Micolash, Host of the Nightmare (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
grantuseyes) wrote2017-11-20 04:07 pm
grantuseyes) wrote2017-11-20 04:07 pm
November 2017 Writing Prompt
Everyone else already considered the option exhausted. An infuriating dead end. Frustrating because it was supposed to be a turning point. They had expected answers to long-standing questions, confirmation of research that before was too reliant on mere speculation.
Struck dumb, they surmised.
Likely braindead, they wrote in their papers and reports.
A terrible waste, they said with frowns and shaking heads.
It should have been someone else, they added with consternation.
Left vacant, they concluded.
It could not be certain who said it first, but the epithet stuck. Vacant. Vacuous. The Bergynwerth Spider, a useless being who refused to speak. Some would later conclude that it was not refusal, but inability, cementing her status as something idiotic. Mindless. Something failed and useless, little more than a curiosity to keep in mind in the footnotes.
The rest of the school learned in short order to never speak of these things around Micolash.
They way he would grip tighter to his papers and books if he heard it. The piercing, fuming gaze he would level at those who said it. What began as him being passionate and terse in the debate of her status and uses soon slid into someone jealously guarding the dignity and reputation of someone the rest had dismissed. People began to truly speculate what the professor's fixation was really about when he threw a book at another teacher for calling her a clinical idiot. That stunt earned Micolash two days of docked pay but he barely cared of the consequences and demanded only an apology. To him AND to Rom. He didn't get one and neither did she.
He was the only one now who still walked to the lake on full moons. Before, it had been students and teachers in throngs, everyone eager and clamouring for audience. Everyone simply wanting a glimpse at her new form. Excited for answers and theories confirmed. Now, it is just Micolash who makes the trek when the moonlight is a white and brilliant disc reflecting on the waters. The only one still thrilled to steps off the balcony's edge to plunge into the lake below.
His heart would swell whenever he saw her in the fog on the other side of the lake's surface, her foliage casting a hazy glow. His footsteps always quick and long to close the distance between them eagerly. Sometimes he would speak words of greeting as he came near. Others, he would simply rest his hands on the craggy white surface of her eye-covered face. He would speak to her affectionately, inform her of how things proceed on the Waking side of the lake. Never of the disparaging and cruel things they think of her now, of course. Only of how classes are proceeding, the weather, letting her know how Professor Miriam is doing and what she is up to, as well as himself. New little discoveries, exciting new artefacts brought up from the chalice labyrinths.
But most of the time? He would just sit with her. Leaning against her massive form and tracing with his hands the seams and divots of her body. Quietly count each and every one of her dark eyes. Climbing atop her to lie amongst her flowers, sometimes dozing off and dreaming splendidly there. Closing his eyes as her tails drape across his lap, her body curling into a C-shape around him. Closing his eyes and listening.
Because that is truly what the others don't understand.
It is not their place to approach Rom and demand answers of her, to expect her to readily spill all the covetous, arcane knowledge she now holds in the spaces between her distant thoughts, like planets amidst starlight.
It is theirs to listen.
Because if they did, they would learn the language of her creaking legs and clicking mouth, her rustling flowers and their blossoming light. They would know that this lake is exactly as the cast moonlight that allows mortal entrance; a place of reflection. To be still and to simply be grateful to be in the presence of such a gentle, grand being.
And if they listened, they would learn to hear the singing in the fog. And they would hear her distant laughter, sounding just as it was when she was still as they were: human.
Struck dumb, they surmised.
Likely braindead, they wrote in their papers and reports.
A terrible waste, they said with frowns and shaking heads.
It should have been someone else, they added with consternation.
Left vacant, they concluded.
It could not be certain who said it first, but the epithet stuck. Vacant. Vacuous. The Bergynwerth Spider, a useless being who refused to speak. Some would later conclude that it was not refusal, but inability, cementing her status as something idiotic. Mindless. Something failed and useless, little more than a curiosity to keep in mind in the footnotes.
The rest of the school learned in short order to never speak of these things around Micolash.
They way he would grip tighter to his papers and books if he heard it. The piercing, fuming gaze he would level at those who said it. What began as him being passionate and terse in the debate of her status and uses soon slid into someone jealously guarding the dignity and reputation of someone the rest had dismissed. People began to truly speculate what the professor's fixation was really about when he threw a book at another teacher for calling her a clinical idiot. That stunt earned Micolash two days of docked pay but he barely cared of the consequences and demanded only an apology. To him AND to Rom. He didn't get one and neither did she.
He was the only one now who still walked to the lake on full moons. Before, it had been students and teachers in throngs, everyone eager and clamouring for audience. Everyone simply wanting a glimpse at her new form. Excited for answers and theories confirmed. Now, it is just Micolash who makes the trek when the moonlight is a white and brilliant disc reflecting on the waters. The only one still thrilled to steps off the balcony's edge to plunge into the lake below.
His heart would swell whenever he saw her in the fog on the other side of the lake's surface, her foliage casting a hazy glow. His footsteps always quick and long to close the distance between them eagerly. Sometimes he would speak words of greeting as he came near. Others, he would simply rest his hands on the craggy white surface of her eye-covered face. He would speak to her affectionately, inform her of how things proceed on the Waking side of the lake. Never of the disparaging and cruel things they think of her now, of course. Only of how classes are proceeding, the weather, letting her know how Professor Miriam is doing and what she is up to, as well as himself. New little discoveries, exciting new artefacts brought up from the chalice labyrinths.
But most of the time? He would just sit with her. Leaning against her massive form and tracing with his hands the seams and divots of her body. Quietly count each and every one of her dark eyes. Climbing atop her to lie amongst her flowers, sometimes dozing off and dreaming splendidly there. Closing his eyes as her tails drape across his lap, her body curling into a C-shape around him. Closing his eyes and listening.
Because that is truly what the others don't understand.
It is not their place to approach Rom and demand answers of her, to expect her to readily spill all the covetous, arcane knowledge she now holds in the spaces between her distant thoughts, like planets amidst starlight.
It is theirs to listen.
Because if they did, they would learn the language of her creaking legs and clicking mouth, her rustling flowers and their blossoming light. They would know that this lake is exactly as the cast moonlight that allows mortal entrance; a place of reflection. To be still and to simply be grateful to be in the presence of such a gentle, grand being.
And if they listened, they would learn to hear the singing in the fog. And they would hear her distant laughter, sounding just as it was when she was still as they were: human.