Cain Hargreaves (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
misterblackbird) wrote2014-01-01 04:35 pm
misterblackbird) wrote2014-01-01 04:35 pm
Le Rêve
[The room is very large. Or, perhaps, Cain is very small. If one has met him during a curse when he was made again into a child, perhaps he looks familiar. He is three or four years old, and waiting in one of the grand rooms of his family's mansion--castle. The faces of ancestors look down on him. The room arches away over him. He has been brought here by one of the servants. They don't speak to him. She doesn't speak to him now. They scarcely have faces in this dream. Eyesockets without eyes, but scowling. Silently, the maid scolds him. Roughly, she takes his arm and leads him across the acres of floor to the door on the far side. He resists, but she insists.
I'm scared. What's that song? Where are we going? No. Don't open that door.
The door is open. Cain is put inside.
A bedroom. A sickroom. A deathbed.
To the left, the women who have cleaned the body, the undertaker, the priest. To the right, his family--all of them, a mass of black crepe and faces swimming in it, like masks laid on it. Some are crying, white handkerchiefs fluttering across the black mourning clothes.
My uncles and my aunts. And all my other relatives. The wail of the violin. The cloying smell of lilies.
A man speaks:
"Come here."
Cain is looking at the faces: shadowed, hollow, angular, masks, the suggestion of faces rather than real faces. The only one who seems to have a real face is a young girl, Cain's age or perhaps a little older, with auburn hair and striking blue eyes--
My cousin Suzette. My mother. Uncle Neil--he's Grandfather's sister's son. Why does he always look at me like that?
Cain is still being led, though he looks over his shoulder at the faces that stare down at him. He goes to the man who speaks, as he knows he must.
The bed there: massive, black wood, all the curtains of it drawn back, and the man laid on it dressed in his best suit. All the rings, crests, and family treasures are laid on him. These will soon be passed to another. His hands are folded as though in repose. He might only be resting. He is even wearing his shoes.
Beside him, beside the deathbed, stands another man, the one who spoke. Tall, cold, wearing glasses. He resembles both the dead man and Cain. This is the man to whom those treasures and titles will pass: the dead man's son.
"Cain, pay your last respects to your grandfather."
Cain is sent towards the deathbed. He is shaking. He is afraid--of the dead man, of his father, of death, of the things he does not understand. Still, he knows he must go.
He looks like a wrinkled wax doll.
And he is wrinkled, shriveled. He had fallen ill before his death. It was unexpected. How quickly he aged in the meantime. How wrinkled he was. Reaching out slowly, still afraid, Cain would touch the dead man's hand, he would do as he is told.
But, as he reaches--
The dead man wakes like one startled awake, roaring awake, leaping awake and grabs Cain's arm. Cain cannot scream, but he stares. The dead man's eyes are wild and fiery, and he will not let go of Cain's arm. He pulls Cain closer, looming over him, no eyes but only eyesockets, his face like leather, reaching for him with long, hooked fingers. He speaks with a crow's voice:
"You who would bring about the end of the world! Your name! You cannot resist the temptation of the woman from Philistia! You have that woman's blood in your veins and her prayers in her head. My godchild. Cain."
The lilies around around them burst like bombs, scattering petals. The crowd of mourners burst like the lilies or a flock of crows startled into flight. Cain tears his arm away and runs towards the door again--
--He should have passed back into the tall room from which he had come, but he does not. He is standing in a narrow street between a great mansion behind him and a church before him. The rooftops of the two buildings nearly touch. The mansion is unfamiliar, an amalgamation of houses seen in many different places. The church, though, is as much the City cathedral as it is Saint Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, as though the three were melted together and reformed.
There is a great commotion from inside the house and from within come a woman's screams, high and desperate. He runs across the narrow street and into the church.
It is quiet in the church, and dark, and cool. No longer the child he was at the first of this dream, he takes off his hat, as one should. He moves quietly in the shadows. There are a handful of people sitting there in the pews. And still that music--no hymn at all; far from it.
But what's going on here? These scattered people seem the remnants of the attendees of some ritual, some unseen wedding or funeral. But there is no sign of what could have taken place here. The candles give no sign.
Then: a woman's footsteps, the sounds of her skirts. She comes up to him there in between the columns. He knows her face, but her face changes moment to moment. She could be any of so many. She takes his hand without speaking and he follows.
She leads him along the far wall of the church, and down to a small and hidden door. They pass through the door and stand at the foot of a twisting wooden staircase. The wood is dark but there are great windows behind it.
The girl with the changing faces leads him up three flights of stairs, across a landing, down two flights, up another, then down another. They stand before another door, which she opens.
He enters, she does not. He understands why.
He must step down another short flight of stairs and then up another flight of stairs to enter the room properly. There is a door in that sunken landing. The room is small and square but very high and paneled in dark wood. There are windows the height of the whole room on one side (which show nothing but gray sky beyond) and rows of raised wooden benches.
As he stands there, with the windows behind him and the benches before him, the door in the landing opens. And through the door comes a great crowd of theatrical devils in every costume and attitude and posture: painted red, they are dressed as kings, as lords, as judges, as merchants, as noblemen, as knights, as common people, of every era and time. They chatter, they laugh, they talk amongst themselves, nodding their horned heads and smiling with very white and very sharp teeth.
They take their places on the raised benches, all save one who sits at a table there before the benches, and Cain is put briefly in mind of a meeting or of a courtroom. They continue to talk and laugh. The devil at the table bangs a gavel and calls the assembly to order.
And all eyes--black, green, burning red, wolfish blue, golden--fix on Cain where he stands before this company of devils...
[ooc: Caution for some creepiness in this dream--as is customary, the latter half was inspired by a dream I had...last night, actually. Whoops. Cain's dream is open to all, though it's maybe less interactive than some of the previous times his dreams have been open. But feel free to explore the church even without Cain present (there are things behind different doors), feel free to speak to Cain while he's walking from one place to another (time is funny in dreams) and feel free to sneak in and listen to the devils, of course. Whatever you'd like!]
Comments: http://poly-chromatic.dreamwidth.org/1231835.html
I'm scared. What's that song? Where are we going? No. Don't open that door.
The door is open. Cain is put inside.
A bedroom. A sickroom. A deathbed.
To the left, the women who have cleaned the body, the undertaker, the priest. To the right, his family--all of them, a mass of black crepe and faces swimming in it, like masks laid on it. Some are crying, white handkerchiefs fluttering across the black mourning clothes.
My uncles and my aunts. And all my other relatives. The wail of the violin. The cloying smell of lilies.
A man speaks:
"Come here."
Cain is looking at the faces: shadowed, hollow, angular, masks, the suggestion of faces rather than real faces. The only one who seems to have a real face is a young girl, Cain's age or perhaps a little older, with auburn hair and striking blue eyes--
My cousin Suzette. My mother. Uncle Neil--he's Grandfather's sister's son. Why does he always look at me like that?
Cain is still being led, though he looks over his shoulder at the faces that stare down at him. He goes to the man who speaks, as he knows he must.
The bed there: massive, black wood, all the curtains of it drawn back, and the man laid on it dressed in his best suit. All the rings, crests, and family treasures are laid on him. These will soon be passed to another. His hands are folded as though in repose. He might only be resting. He is even wearing his shoes.
Beside him, beside the deathbed, stands another man, the one who spoke. Tall, cold, wearing glasses. He resembles both the dead man and Cain. This is the man to whom those treasures and titles will pass: the dead man's son.
"Cain, pay your last respects to your grandfather."
Cain is sent towards the deathbed. He is shaking. He is afraid--of the dead man, of his father, of death, of the things he does not understand. Still, he knows he must go.
He looks like a wrinkled wax doll.
And he is wrinkled, shriveled. He had fallen ill before his death. It was unexpected. How quickly he aged in the meantime. How wrinkled he was. Reaching out slowly, still afraid, Cain would touch the dead man's hand, he would do as he is told.
But, as he reaches--
The dead man wakes like one startled awake, roaring awake, leaping awake and grabs Cain's arm. Cain cannot scream, but he stares. The dead man's eyes are wild and fiery, and he will not let go of Cain's arm. He pulls Cain closer, looming over him, no eyes but only eyesockets, his face like leather, reaching for him with long, hooked fingers. He speaks with a crow's voice:
"You who would bring about the end of the world! Your name! You cannot resist the temptation of the woman from Philistia! You have that woman's blood in your veins and her prayers in her head. My godchild. Cain."
The lilies around around them burst like bombs, scattering petals. The crowd of mourners burst like the lilies or a flock of crows startled into flight. Cain tears his arm away and runs towards the door again--
--He should have passed back into the tall room from which he had come, but he does not. He is standing in a narrow street between a great mansion behind him and a church before him. The rooftops of the two buildings nearly touch. The mansion is unfamiliar, an amalgamation of houses seen in many different places. The church, though, is as much the City cathedral as it is Saint Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, as though the three were melted together and reformed.
There is a great commotion from inside the house and from within come a woman's screams, high and desperate. He runs across the narrow street and into the church.
It is quiet in the church, and dark, and cool. No longer the child he was at the first of this dream, he takes off his hat, as one should. He moves quietly in the shadows. There are a handful of people sitting there in the pews. And still that music--no hymn at all; far from it.
But what's going on here? These scattered people seem the remnants of the attendees of some ritual, some unseen wedding or funeral. But there is no sign of what could have taken place here. The candles give no sign.
Then: a woman's footsteps, the sounds of her skirts. She comes up to him there in between the columns. He knows her face, but her face changes moment to moment. She could be any of so many. She takes his hand without speaking and he follows.
She leads him along the far wall of the church, and down to a small and hidden door. They pass through the door and stand at the foot of a twisting wooden staircase. The wood is dark but there are great windows behind it.
The girl with the changing faces leads him up three flights of stairs, across a landing, down two flights, up another, then down another. They stand before another door, which she opens.
He enters, she does not. He understands why.
He must step down another short flight of stairs and then up another flight of stairs to enter the room properly. There is a door in that sunken landing. The room is small and square but very high and paneled in dark wood. There are windows the height of the whole room on one side (which show nothing but gray sky beyond) and rows of raised wooden benches.
As he stands there, with the windows behind him and the benches before him, the door in the landing opens. And through the door comes a great crowd of theatrical devils in every costume and attitude and posture: painted red, they are dressed as kings, as lords, as judges, as merchants, as noblemen, as knights, as common people, of every era and time. They chatter, they laugh, they talk amongst themselves, nodding their horned heads and smiling with very white and very sharp teeth.
They take their places on the raised benches, all save one who sits at a table there before the benches, and Cain is put briefly in mind of a meeting or of a courtroom. They continue to talk and laugh. The devil at the table bangs a gavel and calls the assembly to order.
And all eyes--black, green, burning red, wolfish blue, golden--fix on Cain where he stands before this company of devils...
[ooc: Caution for some creepiness in this dream--as is customary, the latter half was inspired by a dream I had...last night, actually. Whoops. Cain's dream is open to all, though it's maybe less interactive than some of the previous times his dreams have been open. But feel free to explore the church even without Cain present (there are things behind different doors), feel free to speak to Cain while he's walking from one place to another (time is funny in dreams) and feel free to sneak in and listen to the devils, of course. Whatever you'd like!]
Comments: http://poly-chromatic.dreamwidth.org/1231835.html