[private] what has night to do with sleep; kagerus

[Kagerus]

K

oh me oh my, i thought it was a dream...

Slowly (agonizingly slowly), the frayed ends of my sanity meld back together. The hallucinogenic trances become few and far between as I meander alongside Lilliana, though she often feels I'm well enough to leave at times. Despite the fact that our dedication to one another's company had redoubled after a couple episodes of me panic-teleporting, such instances of unpredictability no longer plague us. When Lilliana does leave me at the river to go and visit the other important individuals in her life (because really, I am sane enough now to realize that she has a whole life outside of her influence on mine), it gets lonely; but mostly, I enjoy the experience.

Learning to be alone with myself hasn't been easy... In fact, I'm not sure I've learned at all. For one thing, when sleep evades me, I spend my hours tracing every inch of the riverlands. While it has occurred to me that I might search elsewhere for those individuals whom I call family, the strength has yet to gather in my mind and my body; even more than that, this place has always been where I come to in times of homelessness and loss.

Loss.

The word rings heavy in my gut, echoing through to my throat moments later. Perhaps it had been on account of my delirium, but when my firstborn daughter died, I felt the ripple of her energy transferring from one astral dimension to the next like a bullet through my heart. That episode (complete with full seizures and sleep-talking) had been traumatic to view from the outside, but from within... doubtlessly painful, but much more peaceful. A gentle wrenching of my heart in two. Clasping Warlight to my chest in the hazy blue-grey of the afterlife seemed a grievously unacceptable goodbye - not that it would be goodbye forever (not in the way it is for those who are severed from the afterlife by a lack of magic), but it still haunted me. Haunts me. Watching her mortal wounds melting away amidst the neutrality of death left me hollow, wondering at the pain she endured as she left this world, my sweet little girl... The leader of my triplets, the general I had always imagined her being as I watched her play, the sweet young woman whom I now realize I could never have spent enough time with no matter how hard I tried. Letting go of her life felt like losing a piece of my heart I hadn't realized had swollen to occupy every length hollow of my ribcage.

Yet when she whispered to me the tale of her pressing her son into Solace's arms, another piece of my heart started back to its beating. Hope filled my breast. It made goodbye sweeter - but never easier.

I send out of thread of love to the afterlife now, thinking of those moments Will and I spent together. I hope she can hear me; I hope she knows that she has always been enough.

Tonight, my legs do not wander restlessly.

Tonight, I loosen my mind - the knowledge that my wife is out there somewhere recenters the energy that has been off kilter since my rebirth. Imagining our mental reunion may bring tremors to my innards (tremors born from a fear of that comatose state I was forced to induce in my beautiful wife for so long, for too long), but they cannot stop me from trying.

Not when I know she's out there.

Kagerus.

Her voice finds mine as though the subtle light of my unconsciousness is her sun and all of her stars, too.

A desperate need to rush forward and assail her with a greeting of a similar intensity grips me.

Solace!

Our physical distance leaves the dream murky - I know that she's out there, but my recent turbulence in life leaves my mental skills far from honed. I sense my corporeal form stumbling through the midnight riverland, rushing towards the source of the voice which has so recently uttered my name.

In the dreamscape, tendrils of me lash through the haze, seeking but one entity upon which to attach themselves. When they land true for a single moment, it's as though the heavens open above us - but the moment is fleeting, and the seam of joy closes. My search continues.

And yet, in that moment, I'd felt another lifeform attached quite literally to my wife's - questions tangle into the fray that is my mind, further disquieting my attempts to find her.

Solace! I call again - and in my throat, I feel the name ripped into the cool autumn air. Half awake and half asleep, I dream of reuniting with the one whom I've so desperately been longing for...

@[Solace] I hate this but I wrote it and I'm going to post it before I delete it and never post it again