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]

In my world, I would give people nightmares or sweet dreams, depending upon my mood. I was a literal nightmare, you see. Riding around on a horse through the land while I gave them.

[See? It's funny! Well, funny to Ushahin, at least.]

Not tonight. I am trying not to listen in as much as I once did.

[hotspurred]

[That's an answer, certainly. Henry cannot help but think of such power as invasive.]

So it is your nature? What inspired this change of heart?

[ushahin]

It is the nature of the people I lived among. I learned it from the Were.

[He blinks slowly, considering his words before answering.]

Having my double here gave me food for thought. The way he hurt those around him made me think that perhaps I have been too destructive in my ways.

[hotspurred]

'Twas a skill that could be learned?

[Henry sounds somewhat shocked by the notion.]

Regardless. You seek to redeem yourself? That is a noble aim.

[ushahin]

Aye, a skill with a terrible price attached to it. What comes as instincts to the Were does not hold true for Men.

[Hence his insanity, the price he had paid to learn what he could of entering Men's minds.]

I seek nothing of the sort. I know I am past redemption. But I seek to make things fair.