Dreams of Darkness

Writhing in the darkness…dark tentacles reaching up from the depths, winding through the air, blacking out the sun. Reaching out, hungry. Hungry for him. Reaching, grasping, choking him, squeezing the life from his body, dragging him into the darkness, down where no one could ever find him…

Then he awoke with a gasp, he had felt weariness come over him at regularly. Even after so long, his loss still pained him deeply, for him love was different and he had lost his loved ones, more than once. Dreams. The dreams had always been strange and confusing, but of late they had taken on a sinister air. Something about them deeply disturbed him, but he could not comprehend what it meant. It seemed likely that they meant nothing, for what could they mean, really?

Still, the dreams plagued him. In all likelihood, they were meaningless. But they persisted, and haunted his waking moments as well as those he spent sleeping. There was more to them than dreams, but less than reality. Was it a premonition? He could not be sure. To ease his mind, however, he knew that he must take some action. There must be something that could be done to put such phantoms to rest. Perhaps… yes. Yes, that would be a sufficient measure, he thought. It would require some effort on his part.

In the dream, he moved across the land like a shadow, like a storm, like a force of nature that could not be denied. None could see him unless he wished it, and those he wished to see him were prey. Prey was washed from the face of the world with a fast, violent flash of his talons. He had no need of a sword. Nothing could stand before him. He was unstoppable, invincible. Humans were weak, insignificant, unworthy foes. He was the hunter. He was the warrior. He was a Seelie.

He stirred from his sleep and opened his eyes for a moment. The veil of the sleep was heavy upon him, but he was aware for a moment. It could not have been long since he could recall death falling upon the land. His muscles ached as if from vigorous use, which was peculiar, but then it was not the first time he awoke and things had taken  a weird and unpredictable way. He imagined that he still felt the tang of blood on his fangs, that he still smelled it in the air. These dreams were powerful things, and ones that should not be allowed to influence his mind. He had diminished the worth of humans long ago, after all, and nothing could please now his angry soul. Still, there was no harm in the dreams themselves, was there? It was simply a lingering memory, a momentary diversion. Harmless, in the grand scheme of things.

The sleep overtook him once more. He shifted his position to a more comfortable one and settled in. As his mind drifted back into the depths of the Shadows, then he slept.