Cain Hargreaves (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
misterblackbird) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
poly_chromatic2013-04-10 07:43 pm
misterblackbird) wrote in poly_chromatic2013-04-10 07:43 pm
Entry tags:
Le Rêve
[The room is very large. Or, perhaps, Cain is very small. If one has met him during a curse when he was made again into a child, perhaps he looks familiar. He is three or four years old, and waiting in one of the grand rooms of his family's mansion--castle. The faces of ancestors look down on him. The room arches away over him. He has been brought here by one of the servants. They don't speak to him. She doesn't speak to him now. They scarcely have faces in this dream. Eyesockets without eyes, but scowling. Silently, the maid scolds him. Roughly, she takes his arm and leads him across the acres of floor to the door on the far side. He resists, but she insists.
I'm scared. What's that song? Where are we going? No. Don't open that door.
The door is open. Cain is put inside.
A bedroom. A sickroom. A deathbed.
To the left, the women who have cleaned the body, the undertaker, the priest. To the right, his family--all of them, a mass of black crepe and faces swimming in it, like masks laid on it. Some are crying, white handkerchiefs fluttering across the black mourning clothes.
My uncles and my aunts. And all my other relatives. The wail of the violin. The cloying smell of lilies.
A man speaks:
"Come here."
Cain is looking at the faces: shadowed, hollow, angular, masks, the suggestion of faces rather than real faces. The only one who seems to have a real face is a young girl, Cain's age or perhaps a little older, with auburn hair and striking blue eyes--
My cousin Suzette. My mother. Uncle Neil--he's Grandfather's sister's son. Why does he always look at me like that?
Cain is still being led, though he looks over his shoulder at the faces that stare down at him. He goes to the man who speaks, as he knows he must.
The bed there: massive, black wood, all the curtains of it drawn back, and the man laid on it dressed in his best suit. All the rings, crests, and family treasures are laid on him. These will soon be passed to another. His hands are folded as though in repose. He might only be resting. He is even wearing his shoes.
Beside him, beside the deathbed, stands another man, the one who spoke. Tall, cold, wearing glasses. He resembles both the dead man and Cain. This is the man to whom those treasures and titles will pass: the dead man's son.
"Cain, pay your last respects to your grandfather."
Cain is sent towards the deathbed. He is shaking. He is afraid--of the dead man, of his father, of death, of the things he does not understand. Still, he knows he must go.
He looks like a wrinkled wax doll.
And he is wrinkled, shriveled. He had fallen ill before his death. It was unexpected. How quickly he aged in the meantime. How wrinkled he was. Reaching out slowly, still afraid, Cain would touch the dead man's hand, he would do as he is told.
But, as he reaches--
The dead man wakes like one startled awake, roaring awake, leaping awake and grabs Cain's arm. Cain cannot scream, but he stares. The dead man's eyes are wild and fiery, and he will not let go of Cain's arm. He pulls Cain closer, looming over him, no eyes but only eyesockets, his face like leather, reaching for him with long, hooked fingers. He speaks with a crow's voice:
"You who would bring about the end of the world! Your name! You cannot resist the temptation of the woman from Philistia! You have that woman's blood in your veins and her prayers in her head. My godchild. Cain."
The lilies around around them burst like bombs, scattering petals. The crowd of mourners burst like the lilies or a flock of crows startled into flight. Cain tears his arm away and runs towards the door again--
--He should have passed back into the tall room from which he had come, but he does not. The room he stands in now is all dark red. Everything in it is the same shade of dark red. Only the textures and shadows make anything stand out. The room stretches away for hundreds of yards overhead, disappearing into the dark like a tower. Cain is older now. There is a door on either side of him. He wanders from side to side, and leaves bloody footprints where he walks. He moves as though in pain. He is barefoot, bareheaded, in his shirtsleeves.
From the room on the other side of one of the doors, a woman screams, "I don't want it to be born."
A voice from another room, a man's voice, familiar, kind, says, "Come this way." Cain follows that voice. It's like a hand reaching out to lead him. He follows.
But he stumbles and he falls through the wrong door.
Now the room is white, but gray in early morning light. It is a ruined room in a grand manor, a grand country estate. This should be the staircase, that should be the entrance, beyond should be the rooms. Or perhaps it is the foyer and staircase of the Opera Abandoned. Perhaps.
The walls are painted white, the stairs are painted white, the floor is tiled in white and black marble. It is a vast and empty room. The light that drifts into the room is the cold, pale light of early morning. The room is gray as much as it is white in this light. The windows that now loom up behind and beyond and above him are dressed in white gauze that lifts and falls in the morning wind--loose bandages, burial shrouds, a bride's veil. They are ghostly coverings to the windows, and they are tattered. Indeed, the whole of the room is something of a ruin: the plaster is rotten and falling, the paint is peeling, the curtains are falling from the windows, there is dust on every surface. This is a house of the dead.
But more and worse: there are stains on the floor. The tiling, it seems, falls into patterns: chessboard regularity and harlequin alternation further out, but in the middle of the room, there under the great dome and lantern above, it moves into circles and rings and into overlapping lines that trace out patterns he has seen before. These are the markings for ritual. He has seen them in London, on maps and in coffins. These are signs he knows but does not believe.
He moves closer. His footprints are still bloodied. But there is more and older blood spread in the great circle. It to marks lines for sacrifice and ritual. White candles burned to their ends and piles of black feathers ring the whole. He knows these well: the remnants of ritual.
He has not yet looked up.
He looks up.
Standing in the center of these circles is a beam, a post, a stake, a rail. It stands upright and set into the floor as if the beam was set first and the house grew around it. Here, then, is the sacrifice: something--no, someone hangs from the post, pinned to the post with an iron spike through (his? her?) his throat. It is as much crucifixion as it is hanging, as much hanging as it is crucifixion. It is not an old sacrifice, it is not an old death.
Cain creeps closer. He does not recognize what remains of the face. He did not expect to. Nearer on now one can see that the sacrificial offering was dressed simply, though now the shirt he was wearing is ripped and torn. Cain knows and knows well whose sacrifice this is and must be. He stands before the body, considering it. He must have crawled through dust and brambles to arrive in this place, for even Cain's clothes are ruined now. He bleeds from his feet and from the thousand small wounds from the unseen thorns even as this sacrifice bled.
The sunlight is gray. He regards the sacrifice. The wind moves softly through the ruined room.
Then, for reasons he himself cannot perhaps entirely explain, he takes the hands of the sacrifice and turns them towards him.
On the palm of the right hand is written in blood and ashes is a circle with a mark in its center--like a sign for the sun, like an eye. And on the palm of the left hand, "XVI."
In this moment, Cain thinks: Perhaps he will not know that I have seen. And in the same moment: He will know that I have seen.
He walks once around the entire circle, considering the sight before him. There is blood and dirt, and there are feathers, and there is torn cloth, and there is wax, and there are cuts and marks from knife and whip and rope alike. He closes his circle (though the irony of his own ritual gestures are lost on him)
The ruined house stretches out in both directions beyond him and likewise above him. He turns to his right and moves down (among fallen plaster and peeled paint and broken glass) the long hallway and whatever rooms might be beyond. There may yet be more to see.
That he has seen will he known. But perhaps there is yet more to be seen, all the same...]
[ooc: Serious warning for gore in Cain's dream. Let's just be honest here, right? Cain and gore go together (ha ha based on a real dream I had a few weeks ago). Okay, so, please feel free to stumble into his dream! Talk to him, look at things, whatever. It's a dream, so time is relative and continuity is whatever it is in a dream. Feel free to talk to him in the red room, the white ritual room, or elsewhere in the white house--and feel free to just watch the whole thing. If you want to skip the gore but still want to talk to Cain, please assume that your character stepped into a dream that showed a mysterious ruined manorhouse that seems to have been done completely in white (white walls, white floors, white curtains, furniture painted white, &c). Cain will be walking around this ruined house and you are welcome to talk to him there. Sweet dreams~]
I'm scared. What's that song? Where are we going? No. Don't open that door.
The door is open. Cain is put inside.
A bedroom. A sickroom. A deathbed.
To the left, the women who have cleaned the body, the undertaker, the priest. To the right, his family--all of them, a mass of black crepe and faces swimming in it, like masks laid on it. Some are crying, white handkerchiefs fluttering across the black mourning clothes.
My uncles and my aunts. And all my other relatives. The wail of the violin. The cloying smell of lilies.
A man speaks:
"Come here."
Cain is looking at the faces: shadowed, hollow, angular, masks, the suggestion of faces rather than real faces. The only one who seems to have a real face is a young girl, Cain's age or perhaps a little older, with auburn hair and striking blue eyes--
My cousin Suzette. My mother. Uncle Neil--he's Grandfather's sister's son. Why does he always look at me like that?
Cain is still being led, though he looks over his shoulder at the faces that stare down at him. He goes to the man who speaks, as he knows he must.
The bed there: massive, black wood, all the curtains of it drawn back, and the man laid on it dressed in his best suit. All the rings, crests, and family treasures are laid on him. These will soon be passed to another. His hands are folded as though in repose. He might only be resting. He is even wearing his shoes.
Beside him, beside the deathbed, stands another man, the one who spoke. Tall, cold, wearing glasses. He resembles both the dead man and Cain. This is the man to whom those treasures and titles will pass: the dead man's son.
"Cain, pay your last respects to your grandfather."
Cain is sent towards the deathbed. He is shaking. He is afraid--of the dead man, of his father, of death, of the things he does not understand. Still, he knows he must go.
He looks like a wrinkled wax doll.
And he is wrinkled, shriveled. He had fallen ill before his death. It was unexpected. How quickly he aged in the meantime. How wrinkled he was. Reaching out slowly, still afraid, Cain would touch the dead man's hand, he would do as he is told.
But, as he reaches--
The dead man wakes like one startled awake, roaring awake, leaping awake and grabs Cain's arm. Cain cannot scream, but he stares. The dead man's eyes are wild and fiery, and he will not let go of Cain's arm. He pulls Cain closer, looming over him, no eyes but only eyesockets, his face like leather, reaching for him with long, hooked fingers. He speaks with a crow's voice:
"You who would bring about the end of the world! Your name! You cannot resist the temptation of the woman from Philistia! You have that woman's blood in your veins and her prayers in her head. My godchild. Cain."
The lilies around around them burst like bombs, scattering petals. The crowd of mourners burst like the lilies or a flock of crows startled into flight. Cain tears his arm away and runs towards the door again--
--He should have passed back into the tall room from which he had come, but he does not. The room he stands in now is all dark red. Everything in it is the same shade of dark red. Only the textures and shadows make anything stand out. The room stretches away for hundreds of yards overhead, disappearing into the dark like a tower. Cain is older now. There is a door on either side of him. He wanders from side to side, and leaves bloody footprints where he walks. He moves as though in pain. He is barefoot, bareheaded, in his shirtsleeves.
From the room on the other side of one of the doors, a woman screams, "I don't want it to be born."
A voice from another room, a man's voice, familiar, kind, says, "Come this way." Cain follows that voice. It's like a hand reaching out to lead him. He follows.
But he stumbles and he falls through the wrong door.
Now the room is white, but gray in early morning light. It is a ruined room in a grand manor, a grand country estate. This should be the staircase, that should be the entrance, beyond should be the rooms. Or perhaps it is the foyer and staircase of the Opera Abandoned. Perhaps.
The walls are painted white, the stairs are painted white, the floor is tiled in white and black marble. It is a vast and empty room. The light that drifts into the room is the cold, pale light of early morning. The room is gray as much as it is white in this light. The windows that now loom up behind and beyond and above him are dressed in white gauze that lifts and falls in the morning wind--loose bandages, burial shrouds, a bride's veil. They are ghostly coverings to the windows, and they are tattered. Indeed, the whole of the room is something of a ruin: the plaster is rotten and falling, the paint is peeling, the curtains are falling from the windows, there is dust on every surface. This is a house of the dead.
But more and worse: there are stains on the floor. The tiling, it seems, falls into patterns: chessboard regularity and harlequin alternation further out, but in the middle of the room, there under the great dome and lantern above, it moves into circles and rings and into overlapping lines that trace out patterns he has seen before. These are the markings for ritual. He has seen them in London, on maps and in coffins. These are signs he knows but does not believe.
He moves closer. His footprints are still bloodied. But there is more and older blood spread in the great circle. It to marks lines for sacrifice and ritual. White candles burned to their ends and piles of black feathers ring the whole. He knows these well: the remnants of ritual.
He has not yet looked up.
He looks up.
Standing in the center of these circles is a beam, a post, a stake, a rail. It stands upright and set into the floor as if the beam was set first and the house grew around it. Here, then, is the sacrifice: something--no, someone hangs from the post, pinned to the post with an iron spike through (his? her?) his throat. It is as much crucifixion as it is hanging, as much hanging as it is crucifixion. It is not an old sacrifice, it is not an old death.
Cain creeps closer. He does not recognize what remains of the face. He did not expect to. Nearer on now one can see that the sacrificial offering was dressed simply, though now the shirt he was wearing is ripped and torn. Cain knows and knows well whose sacrifice this is and must be. He stands before the body, considering it. He must have crawled through dust and brambles to arrive in this place, for even Cain's clothes are ruined now. He bleeds from his feet and from the thousand small wounds from the unseen thorns even as this sacrifice bled.
The sunlight is gray. He regards the sacrifice. The wind moves softly through the ruined room.
Then, for reasons he himself cannot perhaps entirely explain, he takes the hands of the sacrifice and turns them towards him.
On the palm of the right hand is written in blood and ashes is a circle with a mark in its center--like a sign for the sun, like an eye. And on the palm of the left hand, "XVI."
In this moment, Cain thinks: Perhaps he will not know that I have seen. And in the same moment: He will know that I have seen.
He walks once around the entire circle, considering the sight before him. There is blood and dirt, and there are feathers, and there is torn cloth, and there is wax, and there are cuts and marks from knife and whip and rope alike. He closes his circle (though the irony of his own ritual gestures are lost on him)
The ruined house stretches out in both directions beyond him and likewise above him. He turns to his right and moves down (among fallen plaster and peeled paint and broken glass) the long hallway and whatever rooms might be beyond. There may yet be more to see.
That he has seen will he known. But perhaps there is yet more to be seen, all the same...]
[ooc: Serious warning for gore in Cain's dream. Let's just be honest here, right? Cain and gore go together (ha ha based on a real dream I had a few weeks ago). Okay, so, please feel free to stumble into his dream! Talk to him, look at things, whatever. It's a dream, so time is relative and continuity is whatever it is in a dream. Feel free to talk to him in the red room, the white ritual room, or elsewhere in the white house--and feel free to just watch the whole thing. If you want to skip the gore but still want to talk to Cain, please assume that your character stepped into a dream that showed a mysterious ruined manorhouse that seems to have been done completely in white (white walls, white floors, white curtains, furniture painted white, &c). Cain will be walking around this ruined house and you are welcome to talk to him there. Sweet dreams~]