[DREAM SOLO] Pierced (Zar + Barth)

[Baneful]

For a long time before meeting Barth, Zar had hardly slept at all, seeing no reason to waste his all-important time resting when he didn't physically need to. His priority for the longest time had simply been efficiency at all costs and would have been his priority up until it finally dissipated him for ever. He wasn't sure what twist of fate had brought him to Barth and via him to his senses, but he realized now that there was indeed something to gain from dreams and rest. It was something that ran deeper and closer to the heart of his nature than simple physical regeneration. There was a visceral and ancient satisfaction in the dark wrapped in the close warmth of sheets that was as much a hunt as hoofbeats in pursuit of prey. He had warmed to the sin of permitting himself to be wrapped in Barth and dragged down deeply into sleep.

And along with it he had begun to slowly learn creativity, his dreams changing and shifting from the flat deadness he'd been capable of at first into something richer and stranger, with elements he could not always explain. He was not in control of the things he dreamed in the same way Barth was, and experienced true lucidity only when the other demon was with him. When Barth was not with him, the dream world - just as with his mental landscape when waking - could readily turn hostile in an instant. Alone he was more vulnerable than he would admit.

Barth should have been there with him as he materialized, he felt, losing the details of the place he'd been in before, but retaining sensations and emotions in that subconscious and hazy way that the mind did while in the depths of a dream. He was sure of it, as if he'd been there just a moment ago, and hadn't he? Like a word on the tip of his tongue he could feel the other demon there but could not see him or reach him and for a brief instant it was terrifying.

Fear crept almost tangibly along the floors and through his thoughts sharply corrupting the peace he'd experienced prior. There was something wrong here, something that wasn't the neutral and safe dreamworld he'd been expecting. Sound didn't travel the correct way, light didn't move correctly either, it was a badly put together nightmare and it made him anxious.

"Barthh?" he hissed fearfully, drawing up his form from his natural four legged one into his humanoid shape as if somehow this made him present a smaller target to the strangely hostile feeling corridor he found himself in. Anxiety practically rolled off him as his tail twisted about his hooves and his wings wrapped close.

Doors stretched out before him but all of them seemed to be locked, shattered or both and he stayed in one place fearfully for what felt like quite some time before he managed to uncoil himself to take one hesitant step and then the other, slowly making his way through the silence that was more ominous even than the silence of the haunted house.

He knew he had to find something but as far as he was aware, that something was Barth.

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"Here," Barth said, much further along the corridor, but his voice carried as if he were close by. He was looking thoughtfully at a splintered, broken door, the lock smashed in. It was jammed in a way that it would not swing in or out.

Barth rested his chin in his claws thoughtfully, and tested the handle.

"This isn't one of mine," he said, and he too had the same longing stir in his chest. As if he was missing something.

"It doesn't look like Wonderland. And I remember who you are and who I am."

He let the handle alone, asking it softly, "What are you about?"  

[Baneful]

The sight of Barth was a tremendous relief to Zar, and it was only when he exhaled aloud that he even realised he'd been holding his breath. He relaxed in a way that was immediately noticeable, his wings unfurling and tail loosening to wave lazily behind him, night and day compared to the taut tension he'd been carrying before. As he brushed off the panic and fear he donned familiar bravado like a comfortable cloak, the only acknowledgement of his previous indignity a cat-like flick of his ears.

This newly regained self control did splinter a little at Barth's admission. "It isn't?" he said. "Can you get out? I cannot." And that was unusual, normally outside of the deepest darkest parts of the dream, Zar could rise back to the surface again if he had to, he could wake. Right now there was something tethering him fast to this dream and this place and it would not let him leave.

"I don't look like I did in wonderland." he said, looking down at his normal, dark clothes. "And it isn't so very bright here, nor so very strange. It reminds me of the haunted house but ...it's different even than there. Less dilapidated and less accessible."

He pushed one of the doors irritably with a clawed hand and when it didn't budge either, gave Barth an irritable glare. "Are you sure this isn't one of your schemes?"

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"If it were mine, the corridor would be a lot shorter. In fact, there'd be a lot less walking in general." Barth left that door alone, and seeming extremely put-upon, went to try the next one.

Which also resisted being turned.

"I hope we're not here long. Not a very engaging way to spend an eternity. I feel like I've...did I- drop something, or...?"  

[Baneful]

Zar made an acquiescent expression and nodded. It was a fair point, he reckoned, Barth was not the kind of creature to craft an endless corridor of doors in the name of a laugh, even to torment Zar, if anything he'd be running completely contrary to his nature. "True." he said grimly. "If this was your devising we would likely be seated in a leisurely fashion somewhere with the work being done on our behalf."

And speaking of work, he raised a brow at the other demon's mention of that feeling of absence, that strange sense of purpose which seemed to draw him onwards much the same way as the mark on his chest did when activated. "You feel it too then." he said. "I thought I was.." and he trailed off, diverting the line of thought. "I feel like there is something I need to find also."

He shifted uncertainly from one hoof to the other.

"I do not trust it."

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"There's nothing...overtly malicious, that I can tell. Not that that means anything."

Barth looked again down the hallway.

"But it is a dream."

Slime coalesced on his shoulders, anchoring to his shoulder blades and spreading, until he had two dripping and translucent wings that flapped experimentally.

"We've had very little consultation in these matters. You would think these sorts of things would at least ask."  

[Baneful]

"You would not know malicious if it bit you in the posterior." Zar said dismissively. "You border on the oblivious at times." It was easier to get grouchy at Barth than admit he was feeling flighty and uncertain, bordering on a desire to latch onto the other demon for tenuous comfort.

Instead he stubbornly resisted that desire as always, moving to the next door to give it an experimental rattle, looking back in time to spot the strange - and to his eyes frankly lewd - set of wings. "And a showoff."

He eyed the next distantly, not really paying attention to his words as he tried to think ahead to what they could do, to where the thing might lie. "They don't ask because then creeple would say no, no one asks who wants to get their way."

"Do you think we simply need to try these doors? All of them?" It did not sound appealing, and unlike Barth, Zar did not generally show a great deal of creativity when it came to dreams, trapped in that narrow directness which caused him so many problems so much of the time.

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"I certainly don't intend to," Barth said, as the wings pumped him off the floor.

"Mark that door. We'll come back if we have to."  

[Baneful]

Zar scratched an X into the door with a long talon and gaze Barth a quizzical look. "What exactly are you thinking then?" he asked, showing distinct reluctance to do anything at all with his own wings.

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"That we'll see how long this hallway goes on," Barth said.  

[Baneful]

Zar eyed the doors that stretched as far as he could see, took a deep breath and walked on ahead. "Then lets." he said, more out of habit than anything else giving the other demon a look to make sure he was fine on his own, forgetting in the dream that he was perfectly capable and not restrained by his usual limitations.

"And if it's for ever?" he asked, and did not quite like the way his voice echoed.

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"Well I'm certainly not going to check that far. We'll err...look at alternative solutions. Here, get up. We'll sort of, fall forward, and see if we can...find anything. Preferably an exit."

Although part of him felt he could not exit yet. Not without finding...whatever it was.  

[Baneful]

Zar gave Barth a look as if he had just been asked to stand on his head, only standing on his head was something he considered physically possible. "..fall forward? " he said dubiously.  

[Toshihiko Two]

"Up with me. I'll show you what I mean," Barth said, offering his claw.  

[Baneful]

Zar gave the claw a dubious look before deciding that at the present moment in time he had nothing to lose and reaching out to take Barth's claw firmly with his own. He felt vulnerable and out of his depth in dreams and could only trust that it would work out.

He spread his wings, but it was not the usual wingbeats, finding it slower and more difficult to co-ordinate here, like a clumsy bird as he sought to stay close to Barth, but found himself constrained by his own self imposed limits