Lightscript Legends Episode 6
“Waking Dreams”
Light, shadow, and supernatural things that tend to intimidate humans…
The silent voice of the Lightscript returned to Skyvior later in the night, just as the rain ceased its drumming on the tin roof. The moment he lifted his head in response to the Author’s familiar call, Dravial’s head rose, too.
Elina shifted restlessly between them as they locked eyes across her sleeping form, feathers bristling all down their backs.
“Waking her in the Dreamscape?” Dravial’s feathers trembled with a deep chuckle. “Unwise decision, but I am in the mood for some sport.”
Skyvior cast a glance toward the locked chest at the foot of the bed, and a golden spark flared in his eyes.
“You may see something infected with light locked away in that old wooden box,” Dravial sneered, “but allow me to remind you that settings are quite like characters.” He unfurled his wings and inky black rivulets streamed through the fangs his smile bared. “They all have a dark side.”
The shadows Dravial breathed out crawled up the walls and slithered across the ceiling, tangling the entire cabin in a thicket of twisted black branches with smoking thorns and withered leaves.
Only two lights remained in the midst of those shuddering shadows ~ Skyvior, and a steady glow, burning like a golden ember, in the heart of the chest’s keyless lock.
Skyvior let out a breath of light that washed over Elina’s face like a ripple of cool water. She blinked twice, then sat bolt upright with a sharp gasp.
“Don’t be afraid,” Skyvior whispered.
“That’s right,” crooned Dravial. “It is only your ‘shadow friend’. Remember me?”
Wary recognition flickered across Elina’s face as Dravial’s form gradually took shape in front of her. There was no need to put on her glasses to clear her Dreamscape vision. It crystalized on its own, resulting in a startled cry strongly resembling the squeak of a mouse.
Dravial’s lips curled into an amused smile. However, that smile dissolved into a mildly annoyed expression when she hurled her pillow at him…followed by her alarm clock…then watch…then toothbrush…then hairbrush…
“Why do they always react like this?" Dravial sighed as the objects passed harmlessly through his seemingly solid form.
Skyvior shrugged his six wings. “It could be a number of things.” He began counting off possibilities on his crystalline claws. “Your formidable fangs, eery eyes, poison-tinted talons, smoking wings, the fact that you just materialized out of thin air in the middle of her bedroom… For some reason, such things tend to intimidate humans.”
“Enough!” Dravial snapped impatiently when a pencil shot through him like a dart, trailing a small puff of dark mist as it exited his back. “Can you not see that mere mortal objects have no effect on me?”
Skyvior grinned. “They actually are having an effect on your grand entrance.”
Elina paused from groping for potential projectiles and squinted in his direction as if she had heard his voice. “What…is that light?”
Skyvior’s eyes brightened. “You can see me?”
Dravial grunted, annoyed that she caught even a glimpse of the Lightshifter’s loathsome luminescence. “I assure you, it is something utterly insignificant. Now, will you stop tossing trinkets like a toddler in a temper, and pay me some proper attention?”
Elina continued staring toward Skyvior. “That light…” she murmured. “I know it from somewhere.”
Skyvior’s heart swelled as she reached a hesitant hand toward him. “When I was little, I made up stories about a shadow friend and…I think it was a…pet star?”
Dravial let out a guttural laugh that jerked Elina’s attention back in his direction. “Silly stories of pet stars are for weak little children who cower in fear of the dark for need of an imaginary nightlight. You, Elina Rune, are no longer a child.”
Elina drew her hand back and Skyvior’s light faltered in her vision, dimming to a faint, hazy glow. She cast a nervous glance around her shadow-entangled home, then turned back to Dravial with a shudder. “You know my name?”
The Shadowshifter smiled. “Oh, I know much more than that.”
Elina squeezed her eyes shut and pulled the covers up around her shoulders. “Wake up,” she mumbled. “It’s just a dream. Wake up.”
Dravial leaned in close enough for her to feel his breath brush her face. “You are awake. Awake in the Dreamscape. And if you stop throwing everything within reach at me, we should get along quite nicely here. After all, I am your source of inspiration.”
Elina reopened her eyes. She was beginning to recognize both Dravial and the sensation of waking within a dream, but the shadows were too thick to allow more than a glimmer of Skyvior’s memory through.
A hint of bitterness hardened her faltering voice. “What inspiration?”
Dravial chuckled. “My dear human, you know the ‘random’ ideas of true artists do not simply spring from their own minds. They are given to you.”
Elina’s stare grew intensely suspicious. “If you gave me my inspirations, why did you ‘inspire’ me to burn them?”
Dravial rolled his eyes. “Because some of that work did spring from your own mind, and therefore fell under the category of pathetic practice attempts in need of annihilation, rather than inspired art.” He cast a brief sideways glance at Skyvior. “And then there were some fanciful fragments inspired by lesser sources than myself. Those also needed to be cleared away to make space for superior stories.”
Elina drew the blanket higher up on her neck. “Just…just leave me alone and go haunt someone else. I’m tired of bizarre dreams and done with legends.”
“You are done with childishly fanciful fairytales,” Dravial corrected. “And at my recommendation, I might add. But just wait until I open up this place like a book for you…”
With that, he dropped through the floor of the loft, like ink poured from a bottle, his form dissolving into fluid shadows that streamed tracelessly through the cracks between the boards.
🏔️💫Lightscript Legends💫🌲 is an ongoing series of bite-sized stories and sip-on-the-go serials. Click here for the full list of published episodes and subscribe to get new installments in your inbox!