Sleep My Love

[HurferDurfer1 2978]

"No time to sleep, always more work to be done." says a lich who hasn't slept in a century.

[firegirl7894523 247]

Spoiler

Carsandra sleeps. Her eyes shut, and suddenly she's transported to a different world. She's in the middle of a swamp, resting within a crooked tree. Her eyes snap open in panic, and she see's somebody, holding out his hand to help her up. She blinks, looking around before taking his hand. When she takes it, she looks down to see flecks of blood on her hand, in which she frowns, and wipes off.

Looking at the figure more closely, she see's somebody she hasn't seen in a long time. 

"I'm March Ash." The figure responded. 

She looks around the place, frowning deeply. She feels the words spring to her mouth, truthful, "I know you, the people call you March Ash. They think your a monster."

 

They stared at her for the longest time, and she shifted uncomfortably. Finally, they spoke.
"Nature is beautiful. It provides warmth and sustenance. It blesses us when we are wise, and curses us when we are fools. It is our mother's bosom. Even in this place, which is but an impression of the world, can you not feel it? For all we have done, the world is still rich with natural beauty. It swells, a serene cliffscape, grown from the plates of reality crashing against each other. Yet many of us choose to pervert the bounty of nature. Once we have thoroughly raped it, we burn its remains, and move somewhere else to repeat the process. So, the purpose in my life is to kill the city, before it kills the forest. Civilization must be purged, and the world made balanced. I am the Ash Druid, and the Ash totem I bear with pride. The twin aspects of nature,Cernunnos and Cerridwen, demand I restore the wilds. I am not one to deny the gods."

 

"Your wrong. There are no absolutes. Balance alone does not make someone good, just like being just, or pure, or righteous alone does not make a saint."She stated, "Morality is not so strictly defined."

 

They squinted at her, then crossed their arms. They launched into a speech, but she shook her head, rejecting this destiny. She takes a look around, at the swampy glade, before asking, "How did I get here?"

 

They speak and tell her that the place seeks a champion, one to starve off the influences of the Void. They speak more, and tell that their dear friend passed away, and they come here to time to time to accept their death. She frowns, as she is a Voidal Mage. 

 

She steps inside the Champion Grove, taking a breath about how pretty it is. They speak again, telling her of a September Prince, and that she must, if she finds him, do NOT wake him. Her eyes gaze to the throne, which seems to wither before her eyes. He speaks then of who the September Prince was, and she looks once more to the throne, pausing. Instead, she sits down and meditates. Her mind fills with the sights, sounds of the glade. Then her primal nature, then the wisdom of the place. She opens her eyes and stands. And they explain that it wants a sacrifice, and she frowns. They give a riddle. And she answers, and they nod their head.

 

"Correct."

 

They explain that she might become Champion, and then like the dream. She wakes up. Drenched in cold sweat and gasping. She looks at her hand, and her eyes widen now that it's pure black. She frantically rubs it, only to breathe a sigh of relief as it's only ash.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[BlossomTheFlowerBoy 5]

As Blossom rests his head atop his roof, he begins to dream of a place similar, or possibly the same as he once stepped in "I-ive been here before" He'd frown before awaking from his dream. He'd scratch his head before falling off his room into the pond nearby.

[Chryasor 269]

Rhillen snaps awake, panting and sweating. He looks around, blinking as his eyes get used to the light. Once he can again see properly, he realizes the ash on his hands

[Dumbrarere 85]

Auralia jolts up from her sleep, finding herself once more in Redwall Abbey. She looked for her temporary crown as the queen of the newly founded Adylith and sighed, affixing it to her head as she stood up to make some herbal tea. "March Ash... Civilization can still change... Humanity can still change..." she mumbled to herself as she sipped her tea. She was going to talk to Henrietta about this weird dream.

[ThatGuy_777 220]

The Willow Druid stares across the Sparrow Grove from atop the bluff. The sound of a roaring waterfall adjacent to him. Eyes seemingly glazed over. Awash in contemplation. Impartial.

"...So the warnings were true then, to a degree. Yet to hail from Malin's time. From the time of the Watcher..."

He'd murmur meekly, eyes looking over his shoulder for a brief few moments. Then, like a sudden flash of light, revelation.

"Ah...I had forgotten. Yes. Yes I did let that slip my mind. Mayhaps I could use that to mend my current hurdle?"

The Archdruid queries to himself, casting his gaze to his left. Befalling sockets ablaze in amber.

"You saw too, no? That was the realm I did tell you about...of one I once thought to name thee after. Now...well, now I wish to seek out clarity. Do you agree blessed friend?"

There is a long pause. Silence. The singing birds, cicadas, frogs, the melodies of the wilds solely audible.

"...Ayla."

 

[Ada 150]

"The man wakes up from his dream, ice cold sweats would pour down on his forehead as he'd glance over to his side. Sighing in relief as he finds himself still in his home. His gaze would move along the walls and then to the window of his, seemingly muttering out words"

 

"March Ash... Far Glade..."

 

"He simply said with his lips drawing to the sides. A quick realization of thought would enter his mind, immediately taking out a pen and paper and take notes of what he has seen in the dream of his"

[Slothtastic 761]

Oliver, the Satyr, woke with a panic. He was drenched in sweat and had a slight headache. He looked to his wife before wiping his brow. Only to feel the Ash. 

He gave a startled gasp before moving to a makeshift table to write a note. 

‘Do not let September wake.’

[Chase 3793]

A Virarim bolted from his jagged rest, rubbing at his temples, glancing around to those in the barracks surrounding him. He'd trail his right hand over to his left, tracing it over a blackened blood-pact scar, rubbing the sleep from his eyes "*******..." The 'Ker would mumble to himself, raising from his bed quietly, unlocking and opening the chest at the foot of his bed, which held weapons and other utilities, starting to write down of his dream and what he saw. After he finished such, he would start to write letters. Sending off the birds with letters attached to their legs, the Mali would lay himself back to rest, though his thoughts plagued of images of someone who once would refer to as 'Praepando'.

[Gladuos 869]

A creaking tree lord of a halfman rises from the murk of his rest to be met with a sight not unlike the dream he was previously in... Though this is recognizably his own home.

"March Ash..." The Ram speaks in a harsh, bitter tone. "Ah'm not interested in ya dreamin' illusions, boy. If the Aspects need me they'll send a vision themselves, not send ya lot. I know me duties, ah know me TASKS..."

Ram rubs his wrinkled, cracked fingers through the dirtied ginger of his mutton chops, glaring with hatred and anger at the things around him. Something about what was offered still intrigued the halfman though. The power to repay this debt to the wilds.

[sneLf 314]

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[AGP 3169]

Constantine finishes his meditation, having manipulated the dream state to all its possible conclusions. "Pathetic. The Far Glade really is a reflection of our thoughts, as I am its greatest champion and its greatest enemy."

[Demotheus 651]

Lotha slept within a dream, dreaming the same dream over and over again, constantly searching for answers, prying more and more. She was comatose for some time, her Ascended regeneration stalling her death. Her mind fractured more and more with every time she relived the dream within a dream, within a dream, within a dream. She lived for millennia in the grove for a time, and tore herself apart in others. She found herself eviscerated by the March Ash, testing every possibility of survival, of overcoming him, but there seemed to be none. 

 

By far the thing she dwelled on the most was the throne. Even knowing what it would do to her eventually, she sat, and sat, and sat. Eventually, becoming numb to the pain, finding a sick thrill in trying to fend off the inevitable descent into madness each time. 

 

"I have seen you die a thousands of times." The March Ash said, for probably the thousandth time. There was a pleading in his voice, or perhaps Lotha simply imagined it. She stared up into his mask for a long time. 

 

"I'm sorry." She thought.

 

She awoke, weak, starving, dehydrated, and scarred in more ways than one, and with priorities that need rearranging. 

[DrinkPesticide 52]

Zinawr jolted forward on the flimsy bed within his cabin, coughing and wheezing, he'd grimace, "War and dream realms in the same vision.." He'd huff and grimace, his fangs baring. "Farglade, eh," he'd say. The kharajyr turned over in his sheets, seeking another bout of insight.

[Hodgehog 85]

Antras's eyes flicker open. Out of breath he splutters, dazed and confused. His eyes seem out of focus, fogged over - as if this man was in a different place. He scans the surroundings, slowly regaining his senses: inside a leather tent, the wind whistling through the entrance, distant chattering of early morning elves can be heard from Linandria in the distance. Shaking his head, this elderly merchant seems to have gained some sense of clarity. Slowly rising out of his makeshift wooden bed he takes his pipe and a small pouch of pipeweed from a collection of neatly stacked belongings. Lighting the pipeweed Antras looks towards the forest in the far off distance. 

 

"How interesting. Whether that dream was real or not, it leaves me something to ponder over. I'm no leader - and I'm certainly no paragon of nature."

Three wispy smoke rings blown hover in the air in front of the man, before slowly losing their shape and form. Antras thinks for a moment, before shaking his head.

"Bah! What am I saying, something to ponder over?" He lets out a condescending laugh "I have no plans to change my ways to seize a throne that came to me in a dream. Nor do I care for the ramblings of a decrepit old druid - whether its real or not, I doubt I'll ever see what happens. So why should I care?

And just like that, Antras decides to put the matter to the back of his mind - leaving the memory alone, until, perhaps, one day, the need to remember arises.