Ch: 270 The Pillow That You Dream On
In the world beyond the waking realms, things had changed pretty drastically. Storm clouds swirled in the sky, as fitful and chaotic breezes tugged at the trees, changing direction randomly.
Rain pattered down, then fog and hail. More rain swept through and finally dim starshine and patchy, dark clouds covered the small globe. Lightning struck from time to time and thunder shook the house above the ocean, as waves battered his shore.
“Morrigan cut Contract with me…” He mumbled tiredly from the extraplanar bathtub. “She thought I’d just drop dead on the spot, but I outfoxed her… Kept my soul intact with a little trickery and some help from all my friends. I’m thrashed though. Need a new Contract.” He mumbled, as he passed into normal sleep.
#
“I have been spending time with her… but until she is inhabited by the spiritual fragment haunting you, she will be unable to achieve true sentience.” Maple sighed wearily. “By the same token, your bat spirit cannot interact with the non magical aspects of this world, nor go out in daylight until she is corporeal.”
“I can’t make Xyll do anything she doesn’t want to… I wouldn’t if I could. She’s her own creature, I’m just who she’s haunting…” He stammered.
“You know that isn’t true. She attached herself to you, haunting your shadow through several… intense upheavals in your spiritual essence. You are prone to entangling yourself with stray souls, boy. Learn to accept it, or tighten up your aura.” Maple gave him a push, setting the ragged boy adrift in the water.
“Take her out there to visit her tree. I think she will understand once she roosts in her own branches for the first time. She is the byproduct of a human mage, tinkering with the spirit world over several undying, unsleeping centuries. Your friend Figaro, the sacrificed man who sprouted a fig tree, was her origin… somehow.”
“Wait…” He murmured, adrift and only mostly awake. “She’s a bat… creature. A vampire fruit bat spirit… whatever. A shadow entity in the physical world, are you saying she’s like… a mortal dryad?”
“She is not a truly new flowering of dryad life… but something quite unique. A being of undying plantlife, meant to be inhabited by a living, incorporeal mortal spirit. I would consider her a distant cousin; closer to a symbiotic shade in an undying haunted fig tree. As for mortality… that remains unclear.” She murmured happily.
“What is clear is that until you get a few haunts and shades settled, no respectable entity is going to want to Contract you. Morrigan has a reputation among those who Contract, she seldom leaves much of value behind.”
“I’ll take Xyll for a walk in the haunted orchard… no promises. She does like it there, under the trees, among the shades and ghosts… so do I, really…” He murmured happily. “I’m sounding like Gray… Edgelord loser.”
#
The ride felt really good, exercising his body took a little of the edge off the spiritual wound in his essence. Orchards and fields flew by as he took in the sunshine and warm summer morning, cranking his machine up into the low hills. Shai and the kids followed in the cart, behind Sandi, with Becky on her bike beside them. Liam and Tawny rode Winslow and Magnus, on a family outing to the spookiest little vale in the duchy.
Maple’s grove of forbidden trees and plants felt deeply unsettling to mortals… in most cases. Wandering hunters or travelers would feel a strong urge to not hang around, reinforced by a feeling of cold, dismal and uncanny gloom. Beyond the posted no trespassing signs, the aura became a metaphysical barrier, refusing entry to the living. Only those who were inured to the forces of death and dissolution could pass…
“So you have to be iron rank or higher to pass the barrier, unless you are already spooky… which we are.” Gary explained as they set up a lovely picnic in the sunlit glades among the maples.
“The barrier will get stronger as the golden fig matures. Interestingly, none of the cuttings became anything other than a normal golden fig tree. The rest are just magical plants that thrive in grave soil and cemeteries. Only the one that grew from a ‘Shade Tree’ seed became haunted and uncanny.”
“Your undead vampire bat friend ate a grenadier pear… and the seed she pooped out grew a haunted golden fig tree?” Tawny asked slowly, for clarification. “Now Maple wants your bat friend to roost in the haunted tree for… reasons? This is a bit…” Tawny trailed off, at a loss for words.
“He’s just weird, love… don’t think too hard about it.” Liam muttered, as he laid out a blanket and some cushions for their own day in the spooky forest glade.
The kids rushed over to Maple’s playhouse, where she lounged on the stoop in her spare puppet body. “I think I might need another of these bodies, boy…” Maple cooed, once she was buried in kids and Becky had a book out for storytime. “I haven’t Willow’s knack for drawing mine through the ether with me, when I slip between trees.”
“We’ll see what I can do, I have too many projects on the boil and now I’m under ranked… partially ranked? I dunno. It sucks.” He grumbled, as he trudged up the low, rocky hillock in the center of the vale.
“Quit griping, boy.” Maple whispered from the leaves of a nearby sugar maple. “If I can simultaneously be every maple tree in this and a vast number of other worlds, you can manage to craft a simple doll body for me.”
“I don’t get the logic there…” He sighed tiredly. “Come on Xyll, let’s have a rest under your tree here and see how we feel… I need a nap.” He settled himself in at the foot of the young, sturdy fig; leaning against a boulder, in a pile of pillows and blankets.
Down the steep little hill, his family scooted around on the meadow, while the horsies wandered around grazing on sweet summer grasses and leaves. The idyllic buzzing of small life all around, among the soothing, whispering trees relaxed his mind.
While he rested in the sun, the shades and ghosts roaming the shadows soothed and calmed his tumultuous Ka.
More than a few big black insects flew into the sun from his shadow, as the morning became afternoon. The ceramic jar on a boulder nearby collected anyone who returned, welcoming a few more pieces of himself home.
He smiled in his sleep and rolled over, into Shai’s bosom, when the kids ran out of gas and they joined him for naptime.
#
The storms and weather effects continued in his dream world, rain and lightning swept across his tiny globe, drenching everything. Moments later, the clouds would clear away, for a while. The little family stayed in the house, coloring and reading together by the fireplace, while Gary met with a few of his guests in the common room.
“Were you still a floating island in the void, I’m certain you would have dissolved immediately, when her Contract ended. The shock to your essence would have unwound you entirely, in a few minutes at most. It’s likely there would not even have been a body to find.” Marduk grumbled.
“I never trusted her, if you recall.”
“Me neither, that’s why I spent so much time getting her gifts under my control. She seemed eager to see me in her realm, I would rather not be her plaything.” He mumbled softly. “She enjoys dominating and controlling too much; miss me with that. Only Shai gets to play with my boundaries.”
“Gross, Gary.” Ducky complained with a cheeky smile. “I doubt she wants to bend you over her lap and spank your bottom with a captain’s hat.”
The boy just grinned and said nothing, while the room suddenly felt very, very cozy.
“Yes, let’s move on, shall we? The question remains, what does this mean and how will we move forward from here? I suspect that the remnants of Morrigan’s Contract will make things difficult. It was not a clean break. You may need to spend some time tidying up that mess.” Thirp scuttled in place to express her agitation. “There is a tumbled and blasted ruin where her dark cathedral once stood. The area is… inhospitable.”
“Great, so that’s what that feeling is. I’ll get to work on it right away… at least Velvet is happier, now she’s off the list, finally. She would have to make a mess on the way out. Bad roommate problems.” He grunted tiredly.
#
When they rambled home in the afternoon’s lengthening shadows, they returned without Xyll the vampire fruitbat entity. She remained, roosting in her golden fig tree, cooing, singing and chirping in the magical spectrum, fluttering from tree to tree in excitement. Evening came early in the steep little vale, drawing the shadows close and embracing the night eagerly. The bat spirit dashed down among them as the sun fled, nuzzling and entangling herself briefly in the girls’ hair, each in turn as if to bid them farewell. She landed on Gary’s neck and gave a shady little nibble, before she flitted back to her spooky tree.
“I guess she’s staying…” He mumbled, a little sadly. She was stoked though, flying from tree to tree, trying each on for size, as the spreading shadows increased her available territory.
Gary rode the cart, while Shai got some energy out, skidding around corners she absolutely needn’t have taken and hitting jumps off any slight change in the terrain, even if she had to dip into the roadside verge to find them. Her wide, ecstatic smile, chiming bells and ringing laughter made the afternoon a celebration of Joy on an up country side road.
That night, once the little ones were in bed, Gary tried to head off to his own blankets, feeling worn thin and battered… and a little lonely, without her high pitched twitters and chirps in the house, even if he was the only one who could hear. He was contemplating that as he undressed for bed.
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Shai’s warm presence slipped through the bedroom door behind him, as strong fingers gripped his ear tenderly. She gently dragged him back downstairs, with his shirt half undone.
“Hey…” He protested with admirable vigor, considering.
“Shush, boy. I’ll be seeing what kin be done fer thee, tae improve yer state.” She complained back at him.
“Tawny and the gods all agree… I just gotta get back in a condition where I’m able to search for a Contract. Gonna be a bit I think.” He yawned enormously, until his jaw cracked.
“Nae all the gods agree.” She asserted firmly, while maintaining her earhold on his tender lobe. “Thirp an Brigid say I might hae some… leverage on thee. An I apply it correctly.” She pulled him past smugly smiling friends and relations, off into the grotto. “Now we see what we hae tae work with…”
She briskly stripped him, once they were alone in the open roofed cavern behind the waterfall’s stones. “Some few of me confidantes suggest I may hae some hand in mending thee…” She purred, as she pulled him over to the construct of steel hoops, leather straps and bearings, slung from a heavily inscribed A frame.
“The gyro pope…?” He mumbled. “I think that will make me worse… I’ll try meditating in it tomorrow, love.”
He was already half strapped in before he finished talking… and the look in her eyes said he would not be getting any meditation done. “Babe, I’m pretty worn out…”
She silenced him with a deep, tender kiss; one that ended with a hungry nibble at his lips. “I’ll be disporting an amusing meself with thee fer a time. Yer safeword be ‘Impediment’.” She whispered hungrily, as her clothes vanished, replaced by a bit of his own naughty handicrafts.
“I never did think a ‘bronze bikini’ would be so comfy…” She purred. “Princess Leia’s naughty nighty, the description did say.”
She grabbed him gently by a rapidly firming handhold and spun the machine. “Now we play ‘escaped slave girl an her helpless master’…”
Nude and spread eagle by the configuration of the hoops, straps and rings; the hapless musician twirled and revolved through a wondrous galaxy of pleasure, delight, mild torment and slight discomfort. There were no impediments to her enjoyment of the morsel strung up before her, vulnerable to her whims and desires.
“I’ve a mind tae trade places wi thee, lover…” She murmured to the burned out husk of her mate, as she rolled him into the swirling hot water and clinging plants. “Sadly, thou art spent. Fully spent!” She giggled, while rinsing off in the waterfall. Gary lay there, floating and bobbing happily among the waterweeds, almost completely limp… almost.
“What’s this now? Ye hae a generous nature, me boy. Dinnae squirm overmuch, sweet Shai be exhausted.” She whispered hungrily, as her shadow loomed over his helpless form.
#
Gary sat at Shai’s feet early the next morning, as Moonrise sailed down river for the Shallow Sea. He was still pale and weak, but looking fit otherwise. Shai seemed to have had a splendid night, smiling and waving to fishermen and other early risers as they slipped into the river.
“Looking better, Gary.” Ivy remarked over her coffee mug, with a wink for Shai.
Tallum clapped a giant hand down on top of his head and ruffled the musician’s already messy hair in paternal amusement. “Poor lad looks tired, like he got no rest at all. Tuck him in for an early nap, Shai. I’ll take the helm.”
“We installed the gyro pope in the forehold this morning.” Ivy sang helpfully. Her smile became a cruel sneer of sadistic pleasure, as she softly whispered:
“It’s the most soundproof place on the boat too, so spank away.”
“No, please no…” The fool gasped, as that warm, strong hand clasped his ear again. He was grinning and never said ‘Impediment’.
#
A number of friends watched the little blue ship sail off from the city wall. Kelli and Elli, Rolf, Angie, Ester, Gabbie and a still reserved and dour Jocomo all watched them depart.
“So, wipe out a band of slavers, slay a few demons and they are just going to sail off, to continue wandering the countryside being… weird?” Elli asked softly.
“Pretty much…” Angie sighed happily, under Rolf’s warm, muscular arm. “They’ll be back in a few days. Something about visiting a turtle they know.” She shrugged helplessly. “Let’s get to work, we have a raid to plan, a coup to thwart and mysteries to solve… like what the hell the Taxmen were up to.”
“I always hated talking to the Taxmen…” Rolf agreed. “They were always super creepy then; it’s horrifying, knowing what I know now.” He mumbled unhappily. “I feel the sting of failure, when I think back on the times I met with them. When next I see one, I plan to pull it apart slowly and carefully.”
“Has your god Order had anything to say on the matter?” Elli asked quietly.
“Order remains silent… He has never been a chatty deity, but this is distressing, I admit.” Rolf almost complained.
“This matter is occult to the gods and great spirits… they dwell in the veil, beyond the tiny green moon’s light.” Kelli whispered softly. “Only the light of the little moon shines on what’s gone wrong.” She smiled and nodded happily. “It was really, really bright last night.”
“Wasn’t it just marvelous?” Ester sighed happily, from under Rolf’s other arm. “Shai must have taken my advice… that boy just needed a vigorous beating.”
“Ester! That’s not nice!” Kelli complained weakly at the grinning unicorn girl. “Hitting people is bad.”
“Yes dear, hitting people is bad…” Elli mumbled awkwardly. “Ester, there are things I would rather not try to explain….” The shadow grumbled. “I’m not qualified for that.”
“Ahh, my sweet Elli, that is where your local clergy can assist…” Otho seemed to appear from nowhere, stepping out into the bright sunshine with a wide smile. “My dear Kelli, have you ever considered the sublime delights a Contract with lady Joy might offer?” He asked eagerly, from the battlements nearby.
#
“I feel… different.” He mumbled, when he woke in his other place, high over the waking world.
“We are different.” Velvet answered, sitting on the side of the bed. “We had to change, to keep doing what we need to do.”
“Big changes.” Dj added in, sitting on the other side.
“Where’s Shai? What are you guys doing in here?” He murmured weakly.
“It’s just us here, you… and all of us.” Ragy grumbled from the foot of the bed. “We’re dreaming right now.”
Tidyguy, Pianoman and all the rest crowded around, all present in the small room, through dream logic and nonsense physics.
“The fractures in us have to be closed and we need to come together… but pieces are missing, we’re unbalanced and incomplete.” Dj shook his head so hard his headphones nearly slipped off. “We gotta do something to even us out, need to shift the point of balance and get back on the beat.”
“So what do we do?” He mumbled up at himselves.
“We need to do something. You need to sit still and not mess anything else up.” Velvet grumbled. “Kicking Gray out into the devourer was a bad move. Now we have to vote somebody else off the island, to even us out.”
“He was…” Gary murmured weakly, under their accusing stares. “I had to!”
“Liar! You wanted to! You thought you could just remove your sleazy, selfish, egotistical, edgelord parts without causing any problems? You were like twenty percent edgelord!” Ragy snapped angrily. “Now I have to pick up the slack!”
“Cool it Gary… that’s not productive.” Mellow NotGary took his younger, furious self under his arm and smiled. “He didn’t know any better.”
“Yeah, you’re right, Gary.” He mumbled, deflating a little. “Ok, Gary… what’s the plan?”
“Well…” He began.
“Not you, Gary. I was talking to Gary.” Ragy said, pointing to Dj.
“This is going to get difficult.” Gary sighed to Gary, who nodded and patted Gary on the shoulder. Gary shifted awkwardly in Gary’s embrace and grumbled angrily and incoherently at the whole group.
“I feel Like we are overcomplicating this.” Velvet said firmly. “We just need to anchor ourselves more firmly in the world… we need a solid, reliable fulcrum to orbit around.”
“Hey… that kinda hurt..” He mumbled up at all of him.
“Go back to sleep, we’ll handle this.” Velvet whispered, while gently smothering him with a pillow.
#
“Can’t do that… I’m the Pillowking!” Gary grunted, as he lurched up in bed on Moonrise.
“Aye, Pillowking of my heart, now lie still…” Shai grumbled in her sleep, as she rolled over on top of her fractious bedmate, pinning him comfortably in position. He took the time to relax against her warm, familiar body and listen to her breaths and heartbeat, lulling him into a tranquil state of near meditation. Facing his troubles head on, he pulled up his character sheet for the first time in a while.
Gary Ward: Demihuman Monster, Aberration
Class: Druid, Undead Craftsman, Witch
Age:18
Rank: Iron minus/Unranked
Might:Copper minus, Beast, divine Contract, Homebody, The Hive, The Sun.
Resilience:Copper minus, Secret, divine Contract, Fractured Soul, Quietus Moon, The Moon
Agility:Iron plus, Spear Wanderer's Legacy, Pockets!, Sleight of Mind, The Hierophant.
Will:Copper minus, Brigid, etheric Contract, Artisan, Bound in Flesh, The Hanged Man.
Mind:unranked, Interface, Unlivening, The Endless Dance of Death.
Animus:Copper minus, Joy, divine Contract, Familiar Stranger, Entrainment, The Fool.
He dug in deeper for Morrigan’s gift, plucking its description from the void.
*Warning: Incomplete gift*
Unlivening: Resilience, Animus, Will, Mind.
The gift of Mortality: willing entities may accept this gift, or refuse. Entities entirely in wielder’s thrall are unable to refuse. Unwilling and unconstrained entities’ resistance scales against: Will, Mind, Animus, Resilience, Might, Agility.
Effects and costs uncertain, exercise caution until Contracted to a compatible spiritual, etheric, or divine entity or construct.
‘To sleep, perchance to dream…’
*Warning: Incomplete gift.*
“Ugh… feels worse than it looks.” He mumbled softly. He wriggled and squirmed out of his woman’s embrace, substituting a very willing and eager Otho for himself. The furry red mutt gave a grunt of doggie pleasure and settled in for a long nap sesh.
Up on deck, Tallum was steering, with Ivy and Dannyl in the rigging. “Aww, I hardly ever get the wheel…” The big man sulked just a little. “Nice to see you up and moving.”
“You can drive, have fun. Just let me take over the Mana supply, I need the workout.” Gary slipped into the hammock near the helm, so he could watch the shoreline pass by and gently took over the energy demands of his enchanted engines.
His big friend stood a little straighter and the kids in the rigging moved a bit more lightly, once the hungry vessel was running from its preferred source. “It’s impressive… that you can run it by yourself, Gary.” The giant mumbled. “We bust on you a lot, but… we need you.”
“Love you too bro. But don’t be too impressed, the ship takes like forty percent less energy from me than it does from you guys. I’m really attuned to it and we’re really compatible.” He yawned and smiled at the misty woodlands and berry canes they sailed through. “Affinity and compatibility is the name of the game…” He drifted away, not asleep, but lost in thought.
“Affinity, compatibility… Contract severance should be so simple. Costly, but simple, just need the right spiritual tools…” He mumbled on, softly considering and contemplating the wound in his soul.
#
Gary!” Shai called, waking him from his unsleeping reverie. “Tis lunch, an we near where ye wished tae stop.”
“Ohh, yeah, I gotta get some lumberjacking done. There’s a stand of ancient plum trees up this way, they have a deathshead locust in them, a big one. We get the bug, and we split the lumber from any damaged trees. It’s a job from Plumeria, she’s paying in sap and amber.”
Trade talk got Shai excited and brought Ivy down from the rigging with a gymnast’s effortless grace. She landed with a soft thud beside her giant and tugged on his sash til he bent down for a kiss.
“Plumeria needs lumber?” Shai demanded. “Or is it that yer plotting someatt?” She asked suspiciously.
“Plumeria’s sister, Cherry… she wants a puppet body, but there’s not enough cherry trees around here with enough…” He fumbled, at a loss for the words for a moment. “As dryads go, Cherry is… gregarious, engaged and excited. Her essence is too effervescent for me to work with safely, so Plumeria is going to guide me to some proper magic lumber.”
“Too ‘effervescent’?” Ivy demanded with a quirked eyebrow and a twinkle in her brightest blue eyes. “You mean she’s too alive to abide your touch.”
“Hey, that’s mean…” Amy complained sleepily.
“Ivy’s just teasing me baby… But yeah, she’s mean too.” He scooped his pirate princess up in a hug and climbed down onto the main deck for lunch. “Ooo, Mom made fish tacos and chicken quesadillas!”
They enjoyed a quiet and comfortable late morning meal, rocking at anchor near a sandy shore and a wide, silted up canal.
Gary and Shai swam ashore after lunch and summoned the house over, creating a cozy pier for Moonrise. Mid day rang on the ship’s bell, he’d enchanted to keep the time, before the boys strolled off to hunt the bug and cut some lumber.
“It be a little sexist that tis the girls must stay by the hearth whilst the boys labor…” Shai grumbled, while she watched them walk into the scattered woodland hunting the critter.
“Shai, remember the walking stick Plumeria was haunting when we found her? Remember the sap? Dannyl’s going to be using that crazy whipsaw of his out there.” Ivy said with a smile.
“Ooh! Nae thank thee!” She grinned happily. “Even wi a magic bath, I did feel sticky an gross fer a day after!”
#