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two-white-butterflies · 1 year ago

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parallel lines | d. targaryen | part three

Description: An ordinary middle school teacher moves to a desolate town with her fiancee. After suffering episodes of vivid nightmares, she realizes that his uncle looks exactly like the man in her dreams.

Pairings: daemon targaryen/reader, aemond targaryen/reader

Trope: Reincarnation

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"The centre of every poem is this: I have loved you. I have had to deal with that." - Salma Deera.

(HARRENHALL'S CASTLE. 130AC.)

When Alys Rivers was born, there wasn't a word that could properly describe her power. She could coax rain out of clouds, and foresee a million different outcomes - you were the opposite. Yes, you were different than the men of these lands but your powers were scarce it couldn't even promise your own safety.

Alys Rivers was a real witch, more powerful than any mage that has walked this earth. She had the power to destroy everything, but she never lifted a finger against you. You figured that you'd be safe as long as she loved you - she was your sister after all.

The woman that you trail behind.

"I was worried about you - I thought that you'd follow after your husband. I couldn't let you die." she whispered, staring deep into the fire - taking leisurely sips of her wine. "I wanted to die, Alys." you glared at her - memories of last night flooding through your mind.

"You don't really believe that," she says with absolute certainty. What use was living without the man that you loved? "- rain came and we prepared barrels to catch water. Rain is gone and you move on." she turned her head towards you, hidden wisdom in her tone.

"What do you think your husband would've done? If you died last night, and he lived." she mused, already having an answer in mind. "Silence," you gritted your teeth - but it only provoked her.

"He would've married another maiden - perhaps Rhaenyra Targaryen? I've heard stories about his love for her." she antagonized, and you retreated into your bed. "You don't know him, Alys." you breathed, praying that death would come sooner than men.

"I know men like him. My beautiful sister - seduced by that-"

"If you have nothing good to say, you may leave." you placed the blanket over your body. Ignoring her discontent.

yourname_: yeah he's pretty cool, but he's not as cool as me 😎

liked by RhaeTargaryen and 283 others

>comments

aemond_hxghtower: 😨 my reaction to that information 😨

Aegspert: Short 🤣 - yourname_: Says the 5'10 asshole ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? - - Aegspert: @yourname_ it's 5'11*

(ST. JOSEPH THE WORKER'S SCHOOL IN DRAGONSTONE. JANUARY 6, 2023)

"Aemond please please please!" Joffrey pleaded while hanging onto his uncle's hoodie. "Please attend my birthday!" he requested showing the older man his 'puppy eyes'.

"He's not going to stop unless he gets what he wants." Harwin crosses his arms, smiling at the boy who was jumping up and down. Aemond wanted to roll his eyes, Joffrey keeps doing this because he knows that he'll get what he wants, once he does. "Your brother only turns five once," you agreed with his family.

His glare softens - he hated you in his past life, was only interested in you in this life because he enjoyed to torment you. But somehow, along the lines of being your boyfriend - and living with each other, he's found himself falling. He's grown to care for you.

"I don't know how we'll have fun, there'll be other kids there -"

"And there will also be adults." you responded and everyone stared at him for a reply. With a shaky breath, he relents.

"Of course we'll come. We have a lot of time." he smiled down at his nephew, mayhaps it was finally time to put his grievances aside.

Daemon's eyes narrowed hearing his phone ping. He never figured out how to put the thing on silent mode. "Take a left over there, much faster." he commented while pointing the right direction to the Uber Driver. "Apologies, it's my first time in this neighborhood." the driver chuckled and he hums. "There's always a first time for everything," he mumbled - staring at his phone.

yourname_ has requested to follow you.

He closes his eyes - should he accept it? Would you be turned off by the types of things he posted in Instagram? There were a couple selfies and charity foundation posts - the only people who followed him were his closest friends, family and students.

He presses the 'confirm' button.

yourname_ 10:28am i hope that you don't mind the follow request I couldn't find your facebook, I don't have an Iphone for imessage 😰

DaemonTargaryen.phd 10:29am I don't have a facebook. Rhaenyra's kids set up this account ,,, something about me being a luddite 🤣

yourname_ 10:29am ohh i totally get those kids life is lonely without socmed i wanted to thank you for paying for dinner last night rhaenyra returned my share

DaemonTargaryen.phd 10:30am It's nothing, I typically pay for the team dinners. It's not part of the bonus or anything Just my way of saying thanks 👍🏻

yourname_ 10:30am well...thank you anyways !

The driver stops his car in front of Rhaenyra's Bali-Themed Mansion. "We're here," he announces and Daemon silently gives his thanks, exiting the car before another round of conversation was started.

(STRONG-TARGARYEN RESIDENCE'S KITCHEN)

Rhaenyra's Bali-Themed Mansion slowly turned into a forest - there were beautiful balloons scattered around the doors, it looked exactly out of a fairytale. "Rhaenyra's husband, Harwin, owns this restaurant chain in the USA. I had no faith in him - but gods did he pull it off." Aemond mumbled, leading you towards the kitchen.

As expected with rich people - their kitchen wasn't exactly the main kitchen. It was a kitchen for decoration purposes, everything looked beautiful in this house. "When you told me that you had a trust fund, I didn't expect that you'd be this -" you stuttered, eyes gazing around the wonderful interior. "Oh no, this is all Harwin." Aemond lied.

He couldn't have you thinking that he could've provided you a better life. There were things that couldn't be bought by money - his happiness was one of those things. "Rhaenyra's husband is cool, he's the kind of person I want to be when I grow up." you whispered and he replied with a small chuckle.

Some things never change.

"Maybe you'll finally start to read that cookbook that my mum bought you?" he teased, hand trailing towards the small of your back. "Or you can cook, and I can keep eating." you responded, he pulls your body closer. "Whatever you say, boss." he agreed.

A man clears his throat from behind the both of you.

"No sex on the countertops, I can't believe that we're having this talk again." Criston Cole rolls his eyes playfully, Aemond smiles. "Criston, it's been a while." he welcomed his father-figure with a warm embrace. Rhaenyra's house used to belong to their father, when Viserys died and Alicent married Criston - they briefly lived in this house. "Too much of a while," the man pats his back.

"Is this her?" he pointed in your direction. "In the flesh," you responded - hugging him tightly.

You've never met the man in person - but via video-call and Aemond's stories, he was a vital figure in his childhood. "You are taller in person." he complimented and you giggled. That was the first time someone called you taller. "You know, the last time I saw Aemond - he was boning his ex-girlfriend on these countertops." Criston chuckled with cadence and Aemond rolled his eyes.

"I do not want to talk about that witch again, what is dead may never die again." Aemond shook his head, his hands finding its place back on your waist. "If you say so," Criston poured himself a glass of seltzer.

"I didn't expect you to be here, I thought that you were teaching that dojo in Manila?" you tilted your head and the man nods. "It's not everyday that Joffrey celebrates his birthday, plus, I thought I'd come to visit -" he winked at Aemond. "It's nice to haunt your mother once in a while." he joked.

"I still can't understand why you agreed on a divorce. You loved her - she adored you. You know how conditional mum's love is." Aemond turned serious for a second. His grip on your waist tightened. "You know what. You should catch up with Helaena, I have to talk to Criston." your boyfriend whispered and you nod.

There were some aspects of his life that didn't require an explaination.

(STRONG-TARGARYEN RESIDENCE'S FOYER)

You saw him again.

Daemon Targaryen - his name brought shivers down your spine. You stalked him a few hours ago - and to your surprise he was on that same train-ride in Italy. It is certainly a small world.

"Oh hey," he greeted with a smile. He held a large gift with both of his hands. "Where do you put this?" he inquired, searching the foyer for a table. "I-I don't know, I didn't bring a gift." you breathed, suddenly conscious of your simple mistake. "Oh no, it's okay - I'm the uncle that brings big gifts. It's my family title," he chuckled, verbally thanking the maid that came to retrieve his gift.

He had a certain cadence to him. He required no introduction.

"I normally bring gifts to birthday parties but we were here on short notice," you smiled - leading him towards the living room.

Why did he make you feel electrified?

You stared deep into his eyes, unaware of the jazz music that began to play in the background.

'All roads lead to you, even the ones I took to forget you' - Mahmoud Darwish

"I don't recommend bringing these kids gifts. I detest spoiled brats - these kids are far from it but they have everything. Bring them to a park or buy them ice cream, they'll like it more." he advised.

Your eyebrows merged into each other.

"In that case, what did you buy them?" you inquired, and he smiled. "30 kilos of kinetic sand ... they requested it." his voice brought shivers down your spine. There was something alluring about his voice, he spoke like a great commander - he knows what to say. He tells you what you should do.

Who was this ethereal wisp of a man? Why did he bring so much emotions?

(STRONG-TARGARYEN RESIDENCE'S LIVING ROOM)

A small giggle escaped your mouth.

"What do you think? Should people think with their hearts or their brains?" Rhaenyra inquired, piquing everyone's interest with her simple question. "Everyone should always think with their hearts," Rhaenys begins and Corlys rolls his eyes. "The words of a tender hearted woman." he teased earning a glare from his wife.

He presses a kiss to her hand. "I'm kidding, my love." he whispered.

"I mean as women - we think with our hearts first, then our brains - after that we make a logical decision." Rhaenys adds and Laenor shakes his head. "That would mean that you think with your brain, mother." Laenor argued and Rhaenys shook her head.

"My brain only made a decision between what my heart believed." Rhaenys raised her finger. "I think we should think with our brains. The question itself is the answer. Should people think with their hearts or their brains? What do we use to think? Our brains - is it not?" Daemon questioned the question.

Rhaenyra rolls her eyes.

"You know what I mean, uncle."

"What about you, (Your Name). What do you think?" Corlys turned his head and all of their attention crashed towards you. "Shouldn't you give an opinion first, sir?" you smiled, pouring yourself a glass of soda. "Oh, I don't think I'll have much of an opinion. I agree with whatever my wife thinks about." Corlys chuckles.

"- then we think with our wives and not our hearts or brains." Daemon joked, earning a laugh.

"Well - our hypothalamus is the part of the brain that deals with love. When we say 'I love you with all of my heart' we don't actually mean that. What we mean is - I love you with all of the neurons in my hypothalamus. So - we do think with our brains. Daemon is right." you smiled and he patted your back.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the verdict has been handed." Daemon teased the others and the table erupts into laughter. "Nerd," Rhaenys rolls her eyes before you both erupt into laughter.

(STRONG-TARGARYEN RESIDENCE'S KITCHEN)

"On the screen, she looked like Alys. I thought that you found her again, but I know that girl - the comeliest woman in Harrenhal. All the knights used to travel all the way there - just to see her." Criston chuckled, reminiscing the past that he had.

He was much more handsome then, he had muscles, his body was toned - but now he was suffering hypertension and all other human deceases that didn't exist in the past.

"She's still very beautiful."

"I thought that if she and her sister would be reincarnated into this world again - they'd be models or something. Whatever did happen to Alys? I thought you loved her?" Criston inquired, Aemond's heart breaks a little. He's spent 25 years trying to forget Alys Rivers. He tried to forget those cold hands that have ensnared him.

In night, he sees her face in his dreams - eyes with kohl and plum red lips. He misses the woman that he used to love. All that he's loved in Alys, he tries to find inside of you - though your faces were similar, your personalities were as different as sun and moon.

He's grown to love you, yes.

You can never find the same person twice, yes.

But if he were to meet Alys - and she was suddenly different in this life. He'd still love her. He'd still love the different ways he'd fall in love with her. His Green Witch.

"or did you not love her?" Criston's eyes narrowed.

"I did - I do." he corrected himself.

"- but she won't come back. She told me that she'll never have a new body again." he shrugged, walking away from the kitchen - pretending that he wasn't affected at all.

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alchemisland · 6 years ago

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The Moors Mutt - I

Part II coming on Tuesday!

I. Old Stone

The beast I knew only in folkloric snippets. Hedge whispers perverting history to arcana through time immemorial. Perhaps too I had known it in nightmares, shapeless until named, becoming then familiar as a bedchamber.

It was grim autumn when that fateful letter arrived, setting in motion a chain of events both strange and unlikely. In retrospect, that a series of vignettes so bizarre could start with the simple act of a posted letter seemed comical.

The letter landed with a thud, dubbing me sole executor of the late Lady Renton Sizemore's last will, a grim charge requiring a trip to her wicked home, listed in the Briarscombe country house register as the third most bloodstained holding in England.

Dislike isn't the word. Lady Sizemore and I got on famously when last we spoke, thirty years ago. I wasn't the doting schoolboy turned dribbling manchild spending Saturday nights at bingo. Neither was she the elderly relation procuring coins from behind ears to the delight of the youngers.

We were not eachother's keeper. Why I was suddenly favoured for this sensitive task that required more mental finesse than anyone in the family gave me credit for out loud, puzzled me greatly. Somebody must have annoyed her at one of her events. Sandwich gala on the Pringle Estate destroyed by careless nephew's untucked shirt. In true family style, whatever infuriated her she took to the grave.

Once the money was apportioned, I was to ensure no stone went unturned, apt phrasing given its namesake. Cairn Cottage stood oppressively atop the mound some two hundred winters, a plundered megalith shielding against the bracing gales.

Up there the flowers bloomed blighted, grass grew sideways and only the sturdiest roots survived. Without the megalith's girth, perhaps those winds might have toppled the twisted demesne, but she held firm now as old.

Mystics, druids and spiritualists alike extolled the house's phantasmic virtues. Fringe groups scrambled to reserve exclusive use of the land for Candlemas ceremonies. Lady Sizemore didn't care, provided she was soundly remunerated.

Rumours abounded of hauntings, anomalies occurring on the land by midnight's trickery.

Upon receipt of instruction, I spurred my carriage toward Cairn Cottage, the house in whose shadow no local walked without rosaries.

Although my visit was primarily administrative, there was another matter pertinent to my interests. One muttering which above all others inspired fear. A cautionary tale warning children from the grounds by night. And sometimes, on cold and lonely nights, a brave man wandering alone might see fit to take the longer road home.

Worse than druids, they said a beast lived on the Moor. A hulking creature, whose snarling teeth bared in fullness of dark glowed like spears of starlight, whose stark brightness was dulled only by the gleaming viscera of previous engagements clinging in ragged flaps.

However the rumour started, it long sprouted legs of its own, more exciting with each recounting.

No smoke without fire. I intended to find the single primal ember, the lone truthful element, stripped of frill and frock, fancy and folly, bereft of myth, or loyalty to tradition. Was there something in the fields by night? Was it dangerous?

First came Sperrin, a grizzly hamlet outside the estate's confines. For a penny, a local lad promised to find a suitable nook for the trap. I visited the sole watering hole, a squalid cellar named Lar's. The tavern itself was not charmless, offering average vintage for below average prices, warmth, music, rustic flattery and inimitably, whispers of the beast.

The tavern's proprietor Lar was a man out of time. With his arms folded across his simian chest and those big lugs like trophy handles either side of his substantial forehead, he could have easily passed for a saxon chieftain. He stood astride the bar against a backdrop of coloured bottles. Immediately upon entering his eyes set upon me with great intensity. Unlike the merry keep of fireside tales, he offered no warmth in greeting. That you were found fit to sit his barstool was kindness enough.

Inebriates remained nursing drams, glowering at their respective lecterns. Occasionally I'd catch one staring at me, then turn away as I waved. After a while sitting and sipping, making a game of catching their nosy glances, I signalled Lar's attention. 'This is probably going to sound strange. Probably because it is. Hear me out though. Have you ever heard or seen anything strange out on the moor?'

Widened like an owl, Lar's right eye scanned me once, twice, three times before he moved a muscle. 'Have in fact. Not now though. Too many around. Later.' His lips barely moved. I tipped my nose.

Nearer closing, he poured a cup and sat, remaining on the business side of the bar.

'The beast, you say?' He leaned in close, one eyebrow raised, its shape the arching rod of a hooked line. 'I could tell you a thing or two about the beast alright.'

'Prithee speak, my curiosity is burning. I won't rest a wink until it's satiated. Tourist talk aside, do you believe, as men do God, a beast prowls these forests?' I inched forward, as if by closer proximity, the truths would be truer.

'Regular Theseus, eh? Monster hunters, we have had plenty. Lovers of darkness too. Students of forbidden arts. All are served here. Kings and paupers alike. Did you come all this way to hear me say that?' Lar spoke with great confidence. The manner of his prattling meant the tales he told were true, or this was practiced.

'No.' I replied, 'I have business in the cottage. My heart though, she belongs to this creature. I am not a quack, nor a holder of séances. I am not a man of low learning on the hunt for falsehoods. I am a lover of stories. Pray, continue your captivating narrative.'

He continued, 'Let it be said I was coaxed. You wanted this.'

In this ominous portent he let slip a mask of deft craft. There was artifice in his smile, a cheshire grin that touched either cheekbone. A whispered suggestion of hidden intent.

Everything made sense. Was I seeing clearly? More than ever. I saw his ruse; city boy down for the day, take him for a ride, tell him the usual stories. A pal of his will burst in at just the right time, scare me half to death, then they'll take me to the supposed hot-spot for the low price of everything I've got. Lar took me for a lettuce. Something in his warning tipped me. A little over-arch. If his performance was not theatre, then Shakespeare never wrote.

Doubtless once finished, Lar would proffer some overpriced talisman no fellwalker could risk refusing.

'Enough pussyfooting. Spill it. I'll need all the advice I can get.' Like a drill tip, I pressed my index finger into the bar.

'No matter what image I conjure in your mind's eye, the beast is yet more ferocious and terrible in the flesh. It's the great unreality of it.' He tapped his forehead. 'Your mind doubts what it's seeing, unable to comprehend its stimulus. Brave men are made mice in its shadow.'

'What evidence have you of such a creature?' I asked, draining my tankard. He did the same, then wiped the amber residue on the back of his hand. He looked me over once, as if to ask who I was to question. I returned a withering gaze, maneuvering my features to convey a similar message. For a moment the air felt charged with kinetic possibility. As when two pugilists circle to begin a contest, lead hands pawing. Neither of us wished to be responsible for qualms.

He broke the armistice. 'Evidence? If you didn't think it weren't here, you wouldn't have come. If you believed in your heart this week you'd be contending with a monster, you'd have stayed at home in your jams.'

'Nonsense, man! You forget I am summoned, not here of my own volition.'

'We, each of us, tell ourselves sweet little lies to justify how our limited time is spent. I have a right mind to think if the lady yet lived, you and I might still have met. On a yawning stretch such as this, arriving as you have: alone and curious. If there's one thing I can't respect, it's a self hating believer. Swanning around with all the cynicism of a non-believer, clad in the robes of an adherent, so that when the hobby is proved spurious you can point to your skepticism. You'd be first to the papers tomorrow if scientists verified the beast's existence, how you had journeyed and studied on your own dime to further the science.' Lar pursed his lips, knowing he'd cut me to the quick, vanished was his earlier reticence.

I hated how right he was. I was exactly this sort. Insulting people who believed the same things as me. First to refuse to enter a haunted house for fear a demon might take my soul.

I'd never concede his point though. I riposted, 'Few are more loathed than the opinionated barman. You speak much too readily. Do so again, I'll see your manners are checked for the next weary traveler willing to pay good coin.'

Lar's eyes lit, bulging with imagined riches. 'Let me fill your drink, sir. I meant no offence. We speak freely here. Manners soften. Soon one finds truths cannot be digested unperfumed. Here in the wilds, it's a duty to voice quarrel. Far from crown and court, unaired anger festers.' Lar gladly dispensed his pearls of rural wisdom as if they were sweets from a bulging striped bag.

'Really, man. Every idea can be made ridiculous if extrapolated to that degree. Manners take the edge off. I'm not offended by your candor. I intend to find the creature, if such exists. Have you no doubt about that.' I watched him pull another drink.

The returned tankard was too full to raise without spilling. I slurped loudly, head bowed. Like a pulled plug, half the liquid gone in a single gulp.

'What evidence is sufficient? Look around you.' Lar held aloft his hands, urging me toward his empty business, still cast in a sickly light from the last flickering sentinels.

He pointed toward the empty seats. A single patron remained hidden in the shadows. A local by his boots.

'We did a roaring trade before that bloody woman inherited the place. Once she came, the trade died. When I was a lad, that land was free to roam. No walls. She had them built to spite us. Worse rumours too and all, that she built those walls to house it.'

'It?' I asked

'It. The beast.' Lar's voice lowered to a whisper. 'A cage for a pet beyond control. That's your sort all over. Dabbling where you shouldn't.'

'Her sort.' I corrected, 'I'm not aristocratic. You're a presumptuous sort, you know.'

'Believe you're not the first to say. Her sort, whatever pleases. I don't subscribe to this theory. Me personally, I think it came from hell. One thing's for certain, it got worse when they shifted the cairn.'

'You say you have seen it?' Part of me thought I was the one stringing him along, but another more gullible me firmly believed, or wanted to believe, that he had seen something. Hoping not to seem needy, I drew myself close to him, the bar still between us, 'With your own eyes if you saw it, you must swear it now. Did you see it as I see you now, or as one sees the distant stars and erroneously assumes knowledge.'

'As I stand before you.' Lar gestured to his stained apron, which he then removed and hung on a hook overhead. He nodded to the barfly, who stumbled from his seat and shot the bolt across the lock, an angry black mechanism like a bas-relief, which clanked against the timber as he let it fall. 'That's Fergus.'

Fergus lurched over. One leg trailed behind him. I couldn't help imagining him as a gothic manservant, dragging corpses to the laboratory in pursuit of higher knowledge. He came to stand beside me. There were giants on the earth is those days. Though our eyes observed the same setpieces, his countenance betrayed little comprehension. He had the chiseled jaw of a marble bust in profile, but his mouth hung open permanently, moist lips pursed like a fish.

He placed an enormous hand on my shoulder. Such space was permitted between his splayed fingers that ten legions abreast might find passage unmolested. His knuckles protruded unnaturally, evidence of labour, something harder than masonry or smithcraft. Mayhaps soldiering overseas.

I stared at his hand. He never looked at me. I coughed, first mannerly, then more harshly, thinking to approach cautiously lest my assumption prove provident, that he had lost his sound during foreign campaigns, of whose spoils we all were beneficiaries.

'Don't mind him.' Lar said. He spoke softly in the presence of his friend, observing his movements closely, ready to interject with a steadying hand or a warning to the cruelly curious. I wondered were they brothers. They bore little resemblance, though stranger things I had heard. Lar took Fergus' wrist and pressed gently, disturbing the folds of his motheaten jacket. They shared a moment I could but observe, radiating warmth and glad tidings in a wordless wave.

'I mean not to speak boldly, and lash me with spite if I transgress overmuch, but I must know or I should forever wonder, are you kin?'

Fergus shared Lar's laugh with the same look of bemused ignorance.

'You hear that? Fancy man reckons we're brothers. Probly thinks we're all related down this end, and not in a godly way.' Lar laughed, a viking bellow.

Lar released his grip and the folds of Fergus' sleeve righted themselves. He spoke several octaves lower, miming offence at my observation. I started to explain I intended no hidden subtext, but Lar waved to indicate all was taken as delivered.

'We are not brothers. Close friends. Known Fergus here forever.' He gently tapped the giant's hand, slapped on the bar like some enormous muddy bird print. 'Used to be a keen cookie too, once upon a forever ago. Loved languages, Welsh mostly. Pugilism he loved more. One passion consumed the other. Anything burning so intensely inevitably cannibalises itself. Took one knock too many, stole his wits in an instant. A left hook across the bar sent him erstwhile. Twenty five minutes he was on the shores of night, learning the landscape of the dreamworlds, while we fanned his rigid form, wet his brow and whispered familiar names in his ear. When at last he woke a part of him was left forever in that place. I like to think, boyishly perhaps, it awaits him upon leaving this plain of lousy strife, like the belongings awaiting a homeward jailbird. The cloak of a lost lifetime. Not for him. He'll slide right into it, fit like a tailored piece, and all of eternity to speak. Not here though.'

Tears welled in his eyes. I took the reins, 'Think nothing of your emotions, man. We each have them. Doubtless I will shed a tear up in the old witch's place. Another life awaits, that much is sure. Grander than this. I'm sure he made, and makes, a fine man. Built like a gladiator. I am sorry to have dredged unpleasantness. I meant only to satisfy my own selfish curiosity. Forgive me. Please, continue.'

'I will at that.'

'It were one night, three years ago. Ferg was there. We'd been called out on account of strange noises near the workers' cottage. They wouldn't work until the evil was killed or driven away. We came down from the high road proper and saw it between the trees ahead. Like a horse it stood, with clumsy stilts supporting an ursine bulk that swayed as it shambled. It drank shadows to conceal its dread presence. Blackness it took for robe. In walking its front paws propelled its cumbersome form, while the rear set, less lengthy, dredged channels in the dirt. In motion it arched to reveal a belly spun of lighter felt, ashen in the scant moonlight. Bundled, it became an orb of shadow, nothingness.'

'Unbeknownst we watched it watching, green eyes like blazing protostars probing for movement. Well it knew to choose this site, one of only two wells being located nearby. In a flash then it was gone, satin-shoed away into the night.'

The tale Lar knew was a scorcher paused. He beamed, an actor awaiting applause. I gathered my jaw from the floor, brushed it and set it back properly.

Each word drew me closer, which Fergus mirrored, until we three sat as witches about the bubbling lip of their cauldron, a coven of pallid specters.

Lar paused to sip and nodded we join.

I wondered had my hobby, in a blink, become too dangerous to justify. It was well telling my employers of ghost hunts, but a wild beast - my insurance wouldn't have it! If it turns out some menagerie escapee, what then was it? Quest for wonder or recklesss folly? Weiss, Wellie and Wardun insurance, even in their most obscure policies, don't pay out for fools. That's why I chose them!

Lar went on, a fresh cigarette painting the air blue in his articulation, 'Each new, shifting moon we came to that spot and watched. We took it upon ourselves to rid the land of danger.'

'Fergus knows a bit about a bit, that's what's left to him, God bless. What he knows is knots. Army training dictates every officer have at least passing knowledge of ten or more useful fastenings.'

'Me? I know about animals. We make a fierce duo. We inquired in advance about a reward, to which the estate responded agreeably, so we set off with lengths of rope overshoulder and the angriest looking traps the furmen could spare, determined to snare it. We planted snares all about its presumed domain.'

'Nothing came. Not a rat. Not a wisp. Not never again. It's the mystery disturbs me most. I'd die happy knowing.'

In his voice a single note of longing rang, dispelling the subterfuge of his intentions and, in the length of a breath, his beings and inner machinations were laid bare. Far from the sinister goldlust and murderous intention I had silently attributed to him, he seemed eager in an earnest fashion, willing in the name of a job done.

I observed Lar, powerful and straight. 'Do I sense an unfinished quest?'

'Aye. Not too subtle, mind.' Lar flashed a toothy smile, the sort a condemned man spits at his executioner. 'You seem a serious man. I didn't know when you first came in parading your manners like fancy knickers. You can't be too sure about a man who gives too many pleases. You're not that sort and have proved such twice over.' Lar imagined that was a compliment from the look he gave me. Expectant almost, between child submitting scribbles for display and cat batting dead mouse onto pillow.

Well, of course I had something to say about that. Cats were hissing. A donnybrook of claws and torn fur not even a hearty stock of iodine could salve. 'And I might say also that I too had cast aspersions on your character, maintaining you were of sinister country stock. As you claim to have been rapturously convinced otherwise, as have I.'

'Once the lady's estate is divided and bequeathed I'll receive my own. I mean to inherit a substantial bursar. I will pay to you a fair sum. In exchange, you will guide me to the hotpots, generally ensuring nothing eats me. When we find it, you're in charge until it's bound.' If he came, it would be on my terms.

'Find it? Slow down. We've seen it once in a hundred times. I'll take you gladly all the same.'

Wordless, we shook hands and drained our horns.

'Tomorrow?' Lar asked. He drew my gaze to an unopened whiskey bottle, which I declined.

'Not so, good man. Tomorrow I will tend my affairs. In the evening, if all is ordered, I will return to discuss further a plan of action. Have you a room I might rent?'

'Not for everyone mind, so don't go saying. There's one in the back. I'll light the fire.'

'Please do.'

I left a generous tip. Before following the publican to the warm hollow, I shook Fergus' hand, assuming he too would be part of our fortean friendship.

While I slumbered, the nightmare broke free her paddock, thundering across the veil of my somnambulant phantasmagoria, its clanging hooves ringing shrill terror.

I saw spined creatures oozing pus, many-eyed. Edgeless orbs hissing like flying snakes from one black abyss to another.

Cats with human faces screamed. A hairless man with a tail curled upwards like a scorpions noxious pike disemboweled himself with a broken mirror.

Last came the bestial form, not unlike that which Lar had described, striding evilly. Two venom coated fangs, uncontained by its snarling mouth, curved inward toward its breast. Catlike claws glinted menacingly. Turning my third eye downwards as if to look upon my feet, I found I was formless, yet the beast circled knowingly around the space my corporeal form should occupy.

I knew instinctively this reverie was more tangible than the others. That if the beast should strike I would die or wake screaming with a crimson pool spreading below me. It sniffed the air, pawing closer.

I woke to my beastless chamber. Sodden, I sought a candle and in its gloam chronicled my nightmare. That night sleep ne'er returned, making groggy my morning plod toward Cairn Cottage.

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