Within Dreams (Inside Sitherack's mind)

[Lucretias Sedi]

Lucretias returned to her body, and she was tired. Not drained, for she’d not stayed long, but she was also noticing that her hands were shaking. She swore silently and reached into the backpack of her stuff she used when she traveled to pull out one of the skins there and a piece of the bread that was stuffed with various things. Drinking down the flask’s contents enough to water her throat after she stuffed herself, she found that her body felt a lot more grounded than before, she didn’t feel as if she’d go flying off into the twilight of dreams unprepared. Her body relaxed for a few before she built the fire that would keep her warm as the air seemed to chill, and once more prepared to dreamwalk.

Falling back into meditation, she felt her mind reaching out into that twilight of dreams that the bodies walk, noticing that apparently, Daegan had fallen back into sleep. Though she didn’t wish to try her chances too much in one night – she’d wait until he slept another time to make the suggestion again. Something about that man’s mind lingered within hers, but she pushed it aside, focusing instead on business ahead. The number one priority besides the fact she now knew where the Arc was, was survival. She was not going to survive showing up anywhere where she would be recognized, not as who she was before anyways. She needed to work with the new alias, a new personality. Beliathael would need to become a real person in the eyes of the world, in her head. She accepted it like a second skin, and saw the brilliance of another mind – a more primal, dark mind that was an almost sensual calling.

Her lips curved as she recognized the mind as powerful. It would seem she was on a suicide mission as of late – but it beat the other dreams where a man’s lusts or violence would override. This mind was fairly new to the dream world (as in recently fallen asleep) and she hoped she could gain control of the dream long before his mind closed the door that left opportunity open. Everything has a price. She knew where her Arc rested, she knew who held it; she just wasn’t certain which side would ensure survival and the best place for Beliathael to take root. The land was dividing, and survival called for choices. She needed power, fast, but she also needed allies, and what better way to know who’s side to be best than gather knowledge on both. Perhaps, in future, this could be used more to her advantage.

She slipped into the mind, easefully, whispering to that part of the body that walked this twilight realm that she was simply another part of it, somewhere in the desires that every body had she was simply another phantom floating through the subconscious. Once it accepted her, she felt the power to control; though parts of this mind were too strong for her to weave it like a puppet and she could not rely on the power of any Arc to help her. Time to test the waters, so to say; as she pulled upon her element like releasing a tension that she held inside of her, she called upon her full reserves to sway the mind into fully accepting her presence as a background thing, whispering sweetly to the stem of his brain to pull forth and shape what his mind might have been plaguing his dreams with into something more sweet, something more desirable.

Not every man wanted sexual things.
Well, a small percentage don’t.

The brain of a being is more complex than most minds could ever understand – even a Life Sedi who healed the body could never fully understand the limitations of it. The subconscious mind walked a world between worlds and with the possibility of so much it could call forth ideas of possible futures, or plague one with those repressed memories and agitations that the conscious mind refused to acknowledge. So she formed the dream, slowly as his mind listened to the whispers. Images of the Collective arcs shimmering like a trophy upon his body, the flag of his people united under his nation a kind of triumph. Her mind recognized the ideal’s of both men – which weren’t too different – and understood sometimes that many put too much difference in a similar belief. Both wanted a kind of peace for the people – though Daegan’s mind was more focused on a primal revenge of a personal vendetta than anything.

She only didn’t put herself in it right away, at least not yet. She let him live the glory of his unfulfilled dream that would seem as reality to the mind in this, let him move through it understanding the landscape before she slid into it, a servant in the background as she kneeled at his feet upon the Sethian throne, her head down as her dark curls fell around her face.

“Sire, We are finally as one.”

[Sitherack's Soul]

“Is it truly so?” His voice was tired, as though the weight of a thousand mountains pressed down upon him for centuries beyond counting. His gray eyes glanced over the throne room settling on the knelt woman before him, the one who had spoke to him. “All the Sedi, united at last? After all this time I had begun to think it an impossible task.”

In the dream his mind played over the countless battles, both those that had already occurred and those he imagined were to come. He watched as Sedi fought each other in the name of their Sages and their commanders. There was so much bloodshed and devastation to reach this point, but in the end it was worth it. To see the Whole of the Sedian nation united under the Darkness, working together to strengthen and unify the people, help them together to create the ultimate civilization, one that could survive anything.

Yet despite all there was a sadness about him, his eyes were slightly shadowed, even in the fulfillment of his greatest dreams there was something wrong, he sighed deeply and leaned back upon the sapphire throne of the Sedian Hall. How often he had dreamed of this moment, yet always there was a sadness associated with it, it was hard to understand why, but for some reason it was always there.

“Thank you for the news.”

[Lucretias Sedi]

Luc, like an obedient girl, kept her head down though the tone made her lift a brow. She openly let the surprise play across her face as she stood, the edges of a gown shifting about her body. The same white gauzy material that she’d worn before, only rope bound around her waist, across her breasts in an almost ancient style, her dark hair pulled back away from her face. Her feet were soled, and she wore no open weapons upon her persona.

“My Lord? Does something trouble you?”

She didn’t even need to pull subtleness with it, his brain accepted the dream and she was no more real to him than the battle scenes though his unconscious brain was remembering it. No footsteps here, she only was viewing, there was nothing of herself she needed to leave with him at this time as she had done with Daegan, though with his mind she’d left only the suggestion, his brain had accepted it and matured it in the direction that his body would know he needed it. Her footfalls shifted against the stones, and she brushed her fingers up to a random loose curl.

“Forgive me for asking, sire, but you seem… displeased.”

[Sitherack's Soul]

His eyes glanced down at the small young Sedi in front of him, and focused as though seeing her truly for the first time, the eerie penetrating gaze of one of the oldest and most powerful Sedi ever to have walked the earth. He regarded her thoughtfully, his eyes playing across her demeanor, her stance, the way she shaped her words and he smiled softly.

“You cannot possibly know what its like to outlive all your greatest adversaries child. It is true what you have said, that we are united as a people, but we are weaker now too than ever we have been. Some of our greatest champions have fallen in the wars to unite our people. Men and women far greater than most who walk the earth. You think the Sedi today will grow to be their equals, yet the laugh at you from beyond the grave.”

He stood, his height on the dais was towering compared to the smaller Sedi below, but he made no threatening motions, instead he stepped down from the throne and began to walk from the hall, motioning her to follow along behind him.

“There is no one left in this world to challenge me, no one against whom to test my strength, my abilities. Above all a Sedi craves a challenge, something to push his limits, we cannot be whole without it, it is not possible. You are young and have not yet felt this hunger at your soul, but you will.”

He left the Hall of the Sedi and walked out onto a massive balcony overlooking the glittering city of Sethia. Fully restored the City seemed to shimmer with its own inner light in the pristine clear darkness that covered the earth in this dream as it did Tarthia now. The sight was quite breathtaking to say the least, crystal spires, shimmering lakes and fountains all reflecting small elemental lights that kept the city bright enough for those not of the darkness element to find their way around.

“Lasius was a challenge, while he lived he always stirred up trouble for me, a new obstacle to over come, a new strength to aspire too. Even Daegan, shadowy puppet of a man as he was was still a formidable opponent. With them gone, and no outside threats of consequence remaining what is there left to look forward too?”

He gazed out over the city, talking more to himself now than to Luc. He had no real interest in her. She was just another Sedi, one of the people he had struggled for true, but they had little use for him now, peace and unity would be better if all the Sedi were equal. Harmony in its utter and total perfection, He knew what he had to do now, as he had always known. The thought brought him no fear, no real sorrow, just relief and satisfaction.

“Balance must be maintained you See, without a Sage of the Light or Shadow, there can be no Sage of the Darkness. I cannot exist, I have always known the truth of this, even as we struggle against each other, we cannot exist independently. It is for the struggle that we exist. Thankfully the Sedi are stable now, the race will continue and thrive. Such was my eternal goal, I can finally rest.”

And with that he toppled forward off the balcony, falling forward eyes closed arms spread towards the cold hard stone below.

[Lucretias Sedi]

Lucretias listened as he lectured her, another background in his dreams. Pompous, arrogant, the man was truly a Sedian Male. He focused on her too intently, as if memorizing her face, but she didn’t dare cal upon the dream to refocus her face, for he’d know it as it was. So she instead lowered her head, humbly, letting the dark curls play across her flesh as she listened to him. Most people’s dreams didn’t always turned out like they should have, and she was honestly surprised to see the sadness upon his face, the way he spoke of the people and greatest adversaries. No, she’d not known many but their people united was a dream most shared. It was an impossibility, for even now he didn’t realize that in the dream state even if this were reality the people would fall. No one ever went under one flag forever, there would always be resistance.

Balance, as he said. She moved out, following him and taking in the sights of the city. It was truly beautiful, but even as he spoke she bit her tongue. No challenge, a mind of a solider, of a warrior. Her Grandfather had been such, a man who said if you cannot die on the battlefield than it is better to die at the hands of a worthy adversary at the least. She, even a warrior as she was, saw little point in death. You could serve, accomplish little from beyond the grave. Well, in theory anyways. Death Sedi were setting new records every day it seemed.

He spoke of selflessness, of existing when no challenge is to be met – but in truth the greater challenge would have arisen if he’d only look. Something about his speech hit too close to home for Lucretias though, the idea of what lies beyond. She didn’t accept the nothingness so easy, in this twilight of waking dreams how else could one desire the great beyond when everything one desired was but a footstep away? Not every element would see this way, for their dreams were uncontrolled to them, nightmares, dreams, or even something that seemed to haunt their daylight thoughts.

As he dove off the side she half cried out, surprise showing on her face as he dove towards the rocks below. Swearing swiftly in her head, she let his mind take the dream into the feeling of stone beneath his head, crimson staining the stones as the Darkness took his mind. As he floated in nothingness, she’d appear, a ghost, an almost goddess silhouetted against the shadow – the only light within that dark place. He’d feel suspended, as if in water. She’d let the light glow about her, leaving her face disconcernable, leaving only the glow of her flesh and the dark curls of her hair.

“You watch your greatest dream come true, and then say it was all for naught. Perhaps in your ambition and desire to attain everything you’ve lost something important along the way, something that you’ve overlooked; What is it that Daegan and Lasius possesses that you do not? What is it about them that you hate yet desire yourself somewhere within the core of you? You know the Sedi people are in the balance of those powerful enough to preserve them and yet you rest while the world crumbles. What does a man have to live for once his dreams are achieved? Easy enough – the next dream that comes along and claims him. Sometimes, our greatest battles are those we’ve never seen… or at least, never saw coming.”

She’d release his mind, using enough of her ability to plant the words in his head so upon waking he’d remember them. She tried pulling from the stem once more, the ability to try and make him forget her face, specifics anyways – she was sure if he saw her person he’d recognize her instantly – but enough that he could not recall her upon waking more than brief snippets of sensory memory. However she’d want her last words to echo in his head until they became his own, something he did not hear but came up with on his own, at least… in a dream.