When you've seen and done as much as Mary, known to the hero world as Arachidamia, has, then you tend to collect a whole bunch of unpleasant memories and images. Even the most solid and unshakeable warrior while awake can see something quite different when asleep, and Mary is really no exception. Years (more than she cares to admit) spent fighting demons, and other creatures of the abyss have left her with some quite spotty things to dream about.
Some nights, all she remembers is that one event, the smell of brimstone, hot steel, burned flesh, and destruction, the battle against that one demon, a major player as far as the rankings of the abyss went. A fight that had raged across hours, across miles of mountainside in that far, high place. How she'd faced down horror, and still stood, with sword in hand, magic in soul, and strength in heart. That had been possibly the most epic fight of her life, the trade of blow and counter-blow, searing hellfire turning everything around her to ashes, laughter, and the knowledge of darkness within the light, and then, when she was at her most ragged, where the whole matter was in the finest of balance, there was the sudden shift, and her opponent vaporised.
Her saviour is always more beautiful than she remembers from life, the brightest of lights, all power and and charm, and still the fire. The bright burning of flame at dawn, the void of the soul masked by his burning countenance. She remembers his greeting, his words. How he was impressed with her beauty, her power, her strength. Even his force of personality was a deeply-engrained memory. Some part of her will always wonder whether she would even have considered what he had to say if she hadn't just been run to the edge of exhaustion, or whether she was always just more attracted to the danger, to the fire. However, listen, she did. The memory of those few moments is like an eternity in dreams. the offer, to make her a power in the world, to stand with him, whatever form he chose to wear (and here, the seductive array of images, male and female, that he could wear, were always trotted out for temptation's sake.) In effect, a proposal of marriage, marriage to one of the top echelons of the infernal. eternity, power, pleasure and all that came with it.
It still scares her to think she even remotely thought about it.
Those dreams often end the same way, with her giving her answer with her defiance, and with her blade. The snarl, the twisting of that beauty into bestial power, and he fled, wounded by her last-gasp defiance, by the calling up of every last vestige of what made her her, of the truth that Arachidamia, warrior hero, magician and hunter of all that was dark, kept within her. Bright steel versus burning flame and the dark abyss. That's all she always believed herself to be. That ending is one of his vengeance, burning flarelight... and Fire. Always Fire.
...
But sometimes. there's a different end. The sulphurous reek is replaced by camphor, spices, the hot winds of the summer evening. Everything that was painful and dangerous is replaced by that comfort. The impression of warm arms, shielding her from the worst that her nightmares, that her subconcious can throw. Fire, so often the instrument of those she faces, becomes the instrument of that which comforts. The deep down knowledge that somewhere, to some, she is not just another soldier, that she has worth beyond her skill, that even this battered veteran of the darkest of places has not become lost, that looking into the abyss has not allowed her to become that abyss, that she is still human, with everything that comes with it. That fire is quite different, welcoming, beckoning in a way that the most seductive of demons never could be. Still the flames, but of a sort not usually associated with battle. Those are the good dreams.
Still. Good or bad, one way or the other, all those dreams end in fire.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
It All Ends in Fire
Her dreams usually end in fire.
When you've seen and done as much as Mary, known to the hero world as Arachidamia, has, then you tend to collect a whole bunch of unpleasant memories and images. Even the most solid and unshakeable warrior while awake can see something quite different when asleep, and Mary is really no exception. Years (more than she cares to admit) spent fighting demons, and other creatures of the abyss have left her with some quite spotty things to dream about.
Some nights, all she remembers is that one event, the smell of brimstone, hot steel, burned flesh, and destruction, the battle against that one demon, a major player as far as the rankings of the abyss went. A fight that had raged across hours, across miles of mountainside in that far, high place. How she'd faced down horror, and still stood, with sword in hand, magic in soul, and strength in heart. That had been possibly the most epic fight of her life, the trade of blow and counter-blow, searing hellfire turning everything around her to ashes, laughter, and the knowledge of darkness within the light, and then, when she was at her most ragged, where the whole matter was in the finest of balance, there was the sudden shift, and her opponent vaporised.
Her saviour is always more beautiful than she remembers from life, the brightest of lights, all power and and charm, and still the fire. The bright burning of flame at dawn, the void of the soul masked by his burning countenance. She remembers his greeting, his words. How he was impressed with her beauty, her power, her strength. Even his force of personality was a deeply-engrained memory. Some part of her will always wonder whether she would even have considered what he had to say if she hadn't just been run to the edge of exhaustion, or whether she was always just more attracted to the danger, to the fire. However, listen, she did. The memory of those few moments is like an eternity in dreams. the offer, to make her a power in the world, to stand with him, whatever form he chose to wear (and here, the seductive array of images, male and female, that he could wear, were always trotted out for temptation's sake.) In effect, a proposal of marriage, marriage to one of the top echelons of the infernal. eternity, power, pleasure and all that came with it.
It still scares her to think she even remotely thought about it.
Those dreams often end the same way, with her giving her answer with her defiance, and with her blade. The snarl, the twisting of that beauty into bestial power, and he fled, wounded by her last-gasp defiance, by the calling up of every last vestige of what made her her, of the truth that Arachidamia, warrior hero, magician and hunter of all that was dark, kept within her. Bright steel versus burning flame and the dark abyss. That's all she always believed herself to be. That ending is one of his vengeance, burning flarelight... and Fire. Always Fire.
...
But sometimes. there's a different end. The sulphurous reek is replaced by camphor, spices, the hot winds of the summer evening. Everything that was painful and dangerous is replaced by that comfort. The impression of warm arms, shielding her from the worst that her nightmares, that her subconcious can throw. Fire, so often the instrument of those she faces, becomes the instrument of that which comforts. The deep down knowledge that somewhere, to some, she is not just another soldier, that she has worth beyond her skill, that even this battered veteran of the darkest of places has not become lost, that looking into the abyss has not allowed her to become that abyss, that she is still human, with everything that comes with it. That fire is quite different, welcoming, beckoning in a way that the most seductive of demons never could be. Still the flames, but of a sort not usually associated with battle. Those are the good dreams.
Still. Good or bad, one way or the other, all those dreams end in fire.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.