Night-Dreams: Seeking the Past

[Elwen]

This is based off of my two Changeling: The Dreaming characters, Liriel (Arilyn) Crawford and Sovellis Evenstar, both Sidhe wilders. There will be more stories featuring them...eventually.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sovellis gasped, his blue-green eyes fluttering open. Vaguely, he saw the slender figure that bent over his bed, her long dark hair falling over her face.

Liriel Crawford-or “Arilyn”, rather, as she called herself, a name derived from her Faerie name. A name that she refused to tell anyone.

“Arilyn.” His parched tongue managed to form the syllables of her name, as he sat up. The silent girl pressed something into his shaking hand-a glass of water, he somehow noticed.

A light flared in the darkness, centered around a pair of slender, long-fingered hands, that shone with the white light of the moon. Arilyn had cast a cantrip and called up a light to illuminate the room: in the pale magic-summoned light, her already pallid face was even more colorless, though that did nothing to detract from her too-obvious beauty.

“There is a light switch over there.” Sovellis quipped, pointing in that direction. Arilyn ignored him, as she was wont to do, and simply stayed where she was. He sipped at the water, the moisture welcome to his dry mouth, and said nothing more until he had finished it and put the glass on his nightstand. The teenager then reached over and turned on his lamp, fully lighting the room. “You really didn’t need to cast that spell.”

The light faded from her outstretched hands, as Arilyn straightened up.

“I’m curious.” Sovellis remarked. Arilyn walked over to his desk, picked up a pen and piece of paper, and began writing. She walked back to the side of his bed and held up the paper: in her neat, precise script, it read:

*When are you not?*

Sovellis scowled at her. “I am /not/ curious all the time.” The Sidhe said.

*What do you wish to know?* Arilyn wrote. Sovellis, well used to the other Sidhe’s curse-enforced silence-she could only speak when given leave-made sure to phrase his reply as a question. Or several, as it turned out.

“Why are you here? Doesn’t your orphanage have a curfew? And how did you find out where I lived?” Sovellis asked quietly, /very/ glad that he had the habit of wearing more then boxers to bed, otherwise he’d be bright red all over right now, what with a girl in his room: at least he was decently clad.

“You have nightmares, Sovellis Evenstar.” Arilyn replied vocally for the first time, her quiet alto voice as musical as the melodies she produced from the flute she carried, though completely toneless.

“You didn’t answer my last two questions!” Sovellis said, frustrated. “Why not?”

“Because I did not wish to.” Arilyn replied in a final tone of voice, and he knew that that was all he was going to get out of her concerning that.

Sovellis swung his long legs over the side of the bed and stood, gazing up at the older girl: at 5’11”, Arilyn was a good seven and a half inches taller then he was, in their mortal seemings, and held the major height advantage.

Her pen danced across the paper again, as she retrieved her clipboard from where she had left it on a chair: Sovellis had to wait until she held up the paper for him to read, as he was not tall enough without his boots to read over her shoulder when she was standing.

*What do you seek, Sovellis Evenstar?*

(And Arilyn calls /me/ curious.) Sovellis thought wryly, but spoke. “My past.”

Arilyn’s violet gaze held him evenly. *Past?*

“I only remember a few weeks of my life.” Sovellis reminded her. “Everything before those weeks is a blur. I don’t have those memories. I want them back.”

*Forget the past.* Arilyn wrote. *It is over, and trying to remember will only bring you more pain.*

Sovellis glared at her. “It is /my/ past, Arilyn. /You/ don’t have an empty spot in your skull where memories ought to be.”

*Sometimes too much memory can be a terrible thing as well.*

Sovellis blinked, trying to gather his scattered thoughts. “Ono no Kodamachi?” he ventured at last.

A quick nod, and Sovellis looked closer, seeing a rare /something/ flicker in violet eyes. Arilyn didn’t just have /her/ memories, the memories and personality of the long-dead Japanese femme fatale were embedded within her own: while most changelings lost the memories of their prior mortal lives, Arilyn was a throwback. She had the memories, life, personality-hell, the /essence/ of Ono no Kodamachi, who had been one of her fae soul’s mortal shells, still within her, intertwined so closely with her own psyche that it was hard to tell where she left off and the long-dead woman began. She had a “roommate in her head”, whose personality was overlaid over her own, and it must be living hell to share space in your head with the ghost of one of your past selves.

A past self for whose love men had died, while Arilyn now was beautiful enough that one glance at her could kill-and did. Sovellis counted himself lucky that he was a supernatural being, better able to resist such an “attack”; otherwise he’d be dead by now, considering how much time he spent around the silent young woman. Still, Sovellis could see her logic: /he/ didn’t have that particular problem to deal with. /He/ had no memory, while Arilyn had a double-dose of it.

“I suppose you’re right.” The blond acknowledged. “But I’m not looking for past-life memories, of someone I was once and who is dead now. If anything, I’m looking for the lost years of /this/ lifetime.”

*Curiosity killed the cat.* was Arilyn’s tart comment. Sovellis’s heart-shaped mouth twisted into a scowl.

“I am neither a cat nor a pooka.” He replied, just as tartly. “I don’t think that I have much to worry about in that department. Well-aren’t you going to /say/ something?”

“I see.” Arilyn said in her soft monotone. “Sovellis, be wary. Time holds many secrets.”

“And?” he questioned, not expecting /this/ turn at all.

“You seek the past. But your past may be better off where it is now-lost.” Arilyn replied.

“Why?” he was truly confused now.

“Some things are better off never found.” Arilyn replied mysteriously.

[Damon Inferel]

Reply coming soon... another thing to print and read first! i'll get back to this shortly... I feel i should quite enjoy this.

[Damon Inferel]

And indeed I did. I'm actually over my time on the computer this time though, so I shall have to keep this short. I'll just give you a big hug and a congratulations on a job very well done. Just as a note... I like Arilyn better... silence is wonderful, yes? (except on various occasions when somebody that i know is talking and i'd rather not hear otherp eople in the background while i'm trying to listen to her...)