Post by Zola Rhomdaen on May 2, 2022 20:20:04 GMT
Zola is standing over her own mangled body. The corpse is lying on its side on the forest floor, neck twisted at an odd angle so that its face is staring up at the moonless moonlit sky with dim, lifeless amber eyes and a mouth open in a silent scream.
From all around her, there is a faint, ethereal hum of a child’s nursery rhyme.
As her breath seizes in her throat and her inner song turns into a screeching, discordant sound, she instinctively reaches for the swords on her back. But her hands feel only the air and a warm wetness.
She looks down on her hands. There are splotches of blood on them, forming a vague shape on each palm. On the left, there is something like a raven, dark and lonesome. On the right, something resembling a blanket, offering warmth and comfort.
The humming continues. She feels this is a choice she must make.
She lets her left hand fall to her side as she continues staring at her right.
She hears loud rustling noises and the sound of ancient things crawling away, and she looks up to see that the trees have moved to reveal a path ahead of her.
Zola walks forward into the mist and darkness.
She can’t tell how long she’s been walking, but eventually, she emerges out into a wooded clearing, brighter than where she was before, lit by something unseen. She stands there for several quiet moments until she feels a presence by her side.
Ophanim the Vain is wearing a black dress shirt — unbuttoned all the way down to show off his toned chest and abdomen — and matching trousers, and holding a goblet in each hand.
Zola turns towards him with a scowl. The twin curved blades that were not in her hands before are now there, pointed and poised to cut down an old foe, but she stops. Her hand goes up towards her sternum and feels for a charm made of hair and solidified beads of blood tied with a string around her neck.
It’s still here, she thinks, so why am I in this dream?
Meanwhile, the devil glances down at the swords and shakes his head. “Please, there’s no need for that,” he drawls out.
“Why are you here? What do you want?”
“What do I want? I want to talk." He extends one hand out to offer a goblet to her. There is a rich, dark maroon liquid within it. The scowl on her face slowly morphs into a look of bemusement. “We tried the fighting, so now I want to level with you.”
She is dressed in her white sleeveless dress, but she feels she could manifest adamantine splint mail on her body if she so wishes, just like with the swords. This is different from her previous dream with Zah’Ranin.
She releases her grip on one sword and it vanishes away. Tentatively, she takes the goblet with her now-empty hand, but she simply holds it in front of her, not wanting to sip from it, not wanting to take her eyes off of him. And not just because his shirt is unbuttoned.
“Oh please,” Ophanim says, as if reading her mind, “if I wanted to kill you, you’d already be—”
He catches himself and stops. She narrows her eyes at him, daring him to finish that sentence.
“…The last time we fought, you did defeat me, so trying to kill you here would be…too much effort,” he admits.
Zola’s face breaks into a satisfied grin. “Oh, so you are capable of self-awareness.” She can’t help but chuckle and, finally, she sips from the goblet. The wine is sweet and delicious, and feels like smooth velvet in her mouth.
“Only occasionally, and it usually passes quickly enough, thankfully,” he says with a roll of his eyes.
She glances around the clearing. “Are the others here too?”
“By ‘here’, do you mean in your head? In your dream?”
“In this dream, yes.”
“Oh no, they’re busy elsewhere. Rest assured, darling, we’re alone here. Now come on, put that away and follow me,” he says, gesturing at the curved sword in her hand. “So gauche.”
With that, Ophanim turns around to walk deeper into the clearing. He has no weapons, no armour, and his back is completely exposed to her right now. Two smites from her blade and that would be the end of it.
But instead, Zola dismisses her remaining sword, and follows him.
It appears someone has dragged plush, fancy-looking, upholstered furniture out into this forest clearing and arranged them nicely in a circle. To Zola, this seems like an entirely natural thing to have in a dream. Ophanim goes to drape his beautiful self over a divan, languidly drinking from his goblet and watching her with red irised, black sclera’d eyes.
“I’m not going to attack you now because I don’t attack anyone who can’t defend themselves, not even someone like you,” Zola sighs as she sits down on a sofa opposite him. “So fine, we can talk. For now.”
He doubles over laughing for a good long while, as though she’d just told him an excellent joke.
Ophanim carries himself in conversation with the mannerisms of a garrulous aristocrat, something Zola isn’t quite used to as she isn’t often in mixed company. But what she is used to is the way he switches from topic to topic, going from casual questions (“I love your crown. Who’s your designer?”) to deeply personal (“So you’re adopted? And how does that work with the whole…Lolth thing?”) without warning. It is similar to how Zola converses with people close to her, and whilst she certainly doesn’t consider him a close friend, the familiarity of this course makes her almost…comfortable.
She has never really thought of conversing with a foe in a friendly setting as a possible option before. The diplomatic approach has always been her blind spot because that is Sarin’s role, not hers, but…perhaps it can be. Although, she gets the feeling that if Ophanim can hear these thoughts that are going through her head right now, he would be mildly disgusted — much to her own amusement.
Her inner song has slowed down to a low, relaxing rhythm with deep, smooth tones. She tries not to think about why this is so.
“So…” he purrs, leaning in closer to her. “What were you doing before…all this?”
Her cheeks are flushed after several glasses of wine (How much have I been drinking?) and her lips curl up into a tipsy smile. “Before this holy war? Erm… Oh, I was living in a forest in Faerûn, facing the dawn every day, ‘cause that’s the rite of passage I had to go through to become a sword dancer.”
He looks at her confusedly. “To achieve…what, exactly?”
“To become a sword dancer!”
He shrugs. “Fair enough.”
“What were you doing before all this?”
Ophanim flicks his hair a little, a proud sort of gesture. “Well, I was living my best life in the Fourth, designing for the biggest names, helping them work on their branding.”
“Wait, hold on,” Zola giggles, “you actually were a fashion designer in Hell?”
“Yes… Why?”
“Nothing, it’s just so…mundane!” she says with a big, cheeky grin.
He gives her a serious look. “There is nothing ‘mundane’ about my designs. Some devils consider demon skull pauldrons and loincloths made of human faces to be the heights of fashion. I just think we can do a little better.”
“I should think so,” she concurs. “So then, how did you get involved with Shar?”
“Mmm… Tell me, Zola, have you ever had a domineering woman crash into your life and start telling you what to do?”
“I can’t say I have… But that’s an experience many drow men have!”
“Yes, well, Rahmiël came to me and propositioned me in a variety of ways. By the time we were putting our clothes back on, she’d recruited me into the whole thing. I had nothing else on the calendar, so I said sure, why not. And besides, Shar has great branding.”
The drow paladin gaped at him. “Wait. Is that it? That’s why you joined Shar? Because Rahmiël slept with you and told you to do it?”
“I mean, to be perfectly honest, I sort of lost track and when I realised what was happening I thought, ‘Why not?’ I had nothing better to do and she did acknowledge my talent and good looks.”
“Wow,” Zola murmurs. “You are incredibly shallow.”
“And yet, you enjoy my company anyway,” he observes with a coy little smirk.
She smiles back, not saying anything but confirming the truth of his words anyway, and blames the fluttering excitement she feels in her stomach on the alcohol. Ophanim seems both excruciatingly aware of her predicament and entirely unphased by it.
“So if you’ve never had a domineering woman order you around, I take it you are the domineering woman? Or on your way to becoming one, at least.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, you’re going to start making the big decisions. Telling people what to do. Your fellow moon-followers and so on.”
“Oh, no, no.” She shakes her head furtively. “I don’t want that at all. I don’t want to order anyone around, that’s just not…me. We don’t even have a pecking order in the Church of Eilistraee.”
Ophanim stares at her face in disbelief. “You don’t have a hierarchy? Then how in the Hells do you get anything done?”
“By talking about it together and through consensus!”
“Oh ew, you’re a democracy?”
“A demo-what?”
“Democracy. It’s when you take votes and the majority wins?”
“Oh. Yeah! Isn’t that great?” she chirps, beaming at him proudly.
“Disgusting,” he says. “Rahmiël does all the thinking for us. I don’t waste my time with that.”
“That…explains a lot about you.”
He cocks his head to one side. “So who’s the Rahmiël in your little group? How did you get involved in all of this?”
“Well… Sorrel Darkfire asked me for help, and that was how it started. But she doesn’t order us around, and she didn’t fuck me either.”
“Yes, I know it’s not going to be exact. But if that did happen, I’d certainly love to hear about it…” That fluttering excitement again, turning almost electric now. “Anyhow, I take Sorrel isn’t the brains of your party, then?”
“Oh no, she’s not. She’s…quite intense, though.”
“Oh, I know. At least Rahmiël knows when to turn it off. Alright, if not Sorrel, then who is the brains of the operation?”
“No one!” Zola proclaims, grinning widely again.
“What? Oh, black hells, don’t tell me you’re also a democracy?”
“Yeah, we discuss things and proceed by consensus—” As Ophanim rolls his eyes in the most exaggerated, overdramatic manner, Zola realises that she had accidentally been untruthful. Kháos and The Jackal have their plans, even if she is not privy to most of them. But how could the Heralds be unaware of them? Or maybe they just don’t tell Ophanim anything…
The coy smirk has suddenly returned to Ophanim’s lips, punctuated by a glint in his blood-red eyes. He must have sensed her sudden uncertainty. “Come on. Spill.” His voice comes out as a low, sensuous purr, which sends a slight shiver down Zola’s spine. “Who is it?”
She takes a long sip from her goblet. When she finally lowers it from her face, her lips have quirked up in a secretive smile. “I’m not going to tell you. It’s an advantage to us if you don’t know.”
“Well, alright, I won’t pry.” He leans back in the divan, still smiling.
“Really? You don’t want to know?”
“It doesn’t matter, dear. We’re all going to die horribly anyway.”
Zola seizes up. She puts down the goblet that she had raised to her lips on a nearby table, her back stiff as she stares at the devil sitting opposite her. “Wait, what?”
He arches an eyebrow at her. “Haven’t you read the prophecy? The Unending Word?”
“Yes, but—”
Ophanim spells it out for her like she’s a particularly slow student at school. “The Word. Is Un-end-ing. No one will come out victorious in this, it’ll just keep happening. Sure, a life here or there might be spared, somehow, but we’re all destined to perish in gruesome and interesting ways, I’m sure.”
“Ophanim…” Zola’s eyes search his own. She almost wants to reach forward and grab his hand. “It doesn’t have to be this way. You don’t have to help bring about the apocalypse!”
He dismisses her concern with a lazy wave. “Oh, nonsense. It’s not the apocalypse. At the very height it might affect the Dawnlands. Nothing as serious as The End Of The World. Otherwise, the cycle couldn’t go on, you see? No, dear, it’s just us this time. You might even make it out alive, you’re quite good with those toothpicks.”
“This is ridiculous,” Zola sputters out. “This cycle of death and violence doesn’t have to go on. It just does because mortals keep carrying out the wills of Shar and Selûne on the Material Plane! Both sides aren’t the same, ‘cause one is killing innocents and the other is trying to save them, but…at some point, you’ve got to ask, why hasn’t Selûne tried to make amends?”
At the end of her rant, Zola freezes. Those were thoughts she had been deliberately keeping private for a while, not daring to share them even with Marto, but she had just half-drunkenly unloaded it on Ophanim. A Herald of Blade and Ash. The enemy. She looks over at him with nervousness in her heart, and—
“Phlegethos,” he corrects her. “Not the Material Plane.”
“You get what I mean!” she huffs in annoyance. “I don’t want anyone to die horribly. Not even you.”
Though she isn’t sure if she imagined it or not, his features seem to soften ever so slightly. “Oh, how sweet…”
His voice suddenly trails off. There is an shift in the air that both of them can feel, and it feels a little…wrong. The leaves have stopped rustling in the breeze and the mists around the trees have stopped swirling. Zola can no longer taste the lingering sweetness of the wine on her tongue.
Ophanim looks up at the sky and frowns. “What the fu—”
Zola blinks.
The ten of them are standing in a circle, even though there is nothing to stand on in this endless, shifting, dark void. The first thing she hears is a familiar voice, cheerfully exclaiming, “Hi Zola! Hi Marto!”
“Pipper?” Zola says, bewildered. “Wh— What are you doing here?”
She whips her head around. She sees Velania, Rahmiël, Sorrel, the Silent One, Ophanim, Adhyël, Pipper, Marto — who is…naked? Rahmiël shoots Adhyël — who is also naked — a questioning look, and he just shrugs in response.
“Why are you na…” Zola’s voice trails off the moment her eyes make out the tenth figure across from her, looming over the small lizard-woman — Zah’Ranin the Flesh-eater. The myriad of questions in her head are instantly pushed out by a flood of anger.
However, Zah’Ranin hasn’t acknowledged her in any way. And she’s not the only one staring at them — the rest of the Heralds seem to be looking at them with either confusion or frustration or both. Zah’Ranin, in return, gives them a poor imitation of an innocent smile. “I maaay or may not have dropped the machine,” they confess, their childish voice sounding even more sing-songy than usual. “But Pipper here fixed it for me!”
Pipper waves happily.
Before anyone can say anything, Rahmiël steps forward into the circle shaking in rage, her pretty face twisted horribly by sheer fury.
“I…will…bathe the Dawnlands in BLOOD and FIRE—!”
Zola feels a sharp, cold pain knife through her spine. But by the grace of the gods or some strength she finds within her, she manages to resist whatever this onslaught is and stay grounded to her senses. Regardless, her vision starts blurring into a dizzying spin before the whole world goes black.
Zola wakes in her four-poster bed in the Four Fair Winds with a start. Sunlight is streaming through the small gap between the curtains. The pain she felt in the dream is entirely gone — patting her back to make sure there is nothing there, she feels otherwise fine.
Something in the corner of her eye catches a glint of the sunlight. Peering down the side of the bed, she sees a dented battle helm with a swirl design on its back lying on the carpet.
She picks it up, baffled. Where did this come from? Did Ophanim send this to her? If so, why? She has a crystal crown growing on her head, for Corellon’s sake.
Far too many questions this early in the morning. She falls back onto her pillow with a sigh, letting the helmet roll off the bed and fall onto the floor.
Just another night in the Dawnlands.
(Continued in Nightmares & Dreamscapes.)
From all around her, there is a faint, ethereal hum of a child’s nursery rhyme.
As her breath seizes in her throat and her inner song turns into a screeching, discordant sound, she instinctively reaches for the swords on her back. But her hands feel only the air and a warm wetness.
She looks down on her hands. There are splotches of blood on them, forming a vague shape on each palm. On the left, there is something like a raven, dark and lonesome. On the right, something resembling a blanket, offering warmth and comfort.
The humming continues. She feels this is a choice she must make.
She lets her left hand fall to her side as she continues staring at her right.
She hears loud rustling noises and the sound of ancient things crawling away, and she looks up to see that the trees have moved to reveal a path ahead of her.
Zola walks forward into the mist and darkness.
She can’t tell how long she’s been walking, but eventually, she emerges out into a wooded clearing, brighter than where she was before, lit by something unseen. She stands there for several quiet moments until she feels a presence by her side.
Ophanim the Vain is wearing a black dress shirt — unbuttoned all the way down to show off his toned chest and abdomen — and matching trousers, and holding a goblet in each hand.
Zola turns towards him with a scowl. The twin curved blades that were not in her hands before are now there, pointed and poised to cut down an old foe, but she stops. Her hand goes up towards her sternum and feels for a charm made of hair and solidified beads of blood tied with a string around her neck.
It’s still here, she thinks, so why am I in this dream?
Meanwhile, the devil glances down at the swords and shakes his head. “Please, there’s no need for that,” he drawls out.
“Why are you here? What do you want?”
“What do I want? I want to talk." He extends one hand out to offer a goblet to her. There is a rich, dark maroon liquid within it. The scowl on her face slowly morphs into a look of bemusement. “We tried the fighting, so now I want to level with you.”
She is dressed in her white sleeveless dress, but she feels she could manifest adamantine splint mail on her body if she so wishes, just like with the swords. This is different from her previous dream with Zah’Ranin.
She releases her grip on one sword and it vanishes away. Tentatively, she takes the goblet with her now-empty hand, but she simply holds it in front of her, not wanting to sip from it, not wanting to take her eyes off of him. And not just because his shirt is unbuttoned.
“Oh please,” Ophanim says, as if reading her mind, “if I wanted to kill you, you’d already be—”
He catches himself and stops. She narrows her eyes at him, daring him to finish that sentence.
“…The last time we fought, you did defeat me, so trying to kill you here would be…too much effort,” he admits.
Zola’s face breaks into a satisfied grin. “Oh, so you are capable of self-awareness.” She can’t help but chuckle and, finally, she sips from the goblet. The wine is sweet and delicious, and feels like smooth velvet in her mouth.
“Only occasionally, and it usually passes quickly enough, thankfully,” he says with a roll of his eyes.
She glances around the clearing. “Are the others here too?”
“By ‘here’, do you mean in your head? In your dream?”
“In this dream, yes.”
“Oh no, they’re busy elsewhere. Rest assured, darling, we’re alone here. Now come on, put that away and follow me,” he says, gesturing at the curved sword in her hand. “So gauche.”
With that, Ophanim turns around to walk deeper into the clearing. He has no weapons, no armour, and his back is completely exposed to her right now. Two smites from her blade and that would be the end of it.
But instead, Zola dismisses her remaining sword, and follows him.
It appears someone has dragged plush, fancy-looking, upholstered furniture out into this forest clearing and arranged them nicely in a circle. To Zola, this seems like an entirely natural thing to have in a dream. Ophanim goes to drape his beautiful self over a divan, languidly drinking from his goblet and watching her with red irised, black sclera’d eyes.
“I’m not going to attack you now because I don’t attack anyone who can’t defend themselves, not even someone like you,” Zola sighs as she sits down on a sofa opposite him. “So fine, we can talk. For now.”
He doubles over laughing for a good long while, as though she’d just told him an excellent joke.
Ophanim carries himself in conversation with the mannerisms of a garrulous aristocrat, something Zola isn’t quite used to as she isn’t often in mixed company. But what she is used to is the way he switches from topic to topic, going from casual questions (“I love your crown. Who’s your designer?”) to deeply personal (“So you’re adopted? And how does that work with the whole…Lolth thing?”) without warning. It is similar to how Zola converses with people close to her, and whilst she certainly doesn’t consider him a close friend, the familiarity of this course makes her almost…comfortable.
She has never really thought of conversing with a foe in a friendly setting as a possible option before. The diplomatic approach has always been her blind spot because that is Sarin’s role, not hers, but…perhaps it can be. Although, she gets the feeling that if Ophanim can hear these thoughts that are going through her head right now, he would be mildly disgusted — much to her own amusement.
Her inner song has slowed down to a low, relaxing rhythm with deep, smooth tones. She tries not to think about why this is so.
“So…” he purrs, leaning in closer to her. “What were you doing before…all this?”
Her cheeks are flushed after several glasses of wine (How much have I been drinking?) and her lips curl up into a tipsy smile. “Before this holy war? Erm… Oh, I was living in a forest in Faerûn, facing the dawn every day, ‘cause that’s the rite of passage I had to go through to become a sword dancer.”
He looks at her confusedly. “To achieve…what, exactly?”
“To become a sword dancer!”
He shrugs. “Fair enough.”
“What were you doing before all this?”
Ophanim flicks his hair a little, a proud sort of gesture. “Well, I was living my best life in the Fourth, designing for the biggest names, helping them work on their branding.”
“Wait, hold on,” Zola giggles, “you actually were a fashion designer in Hell?”
“Yes… Why?”
“Nothing, it’s just so…mundane!” she says with a big, cheeky grin.
He gives her a serious look. “There is nothing ‘mundane’ about my designs. Some devils consider demon skull pauldrons and loincloths made of human faces to be the heights of fashion. I just think we can do a little better.”
“I should think so,” she concurs. “So then, how did you get involved with Shar?”
“Mmm… Tell me, Zola, have you ever had a domineering woman crash into your life and start telling you what to do?”
“I can’t say I have… But that’s an experience many drow men have!”
“Yes, well, Rahmiël came to me and propositioned me in a variety of ways. By the time we were putting our clothes back on, she’d recruited me into the whole thing. I had nothing else on the calendar, so I said sure, why not. And besides, Shar has great branding.”
The drow paladin gaped at him. “Wait. Is that it? That’s why you joined Shar? Because Rahmiël slept with you and told you to do it?”
“I mean, to be perfectly honest, I sort of lost track and when I realised what was happening I thought, ‘Why not?’ I had nothing better to do and she did acknowledge my talent and good looks.”
“Wow,” Zola murmurs. “You are incredibly shallow.”
“And yet, you enjoy my company anyway,” he observes with a coy little smirk.
She smiles back, not saying anything but confirming the truth of his words anyway, and blames the fluttering excitement she feels in her stomach on the alcohol. Ophanim seems both excruciatingly aware of her predicament and entirely unphased by it.
“So if you’ve never had a domineering woman order you around, I take it you are the domineering woman? Or on your way to becoming one, at least.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, you’re going to start making the big decisions. Telling people what to do. Your fellow moon-followers and so on.”
“Oh, no, no.” She shakes her head furtively. “I don’t want that at all. I don’t want to order anyone around, that’s just not…me. We don’t even have a pecking order in the Church of Eilistraee.”
Ophanim stares at her face in disbelief. “You don’t have a hierarchy? Then how in the Hells do you get anything done?”
“By talking about it together and through consensus!”
“Oh ew, you’re a democracy?”
“A demo-what?”
“Democracy. It’s when you take votes and the majority wins?”
“Oh. Yeah! Isn’t that great?” she chirps, beaming at him proudly.
“Disgusting,” he says. “Rahmiël does all the thinking for us. I don’t waste my time with that.”
“That…explains a lot about you.”
He cocks his head to one side. “So who’s the Rahmiël in your little group? How did you get involved in all of this?”
“Well… Sorrel Darkfire asked me for help, and that was how it started. But she doesn’t order us around, and she didn’t fuck me either.”
“Yes, I know it’s not going to be exact. But if that did happen, I’d certainly love to hear about it…” That fluttering excitement again, turning almost electric now. “Anyhow, I take Sorrel isn’t the brains of your party, then?”
“Oh no, she’s not. She’s…quite intense, though.”
“Oh, I know. At least Rahmiël knows when to turn it off. Alright, if not Sorrel, then who is the brains of the operation?”
“No one!” Zola proclaims, grinning widely again.
“What? Oh, black hells, don’t tell me you’re also a democracy?”
“Yeah, we discuss things and proceed by consensus—” As Ophanim rolls his eyes in the most exaggerated, overdramatic manner, Zola realises that she had accidentally been untruthful. Kháos and The Jackal have their plans, even if she is not privy to most of them. But how could the Heralds be unaware of them? Or maybe they just don’t tell Ophanim anything…
The coy smirk has suddenly returned to Ophanim’s lips, punctuated by a glint in his blood-red eyes. He must have sensed her sudden uncertainty. “Come on. Spill.” His voice comes out as a low, sensuous purr, which sends a slight shiver down Zola’s spine. “Who is it?”
She takes a long sip from her goblet. When she finally lowers it from her face, her lips have quirked up in a secretive smile. “I’m not going to tell you. It’s an advantage to us if you don’t know.”
“Well, alright, I won’t pry.” He leans back in the divan, still smiling.
“Really? You don’t want to know?”
“It doesn’t matter, dear. We’re all going to die horribly anyway.”
Zola seizes up. She puts down the goblet that she had raised to her lips on a nearby table, her back stiff as she stares at the devil sitting opposite her. “Wait, what?”
He arches an eyebrow at her. “Haven’t you read the prophecy? The Unending Word?”
“Yes, but—”
Ophanim spells it out for her like she’s a particularly slow student at school. “The Word. Is Un-end-ing. No one will come out victorious in this, it’ll just keep happening. Sure, a life here or there might be spared, somehow, but we’re all destined to perish in gruesome and interesting ways, I’m sure.”
“Ophanim…” Zola’s eyes search his own. She almost wants to reach forward and grab his hand. “It doesn’t have to be this way. You don’t have to help bring about the apocalypse!”
He dismisses her concern with a lazy wave. “Oh, nonsense. It’s not the apocalypse. At the very height it might affect the Dawnlands. Nothing as serious as The End Of The World. Otherwise, the cycle couldn’t go on, you see? No, dear, it’s just us this time. You might even make it out alive, you’re quite good with those toothpicks.”
“This is ridiculous,” Zola sputters out. “This cycle of death and violence doesn’t have to go on. It just does because mortals keep carrying out the wills of Shar and Selûne on the Material Plane! Both sides aren’t the same, ‘cause one is killing innocents and the other is trying to save them, but…at some point, you’ve got to ask, why hasn’t Selûne tried to make amends?”
At the end of her rant, Zola freezes. Those were thoughts she had been deliberately keeping private for a while, not daring to share them even with Marto, but she had just half-drunkenly unloaded it on Ophanim. A Herald of Blade and Ash. The enemy. She looks over at him with nervousness in her heart, and—
“Phlegethos,” he corrects her. “Not the Material Plane.”
“You get what I mean!” she huffs in annoyance. “I don’t want anyone to die horribly. Not even you.”
Though she isn’t sure if she imagined it or not, his features seem to soften ever so slightly. “Oh, how sweet…”
His voice suddenly trails off. There is an shift in the air that both of them can feel, and it feels a little…wrong. The leaves have stopped rustling in the breeze and the mists around the trees have stopped swirling. Zola can no longer taste the lingering sweetness of the wine on her tongue.
Ophanim looks up at the sky and frowns. “What the fu—”
Zola blinks.
The ten of them are standing in a circle, even though there is nothing to stand on in this endless, shifting, dark void. The first thing she hears is a familiar voice, cheerfully exclaiming, “Hi Zola! Hi Marto!”
“Pipper?” Zola says, bewildered. “Wh— What are you doing here?”
She whips her head around. She sees Velania, Rahmiël, Sorrel, the Silent One, Ophanim, Adhyël, Pipper, Marto — who is…naked? Rahmiël shoots Adhyël — who is also naked — a questioning look, and he just shrugs in response.
“Why are you na…” Zola’s voice trails off the moment her eyes make out the tenth figure across from her, looming over the small lizard-woman — Zah’Ranin the Flesh-eater. The myriad of questions in her head are instantly pushed out by a flood of anger.
However, Zah’Ranin hasn’t acknowledged her in any way. And she’s not the only one staring at them — the rest of the Heralds seem to be looking at them with either confusion or frustration or both. Zah’Ranin, in return, gives them a poor imitation of an innocent smile. “I maaay or may not have dropped the machine,” they confess, their childish voice sounding even more sing-songy than usual. “But Pipper here fixed it for me!”
Pipper waves happily.
Before anyone can say anything, Rahmiël steps forward into the circle shaking in rage, her pretty face twisted horribly by sheer fury.
“I…will…bathe the Dawnlands in BLOOD and FIRE—!”
Zola feels a sharp, cold pain knife through her spine. But by the grace of the gods or some strength she finds within her, she manages to resist whatever this onslaught is and stay grounded to her senses. Regardless, her vision starts blurring into a dizzying spin before the whole world goes black.
Zola wakes in her four-poster bed in the Four Fair Winds with a start. Sunlight is streaming through the small gap between the curtains. The pain she felt in the dream is entirely gone — patting her back to make sure there is nothing there, she feels otherwise fine.
Something in the corner of her eye catches a glint of the sunlight. Peering down the side of the bed, she sees a dented battle helm with a swirl design on its back lying on the carpet.
She picks it up, baffled. Where did this come from? Did Ophanim send this to her? If so, why? She has a crystal crown growing on her head, for Corellon’s sake.
Far too many questions this early in the morning. She falls back onto her pillow with a sigh, letting the helmet roll off the bed and fall onto the floor.
Just another night in the Dawnlands.
(Continued in Nightmares & Dreamscapes.)
