Emily Miliona (darkfacade) wrote in emillion, @ 2014-04-30 22:12:00 |
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Cormac jolted awake. His whole body was cold and he was shaking. He was gasping for breath as if something had just stopped crushing his chest. It wasn’t the first time this had happened. It’d been the reason, he’d mostly been avoiding sharing his bed with Emily. Emily, whom he had let stay the night. He was trying to slow his breathing, his hands clutching the sheets of his bed as he tried to rationalize his way out of his own fear. He was in his room. It was dark, but he was in his room. A moment later there was light as the lamp wick caught. He could’ve just turned on the actual light, but that would’ve required him to get out of bed. As the flame began to rise, the light flooded the room, illuminating clothes, furniture, and knick knacks he kept about. He was trying to work his way through what he’d seen in his dreams, trying to talk himself into a calm, but he kept having the same dream. People said that meant something, but he didn’t want to go to an interpreter. He didn’t believe in fanciful things like that. Instead, he believed that taking deep steady breaths would slow down the heart beating against his eardrum. He just had to concentrate on that. Deep breath in...slow breath out. Emily was neither a heavy nor a light sleeper, but somewhere in the middle. She felt the shift on the bed and she was coming out of a sleep cycle, so she was a little more aware than she might have been. She didn't move at first, thinking that Cormac was just using the bathroom, but through her eyelids she could see that he lit a candle and she could hear the controlled breathing. Her eyes fluttered open and she watched the shadows on the wall opposite her shift due to their light source. She turned to look at him, "What's the matter?" Genuine concern in her voice because she was genuinely concerned. She'd done a lot for Cormac, and she loved him. Probably more than most people could fathom. She sat up and looked at him eyeing him with a look of worry. Out of the corner of Cormac's mind, he registered the shift in the bed. He registered the change in the breathing, but he needed to concentrate. He needed a modicum of control to regain his senses. It was her voice, however, that drew his attention. It wasn't just the sound of her voice, but the foreign tone. "Nothing," he said out of habit. It was biting, a tone she'd probably heard many times before, but not directed at her specifically. It took him another moment to realized he'd used it before his shoulders slunk and he buried his face in his hands and ran them through his hair. "It's nothing," he said softer this time. "I just had a bad dream." Emily's eyebrows raised at the tone he used. That was certainly a first. She didn't take offense, but it did cause her a bit of alarm. He'd invited her less recently, and maybe she felt that fear that he no longer felt the way for her as she did for him. The idea both angered and hurt her. She wasn't prepared to deal with that sort of news. She wasn't sure how she would receive it if that were the case. "It's not nothing," she said, "and I know it. What was the bad dream about? You don't just wake up over anything." He'd seen the plague and likely a number of other monstrosities, so whatever startled him in the manner it had obviously had great impact on him. There were some things he missed about having Cyclone around. For one, she'd be in a seperate room and even the next morning, she'd just focus on getting him through the day instead of trying to cycle through his problems. He knew this was part of what came with a relationship, but it didn't mean he would enjoy it. She was concerned and there wasn't anything she could do about it if she didn't know what was wrong. He wasn't even sure if he knew what was wrong. He just felt off and uneasy. He didn't feel safe, and that's what really threw him off kilter. "I.." He almost lied. Almost said he didn't remember, but he didn't want to lie to her. If he started now, he wouldn't stop. "It involves a really big pile of dead bodies and I can't breathe." Emily couldn't think of anything to say to that immediately. Instead she watched his face and then leaned down to give him a kiss on the shoulder. Given everything that happened, it made sense but was also oddly morbid for him. She didn't touch him more than that, as she didn't think he'd want to be smothered all that much given the nature of that nightmare. "I'll get you some water," she said and then turned to get off the bed. Her feet padded across his floor and moments later she returned with a cup of water, sitting back where she'd been before. "Do you think it's just remnants from your work on the plague?" The touch made him tense up quite a bit. He hadn't realized how closed off he was to contact, considering the amount he'd touched people, but this was different. This was much more intimate than he was used to and it made him uncomfortable in a way he hadn't considered before. He willed himself to relax. It was for comfort and with affection that she'd pressed her lips against his shoulder, but then she had pulled away and there was a cool spot where her heat had just been. Water sounded good, but the question she'd posed pushed him into a guarded expression. "I shouldn't be having nightmares about that," but it had been part of it. "There's been too much death here lately." While being a coroner afforded him a great deal of cash, there wasn't much money to be made when the deaths rolled in en masse. "I think I'm just worried about the stability of my business. You know. It just decides to manifest itself in morbid and terrifying ways." He just happened to leave out the part where he heard the voice of that creature they'd fought on the way to the mages tower the day the plague ended. "Just a thought," Emily said, "and you're right. Too much death, much of it unnecessary." The murder she committed was out of necessity, and it served as a means to an end. People, she knew, were more useful alive than they were dead. She had a heart of sorts, but it just wasn't the heart that most people imagined that she had. She watched him carefully but otherwise said nothing for a moment before saying, "Perhaps we need another holiday." Somewhere away from the death that had made itself at home in Emillion. Plagues and mage councilors gone mad, when did this city turn into such a place? |