sortinghat_logs | Sweet dreams

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Sweet dreams

WHO: Kurloz & Rhys Rhydderch
TONE: Probably dark
RATING: R for disturbing themes
WHEN: 19th May - night time
WHERE: Starting in Slytherin dorms
WHAT: After Kurloz's first rather disastrous dream sharing with Rhys, this is attempt No. 2, going the other way around.
STATUS: Ongoing

It had taken some time for Kurloz to make peace with Rhys Rhydderch, but he'd done it nonetheless. After witnessing Rhys' disturbing memory from his youth, Kurloz now knew that no one else on campus was more likely to understand what he was going through than the eccentric Potions Master.

He didn't know when his dreams would have another visitor again, but he knew it would happen.

So that night, Kurloz set up his quill and journal by his bed as per usual and went to bed, slipping into darkness as he fell asleep.

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When Kurloz became aware again, he was standing in the middle of a lonely moor. Some distance away was a sign post, and the wind was blowing vigorously, making it fairly chilly. A strange, distant moaning sound, low and hollow and inhuman, drifted on the breeze, though it was impossible to tell from which direction.

Kurloz looked around with mild curiosity, filled with the calm of a dreamer. He distantly felt the chill and zipped up his jacket, beginning to walk towards the sign post since he saw no where else to go.

The main post seemed subtly askew, either tilted or planted at some wrong angle, it was hard to say. Each flag had a different direction on it, but they were impossible to read unless Kurloz focused his full attention on them, and then the letters swam into focus.

One said, Mother. Another said, Love. A third said, Power. And a fourth, Hidden.

Kurloz lightly runs his hand over the signs and their words, tilting his head with curiosity at how they're labelled. He had no idea which way to go, and it almost seemed like there were too many directions.

Licking his lips, he quietly murmured, "Which way do I go...?"

The signpost sat there, doing nothing. Apparently this was Kurloz's decision to make alone - it wasn't going to help him out.

Kurloz sighed and closed his eyes, waving his arm in a circle in front of him before stopping abruptly. When he peeked open one eye, he saw his finger more or less pointing at the Love sign and shrugged, turning to go in the direction it indicated. By now he was pretty sure he was dreaming, so what harm could it do?

The path led down the hill, winding around craggy outcrops, toward a small stream. It was more a brook, really, babbling merrily as it cut through the heather encrusted turf. The path meandered along the edge of the brook, but there was also a small coracle tied to the bank, bobbing in the water.

Well that was certainly pretty. Kurloz leaned over the bank to peer into the coracle, poking at it to see if it was stable before getting on it, untying the rope that anchored it to land.

As the coracle drifted free, caught up in the current, and started to float down the stream, a small cat uncurled from her hiding place at the prow. She was a pretty thing, sleek and black with luminous olive green eyes, and she mewed inquisitively at Kurloz before looking over the side at the water.

Kurloz smiled at the cat, marvelling at how she didn't seem scared of the water, but didn't move to try to touch her. He wasn't sure how the coracle would take to his jostling it, and for all he knew, the cat might not be too keen on being pet. Instead, he took in the scenery as they drifted along.

She seemed content with this for awhile, watching the fish in the water, or staring across at the occasional birds on the bank. They seemed to be coming off the moor now - trees were starting to sprout up, and it wasn't long before they were floating through a sunlight forest, cool and pleasant.

The cat abandoned her watchful perch, and came to crawl into Kurloz's lap, nosing his hand impatiently.

Smile growing, Kurloz began to gently scratch behind the cats ears, feeling so very much at peace with their surroundings. "Where do you think we be getting our travel on to, Miss Puss?" he asked quietly.

She miaowed conversationally, pressing her head into his hand with abandon. Her tail flicked a little, and she seemed very pleased with the arrangement herself. Meanwhile, the forest was growing darker and darker, the deeper they traveled into it, and little sparks of light would wink in and out now and then from the bank, or float over the stream, willow-the-wisps or lightening bugs or something.

There were stakes, now, too, shoved into the mud of the banks, hung with ragged clothes now and then. Nothing else, just the tatters of abandoned clothes, fluttering in the slight breeze. But no sign of who might have planted them.

Kurloz frowned at the tattered clothes, more creeped out by them than the darkening forest. Putting an arm around the cat to make sure she wouldn't fall out, he reached for one of the stakes as they started passing by it, wanting to get a closer look at the clothes hanging on it.

It was well anchored, and he nearly tipped the boat, but it finally popped free of the mud as the current carried them past. The clothes were mostly black at first - they appeared to be tattered robes - but underneath the first layer was a white shirt, a tie in black and yellow, and a skirt ... it seemed to be a Hogwarts uniform, for a girl.

The cat sniffed at it, and then hissed, pulling back.

"Shh, it's okay, puss." Pets the cat absently as he turns the tattered clothes this way and that in the boat so he could examine them better. "You got the knowings of who these belong to?" he asked the cat, not really expectin ga response.

She hissed again, scrambling to get out of his lap and hide under the seat. There was a Hufflepuff badge on the shirt, and then, written inside the collar the way some parents did to ensure their children's clothes were returned to the right owner, was the name "M. Leijon".

Kurloz paled when he saw the name and nearly dropped the clothes, sitting upright and looking around wildly. "Meulin? Kit, you here?" he called, the faintest note of panic in his voice. He almost forgot about the cat altogether but then dropped the robes in the boat before reaching around to tug the critter back into his lap. "C'mon puss, I ain't got the clothes on me no more. You know where Meulin's being at?"

The cat mewled pitifully, looking up at him with wide olive eyes and kneading fretfully at his thighs.

"... Meulin?" He frowned and stroked the fur on the cat's head. "What, did you get all hurrying up on your animagus form or some shit?"

She just cried pitifully again, headbutting his stomach as though trying to climb in to him. The forest had gotten completely dark now, only the white bits of cloth on the stakes shining out of the darkness, ghostly tatters. A whispering sound was drifting through the trees, too, words just on the edge of hearing and the occasional high note of feminine laughter.

Glancing around at the dark forest with a frown, Kurloz tried to find the source of laughter as he gathered the cat into his arms and held her protectively close. "Shh, I got you, kit. Ain't no fucker's getting you."

But there seemed to be no obvious source. And then there was an abrupt bump as the boat hit the shore and came to a halt, apparently snagged on something. The cat buried her face in Kurloz's neck, obviously terrified.

Kurloz stroked the cat's back and slowly stood, wobbling a bit in the boat before he got onto solid land. "Do you want to stay in the boat?"

Her claws dug into his shirt, providing the answer. Just then a white face appeared in the trees, ghostly and hollow eyed, yet somehow familiar in the brief glimpse before it disappeared.

Kurloz jumped at the white face and held the cat tighter before running after it.

It was so dark here, the trees all crowding in and seeming to conspire to stop him as he ran through them - branches catching at his hair, tangling roots beneath his feet, leaves whipping into his face. But the white face never seemed to quite disappear, though it did draw farther and farther ahead. Still, whatever body the face belonged to must have bneen stopping here and there, because it kept flashing back to look at Kurloz.

There was a dim light ahead, he could see now. A dim light growing brighter and brighter, to a warm yellow and orange glow - a fire of some sort. As he came closer, he could see that it was in the middle of a clearing, and it was rather large. And standing right in the center of it was a woman with dark hair, her back to him, the flames crackling up and down her body.

Kurloz approached the fire cautiously, slowing to a walk and holding the cat protectively to his chest. "Hey, you okay?" he called, assuming it was just a witch indulging in a bit of fire walking.

The woman turned slowly, and it is a witch ... but it was very clear that she was not protected, particularly, from the flames. Her skin was bubbling and cracking, the blood hissing as it hitthe heated air around her and turned to foul smelling smoke and steam. She held out her hands imploringly to him, and as an eddy of smoke clears, he can see her face.

It is his mother.

She's not begging him for help, though, her lips turned up in a hideous grimace, but beckoning him to come into the fire with her. She moves her lips to speak, but the heat has cooked her laryngx, and all that comes out is a dry croak.

His eyes widened with horror and he retched at the smell before gritting his teeth and hurriedly moving close to the fire to grab Maeve's hands. "Mam, come on, you got to be getting out of there now." His voice was deceivingly calm as he forced the mantra of 'this is just a dream' going in his head.

She laughed, and the sound was truly awful, pained and dry and rasping, and thenshe turned her hands to grab at his forearms, trying to pull him into the fire, too. Her grip was terribly strong, and when she touched, she burned him, too, excruciatingly.

The cat screamed, the way only cats can, like a terrible baby howling, and dug her teeth into the back of his pants, trying desperately to tug him back from the woman trying to pull him into the fire.

"You have to burn it away," Maeve croaked at him, barely audible. "It's bad, Kurloz, this is the only way we can be free of it, of you ... "

Grunting with pain, Kurloz tried to pull harder at Maeve's arms. His eyes stung from the smoke and pain but he just grit his teeth and kept pulling, turning his head to snap down at the cat, "Let go, you might get cooked too!"

Turning his attention back to his mother, Kurloz urged quietly, "Mam, you can't be staying here, come on, lets go home."

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Sweet dreams

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RNGs all over the place

I'm making it up as I go, so whatever I come up with was gonna be determined by your pick. XD

\o/

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