Welcome to Valerian Night, where the story comes to you in snippets and snatches, snapshots and slivers of 300 words every week. Your input is valued and needed, for what you say may drive the story into a totally different direction. Follow the meandering coils of story that take Alyxa Fairchild onto a direct collision course with Nightmares, Dreams, Old Deities and New Heroes as her world collides with that of Réveille, the land of Waking Dreams and Dead Gods. Trail after Morpheus as he discovers the foibles and confusions of the human world and finds himself strangely enamoured thereof all the while trying to keep his Dreamer safe and ensure the continued peace of the Real World. Let the young Jazzy open your eyes and show you that the world you see is not necessarily the world you know...

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

I: Awaken


The mirror haunts her bedroom. The storm outside the small house delays the moonlight, stroking it through the curtain’s cracks to bounce manically. Alyxa isn’t interested in moon or storm; her attention is on the blood dripping from her wrist onto the tiles. She speaks. Soft. Commanding.

“Morpheus: I invoke thee.”

The face in the moonlight grows clear; the ripples of pooling light smoothing back from the mirror like a page folding back.

“Morpheus: I call thee.”

He presses a hand against the silver glow of the mirror, pushing through from Réveille, the realm where he has waited, where he has reigned. The Dreaming slips away. Alyxa draws breath. She focuses, and she pulls.

“Morpheus: I want you.”

Tongue, against the tiles, lapping at the fallen blood; Alyxa watches the world reeling like some out of control child on rollerskates. He looks up, brilliantly green eyes, the unnatural shades of true fantasy emeralds, meet hers…

...and the world fell away from her. There was no more blood on the floor, the wound on her wrist was closing beneath his fingers. His dark blue hair swept itself back into an acceptably human shade of black, but she could not stop watching him. He is so different from her dreams, and yet, so familiar. He smiled at her, the calm collected smile of a creature who is content.

She watches him watch her. This is what they both wanted: he his freedom from a limitless world, and she his enigmatic presence. There would be a price, there always is for Crafting, but she would pay it, because there was nothing else left now.

“You are more beautiful here than in Réveille,” he said, and she could taste the un-granted kiss, “and here, you are my keeper. Is this not what you wanted?”

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