Submission (#6571) Approved

As they settled into camp that night, Neither Mercury nor Holst could claim to be totally at ease. They stuck close together as they foraged, and built the fire a little larger than was strictly needed. They had passed a friendly local nin on their way, and warned them of the strange veil that had brought them to a far away region. Holst had brought up the ruined shrine they had encountered at the start of their delivery journey, and the other nin’s hackles had raised.

A Daeva, they had said, and Mercury had felt the shivers of thousand scary stories run down their spine. A Daeva. A lurking monster, a shadow come alive. The unfortunate consequence of so many of the stories he had heard told around campfires, in the corners of taverns, and whispered in the dark of back alleys.

It was all Mercury could think about as he tossed and turned, trying to fall asleep. He lay with his eyes closed, Holst curled up close by. He sighed, and finally began to relax, when suddenly, the campfire flickered. Once, twice, and then a third and final time before it went out entirely. His eyes shot open, and with a pounding heart he was sure you could hear, he glanced out of their tent. A few small embers lay in the bottom of the firepit. 

He sighed, realizing he must have just been drifting in and out of sleep, and emerged front he tent to lay another log on the fire. As he moved, however, he found himself enveloped in the strange veil he and Holst had crossed earlier that day. It gathered close, and he tried to push through it, but found it to be impassible. Like some kind of strange room, it began to close him in, squeezing the breath out of him as it swallowed him up in colors shifting in a dizzying swirl. Suddenly, he found himself slipping down, as if pulled into the vortex of the veil.   

He landed on one of the prominent roots of Ealei’s elder trees and he took several shaky breaths as he regained the ability to breathe. He took a moment to regain his calm before a creeping fear began to envelop him. He glanced behind himself to see the veil slowly moving towards him, an inescapable wall.

Terrified, he began to run down the root, hopping from each coiling limb as he got farther and farther from the main limb. It felt as if his feet could not move fast enough, like he was wading through the deep waters that roiled beneath him. Further and further he ran, never stopping. Every time he glanced behind him the veil seemed closer and closer. 

Finally, he ran onto an impossibly long and thin tree root suspended over the boiling oceans of Ealei. He slipped, and then clung to the root, staring horrified at the angry near black water beneath. In it, he could see a strange glowing white ring. To his horror, it began to emerge from the ocean before him, ever so painfully slowly. He realized as it rose that it was encircling the head of a horrible creature. It was far too large, it’s single eye larger than he was. The horrible glow of the fractal white halo illuminated its long face and terrible teeth, all of the crags and jags and spikes of its terrible black armor.

Its form was made of that horrible swirling veil, its claws forged out of the remains of cracked shrines. It felt to him as if it would rend the very earth itself with those impossible long and sharp claws. His breath was knocked out of him as the beast looked down, and he could think only one terrible, fateful thought.

Daeva

He screamed, his voice lost in the horrible howling of the wind whipped sea, and the beast simply laughed. It leaned down towards him, its impossibly long back arching and encircling him like a snake. Its terrible swirling eye fixed on him and came far too close as its horrifyingly toothy maw opened, the smell of decay washing over him.

“MERCURY”

It rattled in his chest, shaking him to the core. He had nowhere to go. 

 “MERCURY”

It came again, so horribly loud and rasping. How? How did it know his name?

“Mercury!” 

Mercury awoke with a gasp, all of his fur on end. He realized he was panting, too warm even in the cold night air. Holst hovered in front of him, worriedly extending a hand towards his nose. 

“Mercury, there you are! You’ve been having some kind of a nightmare.”

Mercury stared at his companion, then to the healthily lit campfire. He nodded, feeling a trickle of a tear drip down his face. 

“Yeah. I- I was. Just a nightmare.”

The bean nodded, gently wiping the tear off the kittom’s face. 

“It was the veil, and then a Daeva. It was . . .”

Mercury fell silent, staring at the campfire. Holst nodded, and started gently stroking their companion’s ear. Caduceus popped up to his side, giving him a tiny hug. The three of them sat together in silence, watching the sparks rise from the fire. Holst began to hum a low melody as the breeze drifted over the moonlit field before them. Slowly, Mercury’s eyes grew heavy. The firelight faded as he began to slip away, this time to the sweet tones of an unfamiliar but comforting song from a familiar friend. The rest of his night was a blissfully dreamless sleep.