(no subject)
Nov. 12th, 2004 06:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blue_ajahScreaming, screaming. She is screaming. Trapped in the Tower, Moiraine is helpless; without the protection of the ancient treaty, they are not limited in what they may take-- her memories, dreams, and experiences, everything is open to them, and what shielding she had once had was lost when she first fell so long ago-- and now there is nothing that she can do but scream. Breathy whispering above her, voices tinged with unnatural hunger, and then there is a searing touch upon her mind.
Pain.
The memory of pain, of shattering loss, the bond with Lan torn apart. He stands there before her now in memory, her Warder, and his deep voice echoes in her ears as he speaks. "All men dream. But I know dreams for dreams. This is reality." Fire burns before her eyes, the white fire of her fall, and Lan is lost in the ash, replaced by Joe, telling her, "She said it was the Castle of Madness, and I needed to see her sister Sleeping Beauty, who was.. either towerpent or bowerpent. We climbed up a tower, anyhow. And when we saw Sleeping Beauty, she looked a lot like you. And she had a spinnin' wheel."
Towerpent. Bowerpent. She is screaming still, as they search through her mind, leaving a gray coating of filth as a stain on whatever they touch. What is reality when dreams are real? Dreams. The world is burning, Moiraine Damodred Aes Sedai. She has seen Tar'mon Gaidon in her dreams, now, while searching for Morpheus, seen it clear in Tel'aran'rhiod. The battlefield, scorched and blackened and thick with the stench of blood and death, with the sound of Rand's mad laughter overlying all. Lan lies bleeding on the ground, and Seanchan hold her sisters collared and enslaved, screaming. She herself is screaming.
Dreams. Morpheus. Nyarlathotep. Morpheus. Dream.
She remembers a star-eyed man with night-dark hair, tall and snow-pale. An amethyst key. Walking in the Garden where blue flowers grow, flowers smelling of apples, flowers that exist nowhere else but the Dreaming. Sitting together beneath Avendesora, the Tree of Life... the Tree that she remembers burning in Rhuidean. The world is burning, Moiraine Damodred Aes Sedai. She screams again, and her memory of the Garden collapses into tainted ash and is lost as the voices above her laugh. The world is burning.
Anthy holds out a blue rose - a hopeless dream - Rand attacks Moiraine, laughing. Buffy falls, convulsing in blood; Cordelia falls, dying, and she can do nothing to save her or hundreds of others will die as well. The Rider rises behind Will, smirking at the scene. The Rider; the taint of the Shadow. Everything is covered in taint and filth as her mind is torn apart - the Shadow brings taint - she is lost, lost in darkness and cannot find her way. All is darkness. Dimly, in the distance, a star gleams, but all else is darkness. Her mind is dark, now.
Moiraine is no longer screaming.
Pain.
The memory of pain, of shattering loss, the bond with Lan torn apart. He stands there before her now in memory, her Warder, and his deep voice echoes in her ears as he speaks. "All men dream. But I know dreams for dreams. This is reality." Fire burns before her eyes, the white fire of her fall, and Lan is lost in the ash, replaced by Joe, telling her, "She said it was the Castle of Madness, and I needed to see her sister Sleeping Beauty, who was.. either towerpent or bowerpent. We climbed up a tower, anyhow. And when we saw Sleeping Beauty, she looked a lot like you. And she had a spinnin' wheel."
Towerpent. Bowerpent. She is screaming still, as they search through her mind, leaving a gray coating of filth as a stain on whatever they touch. What is reality when dreams are real? Dreams. The world is burning, Moiraine Damodred Aes Sedai. She has seen Tar'mon Gaidon in her dreams, now, while searching for Morpheus, seen it clear in Tel'aran'rhiod. The battlefield, scorched and blackened and thick with the stench of blood and death, with the sound of Rand's mad laughter overlying all. Lan lies bleeding on the ground, and Seanchan hold her sisters collared and enslaved, screaming. She herself is screaming.
Dreams. Morpheus. Nyarlathotep. Morpheus. Dream.
She remembers a star-eyed man with night-dark hair, tall and snow-pale. An amethyst key. Walking in the Garden where blue flowers grow, flowers smelling of apples, flowers that exist nowhere else but the Dreaming. Sitting together beneath Avendesora, the Tree of Life... the Tree that she remembers burning in Rhuidean. The world is burning, Moiraine Damodred Aes Sedai. She screams again, and her memory of the Garden collapses into tainted ash and is lost as the voices above her laugh. The world is burning.
Anthy holds out a blue rose - a hopeless dream - Rand attacks Moiraine, laughing. Buffy falls, convulsing in blood; Cordelia falls, dying, and she can do nothing to save her or hundreds of others will die as well. The Rider rises behind Will, smirking at the scene. The Rider; the taint of the Shadow. Everything is covered in taint and filth as her mind is torn apart - the Shadow brings taint - she is lost, lost in darkness and cannot find her way. All is darkness. Dimly, in the distance, a star gleams, but all else is darkness. Her mind is dark, now.
Moiraine is no longer screaming.
