Healing a Nightmare ((For darkpiety))

[grantuseyes]

So much of the ordeal blurred together. The time spent speaking with the likes of Faris, April, Tina and others at a party was a lifetime ago. Did it even happen at all? What if this is him truly waking up now? What if everything before was another reality, another Dream, one that's broken under the strain of frenzy and now he, having gone through the grueling process of adaptation once again, has surfaced someplace entirely new? What if it was all a figment entirely, one crafted by a consciousness untethered from the physical body, lost and searching, alone in the darkness and desperate for stimulation, for sense?

The realest thing to him right now are the sensations of his searing blood, the culmination of it reaching its crescendo marked by forming into a stone-like spear and punching up through his skin. Piercing him with the unusual properties of the godsblood he still holds in his frail and human veins when meeting mind-melting truths of thought.

His blood sings and flows stronger now, stabilizing Micolash's punished body. The Old Blood injected into him, once, twice, thrice, working its near-magic on keeping the man living and breathing.

Our thirst for blood satiates us, soothes our fears...

There are memories of fleeting moments, visions. The young man from the Nexus, the dreamwalker, speaking his name. A woman grasping his hand in hers. Messengers crowding around his body. The seated Amygdala statue presiding over his torment.

Red and black. Black and red. Beams of orange streaked over it all. Swallowing it all.

Wet. Always dripping wet. The floor, the stone, his body. An unpleasant stickiness in the rare opportunity it was allowed to dry. Under his nails, filling his mouth, flooding his nostrils, streaming down his face from the eyes.

The pain. The pain. The tearing, the shredding, the piercing, the burning, the cutting, the screaming.

He remembers screaming. He remembers screaming until his throat tore itself raw and then he screamed again. And again. And again.

He remembers pain most vividly and at first Micolash cannot be certain if now it is just the deep-seated, close-by memory burning bright against his skin. Or if it is the one thing he carried with him wholly through the end of the Nightmare.

Micolash cannot stir. There is no way to move himself under his own power. He hangs limply in Abysa's arms and whimpers. He is awake in the barest sense of the word and he wishes dearly that he was not.

It hurts.
It hurts.
It hurts.

Comments

[darkpiety]

Abysa has just finished teleporting both himself and his injured charge back home. With that violet smoke indicative of his dark magics, the two of them materialize in the centre of a magic circle, in a large stone room. There is no need to light the sconces on the walls, for the demon has no need of light to see, and Micolash does not seem capable of opening his anytime soon. He floats onwards, deeper into his lair, through dark stone halls and past countless closed doors until he reaches the hallway with their rooms at last.

Henry, the cat with an eye-shaped patch on his forehead, is alerted to the return of his owner and the priest, pushes himself through a catdoor from his room. He pads on over, tail low as he senses something is amiss. He lets out a questioning chirp as he follows Abysa to Micolash's room.

"Oh, Henry... How do I even explain..." Abysa says tiredly. "Micolash is not well."

The door to Micolash's room is opened with psychic manipulation, swinging open to reveal everything just as it was before they had left. The demon feels his heart stink. It had been only hours, surely, since they had left to depart to a festival, himself costumed personally by his beloved Lord Beauty, and sneaking a bit of holiday decor onto Micolash's cage.

Ah, that cage. He had not thought to remove it yet, keeping it on even as he holds the human, able to support it with little effort. To think that it took one simple lifting of that iron-barred tower to cause a disaster unlike any he had seen previously. A night of fun and cheer ruined within seconds... Abysa feels tears forming in the lines of his face markings, bitter and sorrowful, for all involved, but especially the one in his arms.

Then he hears a soft, weak sound from his patient, and some of that despair is quickly dissipated.

"Ah, he awakes at last, thank all that is good..." Abysa says as he floats on over to Micolash's bed. He sets him down gently, making sure that the cloak wrapped around him is sound, and finally, removing that accursed cage.

It is not like the event with the spider at all. The cage is lifted with Abysa's psychic power easily, and set aside on the floor with a muffled thunk (as most surfaces in Micolash's room are softened). Quickly, he places a soft kiss on Micolash's pale forehead, that simple, affectionate act allowing some sort of calming power to flow from demon to human. And this is in addition to exerting his calming aura, buffering the frenzied energy inherent in the poor scholar's skull. With that done, Abysa lets him down to lay on his back, letting Micolash's poor, tired head rest upon a soft pillow.

"Micolash," He says softly, "Can you speak? You are safe now."

[darkpiety]

"It is just to declare the promise made so that it shall be kept, and the spell created. Much the way a ritual creates an offering. You understand, yes?" Abysa is aware that contracts and the like may be different from world to world, so he decides to clarify.

Before he leans in to seal the deal, though, Abysa places his hand over Micolash's open eyes once more. That orange light lingers like a grudge behind those pupils, enough that even a demon like him is a bit unsettled by it.

"I must fetch you a blindfold after this." He says, and then, hand still over Micolash's eyes, leans in to give him a kiss on the lips.

There doesn't seem to be a tangible reaction at first. The kiss is nice, and Abysa's calming touch is present in it, as usual. The priest, however, shivers a little.

"You may notice the difference within the day. Your situation can only improve either way, the more you recover. I, however, already notice a piece of me drained away... Not that it is an amount to worry over. I will grow used to it."