Dream of the Undead King Finished

OOC: This story contains mature themes; namely, it is about coping with Death. You might not want to read this if you are easily triggered. However its content is purely PG-13 or below.

Aida returned to the swing that she had constructed earlier on the grounds overlooking the Forbidden Forest. It was afternoon and she had just run here after enduring yet another severe claustrophobic attack during class. Clambering onto the crude but sturdy rope-and-wood swing that hung from a low oak, Aida began to rock back and forth as she cried. She was really trying to do well in class, but closing her eyes during her episodes was beginning to have less and less of a positive effect. Her ability to imagine herself in her secret cave during bouts of claustrophobia was faltering, and Aida feared her memory of the cave was beginning to slip after so long away from it. With her eyes closed she tried to remember the geometry of its dark rocky canvas –where this stalagmite rose, where that flowstone wept, and that dank petrichor-like scent. Was her mind corroding so much? A whole section now seemed inaccessible in her memory, like she would reach for it but there was nothing there. The lack of sleep from her recurring nightmares was also beginning to fragment Aida’s reality and she didn’t know what she could do to overcome the resulting insomnia. The rocking of the swing was something, at least.

Then, Aida wasn’t quite sure how she came to be on the ground. So extreme was her sleep deprivation that it felt as if time had skipped forward on her. Laying there in the grass she was finally taken back into slumber. Aida’s healing, safe void that was sleep was, however, not to pass without the intrusions of dreams. This time, however, there would be a different dream. This time it would not be of her parents locked inside of cells in Azkaban. No, this time it would be worse.

A raven-headed columnade stretched around Aida in a circle in repeating fashion, and there at the front of it stood a man with skin the color of the night sky and a long bluish black mane of hair. He was armored and wearing a sword, looking quite displeased. He seemed to be disappearing slowly as some of his black features lost their shine and receded into the dark. His left arm was nearly gone.

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His presence was unmistakable in any form to Aida’s mind. This was her beloved Manticore, anthropomorphized by her dream. He still smelled like a horse, even, and the smell of wet grass.

“I won’t forget you, Manticore, I won’t...” she whimpered, but another part of his shoulder twinkled and faded out of existence. “I’m sorry that I killed you. I mean, I tried to stop Sean but I just couldn’t reach you. I’m so sorry, I – ... I'm sorry that I brought your wall down. I was too foolish to deserve your trust...” The vision of Manticore grew increasingly skeletal and he raised his sword high, mouth opening as if in a silent scream. Aida would not move, however. The sword wobbled in the man’s grip until it slipped and fell into the earth between them. Lurching forward, the man’s face looked like a skull with shockingly white orbits and blue irises the color of a sky shard. His pupils were white and terrified. No matter how much Aida tried to apologize, the man grew only more ghastly. Then, with his final lunge at Aida she reached out to catch him, but he dissolved into the darkness. And then there was black.

Only black. The columnades had vanished and Aida was alone. Just like she had kept wanting to be in the cave – alone. So terribly, terribly alone. What once was a comfort, the black void now yielded no solace. Manticore was gone. It was quiet. There was nothing. Looking around everywhere, and shouting, screaming his name, there was no echo. She could only hear herself. No affirmation. He was gone forever. No matter whom Aida blamed, nothing would bring him back. The finality of the silence was as terrifying as the lack of air in Outer Space. It seemed as if the silence would begin to eat away her existence next, like the freezing cold stealing away one’s life force. Soon Aida had no more tears. She became empty.

But no, Aida thought. I can’t disappear like this. There are things… something… there is something waiting for me on the other side. I don’t… someone has to be waiting for me… not my parents, and not Manticore… what about all the creatures who suffer? Aida said to herself, but Aida was not convinced. Then maybe Alexander, maybe… he would miss me? Where did Olphie go? Where are my parents… No, Alexander would just be a little sad, maybe, and move on. I don’t think he really cares for me that much. I wonder what will happen to Dealla. I wonder what will happen to Alaric. And professor Price. Where is the headmaster, and where is Griffith? Are we all going to the other side? I can’t go, there has to be something... The darkness continued to be the only thing in existence, on and on. There was no respite. There were no walls, sure, no confinement to close in on her, but Aida could not go on like this. I have to make something from this. It can’t just end like this.

Lumos. It was a voice. Aida did not know whose. She could not even cast spells. Aida was not even magical. She had been put here by mistake because of her strange appearance. Lumos maxima! A brilliant light transformed the darkness into an endless white void, but now when Aida looked down she could see herself. She had a wand in her hand in fact. Raising the wand up to look at it, however, Aida felt it surging with power as the wood curled and grew, taking over her arm and twisting into the trunk of a tree. No! cried Aida, but she did not know the counterspell. Looking down at the rest of her body she saw that she was transforming into a pale horse. Her legs were stretching out into an equine torso with hooves while her hair grew longer and thicker, like a horse’s mane. No! called Aida, I can’t become you, Manticore! If you take me over, then I will cease to be...

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Aida needed to halt the transformation, but her wand was now a tree, even if she did know the counterspell. What was worse, her vocal cords were also transforming and soon she would not be able to speak human words anymore. She needed wandless magic. She needed non-verbal magic. But alas, poor Aida was not even magical in the first place.

Nox, came the voice. Everything went dark again, and still. Aida knew that she could not reach Manticore with her words because he was dead. He would never hear her apologies or her weeping. And yet, it was too much of a tragedy to just let it end like this. If she could just prevent others from turning out like Manticore, that would have to be enough. That would have to be her apology so that something living could actually benefit from it. With a sigh, Aida kneeled down and began to feel the ground. Suddenly she realized there was a shape there. A little mound, a stalagmite. She was back in her cave and she knew the way. Groping around, Aida began to feel familiar features. The weeping flowstone, pointing east. The crystal-lined lake, and the narrow passage leading out of the cavern’s ballroom. The features were all still there in her memory, newly remembered, and clambering out from the final crawlspace, Aida emerged into the bright light of the outdoors. The trees were an insanely brilliant shade of green and the sky… was the same color as the undead king’s eyes.

Soon, Aida could smell wet grass again, but there was a new smell with it this time. She could not identify it. Pushing out through the reeds and shrubs into the woods, Aida scanned the area until she saw a large black form pawing the ground peacefully. At once Aida recognized the beast from her reading of books – it was a thestral. The beast was black, much as Manticore was, but instead of the overflowing musculature of a youthful Andalusian, the thestral was thin to the point of being skeletal. Its face was curved like a dragon’s beak and graceful large bat wings folded back behind it. Suddenly, a rush of hope and excitement began to overtake Aida. Can I, should I earn its trust? she wondered. She did not have a good answer to that question, but Aida decided to try to learn from her mistakes and move on, even if it meant hurting what she loved again. The alternative was the lack of love and care, and Aida could not find that acceptable.

Within her dream, Aida wondered what it would be like to fly on the back of a thestral. Having ridden horses from the tender age of 3, she deeply understood the need for a profound bond of trust to be formed with such a creature. However, before she could consider it much longer, Aida saw her arms beginning to fade out into white, much as she had seen happen to the undead king. Her dream was ending, and Aida could feel it. This time, though, it was okay. She would make things be okay from now on.

Image:Aida awoke to the intense blue sky and the smell of green grass, lying on the ground by her swing. Silently thanking whatever it was that had overtaken her, Aida got up and headed back towards the castle. During her next herbology class, when she was expecting to fail at spell-casting as usual, Aida was shocked to find that she executed her very first intentional spell flawlessly (i.e. the Fire Making Spell). From that point on, Aida could finally make magic and she came to know that she was a witch/wizard after all. Whether it was the removal of a mental block or something more mysterious, Aida would forever afterwards associate her Undead King with awakening the gift of magic.

Credit to Brom for his original paintings that I sloppily butchered.
This thread has ended. Aida leaves the area.