Video; I Feel My Nightmares Watching Me

[ushahin]

[It's a random day of the week and two o'clock in the morning. Therefore, it's time for, as someone once put it, Ushahin's philosopher's hour. The lights are dim and Ushahin is lying flat on his back on one of the beds in his house. The phone is propped up near him. He's got something in his hands, a pale looking stone carving that is mostly hidden by the fingers closed in upon it.

He's been thinking quite a bit since he was brought back from the dead. His double had caused him to reevaluate some of his previous behavior. Perhaps he's treated some of those around him rather poorly. Well, there's nothing but time here, and always a chance to make amends.]

This place is frightfully full of nightmares. I mean that quite literally. I've never met such a group of people where the night terrors come upon them without provocation. Every night, nothing but tossing and turning amongst you all. That used to be my job.

[He sits up, fingers uncovering the rhios stone he has cupped in his palms. There's three figures carved into it. The one on the left is a long-haired man, stern looking, and with lines around his mouth that suggest he's older than the twenty-eights years he is. This is Tanaros, the commander of Satoris' army. There's anger flashing in his eyes that the carver was able to perfectly capture. The middle figure is Ushahin, his broken features captured starkly, with an unfocused, dreamy look in his eyes as he stares out towards whoever is holding the figurine. The one on the right is an older man in his forties, fat and with a long beard, his close-set eyes looking shrewd as if he's ready to make a bargain. Vorax, the last of the three, and the one who kept supplies for Satoris.]

I'm sure you've all grown frightfully tired of them. So I will make you a deal, fellow denizens. Tell me one of your nightmares and I will exchange it for a better dream. That's fair enough, is it not?

Comments

[ushahin]

It could be arranged to become an ongoing process if one so desires.

[He looks at Cal with a shrewd look.]

I wonder what it is that leaves you awake in the middle of the night, hmmm?

[pyralisit]

I'll bet you do. And if I said I liked my demons?

[ushahin]

Then you're either a masochist, a fool, or both. There's no point in holding onto the terrors that come from our own minds. All it does is remind us of times and places that are better off thought less of.

[pyralisit]

But I remember. The things that made me aren't kind, but neither will I abandon them.

[ushahin]

Ah, you believe suffering builds character? [He understands. Pain had made him what he was today.] Speaking from the personal experience of living through an age, suffering might help in the beginning, but in the end, all that is left to you is ashes and dust.

[pyralisit]

No. Pain happens. It's unavoidable. Most of the time it's bullshit, or fucked entirely. But without it how do you know the joy? How can you feel anything if you lose half of it? Yes, there are nightmares, but there are good dreams too.

[ushahin]

Well spoken, young one. [He does so like getting into these discussions with people. Always, he learns something new about how their minds work.]

But does the one you love feel the same way? Would you take away their suffering if you could?

[pyralisit]

Yes. [He is a huge hypocrite and he has made peace with that.] But I can't. All I can do is help him bear it.

[ushahin]

So suffering has built your character but as not done the same for him?

[He tsks again, clearly picking up on that hypocritical streak.]

[pyralisit]

Many things are better than I am. Some deserve to be protected. I was made for the darkness, so I will bear the horror if it means he doesn't have to. At least I've learned how not to break in it.

[ushahin]

I knew there was a reason I liked your mind.

[Which is never a good sign in itself. When Ushahin is interested in people, he tends to like to get inside their heads, and see what makes them tick.]

We are the same in that regards. Both in darkness and never to see the light again. All we can do is look out towards it and see what we might have been.

[pyralisit]

It visits, sometimes. Maybe it thinks it can change things.

[ushahin]

Can it really? I gave up on hope of that a long time ago.

[He's too old and cynical now to believe he can be something other than what he is.]

[pyralisit]

No. But watching it try is comforting, sometimes.

[ushahin]

Hmmm. What an unusual being you are.

[In darkness and in a relationship with one who is made up of light. Ushahin wonders if that helps or hurts.]

I know you won't exchange a nightmare for a sweet dream for yourself. What about Pell? Tell me a nightmare and I'll make sure his dream is a good one.

[pyralisit]

It's one of the kinder things I've been called.

[There's a significant pause while he stares.]

There's only one. The rest I've made peace with. Swear to me he will have peace.

[ushahin]

[All mirth leaves Ushahin's face and he looks very serious. He doesn't swear such things lightly.]

I swear on the memory of my god Satoris, he'll have peace.

[pyralisit]

[The pause this time is close to a full minute. Cal still doesn't trust him, but...well. It's a chance. He desperately wants a cigarette, but he nods.]

A nightmare, then. At first there's only blood. Nothing but. I can see it on the ground and on me and I can smell the stink. I don't know where it is. It could be anywhere. There's a body. There's always a body.

[He sighs.]

It's Pell's. And somewhere in my soul I know it's me that did it.

Are you happy now?

[ushahin]

[His eyes glitter brightly as he hears Cal's nightmare. He can see it clearly in his imagination. But he's not quite satisfied.]

No. Tell me how it feels. I want to know exactly what's going through your mind.

[Then he'll be satisfied and will give his beloved the peace he desires.]

[pyralisit]

Cold. It feels cold. Like I'm numb but on fire. Knowing that everything everyhar said about you is right is terrifying down the core of being. When you hear continuously that every good thing you touch withers and dies, somewhere you start to believe it. Knowing the one thing--the one person--you love is dead and you're holding the knife makes you nothing.

[ushahin]

Good. I can see it. Feel it.

[Ushahin has a sleek, self-satisfied look about him, like a man that has had a feast laid before him, and gorged himself upon it.]

What dream do you wish to send to Pell?

[pyralisit]

[Another pause while he thinks. There's some sort of string attached to every happy thing he can come up with. He's mostly trying to ignore that look on the man's face.]

Greenling. Pull it from my head if you have to. That was the last place we were happy without some damn shadow over our heads. [There's another short pause--he's not supposed to even acknowledge anyhar's past life, but...it seems appropriate now, and who's here to stop them?]

And his sister. I think her name is Mima.

[ushahin]

Consider it done.

[And it would be. Ushahin is many things, mad and unstable and an irritant to many in the cave, but he is not a liar. He'll keep his word and send Pell the dream that his beloved has asked for.]

[pyralisit]

[There's another pause, and then Cal sighs.]

Thank you.

...I'd prefer if he not know where it came from. Or how it was paid for.

[ushahin]

Oh? [He steeples his fingers and places them under his chin, looking knowingly at Cal.] Afraid he would disapprove of what you had done?