The Blight and the Black Dog [CLOSED]

[Tyche]

The Pup waited in nervous silence as the Naught mused over her, watched her. It laughed, and then It observed her, quiet, considering. It approached, but this time, the Eldritch hound didn't back away. She watched It with caution, but It made no move to attack her. Instead, it reflected her Nature - a twisted, Hungry reflection, a Desire, but a reflection nonetheless. It made Sounds, a cacophony of eerie noises that was as distracted and distant as the nonexistent breeze rustling the rose garden.

When It spoke again, it was to make an offer. It called it a deal, or an exchange, at least. She hadn't expected that, hadn't expected this creature to be the dealing type. But It Knew what she wanted, it could read her Desires; It understood her Curiosity, and It held the satisfaction of that Desire just beyond her reach, tempting her with it, asking something - something that should have been so small, so simple that she shouldn't need to consider - in return.

But she did need to consider. The human part of her heart, the man who had given her that part, knew that secrets could lie in words, that lies could be woven into half-truths as easily as a melody could flow into a Song. It spoke of the Butterflies again, of a woman she knew well, who she trusted as Someone like herself. Greta was kind, and sweet, and warm. He spoke of meeting with the same tone her half-brother Loneliness had asked a woman to come up, come away. A word that meant far more, far worse, than had been let on. After all, Curiosity was not His Nature - any more than Knowledge was her own. He was Hunger, and Eldritch seldom strayed from their natures. But her own nature screamed for the Knowledge, the taunting of His offer not helping her to silence the pure power that was her Eldritchness, but the familiarity with that of which He spoke paining her Humanness to accept.

The wolf-form melted, growing smaller, fur becoming a blanket wrapped around a Child. The Tyke's legs were crossed in front of her, as she sat before the supine Naught, and she was hunched somewhat around a long-necked Instrument, something she'd been Given by a man she wished could be here. Idly she ran her fingers over the strings as she stared, not quite blankly, at the Rose. She needed guidance, she needed help to understand the Words, to find the Lies and the half-Truths. But that Guidance wasn't here. The Man she could ask for that Guidance was beyond her reach, guarding, but far off. There was nowhere else she could truly go for that. She was Alone, and that meant that she was Unsure.

"I... I don't Know." It was a difficult thing to admit, for a Child of Knowledge. Unknowing wasn't against her own Nature, but she felt like it would disappoint her Father. It was Truth, though. She wasn't like the Naught in that sense, at least. Her hands relaxed on the instrument, as she looked up from the Flower, to the Hunger, and then back to the Rose. Her hand, almost reluctantly, began to reach toward the peace offering. "I Know that the offer's very generous, and I Know that You Know much..."

The small hand paused halfway to the rose's stem, then was drawn back, her narrow face betraying her indecision. She rested the hand on the banjo, feeling frustrated with both her humanity and her divinity, but there wasn't much she could say or do that would change either in herself. Neither won, as she decided to quell both, if only momentarily, with a Question.

"May I... May I take some time to consider?"

[Blight]

The nature of the small girl's response teased a momentary murmur from between the Blight's lips; the irony of curiosity's embodiment admitting ignorance was not lost on Him, though He did not exploit the folly with malicious ire. His chuckle was a more whimsical response, a hint of kindness underlying the grating rasp of His voice-- despite her clear and righteous inclination to err upon the side of caution, He was not a being made purely of malevolence. Odd moments of uncharacteristically human compassion often mingled with the overbearing presence of His hunger-- and though these moments were evanescent in their arrival and dispersal, they were there nonetheless.

The root of His creation was born from a boy named Quentin, after all.

Refusal to accept the proffered rose elicited a warped pout from the amalgam, jaw twisting as the mockery of a frown crossed His visage; the flower was held out for a moment longer before His clawed fingers released their chokehold around the stem, leaving the small black petals to hover midair as if restrained by the strings of a puppeteer. He held the girl's gaze for a spell of silence before the frown twisted upon itself to form a vague smile, the teeth opening and clamping down as they had countless times before. Click, clack. A notion of agreement.

"Very well, little one, very well... but do try to make haste, would you? It's very lonely here, mingled within this space. I would adore dear company, especially from the likes of you."

A pause. Uncomfortable, now. He looked upon her with cavernous eyes, emptiness reflected upon itself in His stare as the verdant fire within each crater burned with inquisitive intrigue. The silence passed, and His rotting mouth parted once more.

"My innocent, curious child."

Another smile, once more crossing the threshold of human mimicry as the Blight approximated what would amount to happiness. He floated upward, body still parallel with the earth, before His bare feet touched ground once more, talons digging into dirt as He backed into the thicket of the rose-laden field. The vermilion cape comforted His isolated form as He sat, cross-legged, upon the earth.

"I am always here, after all."

The amalgam's head craned itself to the side, as if straining to view that which was not truly there. The smile flitted across His face once more, but only for an instant that had not happened.

"Wake up, dearest daughter of the old, and float to me upon a dream once more."

At once, the field shuddered and burst, misted pitch exploding into the air as the field warped and turned alive-- each rose disintegrated into a cloud of black, rushing, fluttering, transitioning from shape to shape as the velvet texture of each petal turned frilled, feathered, stems hardening into beaks and eyes and talons and wings as each individual flower warped into living, panicked crows. The colossal murder came to life with a cacophony of squawks, a vivid scream underlying each forlorn caw into the abyss, shattering the preserved silence of the dreamscape with the harsh flapping of wings and warped mewls out unto the night.

The landscape collapsed upon itself. Darkness closed in like the turning off of a light, the world encroached upon by an ethereal tide of black, and nothingness consumed all.

There was naught but naught which made up all else, and the dream was consumed, over in the breadth of a single breath.

[Tyche]

The Daughter of Knowledge awoke, groggy and confused, from utter blackness.

She was not accustomed to her dreams fading into Naught, and awaking from Naught. As she rose, slowly, from the children's cot kept in her rooms in the location called "Elsewhere" by the resident researchers, she did begin to remember the Dreaming, but in slow, backwards fragments. The Darkness, and then the crows, which, in her reverse rememberings, turned slowly from shrieking black shadows, into something duller, more lifeless, a rustle.

A lesson, she recalled, vaguely, as something stung her fingertips.

She looked down at the stinging, not processing the pain as much as she ought, more focused on the small, delicate thing she held between her fingertips. It was long, but light; beautiful, but faded; fragile, but painful, as its thorns dug lightly into her humanlike skin. The Dreaming came back faster, with the presence of the dark rose, and the Eldritch blood that stained the stem was nothing when she thought of the numerous things the flower might foretell. Dealings and dreamings, and more.

She Knew better than any that the Eldritch Things could See and Hear what they desired, when they desired. For all she could tell, the Hunger had followed her here in all but bodily presence, or was Watching her every move. Her much-desired discussion of a better course of action would have to wait - until what, she could not tell, but the Dreaming was now heavy on her mind, and she Knew that she could not tell it to anyone, at least in word.

Or perhaps not in oral word, at least. The Dreaming Child's eyes drifted toward the small table, designed for a Child much smaller than She, but one that would serve its purpose as she stood from the bed. A paper was on the table, though whether it had always been there, or if it had been conjured by the entity called Tyke, was unimportant. Irrelevant. Rather, what would matter were the Words that her hands would conjure on the page, almost childish in its scrawl, yet given more import by its writing in the dark Ink of the rose-drawn blood.

This dream was different, from past ones...

It was a Dreaming worth remembering, after all, and it would bear her many lessons unto the future.