Where Sea and Sky Meet [Zorolo] (Psych Battle)

Where sea and sky meet

Ooc: Yay, psych battle, or at least, that’s what this is supposed to be. Those are just loose guidelines of what I’m hoping for, but it may turn into something completely different. Meh, t’is the nature of the EH.

Italicized text is thought. The thought dialogue isn’t marked differently for each speaker, but it should be obvious from context who’s speaking. As far as I’m concerned Monroe can hear all the thought dialogue after the muddied sea scene, or even before that if you think of a good reason for him being there and able to understand.

And apologies for the prose and poem mix. As opposed to the skilled use of poetry in the EH, this is a sign of my inability to effectively put some of my thoughts into words.

Bic:

A drop in the ocean of my consciousness
A ripple wrinkled into the fabric of reality
The horizon of sky and sea the only absolute before me.

Where am I?

To say the boy was sitting on the water’s surface would be just as valid as saying he was floating, seated in mid air. There was no one to tell him this is up and that is down, and no sign around which to orient himself; he had only the predisposition that what he recognized as the sky should be above him and what he saw as the sea should be below him.

Oh, right. I fell asleep.

Sleep for the boy was a fickle yet dangerous thing. If it wasn’t for the dreams, he could rest without worry, but what’s a night of slumber without stepping out of the daily grind to mingle with things unfathomable and hopes unattainable. No, dreams shouldn’t be so dismal and empty. For Emory, these were the beginnings of a nightmare.

He looked into his reflection on the water’s surface. His cheeks looked flush and hot yet felt heavy and damp with tears to the touch. Essentially killing a friend will do that to you.

Stupid. . . stupid, I told him we couldn’t play that game, he can’t handle it.

Emory's beloved professor had recruited the young boy's friend as a new student and wanted Emory to tutor and train him in a way only Emory could: by getting the fresh recruit's feet damp in the seductive unreality of the Wyld.

Being friends, two shared a sort of competitive camaraderie, and in that vein, Emory wanted to keep their relationship status quo. But when it seemed the roles were changing- when the tutor was being taught- when his beloved professor, so impressed with the progress of the new student, seemed to be growing ever fonder of the fresh faced lad- Emory felt the unfamiliar swell of what he’d seen in others as jealousy.

That’s a silly thought; Prof. Romonov still loves me. And I. . .

Exposed your friend to the temptations of the Wyld that you knew he wasn’t ready to handle. You wanted him to forever loose himself in this world of attainable yet false dreams, and continue your happy, charmed life with Romonov, uncontested by even your best friend. But that isn’t all, is it? You yourself want to become a part of this world; the Fair One inside you demands it. So you sent your friend into the Wyld as an experimental puppet now turned sacrificial lamb to your jealousy?

The unsettling stir somewhere deep within what he hesitated to call his soul was in its own bacchanalia of ravenous delight. That stir was the incomplete Fair One that the boy had accidently incorporated into his spirit during his first romp in the Wyld.

The Wyld, where dreams and wishes are manifest as quickly as they're thought and as concretely as they're spoken, lures creatures out of their lives ruled by natural law and into a world where they can make anything happen. But as all good things, there’s always a catch 22. Nothing manifest in the Wyld has any substance in reality. One can have all she wants and be whatever she wants in the Wyld, but none of it confers to reality. It is for that reason that the Wyld is so seductive, you can live forever and do whatever, but the price is the effort not to indulge.

Resistance seems a simple task, but the surveyors of this land are so subtle in seduction as to rarely be noticed. The Fair Folk are the master’s of manipulation in this world on the edges of reality. It’s rare that anyone who’s ever met a Fair One has escaped the Wyld to tell of it, but after a few years of thought, Emory figured that the Fair One he encountered during his first time in the Wyld only let him go to become a vector of the lawless unreality injected into the real world where Fair Folk cannot exist. It is because of the Fair One’s merger with Emory that he is able to traverse in and out of the Wyld as if it were the world of law, but it is also the source of his constant temptation to stay.

The broken spirit whispered to the heart of the boy.

You’re already beginning to rely on us, running to the Wyld in your dreams. And slipping into a reality “enhanced” to your liking while in daydream, let’s not forget that. You know, for someone who intends to “protect the continuity of creation from the encroaching threat of the Wyld” you sure don’t spend a lot of time living in it.

Life here isn’t living, isn’t real.

Yet we feed on the living in a very real sense. We don’t kill them, no, people tend to be far more imaginative and think of new toys, or better yet, become our new toys while they’re alive. And that excites you now on levels you’ve never felt before, doesn’t it? To think, a fresh idea as thread of many a story, a fresh young lad the consummate propagator of many of such an idea. Yes, he’ll keep us entertained for a while.

Emory couldn’t deny anything the Fair One spoke; the only thoughts that came to mind were feeble excuses like “he asked for something harder,” and “if he was really worthy of Professor’s admiration, he would have been able to handle it.”

Emory felt sick with himself.

Maybe I should just stay here. After all, this is where people like me belong.

The sea below him clouded over with a film, patchy in its iridescence and abundant in its muddy batches. Like dirt in bath water, the muddy batches drifted and clung to his skin. He brushed a few spots that had clung to his bare feet.

Ah, jealousy. I see. And this one, envy of my friends with parents, haven’t felt that one in a while.

He reached out and tapped a spot of the iridescent film.

Cooking with Professor on a Saturday night, that was a good one.

A good memory, but a distant one. Why did it seem all the water was so dirty?

You’re rather transparent now. You see, these little mental boundaries you human’s have formed to keep your private lives and emotions as such are boring and always conforming to outside speculation, nothing but an obstacle to genuine discourse. As much as I like that you’re finally accepting your Fair nature-

It’s not my nature. It’s yours and I’m cursed with it.

In any case, as much as I like that you’re relying on the Wyld so much, you can’t stay here. Maybe someone can talk you out of this miff. I allowed you to leave all those years ago to spread our world into the world beyond. You can't do that from here.

That’s right. I’ll never be able to hurt the one’s I love from here. I’ll never be able to betray my goals here. Even if I wake. . . I’ll never be able to leave here.

You really are a child.

As in the beginning of this dream/nightmare, again the undulating ripple crossed his mind, this time, in the sky.

Stratus and cumulus cloud the sky
Mirror on their surface the spirit of the man nigh
Of crossing into our realm and to its own demise
To find no clemency in my eyes.

You’re clouding up my sky with your presence. I’ll pull you down here with me, and you’ll be as dirty as I am.

“Monroe Vossler, as written on the clouds, welcome to the land of dreams. Now, what brings you traipsing into this my humble fringe of the Wyld?”

ooc: noticed one big mistake. Changed "You can do that from here" to "You can't do that from here." -_-; that's what I meant in the first place, sorry.

Darkness. And endless nexus of bleak, lifeless, emptiness that stretched beyond the realms of imagination and reality. Monroe Vossler stood silently in the center of this darkness and looked around again. The Quincy had gone into the ruins of a temple to meditate, as he did every so often, to relax his mind. An old trick Zorlo had taught him to relax when under intense stress or when troubled, yet the scenery never changed.

Yet why were the bowels of his mind like this? Well, to be more exact, this wasn't the more recent part of Monroe's mind that he prided himself in. This place was far removed from the schematics, formulas, and other countless innovations the man worked on tirelessly. It was also far removed from memories of his family and the life he now lived. No, this place had none of the aspects of who Monroe was now.

So what was this sorry, sad world of endless darkness? This was Monroe's past... or to be exact what remained of it. After all the experimentations and transforming, the dark clad man had lost anything he could call a past. His present was always at the forefront of his mind, but deep within his soul, a strong, incomplete feeling mustered itself up from time to time.

For a man with no past... it’s hard to say how I can build a future, the man's voice echoed through the darkness. All I know is what I've learned since I was reborn... so how do I know what's right or wrong when it comes to dealing with normal people? Monroe asked himself, sighing.

You don't, that's the problem, a darker voice echoed from the depths of Monroe's mind. A familiarly unfamiliar voice that seemed to cause the man to both cringe and listen intently all at the same time. You are only good for one thing, and that is the thing you were brought back for, the voice spoke again.

The Quincy arched his eye for a moment before electing to respond. Despite why I was brought back, I won't be shackled by a past I don't remember or a cause that is wrong. Such things can’t hold me back!

The voice laughed in response. I'm not so sure... a dark world of temptations exists, and I doubt that even with your mettle, you can resist the lure of being "complete."

Monroe pondered the voice's comment for a moment as the darkness seemed to break apart and fly away. The man looked down at his feet nearly resting on some odd water and a strange, cloudy sky that surrounded him. A voice called out to the man as he looked around.

"Monroe Vossler, as written in the clouds, welcome to the land of dreams. Now, what brings you traipsing into my humble fringe of the world?" the voice asked. It wasn't the voice that Monroe had heard before, but a completely different one. The dark clad man looked up at a small boy that stood not too far away and quirked an eyebrow. Surely that comment hadn't come from that boy, so from where?

"I come here to find out who I am," the man commented. "Not the man I was, nor the man I should be or any of that crap... I'm here to find myself, finally, so this emptiness I'm surrounded by will become a fleeting memory," the Quincy stated as he looked at the boy. "I don't know where I am, but if this place will help me, perhaps its worth something."