[DREAM SOLO] Pierced (Zar + Barth)

[Toshihiko Two]

"Now," Barth guided him, "Lean back."

Barth's wings worked independently of him, similar to how his goolems operated. He looked at the upsidedown hallway, the world seeming to twist and spin from just the simple perspective change.

"And look down," he said softly, the down at their feet now the endless hallway, like a bottomless pit lined with doors.  

[Baneful]

And Zar leaned back, an act of trust that he could not think of any way to explain away, his tail grasping the other demon in a panic as the world itself seemed to twist and he found himself suddenly elsewhere.

He might have clenched his eyes closed, but he opened them and looked down anxiously as Barth asked him to, regretting the decision immediately.

"That...is a long hallway."

But from here he could almost feel a direction to the longing nestled in his chest, more clearly than he had been able to on the ground, and there was a smell in his nose and sinuses, a smell like something very old and something that resonated very strongly with wealth.

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"Ready?" Barth asked, his wings still keeping him aloft.

"Here we go." The wings beat one last time, then wrapped around him like a cloak, and the breeze blew past them as they descended together into the dark.
 

[Baneful]

Zar wasn't ready but held on regardless, when it came to dreams he was willing to give in to Barth's expertise in the matter.

However, despite his inexperience, Zar found that slowly he was adjusting to the situation, and starting to feel out more of the capabilities they had there, able to envision the faintest outlines of a room on the edge of his thoughts.

"Is it possible to circumvent the doors entirely?" he asked curiously.

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"I don't know the rules," Barth confessed, although he seemed unconcerned as they zipped further and further down together.

"But tell me to stop if you see one you want to open, or..." Barth felt it too, that vague sense of something else, somewhere they should be.  

[Baneful]

"That never seemed to stop you." Zar said with an anxious uncertainty, closing his eyes as his stomach twisted in nausea at the perspective and the rapidly shifting sense of pull and draw as they moved.

He took a slow shaky breath and nodded in the direction of a door, one that felt like it was the Right one.

"That." he said. "That one."

He hoped it was open, felt it should be open. "If there's gold.." he said, and somehow felt there should be that too.

Toshihiko Two

 

[Toshihiko Two]

Barth's wings flared, and he took Zar's claw as they came to another delicate hover.

"Alright, relax," he directed, and they turned again, the pit righting itself into a hallway as they touched back delicately down on the walls (now the floor).

He curled his knuckles, and gave the door a gentle rap.

This time, curiously, it did swing open in response to the knock.

The first thing to hit them was the smell of flowers. Dark, sad, moping, heavy, a canopy made the door into a trellis and turned the whole room into a garden. As they peered up, they saw that they were not in a room exactly, but a giant iron cage. Beyond the cage there seemed to be nothing but void. There was a path between the the soft and heavy heads of the flowers, and at the very heart of the room...

There was gold. An expanse of gold. Dripping in luxury, once they stepped into the center, the smooth floors stared up at them with a metallic reflection. Stairs lead up and up and up to a large and eloquently carved altar. These were not the tastes of a sloth demon, or an incubus, but something else.

Baneful

 

[Baneful]

Zar had never seen anything like the place they found themselves, or well, not often. In fact as they stood there it put him in mind of one place only and that was the home of his grandmother. Still, even the gardens he'd seen while there were not close to the strange flowers which grew all around.

It felt like walking into someone else's chapel, someone else's domain, it didn't suit him and it didn't quite suit Barth either. Especially not the stairs.

"I think this is what we were looking for." Zar hazarded, his hooves clipping elegantly on the flooring. "Though wether it is good or bad..." There was only one way to really find out.

 

[Toshihiko Two]

On the altar, resting in a fine velvet lined with a luxurious fur and dark, sinister feathers (like a nest), were two trinkets. The jewels sparkled there, inviting. There was something almost malevolent about them, lost and wanting.

There were two of them, but never for a moment did Barth feel like which gem belonged to who was uncertain. The darker, cooler gem felt like it had been his all along, plucked from him, or maybe that he had been plucked from it. It resonated that strongly. There came with it a strong and invasive thread of power.

"Oh, I don't think good," Barth said softly, "but certainly ours."  

[Baneful]

Zar was suspicious of everything, of the dream, of the doors and of the place they presently found themselves in. He had never trusted dreams in the first place and had only come to even tolerate ones where Barth was in control. This was far far outside of that area of acceptable adventure. Here, energy crackled in the air, and there was something rich, cloying and heavy about it, the atmosphere weighted with power that could be felt in every breath taken itself around the altar.

He felt the pulling sensation too as he eyed the strange trinkets, a familiarity much like he was looking at his own tail or some other object drawn from his own fear. Though he mistrusted the dream itself, he could not mistrust the lighter of the two objects, tied so obviously to him and to his fear.

Really though, in his heart of hearts, he knew better than to touch it. He knew better than to go anywhere near it, and if he was sensible he knew that he should avoid having anything to do in general with anything that seemed to hum with energy to an almost audible degree. It just.... it was his.

The trinket that belonged to him was slightly curved and made of what looked like sleek white gold.

It really was not sensible to want with it.

But Zar wasn't sensible, he was a demon and power was at the root of everything he did, there was no real battle to be fought, he had no resistance to something as inbuilt as sin, so he reached out.

When his claws made contact with the metal, he found out very directly and with a sound of pain and surprise, that there really had been one way to wake from the dream all along.
 

[Toshihiko Two]

Barth watched Zar, and his claw moved as a mirror, touching the gems at the same time-

He was normally a deep sleeper, but the dream sucked itself into a swirling vortex, as if the gem were a black hole, or at least the source, the flowers whirling about in a frenzied tornado as everything, including him, was sucked in.

When he woke, it was with the same, sharp pain, not where he had touched the gem- but,

"Acccccchth," Barth groaned, touching his mouth and unable to get a mirror. It had maybe not been the best advised plan, "Quick," he asked Zar in the lightest and most tender and lightest way imaginable, "can you see?" And not only was there the pain, but there was also power, coating his mouth and teeth and throat and lips, making all of it almost numb with buzzing, leaking, oozing power. It was in his blood, it was in his muscles, and the sharp pain and intrusion made him unsure what, exactly, he had given up for it.  

[Baneful]

For Zar the pain was twinned with a rather unpleasant feeling, a cold feeling of order, all steel and ruthlessness and as he woke, it had turned from a sense of power rapidly into a pain that reached into the very heart of who he was and twisted tightly around it.

The pain was absolutely excruciating, and when Barth woke and addressed him there was a few long moments where Zar could not even so much as see the other demon or think at all, his every pain receptor screaming as his muscles tensed up tightly and wrung a sound from him that was like nothing he'd ever uttered around Barth, an agonised and strangled whine of pain. He didn't want it he realised too late, no power was worth this, nothing was worth this.

And yet even through the kind of pain that all but crippled, he forced himself to focus, forced himself to narrow his attention on Barth and what was wrong with him, his breathing shallow as he eyed the other demon's mouth, flicking his tongue to test the air and see all the better.

"Your... tongue." he said, through gritted teeth and shivering muscles.

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"It'ssss, vah-ah! Important, to me," Barth said, talking around the pain and intrusion with careful pronunciation, "Ever-y other bit of me is...usssssselesss," he hissed through his teeth.

Not that he particularly liked being wounded, but there were many wounds he could abide.

An offense leveled at his tongue was not one of them.

But it still worked, that was the important thing. Even if the pain was very, very fresh. The pain was...alright, it was bad. There was something sharp and sore about it at once, not unlike a wound to the heart.

"You?" Barth asked, looking over from his mound of pillows.  

[Baneful]

Zar was not okay. He was so far into being not okay that he was trying everything in his power not to think about it. He wondered for a moment if this was what it felt like to die, if perhaps he was actually dying, his core itself somehow damaged beyond repair. The pain did not abate or ease and there was nothing pleasant about it, the power attached to the steel now twisted in his flesh a cold and draining sort of energy, one that extinguished his libido and in doing so made him feel like it extinguished him.

He shook his head, because that was all he could do, unable to say it, unable to draw attention to it lest even the doing so finish him off.

"Hurtsssss" was the only thing he could say.

 

[Toshihiko Two]

Barth took a deep breath, then asked, "What- is it?"

He inclined his chin, and opened his mouth, sticking out his tongue as far and as gently as he could tolerate, although a few tears pricking at his eyes were blurring his vision.