Character Headspace, Player Character
Homebrew Setting
They say when you’re falling in a dream, you wake up before you hit the ground.
Kieran startled awake, still groggy, in the dark room. His heart beat rapidly from the adrenaline, pounding in his head from whatever that thing had been in the dream. Blinking blearily, he squinted in the darkness to see that none of the others were awake; Bas twitched and rolled over, face grimacing for a brief moment, but he stayed asleep. Orpheus was essentially dead to the world, a handful of tiny spores floating in and out of his mouth as he snored softly.
So many thoughts swirled through his mind. So very few answers, and so many more questions. He curled up tighter, a tiny ball in the corner of Orpheus’s bed, half noticing he was still in his fancy clothes - sans his boots. Right, he thought, Orpheus had a fit and took them off. As he curled up, his hand brushed against the scar on his chest.
Because I’m still scared, Kieran.
Asher had said that in the dream. That one of the only reasons it hadn’t tried to snuff him out or push him aside was because it was still scared. Did it truly want to hollow him out, like that thing wearing his friend’s face wanted? Did Asher wish he hadn’t survived, so it could have a form all to itself? Why did he survive, when Murdoch clearly hadn’t? It had to have something to do with that celestial, that kirin creature, but still he couldn’t figure it out. Why would such a creature want to protect a simple farmhand from a tiny village?
How much of my fear is actually mine?
He’d always told Asher, begged Asher, to stop scaring him if they wanted him to stop pulling away or to stop fighting them. And there’d always been the doubt, the terror, something holding him back. They were in his head. They knew what he knew, they felt what he felt. And he’d always assumed he couldn’t feel anything from them because Asher was just a shadow, a wisp stuck to his soul, hiding in the corners of his consciousness. He’d never actively tried to bridge that distance, save for the one time he’d cast the spell to read Asher’s thoughts. But then there was the vision he’d been shown at the gala, and what Orpheus had seen through that soul stone. Veloce had said his magic came from a collision of sorts, the friction inside him from clashing with Asher. And apparently that friction was, what, wearing away at both of them? How much damage had already been done? He’d never had magic until Asher showed up. And it hadn’t been until very recently he’d assumed the change to his hair and eyes had come from Asher as well, even the wings - but after meeting Lanya, researching the kirin from his dreams, the lightning that had struck the barn… that was yet another agonizing mystery.
What am I?
But there, in this most recent dream, seeing Asher standing all alone in that crater and staring at the distant storm, it had admitted it was still afraid. Of the thing in the darkness, of the kirin striking it down, of… disappearing?
For nearly five years Kieran had been wanting Asher gone. Had thought of them like a parasite, an unwelcome guest, an unwanted roommate. Pushed Asher away, tried to bury them deep inside, ignored them every time they whispered in his ear. Tried to convince himself the two of them were two incompatible beings forced together, but they were still so very separate.
But are we?
He was scared of magic, but now it came so easily it was almost second nature; even spells he cast, not Asher, he wasn’t hesitant with. And the magic kept getting stronger. He’d never been a violent person, but the way he’d cut down those Hounds in Stede’s shop without hesitation, the way he’d gone for the kill when Casper was on the brink… how much of that was really Asher’s doing?
Of course, seeing the thing wearing Murdoch’s face was terrifying. Knowing that thing had once been inside the drow that invaded his home was now nesting inside one of his closest friends, hunting him and Asher, wanting to “rectify its mistake.” The barn collapsing on it hadn’t killed it. The few spells he’d landed during that fight had barely fazed it. He shuddered again, hand pressing against the scar. But when it had done… whatever it was trying to do, to rip Asher out of him (or was it trying to rip him out to make an empty shell for Asher?), it hadn’t tugged on just one soul. The burning, the pain, he’d felt that thing pulling on both of them, even if it had only meant to grab one. Asher kept saying they were stuck together, that if he died, so did it. He hadn’t wanted to believe it.
The tiniest wisps of shadow leaked between his fingers when he looked down at where his hand was still pressed against his chest. In that dream, he’d touched Asher. Reached out, for the first time, and offered his hand.
Why did I do that?
It was cold, incorporeal, fluttering; the thing in the shell is more intact, Asher had said. In that moment, Kieran had given Asher something of himself, not even knowing how or meaning to. It hadn’t hurt, though, not like when the thing in the shell had tried to rip one of them out. Even now, lying on his side, he didn’t feel like anything was missing, even though he knew something was. And Asher had taken form. Still shadowy, still wispy, but somehow more complete. Corporeal enough to take his outstretched hand and walk alongside him. Was this the “intact” it meant?
He stared at the wall, where even in the darkness of the room he saw his shadow cast against the wallpaper. In the dream, there was that swirling mass of darkness that tried to draw everything into itself, a single terrifying eye glaring at him from within, while the kirin had summoned that storm to somehow contain it.
“That thing in the storm. Is that what you’re so scared of?” Kieran whispered to his shadow. In his mind, he felt Asher stir. Several eyes blinked open within his shadow, staring at him, though there was no answer.
Is that a yes?
One by one, the eyes closed. He felt Asher go quiet – no. No, this felt… different.
“Asher?” Kieran whispered again, but the last eye closed. A grogginess was overtaking his mind, but it was not entirely his own. Is this…?
Asher didn’t sleep. They never slept. They didn’t even let him sleep for longer than a few hours.
And yet, he knew. Asher had… fallen asleep just now.
Is this because I shared some part of me with it in the dream?
What did he do? Oh gods, what did he do? There wasn’t the usual alertness he was accustomed to after only four or so hours of sleep. He felt the exhaustion starting to creep back into his own mind, tugging him towards sleep as well. Something had shifted, changed.
Maybe part of that fear that never left him was Asher’s. Maybe, just maybe, what Kieran felt towards it wasn’t entirely fear anymore. Why had he given that piece of himself to it? Pity? Sympathy? Something else?
What will our souls look like now?
After nearly five years of wanting Asher gone, the thing in the shell had shown up with the will and the power to try and rip it out of him. And in that moment, when Kieran had felt those shadowy claws dig into his soul and try to pull, he’d fought back. Why? Why did he resist? Even if it somehow wouldn’t drag him out, too, why did he suddenly feel a different kind of fear?
Almost five years of being stuck with Asher, and he’d never once thought about how Asher felt. He’d never asked, had never wanted to ask. He’d had his whole life taken from him; his family, his friends, his home, all gone. He’d finally started building something new on the bridge. But Asher had nothing. No family, no friends, no home, not even a body. It came from somewhere dark and cold and lonely. And it had been running from something.
I am all Asher has.
He slipped the hand that wasn’t pressed against his chest out from under the covers and pressed it against the wall, against his shadow.
I wanted you to leave me alone.
That fear that had filled him when the thing in the shell had tried to take a part of him away, what part of what it was trying to do scared him more? Against the chill in the room that came from somewhere other than the winter’s weather leaking in through a faulty window seam, a warm tear leaked from the corner of his eye and darkened the pillow under his face.
What if I don’t want to be alone anymore?