Winter's Kiss
05-29-2009, 12:47 PM
So, I was asked to post my story that I told, this is it.
This story was passed to me by the family I live with now, my adopted mother was told this by her momma. It starts about four millennia ago, a noble born sorcerer by the name of Braenid was practicing newly discovered spells within the Old City. Recently, he had been experiementing with the unstable spell that disturbed rest and made sleep a dangerous and violent experiece, the Patriarch having asked him to try and perfect it for defensive uses.
One night, worn out from the day's efforts, Braenid summoned another cast of the spell. Something with the spell's structure was slightly off, however, and with how exhausted he had become over the many weeks of no sleep, he never noticed the slight change. A few hours later, after writing down the results and recording the technique, he finally retired to his chambers and slipped quickly into a deep sleep.
What seemed to be a couple hours later, he started awake and scrubbed his hands over his face. He groaned as he stood up from his bed, recalling that he had missed noting an important fact in his writings. Standing up, he moved towards his washroom and walked right into a wall. He blinked and stood back with confusion, looking up at the wall and around the room in a daze. Slowly, Braenid's face went ashen. Instead of his once lavish and lush chambers, the much smaller room had been sparsely furnished with several chairs and a pallet on a thin wooden frame.
Quietly, he muttered to himself as he moved around the strange room, touching and moving things around before he noticed his hands. At the sight of worn and weathered hands in place of where his once youthful and elegant hands had been, he rushed through the room, knocking things askew across the floor. He crashed into another wall in his attempt to escape this place that was unknown to him, fumbling around in the dark against it until he found the door that would lead him away from this place.
Worn hands threw the door open, and Braenid stumbled into the hallway. Nothing was at all familiar to him, not his home, nor his body. His mind in a panic, he said aloud, "This can not be!" Just as quickly as he spoke in disbelief, he fell silent with fear. The words he said were his words, but the voice that said them was not his own.
Slowly, there in the dark, Braenid began to calm himself. He was indeed who he was, and as a result, he could certainly reason his way through this madness. He felt his hand, his face, and the entirety of his body. Everything was different. And after a moment's hesitation, realization dawned upon him. "Something has gone wrong with the spell," he said aloud, a faint tremor of disgust rolling through his new body at the harsh sound of his new voice, not at all elegant like his own.
His breathing slowed, panic and fear leaving him completely. He reasoned that the magic had somehow wrapped itself around him and as a result, he was experiencing a terrible dream. A terrible dream that would end as soon as he awoke. Braenid scrubbed his hands over his face once again, filled with relief, no longer caring that they were rough and calloused. Afterwards, he reached out to lean heavily on the banister near the stairs, but there was no banister. This was not his home. A fact Braenid had carelessly forgotten.
Losing his balance, he fell to his left. Where there should have been a banister in his home there was none here, only a steep, poorly made staircase that rushed up to meet him. Braenid crashed down the stairwell, head and limbs tumbling and knocking against sharp wooden edges. Pain blossomed in his body as the joint in his shoulder was dislocated. Before he could even clutch at his arm, he landed violently at the bottom of the staircase, head slamming against the floor.
Dazed, Braenid mumbled to himself in pain, "The pain is real... This is real..." Slowly, his vision faded from red to black as he fell unconscious.
With a scream, Braenid thrust upwards from beneath the covers, panting heavily and shaking as he sat up in his bed. No matter what he tried, he could not still himself. The pain in his shoulder still remained, a burning reminder of the dream before. He scrubbed at his face with his hands, a familiar habit. They were supple and smooth, like they always were. He chuckled to himself, "It was just a dream. Calm down. It was just a dream." And sure enough as he said it, the pain in his shoulder faded into nothing.
He began to gather his thoughts on the events that had occured. What a discovery this was! If he could retrace his steps, surely he could rediscover what had occured. Surely, he could figure out how to duplicate the effects of the spellform and apply it to others. "This is it," he exclaimed.
His thoughts were interrupted by a tender hand that snaked up his arm, over his shoulder, and onto his chest. A sleepy female voice asked, "What is it, Fehrael?" Braenid froze in place. He had not had a woman in his bed for nearly a year now, and he did not know at all to whom it was she referred to. A fine sheen of sweat began to seep over his skin, and it was then that he noticed a thick band around the finger on his left hand. The woman beside him stirred from her sleep further.
The woman's voice was filled with concern as she inquired, "Fehrael? What is wrong?" She moved to splay her body against the side of his, but Braenid quickly jerked away, tumbling out of the bed. "What is this!?" His voice was shrill and shaken as he shrieked out, "Who are you? I did not send for one of your kind!" He scrambled backwards across the floor.
The woman sat upright in response, surprise and confusion playing over her features in the dark. "What do you mean, Fehrael? It's me, your wife." She slipped to the side of the bed as Braenid continued to scramble along the floor, saying in a soothing tone, "Shhh. You had a bad dream. Everything is alright now."
Braenid agreed, "Yes. Yes! This is a dream. It is a dream in which I do not belong." He scrambled to his feet and stumbled back a few steps into the moonlight flooding in from the window behind him. It was then he stared in complete shock, unable to comprehend what he saw. His skin was white and pale. His voice shook, barely a whisper, saying to himself, "This... is not possible. It is not a nightmare? I am... inhabiting other bodies?" He stared at his hands, pale Human hands, and could do no more.
The woman rose from the bed and made her way towards him. She placed soothing hands on his cheeks as she stood with him in the moonlight. She, too, was Human, and Braenid balked. He made a choking noise in his throat as bile attempted to rise and free itself from within him. He swallowed it down and flung the woman aside, shrieking, "Stay away from me!" The woman crashed to the floor and Braenid flailed backwards.
The sound of breaking glass was all he heard as he no longer felt the floor beneath his feet. Broken shards bit into his back as the night sky filled his vision. Braenid was falling, and the ground was rushing up to catch him. He saw the woman's face appear at the broken window, her Human features contorted into a look of horror. The last thing he heard before hitting the ground was her scream.
Just as before, he started awake. Gazing around his surroundings, again it was nothing he recognized, a faint sense of horror slowly settling in with how trapt he was in this nightmare of body shifting. Looking down at himself and seeing his hands once more, the room had become familiar but there was a tingling at the back of his mind, as if there was something amiss.
Standing up slowly out of what looked like his bed, and walking across the carpet to the mirror, he gazed at himself only to see his own face and his body, even his bedclothes were as they had been. His hand lifted to touch his face before he bolted out of the chamber and down the hall to his study. With every step the hall seemed to shift and warp until his library was nothing more than a swirling vortex of color and furniture.
He skidded to a stop just before the door and tenatively reached out to touch the doorway, a spark of fear sliding up his spine just as his fingertips brushed the wood. Loud and rancous noise exploded from the room infront of him, tendrils of the magic that filled the area reaching out for him as he turned and ran from the sight.
Just as he reached the stairs, one of the arms of magic reached him and wound its way around his ankle, pulling him to the floor and dragging him backwards despite his protesting. Pain and fear danced across his mind with every pull on his legs, so much so that the familiar blackness started to take over his mind quickly until he passed out once more.
There isn't much known about what happened to him after that night, his servants informed the Patriarch that they were unable to rouse him yet he continued to speak while he slept, the evidence of these nightmares that continued to plague him apparent with the words they heard emerge from him.
- Lunaryna
This story was passed to me by the family I live with now, my adopted mother was told this by her momma. It starts about four millennia ago, a noble born sorcerer by the name of Braenid was practicing newly discovered spells within the Old City. Recently, he had been experiementing with the unstable spell that disturbed rest and made sleep a dangerous and violent experiece, the Patriarch having asked him to try and perfect it for defensive uses.
One night, worn out from the day's efforts, Braenid summoned another cast of the spell. Something with the spell's structure was slightly off, however, and with how exhausted he had become over the many weeks of no sleep, he never noticed the slight change. A few hours later, after writing down the results and recording the technique, he finally retired to his chambers and slipped quickly into a deep sleep.
What seemed to be a couple hours later, he started awake and scrubbed his hands over his face. He groaned as he stood up from his bed, recalling that he had missed noting an important fact in his writings. Standing up, he moved towards his washroom and walked right into a wall. He blinked and stood back with confusion, looking up at the wall and around the room in a daze. Slowly, Braenid's face went ashen. Instead of his once lavish and lush chambers, the much smaller room had been sparsely furnished with several chairs and a pallet on a thin wooden frame.
Quietly, he muttered to himself as he moved around the strange room, touching and moving things around before he noticed his hands. At the sight of worn and weathered hands in place of where his once youthful and elegant hands had been, he rushed through the room, knocking things askew across the floor. He crashed into another wall in his attempt to escape this place that was unknown to him, fumbling around in the dark against it until he found the door that would lead him away from this place.
Worn hands threw the door open, and Braenid stumbled into the hallway. Nothing was at all familiar to him, not his home, nor his body. His mind in a panic, he said aloud, "This can not be!" Just as quickly as he spoke in disbelief, he fell silent with fear. The words he said were his words, but the voice that said them was not his own.
Slowly, there in the dark, Braenid began to calm himself. He was indeed who he was, and as a result, he could certainly reason his way through this madness. He felt his hand, his face, and the entirety of his body. Everything was different. And after a moment's hesitation, realization dawned upon him. "Something has gone wrong with the spell," he said aloud, a faint tremor of disgust rolling through his new body at the harsh sound of his new voice, not at all elegant like his own.
His breathing slowed, panic and fear leaving him completely. He reasoned that the magic had somehow wrapped itself around him and as a result, he was experiencing a terrible dream. A terrible dream that would end as soon as he awoke. Braenid scrubbed his hands over his face once again, filled with relief, no longer caring that they were rough and calloused. Afterwards, he reached out to lean heavily on the banister near the stairs, but there was no banister. This was not his home. A fact Braenid had carelessly forgotten.
Losing his balance, he fell to his left. Where there should have been a banister in his home there was none here, only a steep, poorly made staircase that rushed up to meet him. Braenid crashed down the stairwell, head and limbs tumbling and knocking against sharp wooden edges. Pain blossomed in his body as the joint in his shoulder was dislocated. Before he could even clutch at his arm, he landed violently at the bottom of the staircase, head slamming against the floor.
Dazed, Braenid mumbled to himself in pain, "The pain is real... This is real..." Slowly, his vision faded from red to black as he fell unconscious.
With a scream, Braenid thrust upwards from beneath the covers, panting heavily and shaking as he sat up in his bed. No matter what he tried, he could not still himself. The pain in his shoulder still remained, a burning reminder of the dream before. He scrubbed at his face with his hands, a familiar habit. They were supple and smooth, like they always were. He chuckled to himself, "It was just a dream. Calm down. It was just a dream." And sure enough as he said it, the pain in his shoulder faded into nothing.
He began to gather his thoughts on the events that had occured. What a discovery this was! If he could retrace his steps, surely he could rediscover what had occured. Surely, he could figure out how to duplicate the effects of the spellform and apply it to others. "This is it," he exclaimed.
His thoughts were interrupted by a tender hand that snaked up his arm, over his shoulder, and onto his chest. A sleepy female voice asked, "What is it, Fehrael?" Braenid froze in place. He had not had a woman in his bed for nearly a year now, and he did not know at all to whom it was she referred to. A fine sheen of sweat began to seep over his skin, and it was then that he noticed a thick band around the finger on his left hand. The woman beside him stirred from her sleep further.
The woman's voice was filled with concern as she inquired, "Fehrael? What is wrong?" She moved to splay her body against the side of his, but Braenid quickly jerked away, tumbling out of the bed. "What is this!?" His voice was shrill and shaken as he shrieked out, "Who are you? I did not send for one of your kind!" He scrambled backwards across the floor.
The woman sat upright in response, surprise and confusion playing over her features in the dark. "What do you mean, Fehrael? It's me, your wife." She slipped to the side of the bed as Braenid continued to scramble along the floor, saying in a soothing tone, "Shhh. You had a bad dream. Everything is alright now."
Braenid agreed, "Yes. Yes! This is a dream. It is a dream in which I do not belong." He scrambled to his feet and stumbled back a few steps into the moonlight flooding in from the window behind him. It was then he stared in complete shock, unable to comprehend what he saw. His skin was white and pale. His voice shook, barely a whisper, saying to himself, "This... is not possible. It is not a nightmare? I am... inhabiting other bodies?" He stared at his hands, pale Human hands, and could do no more.
The woman rose from the bed and made her way towards him. She placed soothing hands on his cheeks as she stood with him in the moonlight. She, too, was Human, and Braenid balked. He made a choking noise in his throat as bile attempted to rise and free itself from within him. He swallowed it down and flung the woman aside, shrieking, "Stay away from me!" The woman crashed to the floor and Braenid flailed backwards.
The sound of breaking glass was all he heard as he no longer felt the floor beneath his feet. Broken shards bit into his back as the night sky filled his vision. Braenid was falling, and the ground was rushing up to catch him. He saw the woman's face appear at the broken window, her Human features contorted into a look of horror. The last thing he heard before hitting the ground was her scream.
Just as before, he started awake. Gazing around his surroundings, again it was nothing he recognized, a faint sense of horror slowly settling in with how trapt he was in this nightmare of body shifting. Looking down at himself and seeing his hands once more, the room had become familiar but there was a tingling at the back of his mind, as if there was something amiss.
Standing up slowly out of what looked like his bed, and walking across the carpet to the mirror, he gazed at himself only to see his own face and his body, even his bedclothes were as they had been. His hand lifted to touch his face before he bolted out of the chamber and down the hall to his study. With every step the hall seemed to shift and warp until his library was nothing more than a swirling vortex of color and furniture.
He skidded to a stop just before the door and tenatively reached out to touch the doorway, a spark of fear sliding up his spine just as his fingertips brushed the wood. Loud and rancous noise exploded from the room infront of him, tendrils of the magic that filled the area reaching out for him as he turned and ran from the sight.
Just as he reached the stairs, one of the arms of magic reached him and wound its way around his ankle, pulling him to the floor and dragging him backwards despite his protesting. Pain and fear danced across his mind with every pull on his legs, so much so that the familiar blackness started to take over his mind quickly until he passed out once more.
There isn't much known about what happened to him after that night, his servants informed the Patriarch that they were unable to rouse him yet he continued to speak while he slept, the evidence of these nightmares that continued to plague him apparent with the words they heard emerge from him.
- Lunaryna