my confident; he's my son.

My son, and I, his mother.

(Finally willing to say that word and mean it, are you? What changed?)
I can see him, now, before me. He is of me. Without me, he would not be here - and that is reason enough to be mother.
(Well, what a convenient time to change your mind, right as he appears before you. You greedy little bitch, taking everything that's handed to you. You wouldn't know how to function if it weren't for free hand outs, if it weren't for everyone around you doing your work and then letting you take the credit. You may have formed him but you didn't birth him, really if you think about it all you did was get some cock and then move on with your life. A sex addict. Isn't that why you love Solace so much? The sound of her moaning with your fingers in her --)
Please. Please not now. I can't -- not with him here.
(Fine.)

I like my lips, feel my heart flutter as my mind races out of control.

"...Please?"

@[abysm] I don't know what this is either!!

[abysm]

Abysm notices that her eyes are even more beautiful than her face. But he wonders how his eyes must appear to her. He feels like they are two bruises set in a lost boy’s face. Truth be told, bruised and lost is how he feels. 

I shouldn’t have come.

The thought is there and gone before it can even register in his face. If he feels any remorse in that moment, it is for leaving his father alone to face the world. Abysm understands the shadows better now that she stands in front of him. Nothing ever seemed half as drab and gray as the land around them. Like all the color drained out of it to make her that much more vibrant and alive. 

I’m here now. She’s here now.

It echoes in his head. This sentiment that he can’t just turn tail and run now. Not now that he’d started them down this trail to recovering whatever it is they can recover of their nonexistent relationship as mother and son. 

Then comes her command even though it is disguised as a question wrapped in a whisper. Followed by a bold step taken forward and he narrows his eyes at her. Suspicion and childish pent-up hurt cloud his face as he continues to stare at her as her eyes look him over. Was he not good enough for her? Was he not everything she’d dreamt him to be? 

Doubt hardens him. He tries to make himself seem taller and more imperious as his stare changes to more of a glare now. Abysm half expects her to find some fault in him then send him away. He struggles with the fact that neither Rapt nor him had anything to do with her going away in the first place. That it was all her fault and none of theirs.

Her polite plea undoes him and his puffed up chest deflates. “Okay,” says his mouth, shaky and unsure as his face softens into the lost boy’s face who only wants his mother. 

“Mama?” the lost boy in a dream asks, looking out from his face. “Why’d you go away?”

@[Kagerus] he’s just a boy who wants his mama’s love ❤️

[Kagerus]

He stiffens upon my approach, golden sinews solidifying into something akin to the metal itself. The whisper of a dream floats between our ears temptingly as I consider him before me, almost wishing him to truly be gilded in the precious metal. But I discard the idea, slap my own hand, tell myself to focus on the reality of my son instead of being sucked into the dreamscape. He's glaring at me, hurt and frightened - but he's always been more than enough. The problem lies with me.

But the dreamscape is not so easily avoided - before my very eyes Abysm stretches in height; subtly, but he does. The transition from reality to dream comes is to us dreams as slipping between water and air comes for amphibians: both environments equally ours, equally habitable, equally viable. Although we needn't breathe or blink as the dream takes over, it's second nature - it makes the transition seamless.

Mama? His voice is strange, ethereal, ringing in my ears though his lips don't move to form the sounds. Why'd you go away?

Instantly, my heart shatters and the sound it makes is like tinkling crystal, each delicate peace dripping from my chest with the lightness of dust. Tears building in the depths of my eyes, I no longer resist my urge and find myself stepping into his body, pulling his golden figure into mine chest until our scents merge and become one.

The answer to his question gets stuck in my throat, blocking a thousand words that have gone unspoken since the day of his birth. Around us, the sloping hills of Hyaline seem to fade as our peripheral perception diminishes.

A shuddering breath.

"I was weak," her voice comes, muffled by the way she twists and presses herself so intimately to her son. "And I - I felt like I'd not a place to call my own, in the family. Rapt - he's both mother and father." More quickly now, as she struggled not to lie, forcing herself to speak the truth. Her son deserved to know, to know that he would always be more than enough - and that if he experienced any short comings, they would be hers, and never his own. "And..."

But the words are too difficult to speak.

Instead, with a clenching of her eyes, the feeble-hearted mother put on display her memories for her son to watch. His uncle, Khaedrik, screamed in horror as the revelation of her death on Abysm's behalf unfolded. The chaotic darkness of the memory seemed to swallow the dreamers whole, saturating them in the panic she'd felt during those moments. As month sped by in mere seconds, the hopelessness of her situation deepened the darkness they sat in, pervading all else as a Voice told her of her worthlessness, of her transgressions, of how she deserved it.

At the last, their lungs seem almost to full with water - but as that final memory of suicide became nearly too real, Kagerus pushed the memories away.

Gasping, I come back to myself and release the boy. Trembling uncontrollably, I step back, try to gauge his reaction, barely processing whether this is still a dream or once again reality.

This isn't how I wanted our first meeting to go.
But anything else would have set us up for a relationship founded on lies.
My lips shudder as I struggle to speak; how could I ever explain my own mental sickness to one I love so dearly.

"I'm so sorry. It's - it's my fault. I should have been stronger. For you, Abysm - I see that now." My face contorts, I try to regain control but I'm not strong enough. "It's okay to hate me - but I love you." I swallow, meet his gaze, suppress my emotions. "I have always loved you."

@[abysm] UH HAHA THIS WENT CRAZY