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such stuff as dreams are made on - Nikandr - 09-14-2025
Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.
Okay, not that dramatic, but it might as well be.
A storm has rolled in over Torchline in the middle of the night, and strong winds batter the rainfall against the windows of Wildering House in lashes that hammer the glass. It's neither rhythmic nor soothing, and though the shutters are mostly closed and the doors securely locked, with or without the presence of some mischievous spirits, it's safe to say that the corridors are howling with the sound of the maelstrom.
Perfect horror movie weather, one might say.
Also a terrible time to be living with a sleepwalker, but Flora is about to find out as much.
Niki isn't cognizant of the fact that he's out of bed, and though the going is slow and clumsy given that he can barely hold weight on his bad leg without his cane, he's managed to wend his way out of his bedroom, down the hall and into some random part of the house with remarkable confidence.
Currently the boy is attempting to open a door, his subconscious having followed the layout of his home in the Greatwood towards the living room, though this doorknob absolutely is not the same as the handle in the funeral parlour. Still, it doesn't stop him attempting it in a dead sleep, and on the plus side - he hasn't encountered any stairs just yet.
RE: such stuff as dreams are made on - Flora - 09-14-2025
The storm is a living thing tonight; spitting against the glass, roaring down the halls like it means to take the whole house with it. Flora sits cross-legged on the floor of the room she'd reserved just for Jack, wrapped in a blanket that smells like sea salt and rum, watching the storm smear itself across the window like a thing trying to claw its way inside. The ships in bottles on the shelves rattle softly. The box with the swing is tucked neatly beneath the old desk she'd positioned just so with a fake purchase order for a waterbed sitting on top. Nothing moves.
Except the doorknob.
It turns with a slow click, barely audible beneath the wind, but Flora's heart stutters anyway. The house is haunted—blessed, technically—but she's never quite sure which of the spirits have a sense of humour and which just like to haunt for the drama. And maybe it’s just that. Maybe one of them is teasing her, knowing she’s awake, knowing this is his room and that she’s been curled up in it all night like she doesn’t know where else to go when it's raining the way it is.
But she’s already crying. Quietly, the way one does when guilt and longing and too much memory have filled every corner of the mind and left nowhere else for the ache to go. Jack is on her mind, but then, he always is when the storms come in like this, and as she rises slowly to her feet, padding toward the door, something inside her is foolish enough to hope.
The garden in her mind is trembling, dark, petals clinging to their stems under a violet downpour. She reaches for the knob just as it turns under her fingers, the cold brass twisting toward her, and her breath catches. The door opens.
And—
[say]"Niki?"[/say] The word escapes her like she’s surfacing from underwater. The storm moans down the hall behind him, but all she sees is the necromancer in his pyjamas, blinking blearily in the dark, barefoot and vaguely dishevelled and...here. Her voice, when it comes again, is hoarse with everything she just felt and can’t quite stuff back down. [say]"What are you doing here?"[/say]
RE: such stuff as dreams are made on - Nikandr - 09-14-2025
The door opens at last and Niki totters forward on autopilot, hearing neither his name nor the fact that it's coming from Flora's lips. His eyes are open but unseeing, at least by the part of his mind responsible for conscious thought, and he takes a few steps into the room designated, apparently, for Jack Barclay, and reaches out a hand as if to touch a countertop. One that isn't there, of course, because this isn't his house and the room is not his kitchen.
Still, his hand tries for it a couple more times before he gives up, letting it drop to his side. The movement has the wide neck of his t-shirt tugging off one shoulder, and as he turns towards the eerie light streaming in through the window from the storm outside, it's enough to illuminate his pale skin and the deep, jagged scar that cuts diagonally from shoulder to sternum across his chest.
Padding to the window now, his hands reach for a hook or a clasp or a handle, one that should be there in his own home but obviously is completely different here. Finding himself prevented, again, from a sleepwalking routine he's clearly used to performing, Niki's hands drop listlessly once again in silent frustration.
RE: such stuff as dreams are made on - Flora - 09-14-2025
Niki brushes past her like a ghost, and despite how amusing that would be in another circumstance, in another room, here, it jars something in Flora as he crosses the threshold. The air in the room seems to flinch with her, unsettled by the trespass. No one is supposed to be in this room.
The ships in bottles, the old desk, the fake waterbed, the swing still in its box—all of it had been assembled like the beginning of a story she’d thought she and the captain would finish together. And when everything had collapsed like driftwood underfoot, this room had been left untouched. Not sacred, not preserved, haunted. And maybe, on paper, Niki fits here. A ghost in all but name, but it’s still wrong. It feels wrong. Flora stands there for a beat too long, stricken, watching him move through, as if this room has always had space for his silhouette.
He reaches for things that aren’t there, hands falling restlessly back to his side when they close on nothing. Outside, the wind screams against the glass like it wants in. A bolt of lightning cleaves across the sky outside and for a heartbeat the entire room flashes white, and that’s when she sees it. The way his shirt has slipped down, the pale gleam of his skin interrupted by a deep, terrible scar that slices from his shoulder across the whole of his chest.
Her breath catches with a tiny, involuntary inhale. The storm, the scar, the ache she hadn’t meant to carry tonight, it all pulls her from herself. She steps forward, quieter now, no longer halted in her own grief. Gently, with the care of someone handling something fragile, she places herself in his path. She doesn’t reach out—she’s heard too many times you shouldn’t wake a sleepwalker—but she moves with him instead. Her body becomes a soft barrier, her steps angled to guide his back toward the door, out of this room, this unfinished shrine, this bruise at the corner of her house.
[say]"It’s okay,"[/say] she whispers, voice barely above the wind’s cry. [say]"Let’s go this way instead."[/say]
RE: such stuff as dreams are made on - Nikandr - 09-15-2025
Niki is already stepping back, bumping into the gentle cage of Flora's presence, and though he doesn't respond directly to her, the sleepy sigh that exhales from his lips is enough of an indication that he's heard the words with or without their meaning. Tottering around, with her guidance he's able to get himself out of unintentionally dangerous territory, exiting the captain's once-upon-a-time room to haunt the corridor once again.
Only he's thoroughly gotten himself lost now, his hand reaching out for a wall that isn't as close as he expects it to be. Teetering to the left until he finds it, he accidentally collides with one of the (many, many) trinkets scattered along the hallways and shelving. It's a small statuette of a mermaid that he knocks, no larger than his fist, but evidently it's made of something metal, because it lets out a booming thud! against the floorboards that's loud enough to rival the cracks of thunder overhead.
Flinching and gasping as the noise jolts Niki into true consciousness, his body tries to take him away from it, but of course the moment he puts too much weight on his bad leg, down the fuck he goes.
RE: such stuff as dreams are made on - Flora - 09-15-2025
Something in her untangles the moment Niki steps back over the threshold. The storm is still howling, still furious, but with him out of that room, the pressure inside her ribs eases just enough to breathe again. Flora turns to quietly pull the door shut behind them, clicking the lock into place like closing the lid on a box that never should have been opened in the first place.
And then—crash.
The sharp clatter of metal against hardwood rings out like a gunshot, loud enough to make her flinch just as lightning turns the whole corridor white. Niki gasps, staggers, tries to recoil from the sound, and crumples. The moment he hits the floor, Flora is moving, the long hem of her sleep shirt fluttering around her thighs as she drops to her knees beside him. [say]"Shit—Niki—"[/say] she breathes, her voice barely audible over the peal of thunder that follows like a war drum. One hand reaches for his shoulder, the other bracing against the floor to steady them both. Her curls fall around her face, shadowing her worry.
[say]"Are you okay?"[/say] she whispers, eyes scanning his expression, trying to gauge how badly he’s hurt; if he’s awake now, if he knows where he is, or if the storm in her hallway has just become more than metaphor.
RE: such stuff as dreams are made on - Nikandr - 09-15-2025
Nik flinches again at the thunder, one hand braced against the nearest wall where he's crumpled to the ground, his blue eyes vacant and yet a touch wild. [say]"Wh... where...?"[/say] he mumbles, head turning sharply towards Flora as she kneels beside him. Beneath her hand he's cold, his heart beating hard enough he's sure she might feel it even through her fingertips, and he fights through the sudden wave of upset, embarrassment and bewilderment that seizes him.
[say]"How did I..."[/say] The realisation hits him with a groan, his free hand coming up to rub tiredly at his eyes. [say]"Sorry, Flora. I was... I do not remember getting out of bed."[/say] His hand drops again and there's a touch more sense in his eyes as he glances to her, cheeks flushing with shame. [say]"I hope I did not do anything to trouble you."[/say]
RE: such stuff as dreams are made on - Flora - 09-15-2025
Flora frowns, concern pulling her features tight as she watches Niki come back to himself. The flush rising to his cheeks tells her more than anything else could: that he’s fully awake now, truly present. Ghosts don’t blush, not the real ones, anyway.
Her hand lingers a moment longer on his shoulder before she exhales, the tension slipping from her frame as she shifts, sinking down onto one hip beside him. The floor is cool beneath her bare legs, but she settles like this is where they were always meant to pause, like they’d simply chosen the middle of the hall for a midnight chat while the world raged outside.
From further down the corridor, a blanket slides silently toward them across the floor, tugged by unseen hands. It worms its way closer, then drops at Niki’s side with something almost like pride. Flora doesn’t look for the spirit, just offers a small smile of thanks to the air. [say]"Wasn’t any trouble at all,"[/say] she says breezily, fingers brushing lightly over the blanket as she nudges it toward him. [say]"I was up anyway."[/say] The ring on her hand heats against her skin—liar—but she doesn’t so much as flinch. Her smile is warm, gentle, full of quiet reassurance.
Then, as if she were the one who should be sheepish about it, she shrugs. [say]"I have a hard time sleeping during storms."[/say]
RE: such stuff as dreams are made on - Nikandr - 09-15-2025
Wincing as he shifts as if to get something like comfortable on the floor, Niki props his bad right leg out before him, the other hugging to his chest. It's only as Flora's hand leaves his shoulder that he realises that the collar of his sleeping shirt has slipped, and even as the blanket comes ghosting across the floor to them, he's self-consciously tugging it back into place, hiding away the jut of scar tissue that spiders out towards his shoulder.
[say]"During... storms?"[/say] he echoes, before another helpful flash of lightning illuminates the entire hallway, followed by a clap of thunder violent enough to shake the windows in their frames. [say]"Ah,"[/say] Niki clarifies, fumbling to drag the blanket around his shoulders with a murmur of thanks to the air.
[say]"This happens more often in bad weather, too,"[/say] he explains, gesturing at the current state of affairs between them. [say]"I... thank you, for coming across me,"[/say] he adds, still flushed and uncomfortable about it (and not realising, of course, that it was in fact the opposite way around). [say]"I think I was trying to walk around my own house, but..."[/say] But obviously the layout is completely different here.
RE: such stuff as dreams are made on - Flora - 09-15-2025
Flora nods at first, a small tilt of her head that carries with it a kind of quiet self-consciousness that the queen isn't normally known for. [say]"They never used to,"[/say] she murmurs, brushing her fingers lightly along the floorboards as she speaks, eyes dipping away as Niki adjusts his shirt. She doesn’t look—not because she’s afraid of the scar—but because she knows exactly what it means to tug at fabric like that. [say]"But it's gotten worse lately, so now instead of fighting it, I just..get up and watch them."[/say]
When he gestures at the whole sleepwalking affair, she raises her eyebrows, expression shifting into something a touch more playful despite everything. [say]"Gods, if you’d told me sooner, we could’ve changed the hallways,"[/say] she grins, a teasing lilt curling at the corners of her mouth. [say]"I’d have drawn them to match your house."[/say] The joke’s light, but not a lie. With how the spirits had shaped this place already, she probably could’ve managed it, and absolutely would have, for Niki's sake.
Still lounging on her hip, she reaches absently for the edge of the blanket to help settle it more securely around him. Then, softly, as though testing the water with just a toe, she asks, [say]"How long have you been sleepwalking for?"[/say] Her tone is gentle, not pressing, an open door he can walk through or close again, no questions asked.
RE: such stuff as dreams are made on - Nikandr - 09-15-2025
[say]"Oh... I am sorry to hear that,"[/say] Niki says with a furrowed brow, clearly already starting to come back to himself somewhat. [say]"I hope they do not upset you. Some people in the Greatwood were very superstitious about thunderstorms, in case lightning set fire to the woods."[/say] He rubs at his eyes again, stifling a yawn and letting out a long, shaky sigh as he gazes around at the unfamiliar hallway as if seeing it properly for the first time.
[say]"I thought I did tell you,"[/say] he fires back, the twist to his lips just a little playful in and of itself. [say]"Granted, it was a long time ago now, and it is not as if you could have anticipated it."[/say] Only about as much as he can, anyway.
Realising, as she adjusts the blanket, that he'd tugged it around himself without thought, Niki immediately offers it out towards her to have instead. [say]"Hm? Ah, it started after I began to apprentice with the undertaker,"[/say] he explains. [say]"He put it down to the stress of being somewhere new. Which would have been understandable, if I had not still been doing it years later..."[/say]
RE: such stuff as dreams are made on - Flora - 09-15-2025
Flora shrugs, the motion gentle but resigned. [say]"They do now,"[/say] she says simply, not offering more, because there’s nothing to fix and no need to paint over it. Storms were what they were. They didn’t care if they reminded her of heartbreak.
At his insistence that he had told her, her brow furrows with the kind of effort that tries to summon a memory from deep underwater. Nothing rises. She blinks, frowning slightly before shaking her head. [say]"Gods, I must’ve forgotten—sorry,"[/say] she says with a quiet laugh, lifting a hand briefly like she could wave away her own failure to recall.
When he offers the blanket, she waves it off with a soft smile. [say]"Was just making sure you were covered,"[/say] she murmurs, the glance she flicks down quick and unjudging. Just a quiet acknowledgement that she'd seen, and would help him stay covered if it was what he needed.
As his story unfolds, she chews at the inside of her cheek thoughtfully. [say]"So do you just...walk around?"[/say] she asks gently. [say]"You looked like you were trying to open something when you came in.'[/say] There’s no accusation in it. Just observation, like she’s offering him a piece of his own puzzle in case he needs it. Given he lived alone, maybe he didn't know what it was he got up to.
RE: such stuff as dreams are made on - Nikandr - 09-15-2025
[say]"Would you like to go and make some tea?"[/say] Niki's smile is wry, given the conversation about his preferences they'd only just recently had, but he figures it's better than sitting in the hallway while the storm rages all around them. And besides, it's much too late at night (or early in the morning?) for coffee. [say]"Perhaps it will help to take your mind off it."[/say]
It's Niki's turn to wave Flora off as she apologises, the boy clearly not expecting her to memorise his quirks of all things, especially when they have no routine or reason to them either. But then she's offering him back the blanket, and a fresh flush of shame heats his face to the tips of his ears. [say]"Thank you,"[/say] he mutters. [say]"...I imagine you probably have questions."[/say]
As for what he gets up to while sleepwalking, Niki does his best to inject some levity back into his tone. [say]"Sometimes,"[/say] he says breezily. [say]"I am quite fond of taking all of the books off my bookshelves and arranging them in stacks on the table. I once found one of them in the icebox in my kitchen, wrapped in an old shirt."[/say]
RE: such stuff as dreams are made on - Flora - 09-15-2025
Flora beams, grateful for the flicker of dry humour he manages to offer through the lingering fog of his embarrassment. [say]"Tea sounds perfect,"[/say] she says, pushing herself up with the aid of the wall and offering one hand toward him without fanfare. There’s no gentling touch or coaxing in her expression, just a straightforward kind of practicality: you’re here, I’m here, so take the damn hand, especially because he doesn't have his cane.
Once he’s upright and steady, she holds his gaze for a moment, then gives a thoughtful shrug and turns. Her fingers slip down the back of her shirt, tugging the hem up, not flirtatiously or shyly, just openly. The thin cotton bunches around her waist and then upper back, revealing the curve of her hips and the lace of dark underwear against her skin, but the point isn’t the view. It’s the shadows left behind. Scars slash down her ribs like whip lines, and puncture wounds score their way across her side, silver and ugly in the lightning-glow.
She glances over her shoulder, lashes low over her eyes. [say]"Being carved up by Dahlia was worse than being killed by Pierce,"[/say] she says quietly. [say]"The Reaper didn’t just want to kill me—she wanted to tear me apart from the inside out. I felt her claws right here—"[/say] She taps just under her ribs. [say]"—like she was trying to break me open."[/say] And then, just as simply, she lets the shirt fall back down. It wasn't meant to be a performance or a demand, just a trade; an I'll show you mine if you show me yours sort of thing so that he wouldn't be so alone in his scar tour.
As they begin to walk, Flora tucks her arm lightly into his, keeping her steps easy and slow. [say]"Do you think your sleeping self has a system? Like some creepy Dewey decimal code only your dreams understand?"[/say] It wouldn't surprise her at all that the necromancer's mind wanted to keep working even when he'd turned out the literal and metaphorical lights.