Dance, my little puppets,

Aut/3.3/02  

     Wraith’s eyes sent a nightmarish numbness up her legs. They made her feel heavy, or sleepy, looking into their grogginess. That haze… did he see through a constant layer of fog? Nakki’s eyes dulled in a sort of trance. Her ears twitched at the ghostly sound of his voice and she turned the question over in her mind, slowly. She didn’t even find a particular way to answer him before she was given permission to enter Taviora. Moonlight gleamed off her teeth as a grin formed on her face, reliving her muscles as she watched him move stiffly to the side. She wasn’t sure if she felt bad about causing him movement. It looked ever so effortful… but it was just so fascinating to watch.

     Like a wounded elk, he seemed almost as if her were going to trip to the side, but miraculously, he maintained perfect balance through the movement that was only a shift of his weight. Nakki’s smile faded away as she smoothly, slowly stepped over the perimeter of Taviora. She passed close to him, feeling the edges of his longer, light hairs tickling the edges of her shorter, coarser fur. Her excitement came from the fact that she knew, she probably shouldn’t be - it felt… forbidden, somehow. Her movement slowed and her legs became lead as she moved passed him. Was this his aura - this crushing weight? She moved away from him further into the territory, leaving behind the feeling, having nearly scared herself away from it. She’d never felt anything so… drawing, like it was ready to suck her into an endless abyss.

     When she had regained enough distance to stave off the feeling - only just out of reach - she remembered his question, having returned to existence from her brief encounter with… well, whatever it was she had felt. She turned back to him.

     “It’s not Taviora that I find particularly… curious,” She finally decided and then she looked at Wraith, watching carefully his form, and trying to focus on his eyes, but discovering that she couldn’t. They reminded far too much of eyes of dead friends.

     “I find myself wanting your company,” She finished.

     Honest? Yes. Pure? Probably not. Nakki wasn’t entirely sure what her intentions were. She just knew that she liked the way he was. She was addicted to his seemingly detached misery. She’d never encountered it before, and it gave her a sensation that she dreaded and yet found so… interesting that she couldn’t stay away for long. She would like to watch him, and maybe create a world or scene that suited his death-like beauty. Mostly, she wanted to see him limp through Andras’ garden of decay. However, she wasn’t going to force Wraith into such a thing; it would be too exhausting, like dragging a corpse back from battle for burial. So, she came to him on the rare chance she might see a nightmare come to life with him as that ghastly figure dancing on the edge of the scene. Why would this satisfy her? Well… maybe it wouldn’t, but the image in her dreams was insistent enough for her to seek it out in life.

     Nakki tilted her head in one direction, gesturing for their walk into the blackness of the tree to begin. She stepped once, and only again if he would join her.

Näkki