Cri 12, 229 : Dreaming of Music

Dreaming of Music
Summary: After receiving a poppy within the milk, Nylie seeks to see if it was the message or the path to the message.
OOC Date: 12/April/2014 (OOC)
Related: Any where Eoin and Nylie have discussed putting out milk and the poppy that showed up.
Players:
Lughdon Nylie 
Dreams
The world of dreams.
It is day 12 of the month of Cri, 229 2E

The words in the letter at what the gift of the poppy might mean, a path to recieving a message had been turned about in Nylie's head. She was not unfamiliar with the old God that had been referenced, she was more familiar then many would know. How long had she given offerings in thanks to Him for the musical gifts had? A spoon mixed the poppy into her tea, a soft breathe had come before she drank the cup down this night. It was always an odd sort of thing to almsot see the music as much as hear it, that transition between the waking world and dream, of sleep. It did not take long for it to take hold, she had some skill in the way of an apohticrist and had figured the amount properly, not to much, not to little. Her eyelids heavy and closing as her head hit the pillow, the poppy induced sleep claiming.

It is at first a normal enough sleep if deep. The sort that begets rest without dreams. There is no sense of how long that lasts into the growing evening and into the night. When Nylie begins to be vaguely aware, in a drifting sort of way, of images and impressions … they seem to be random. Things that had been tugging at her subconscious she wasn't even aware of that her mind was drawn to. Eventually the dream drifts into a more focused sense of being home, back in Sky Forest. Familiar places. Forest Hall and the garden there, as well as meandering trails that wend and weave their way through the friendly forest of her youth. Comfortable images, happy impressions.

It is spring and at Nylie's feet dwarf crested iris bloom along the path, sprays of low blue-purple flowers touched with golden yellow throats. A few trees have begun to bloom and bud out but for the most part the woods are not yet awakened, the trees mostly bare. The sunlight is warm, pleasant, without being hot. She walks along a path without fear, one she has trod before if only she could remember when. Disconnected from such details. It makes it's way through the landscape and slowly finds it's way into a grove of very old trees, bent and gnarly with age. The roots reach down through jumbled stones that show through in places through the thick leaf cover of the autumn before. The path itself begins to become mossy in places, more twisting as it makes it's way through the old trees and there on her left is the trace of a mostly fallen stone wall.

Though surely not quite the dreamless sleep brought about by certain little orange spiders. A thing that proves true in time as there is that drift of images that starts to come, the hint of impressions as her subconscious mind is allowed more freedom and say with the affect of the poppy. There was a faint breathe that slowly slipped as that sense of home came, the freedom of being back in the gardens, of times when there was less worry and responsiblity.

Toes give a faint wiggle within the grass, Nylie smiling to see the blooms along the path. Fingers reaching to lightly brush over them. The color a welcome sight after the winter, the signs of life returning once more. Dressed ever simply as she walked the path bare footed, without any hint of fear. The forest was her home. A quiet word of thanks, humble reverence yet given over to the ancient trees that were found within that grove. A flickering smile to feel the cool moss under her toes when she passes over those sections of the path. A curiosity coming as she notes the stone wall. Drifting to take a closer look, to brush away some of the leaf cover upon it.

The wall is very old and much weathered. Lichens bespeckle it, a few small ferns and other plants stick out of it lower down where there is more moisture. It is rough hewn and to what purpose it once served is not clear. The stones do not appear to be cut, simply dry stacked long, long ago. It could have been for livestock or to help keep the creek below from flooding some long gone homestead above that has not lasted through time, forgotten.

The path continues, meandering along the creek. It is used by people or animals for brush does not overrun it, eager for the light when the trees are leafed out. Birds sing and the creek burbles lightly, natural sounds. Yet what is that? For a breath there is a sound like .. what? A flute? It teases and then is gone. Was she imagining it? No, wait, there it is again. Softly played and not far, not afar at all. Somewhere just ahead where the wall climbs a bit higher and the trees thicker. A wild rose of a no longer cultivated kind rambles over the partly fallen wall ahead, vines starting to break with buds if not full leaves. Is there an opening in the wall ahead?

Along to her right the creek continues, stones beginning to show along it's edge that have been gathered and set there long ago. Some have washed away, yet others linger in a low wall rising on that side as well, though only knee high at most. Not like the wall on the left side that rise high enough further down the path higher than Nylie's head. Yet the two are well apart so that the path has room to meander with trees, not closing in. Whatever lays ahead on the left is obescured by the old stonework.

After the brief pause to take in the wall better, Nylie is back to padding down the path. It like many of the paths in being kept open in the fashion of use, but not really overly used. Pausing with a tilt of her head when there is that hint of something more amongst the sounds of nature, that turn of musical notes from some flute. Breathe held as she waits, wondering if she had imagined it, but not there it was again. Turning her head to better catch the sound, the notes of it and picking the direction from which they seemed to drift.

Nylie moving further along the path with the music seeming to come from up ahead. A quiet smile to take in the wild rose, the beauty that the forest hid and many missed out on. Though her eyes drift back to the wall that builds, seeking to see if there is opening to find the source of the music, that who plays it. Her smokey eyes flickering as the beginning of a wall also takes up along the creek, the path almost seeming a old hall between the long forgotten walls. Not wishing to disrupt the music, yet with it being hidden behind the wall there is eventually a soft,"Hello?" that is risked.

There is a doorway sized opening in the old wall. It lets into a courtyard of sorts, a space roughly 100 feet long and wide. Another opening lays at the further end on the opposite wall, some of that wall crumbled and fallen in places. Apple trees there are sprouting up in here, far younger than the builders of the walls even if the trees are now aged. The first blooms have broken, the leaves not yet open more than the tips. Pink that open to white. Bees buzz through happily from tree to tree. At the far end a figure sits on an old stone bench, hunched over a bit and playing the pipes low, softly. Some of the wall shades the figure who is dressed in commoner brown, a robe perhaps that spills from the lap. Sunlight glints on golden brown curls of hair, a bearded face of a man as he plays.

If Nylie should begin to advance, near to the bench she can see a standing stone that is so old that it has broken, toppled over so that the upper half lays in the moss and grass near to the wall.

A hand lightly touches upon the doorway as Nylie passes through it. Her eyes taking in the courtyard that lays beyond the doorway, a thing long under used and forgotten, much like the walls that surround it. The signs of spring that show upon the apple trees do keep a light smile to her lips, Nylie did enjoy those walks in the woods. The world that existed upon the path few took the time to remember and walk. Her eyes falling upon the figure that played, the source of the music. She did begin to approach, her steps slow as she tried to move softly yet. To not mar the music that came so softly. The man was taken in, his simple appearance. A flicker of a frown in seeing the stone broken, not unexpected with so much that was worn and weathered in this area. But some thought of the care taken to other standing stones in other walks. A fleeting thought as her eyes are drawn back to the man, drifting to take a seat a ways off, simply to the courtyard itself as the song is taken in.

The man plays a slow, almost mournful tune for such a fine, lovely spring day. The notes are not of a song known to her but it is an old tune, one easily remembered upon the mind. One she might play, if she wished, should she listen and care to try and commit it to memory. The man, who looks to be slightly past his prime but not yet grey haired finishes the song and lays the small multiple pipes in his lap, his gaze to turn upon Nylie.

"Have you given up your music, child? Do you not wish to play?" His voice is soft, low. A fatherly, kind voice. His eyes however look to be the eyes of a blind man, the pupiles opaque and pale like smoke. And yet he seems to study her from where he remains seated.

A wren flits to the top of the wall behind him, then drops down to seek around the broken stone for insects and good things to eat. There are much faded marks cut into that once standing stone, swirls and runes, small pocked places. A fern curls up fiddle heads in a tuft against the old stone.

It is a song that is listened to and slowly commited to memory, partially out of habbit. Her knees get drawn up as she listen to the mournful tune, her head allowed to rest upon it. Even for the spring day, she does not find it so out of place, so much of the spring had been a mournful time. The quetions that come cause her to blink, her head rising from that place it had rested upon her knees. A slight study made of him, as if trying to figure if she knew him to be able to ask those questions. But eventually she was shaking her head,"I wish to play, to find my music again. I lost it in the pain that came that night….I lost so much at once. I hear it yet…." her eyes flit to take in the wren at the movement by the stone, looking somehwere but him as he seems to be studying here even if he would have the eyes of a blind man. "…I am afraid of where I will go to return to it. If all there will be is the mournful memories and the hurt that will come with it. Of what I will become now. I was as free and flowing as the music and now everything changes."

"Change is necessary in the cycle of life. Without change, there is only death." The voice has shifted even as he … or maybe it's a she, spoke. The figure stands, very carefully and now as if frail. A long fingered hand is put out, the hand of an elderly woman to the stump of the fallen stone. "Like the maen hir, the standing stone, time changes everything and new stones must be erected to replace the old. Else they will be forgotten." She is smaller now, wrapped in a pale shawl and wearing a worn brown skirt. Silvered hair is in a loose braid over her shoulder, the pipes yet in her other hand. Those same eyes watch Nylie, "Will your music be forgotten, child? You have not forgotten me."

The wren finds spider eggs tucked beneath the edge of the old stone, unworried that the old woman will accost it as it hops through the fern.

"There has been so much…change," murmurs Nylie. Though her eyes are drawn back to the figure as it starts to stand, a slight blink as it has seemed to change. Man to woman, yet frail. "There are stones yet, people who remember, even if there are not many who do." Had she not been taught the danger of sharing what she did when she took her walks into the forest? That not all would understand. Nylie's head canted as she watched the continued change that came upon the figure, their clothes as well. "No, it will not be forgotten, I wish for it again, I need it yet….." A hand flitting to the small fold in her skirts, with drawing the simple tailmans she had carried since she was but a small child, the leather with the small stone and the swirls it bore,"you are always with me, so I do not forget. I have just become.." She frowns a little,"…lost within the chaos of the change. I have been trying to find the path again to the music."

"Your heart will guide you, if you let it." The old woman is smaller still, getting tiny, thin. Nylie can't /quite/ see the change happening but it's there, her voice now seeming to be younger. "I remember the stone." She says. The child tucks her pale white-blond hair back behind her ears, still in a braid. She smiles brightly, eyes smokey pale as before. Yet she skips away from the fallen stone, a happy child dragging what had been the old woman's shawl. The child stops to pick a flower from the grass to bring it to Nylie, "Do you like children? My sister might swell your belly and bring you such joy that will fade the pain."

The tiny yellow buttercup is offered to the Duchess. The child looks perhaps four years old now, blind, and yet looks right at Nylie. The pipes she has tucked into the belt around her shift. The smile fades, "There are few stones now. They are forgotten. Even the Gods forget in time. They die away when no one remembers them anymore."

"I have been listening to much with my head, my thoughts," this Nylie does admit to. "Thinking to much, not simply being as I should." Her fingers curling back around the stone, that which has travelled Morbin with her, to the Aberdeen lands, to everywhere she had been sent. A quiet smile forming to see the child skipping along, the carefree way the shawl is dragged along. "Aye, I do like children and would not mind to have them," the idea does raise a blush to her cheeks. Married life was yet quite new to the woman.

The small yellow flower is accepted, a hand raised for fingers to lightly take it from the child. Nylie frowns a little,"It is not something that should be forgotten, who will give us the music to hear to find, if the stones become no more? If no one remembers? Does it become echos that fade and die away as well?"

The child, who is taller now and maybe older looks uncertain. Her hair is less pale, darkening. "I don't know. I think … someone would keep the music. I have shared dreams with them and now … they all use them. Some of them would retain the memory of such joys, if not of myself. I would hope. But sometimes … the dark one makes things lost. Consumes them and hides them. It too is part of change, necessary."

The youth, a boy with dusky skin and brown hair looks at Nylie with his milky eyes, "I want you to remember my music. The stones. Raised long ago over the dead who are forgotten. The King went into the earth but no maen hir was raised for him. He can not hear my music nor feel the wind." The boy looks saddened. "He is decended of the blood but they do not remember."

Likely Nylie doesn't understand half of what the boy, growing into a man, says to her. The tiny buttercup in her fingers has altered to a red poppy, like the one that had been left in the bowel on her windowsill. The bright orange-red is so pretty, yet it darkens like the boy's skin, turning to the color of blood.

Indeed much of what is said is not quite understood by Nylie, the answer that comes to her questions. The way of the gods and their reltionships to one another, far beyond the mortal. The only thing making sense perhaps being that change is ever a constent in all things. "I will remember your music, I will play again." Nylie frowns a little at the talk of the King,"He should be able to hear the music, he adored it so. He always encouraged it of me, it is what brought he and I together." If it were not the King he meant, it is still the King fresh in her mind. "My adored cousin should always have music. " There is a pause before she questions,"If I were to raise one for him, would he hear it again? Again have music?"

A blink coming as she looks to the flower in her fingers, the blood red poppy, was it not a yellow buttercup that she took up. Canting her head a little, likely mistaken surely.

The flower is drying up, like old dried blood turned brittle and brown. The man who stands now before her is as dark as coffee, almost black of skin. Muscular but not unduly so. His own skin is partly bared over his chest, marked with black inked lines that curl like vines or smoke up his middle and over his face. He is not like a man Nylie has ever seen before. Tallish, thick lips, flattish nose, milky-smoke eyes and shorn dark hair. Now is is dressed only in a long strip of cloth wrapped around his loins and draped over his arm with surprising elegance, like some ancient ruler of some extremely distant land.

His voice has deepened considerably, "I can not reach him. Nor his wife who was taken, lost to the Dark One. There is no music for him anymore. Only silence." Lughdon lifts his head slightly and looks at the sky or the distance as though he could see something not of this world, elsewhere. "I am not certain. A stone raised for him may help him hear … to feel while he waits. If his body laid beneath it, it is certain I could reach him. But where he lays now? I can not." A faint shake of his head as he looks back to Nylie, "I do not think they would let you move him. Some things are not within my power. There are others who are stronger. I am faded."

Even as the last words are offered, whispery and thinner, it seems Nylie can see the wall and the apple trees through him. Fading, smoky, not as solid as the figure was before. "I must regain strength … or go to rest. Nothing lingers to stay the same. It is your choice."

The drying flower as it turned brittel becomes cupped tenderly within Nylie's hand, trying to keep it from shattering least from her own doing. Though her attention has strayed back to the now man before her. Some manner of awe for the rather exotic apperance that has come now within the figure, the elegance to him. A figure of beatuy and art in some way.

The thought of Callem having only silence saddens Nylie deeply,"He should not have to wait in silence. I…" She sighs, her eyes dropping to her hand with the drying flower,"I doubt he could be moved….but…" She frowns a little, thoughts coming. Things to ponder over. Surely something could be done within the catacombs? "Something must be possible. He does not deserve silence, not when he loved music so. "

Her eyes come back up,"Faded, but not forgotten. " Blinking to see the apple trees through him, how hazy he has become. "The music must not be lost….you must not be lost. "

"It matters little, to most. You must follow your heart, child. Find your music, but do not rush in haste. Open yourself to it in due time. Then new things may grow." He smiles, almost gone, almost impossible to see now. The dried flower remains in her hand, the color of his departed skin.

Nylie sits in the courtyard filled with old apple trees starting to bloom. The maen hir lays broken, the wren having flitted off. She is alone now, though if she listens carefully she might hear a whisper of the flute's music, or perhaps it is the murmur of the creek outside.

"It matters to me, to others, even if not as many as it should matter to." Nylie nods and draws a small breathe,"I will listen and follow, and find my music again. I know it is there yet. I will let it grow again, the notes to multiple as they did at the start." A quiet smile coming as Nylie does remember the first time a song came, the turn of notes brought from her fingers. A small blink though to find herself alone, yet unsurprised. Her eyes closing to hear the music, ears picking it out upon the winds, perhaps it is the murmur of the creek, or simply something yet born and found within the sound of the water moving. Had she not found music within the sounds of the forest as easily as within the air before.

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