Typically, when she dreamt, Sybil had one particular type of dream. These were, of course, the dreams that had guided her path ever since she realized they might become more than simply dreams. And certainly, there could be dreams of other sorts, miscellaneous little detours which meant little. But when it came to dreams that stuck with Sybil, they tended to be about her. There was, unfortunately, one particularly noteworthy exception to this rule. The contents of said exception being far from pleasant.
Sometimes, instead of dreaming of the woman she loved, Sybil might find herself settling down to sleep, only to spend her night reliving moments with the woman she had loved. This had been a far different sort of love than the romantic love she sought on her journey, but it had been love all the same. And when such dreams turned up in her unconscious mind without invitation or warrent, they would dig up old, painful memories of the one whom Sybil had considered like a mother for years.
Not her mother by blood, that woman had never been one to earn Syibl’s love, but Illis, Sybil’s old mentor, had provided guidance, warmth, support and comfort. She’d given Sybil a roof over her head, food to eat, even a reason to not simply hate the ‘gift’ of magic she’d received. And at the time, Sybil, a vulnerable child abandoned by dogmatic parents at the onset of her teenage years as she was, had latched right onto all she had been given. But those halcyon days of care were long gone. And the final lesson which Illis had left her with remained the harshest Sybil had ever learned.
Unsurprisingly, dreams of this sort were never pleasant. But when Sybil found herself in such a dream, younger, more naive, coming into awareness face down in an open book after having drifted off due to a night of fierce studies in pursuit of praise and approval, the fog of her dreamscape obfuscated any alarm. Insead, she was pleasantly roused from her resting place by the smell of hot, spicy, meaty stew permeating her bedroom. When her eyes cracked open to investigate the source, she saw a steaming bowl ready and waiting. Cupping the bottom of the bowl were a pair of familiar hands, which, of course, belonged to Illis—ever a source of comfort and stability to the young witch—who gazed down at her pupil with brow furrowed in perplexed concern. As dreams tend to go, the conversation which followed was not particularly coherent. Illis had scolded Sybil, if lightly, for putting her studies before her health. There had been a meek apology on Sybil’s part, then the offer of a hearty breakfast from Illis.
Unlike the other dreams, the ones about her—which tended to be coherent and make logical sense as grounded, if blurred. vignettes of a possible real future—Sybil’s dreams of Illis were much more prone to the incoherent, jumbled nature of a more typical dream. As such, Sybil did not so much as eat her meal as the meal simply stopped being in the bowl, and started being in her belly. She paid it little mind, as is typical of one shrouded by dream-logic, and as dreams of Illis went, this one had started out fairly pleasantly. Said pleasantness was not meant to last, however; just as Sybil was basking in the satisfying fullness of a home-cooked meal provided by the woman whom she’d truly come to trust and rely on, things went south.
Her contentment was rattled by the sound of a door slamming, shaking the space around her, reverberating dread within some primal part of her unconscious mind. And in that moment Sybil needed Illis, while the darker parts of her mind knew already that Illis was gone. Lacking any moment to react, Sybil found herself immediately on her feet and bolting from her room toward the sound as the world behind her darkened and dissolved. Time was short, something told her that, an instinctual urge deep within reminding her over and over again that if she didn’t move quickly, she’d be left behind.
Her hand had never bothered to raise for the door handle before her; instead, the exit flung itself open for her, revealing what vaguely resembled the adjacent hallway—as was customary in most dreams, nothing was entirely accurate to the reality it represented. She ran. She spared not a moment; the space she occupied had already begun falling away into the colorless, formless emptiness which gathered on all sides. Though it was a terrifying sight, there wasn’t opportunity to take any of it in; she had already arrived at the unending stairs leading ever downward through the belly of Illis’ tower; she was stumbling through an empty, half melted kitchen; tripping into the little tower’s foyer, which had become an isolated island in the emptiness surrounding her. There were no walls, no ceilings or furniture; beneath her feet, the floor continued disintegrating behind Sybil with each step she took. She didn’t care, Sybil couldn’t let it happen, not again.
Her eyes found the door to what lay beyond Illis’ tower; some deep-seated feeling of the most dreadful deja vu forced Sybil to slow. She nearly skidded on her heels as a dire realization seeped its way into her mind. In that moment, the curtain had been oh so slightly parted; some garbled message from another more conscious, more lucid Sybil had managed to pierce the veil, and a nagging flash of insight brought with it understanding just clear enough to know that she had been here before. There wasn’t a question as to what would come next, part of her may have known the entire time. It was that sort of knowledge that only came in a dream one cannot awaken from, where a small corner of one’s mind knows nothing it’s seeing can be real, but is too burdened by the weight of unconsciousness to assert its own will. That part of Sybil knew it had to all be a dream, and knew how this particular dream would end. But that meant little to her while fleeing the emptiness on all sides, while giving chase to the only woman who’d ever made Sybil feel at home.
Sybil had no choice but to know just how terribly she would hate what came next. That had been enough to slow her flight—despite what lay behind—but that vague knowledge would never stop her from placing one foot ahead of the other entirely. So, in an agonizing, inevitable march to a finale she wanted no part in, Sybil continued to creep forward. Her hand had gripped the doorknob, then for a moment, she lingered, hoping against hope time might freeze. The knob turned. The door swung open. And beyond lay exactly what Sybil had known she would see: nothingness. Illis was nowhere, there was no world outside, there was no outside at all. Sybil was alone.
Before despair could truly set in, however, something changed. There was a voice, not Illis’, but a familiar one, a treasured one. It called her name, there was a hand on her shoulder, the calls grew louder. Sybil knew that voice, that care; this was her voice. The dream faded, and Sybil’s eyes opened, Isaac was over her, lightly jostling at her shoulder. “Sybil? Are you alright? You were tossing and turning a lot, kept muttering a word, I think maybe someone’s name.” In her barely-conscious state, Sybil couldn’t help but find Isaac’s voice to be not entirely dissimilar from the one she’d heard in the dream, the voice of the woman she sought. It bore a deeper, woodier quality but had a similar inflection, a familiar tinkle within. She found that oddly comforting, and it seemed to sooth the lingering burns that nightmare had seared into her thoughts. With a groan, Sybil sat up. Isaac offered her a smooth, delicate hand; she took it, finding his skin startlingly soft in her grasp. They stood together, and Sybil glanced upward to meet the gorgeous pale blue eyes she’d found herself getting lost in lately, then quickly directed her gaze to the hem of her cloak, pretending she could ignore the way her cheeks prickled with throbbing heat.
“‘M’fine,” she slurred in what could generously be called a mumble. Isaac smiled, nodded, and set to packing up their camp. Scolding herself, Sybil reiterated for the upteenth time that any feelings her companion invoked in her were hardly reliable or legitimate. She’d been alone for so long; of course the first person to come along and prove somewhat trustworthy, friendly and dependable would stir something in her. Especially someone as pretty as Isaac had become; nothing was wrong with admitting that to herself. He may have been a man, but Sybil found herself attracted to him, like it or not. And, as she’d reminded herself time and time again, Isaac was like no man she’d ever known. Not in body, not in personality. So none of the feelings she felt conflicted with her general disinterest in masculinity, and thanks to her own unwitting intervention, Isaac had acquired an angular, feminine face, colorful plump lips, expressive eyes, flawless skin, subtle curves and sculpted muscles.
All that in one package made her companion hard not to look at, and, if he’d caught her looking wistfully too often or too long, Isaac hadn’t said a word on the matter. So really, no harm came in admiring her accidental handiwork from time to time. And certainly, this reaction was perhaps uncharacteristically strong, but the overlap between her appearance in the nightmare, and Isaac’s intervention from the outside had created a connection which Sybil couldn’t simply shrug off. Still, that meant little. Sybil was not one to deny reality, and she had freely admitted to herself the simple fact that she had a crush. They had been on the road for three days, and with nobody else there to keep Sybil company, and her dreams silent on the matter of her someday lover, it only made sense that Sybil would develop an inkling of feelings for her undeniably attractive companion.
But a crush was simply that: a crush. It would not last. They had only three remaining reagents to gather, thanks to her revelation only days prior, and, realistically, the last—and, coincidentally, most dangerous—hardly seemed necessary. It had appeared in her dreams, certainly, but a wight’s finger fulfilled a specific purpose in casting: to act as a glue that held together different types of magic. And, while Sybil’s spell did make use of two styles of magic: scrying and summoning, realistically, the summoning part was doing all the heavy lifting. The scrying portion of the spell was comparatively incredibly rudimentary. Because of that, when Sybil had originally cast the spell, she had used syrkroot—the very first of the reagents which Sybil and Isaac had acquired—as a binding agent. It had worked fine, too, the spell may have failed, but not because the binding agent didn’t do its job. One thing worth considering was that, with the addition of these newer, rarer and more potent reagents, the spell would become more advanced, effective and costly, but syrkroot would still theoretically be perfectly serviceable. That was the hope, anyway, there was no reason to go after something that dangerous if a substitute could be used.
That still left the question of why, though. Why did it ever appear in her dreams to begin with? Perhaps her hypothetical future self needed such a reagent for some other purpose, and the hazy nature of her dreams caused Sybil to simply confuse its presence there for an indication that she would needed it. Such an answer wasn’t the most satisfactory, but until proven otherwise, the risk just seemed too great.
It wasn’t effective at doing its job when used in seeking spells, nor for transportation spells. It could become effective if, in conjunction with that she were to cast a spell intended to create some additional effect. But she had no need for such a spell. There had likely been some other use her hypothetical future self needed such a reagent for, and the hazy nature of her dreams simply confused its presence there for an indication that she’d needed it. Real life present Sybil had no interest in seeking out such a dangerous creature to gather such an irrelevant reagent. She wouldn’t do that, couldn’t do that, not to herself, not to Isaac.
Especially not to Isaac. He’d been through enough, Sybil saw the way he sulked when he thought she wasn’t looking; she saw the way his own longing glances would happen across her. And she knew, or at least, thought she knew the reason behind it. He didn’t know what he was going to do when all this was over. Didn’t know where he was going to go. And it worried Sybil to admit it to herself, but neither did she. More and more frequently Sybil had wondered just how well and truly prophetic her dreams were. For, as worrying as it was to admit, she’d never had one that included Isaac. Neither the dream-Sybil, nor the woman she had fallen for worried themselves over a guest, wanted or otherwise. Loath as she was to admit it, Sybil was scared of what that might imply. Would Isaac leave without looking back after getting what he’d wanted from her? Perhaps the added presence of her lover would open a rift between him and Sybil, driving him away. When her thoughts grew particularly dark, Sybil would wonder if his survival was even guaranteed.
The wight’s finger; in the days since the honeymoon excitement of her revelation had faded, that thing had weighed heavily on her thoughts. A sickly, rotten little binding agent, sinister as the void itself. Not many survived encounters with a wight; they were prone to stripping their opponent of any and all advantages during their sick little games of death. In the future her dreams foretold, had Sybil let Isaac die at the hands of such an entity? And to what end? Worse still, if that were truly the case, how could the Sybil who lived in that rosy future so much as look at herself in the mirror without reeling in disgust? The real Sybil was not like that, she could not be; she had to believe that. What choice did she have?
There had to be some missing piece Sybil had yet to discover, because she could not stomach the idea of giving up after coming so far. And then there was that line of even darker thinking still. The one which lingered in the hard to reach spot at the back of her thoughts, nibbling away as it wondered aloud whether all this would be for nothing. She could fail again, or worse still, could succeed in casting the spell only to be rejected both by her lover and Isaac. Illis had taught her that was more than possible when she’d disappeared without a word. That was a lesson which Sybil’s subconscious wouldn’t be allowing her to forget anytime soon.
Unbidden, her eyes wandered to Isaac, who had just finished kicking dirt over their campfire and stuffing their bedrolls back into their travel packs. He caught her gaze with his own, and both froze. For several moments, there was stillness; neither spoke, moved, or did much of anything save breathe. Though even that seemed easier said than done; the silence they shared shattered when Isaac choked out a long, laborious, trembling exhale. Suddenly he was approaching her with an odd look to him, the sort of determined, jaw-set, tight mouthed, narrow-eyed, look that broadcasted ‘we need to talk,’ then hit you over the head with a mallet inscribed with that same phrase to make sure the point had been well and truly driven home. And it had apparently taken Sybil ‘til that very moment to realize that having a talk talk with Isaac was just about the most frightening thing she could imagine.
Ever since they’d set out after that floundering, humiliating morning—the one which she’d for some dumb reason admitted to thinking Isaac was pretty again—things had grown ever more awkward between the two of them. That aura of ‘we need to talk’ had well and truly permeated the air around them, mingling with the humidity and clinging to their skin. But Sybil had, apparently incorrectly, been under the impression that they were going to be pretending it wasn’t there. And yes, it would be pointless to pretend Sybil hadn’t worried over the widening gulf between them. Of course Isaac’s distance had been troubling, but she wasn’t blind, he was obviously struggling too.
And now what? He would extract some confession from her? Was she supposed to simply roll over and admit the reality that she had no idea what she was doing and that she was terrified everything might blow up in her face? Or perhaps tell him of the troubling thoughts she had over his future? Instead, maybe he sought an admission that, when she closed her eyes, images of that gorgeous figure he’d been gifted with were projected across her eyelids? And maybe he meant for her to tell him that, on more than a few occasions, she’d caught herself smiling from simply the act being around him? Yes, he would like that vulnerability from her, Sybil was certain of that. Like it in the same way Illis had surely enjoyed setting off from her tower, cackling as she left Sybil’s younger self behind, never to return.
“Hey, breathe, you’re shaking like a leaf.” His voice was low, quiet and breathy, suddenly a hand was on her arm, and Sybil practically coughed the lungful she’d unwittingly left caught in her chest. And for some stupid reason she felt better. He made her feel better. His lips turned upward ever so slightly, and Sybil remembered to inhale. “We—”
“Need to talk?”
“Yeah.” For the first time, Sybil felt the nerves in his voice. More subtlety had muffled them when compared to her own, but that felt less to do with control and more to do with what she could only imagine to be a lifetime of keeping it all hidden behind a mask. The feelings were genuine though, there wasn’t any malice hidden behind it all. And that, admittedly, made Sybil feel a little better, even if it was somewhat bleak to take her solace in the discomfort of others.
“Okay.” She didn’t trust herself to say more. Too many thoughts, too many feelings rang in Sybil’s head.
“Sybil, I don’t even really know how to say this, like, this would have been a hard enough conversation to have on Earth where people at least know what all this stuff is—I don’t even know what the situation here is like or if you’ve even heard of this sort of thing or if you’re gonna hate me and—”
“Hey, breathe,” she repeated back to him, finding that her own turn to offer reassurance felt surprisingly natural. And in the same vein, that the act of taking her companion’s hand in hers, then squeezing occurred with similar ease. And from the way Isaac’s eyes shut momentarily, heralding a long, steady breath that rose and fell within his chest, Sybil found it safe to assume that the gesture was appreciated. He opened his eyes, piercing pale blue beamed down upon her, pinning Sybil in place.
“I don’t think I want to be Isaac anymore.”
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It wasn’t effective at doing its job when used in seeking spells, nor for transportation spells. It could become effective if, in conjunction with that she were to cast a spell intended to alter the physical shape of another being. But she had no need for such a spell.
“I don’t think I want to be Isaac anymore.”
Omg I didn't expect it to happen *now*
This story is so gooooood
*sips at the angst soup*
"I don't think I want to be Isaac anymore."
Yessss. That bean has been spilled! I've been waiting for Isaac to realize it and then *say* it.
Next chapter's gonna be entertaining.
Real life, present Sybil had no interest in seeking out such a dangerous creature to gather a possibly irrelevant reagent. She wouldn’t do that, couldn’t do that, not to herself, not to Isaac.
This is included twice in back to back paragraphs
Woop there it is!
The egg(And maybe closet door) has CRACKED WIDE OPEN