Enter Sandman. Er, SandWOman. [Chosen RP]

[Swisstony]

The sky had turned black, the dark clouds lit by frequent arcs of blue-white lightning that streaked back and forth.  The pungent scent of Great Lord’s influence which pervaded this area that those lightfools called The Blight was held at bay in this disgusting patch of innocence by one of the Nym.  The last of the Nym.  The Green Man, they called him, the last of his kind, a hangover from the Age of Legends.  The Nym’s magic may have been as old as the ground itself, but so was Saidin, and it coursed through his body, a raging torrent of pure molten power, every drop of blood in his veins turned to liquid fire.  They were locked together now, a fight to the death, but the Nym’s power seemed somehow too strong.  The Aes Sedai and the fool children she had brought with her lay unconscious, they posed no problem now, and Aginor was dealing with the farmboy, but this accursed Green Man was proving to be an unexpected hindrance. 

 

Rope-thick threads of Saidin fluked from his fingers into the Nym’s body –  a big man by any standards but now reduced to his knees, his face contorted with a combination of pain and anger as tendrils of smoke began to rise from his body.  The smell was a mixture of burning flesh, wood and leaves.  He had been fighting back, but the strength was fading at last  With a sudden roar The Green Man reached up, and gripped his hands, almost blocking the threads of Saidin.  He felt his blood begin to turn cold at the touch.  He felt the fibres of his being changing.  As the life drained from the Green Man, he felt something of the Nym’s influence creeping up through his arms.  Coolness began to spread through him, forcing down the waves of Saidin, driving it from his body, along with his own life.  It wasn’t supposed to work like this, this was not…  Supposed…  To… Happen.

 

The Green Man’s roar shook the leaves around them, it seemed to shake the very floor that they stood on.  He looked down and saw his arms turning green, and at the same time began to feel the life ebbing from him.

 

No!

 

He fought, desperately trying to clutch at Saidin, at his life, but it was no good.  The Green Man relaxed his grip and fell backwards onto the ground, a lifeless husk.  The damage had already been done though.  He staggered back now, his legs refusing to hold him up, and tumbled against a bush.  It wasn’t so much a pain that he felt, it was worse than a pain, indefinable in its nature.  It was a sensation of cleanliness, of purity, or innocence and growth.  It sickened him, weakened as he was, turning his stomach over and over as he rolled onto his front.  He could feel pressure in the back of his throat, making him want to vomit.  With his last strength he pushed himself up onto his arms – if he could vomit, then he’d be able to breathe again, and perhaps recover.  He opened his mouth and retched, feeling his stomach constrict, but nothing came out.  As he writhed and retched, flowers bloomed in his mouth, leaves sprouting from the opening, the heads sticking out in front of him.  Shocked, he fell back onto his side, powerless to do anything but watch as more flowers emerged from his nose, breaking through the skin on the backs of his hands, bursting out of the sleeves of his coat. 

 

And then he felt the same pressure behind his eyes.  Unable to make a sound he lay still, and felt one eyeball burst inside his head, and felt the leaves that issued forth brushing his cheek.  He could no longer even writhe with the agony, as his other eye burst into flower, and as the sweet stench of the blooms flooded his nostrils, the last of his life left his body.

 

* * * * * * * * * * *

 

He woke with a start, and took a deep breath.  Nothing stuffed his mouth, the taste of new life had gone.  Cautiously, he felt for Saidin, and found it there, waiting for him.  All a dream then.  A very very bad dream.  Like all the others, he could protect his dreams from any outside interference, prevent himself from being drawn into Tel’Aran’Rhiod, but he could do nothing against the work of his own subconscious.  Just a dream.

 

He opened his eyes and looked around.  If it was a dream, it was hanging on longer than it should’ve.  The room was wrong.  It was not the room he remembered.  Darker, for a start, and much much plainer.  It smelt of wood and tar, tinged with salt, and it felt as if the floor shifted under his feet as he swung out of the narrow hard bed and stood up.  Everything swayed, and he put out a hand to steady himself as he rubbed his eyes and turned to the jug and bowl which stood in a special depression on a washstand.  The washstand was hinged on a gimbal which allowed it to swing and pivot in any direction, and he nearly spilled the water when he leaned on the top of the stand to pour some from the jug into the bowl.  He hissed a curse under his breath.  This was all wrong. 

 

The floor shifted under his feet again, and he nearly fell.  Why did the floor keep shifting?  Wait a minute - he suddenly realised the sound of water outside, and shouts from above.  Everything fell into place.  He was on board some kind of a boat.  He looked up, seeing the small wooden-framed mirror for the first time.  And he saw the face of a woman.  The dream faded around him then.  The illusion that he was still who he was.  Brought back from death, along with Aginor, and both given new names.  Osan'gar and Aran'gar.  The irony wasn't lost on him, and he grimaced.  Had it been someone else, he would've laughed until it hurt.  But it wasn't someone else, it was him, he was the butt of the Great Lord's joke.

 

He was getting used to the floor shifting now, and strode out of the small room, up the ladder and onto the deck.  Looking around, there was no sign of land.  He remembered more now - they were at least a week from land, even with the Windfinder working day and night.  This wasn't good enough, this disguise, this subterfuge, it was no good.  Only a few members of the crew knew the truth, and it was too difficult to maintain the facade.

"I do not wish to be disturbed.", he said, almost surprised to hear the woman's voice that came from his mouth.  Some people nodded, and he wobbled back down the wooden ladder and barred the cabin door closed.

 

Saidin rushed through him.  Her.

 

A thin line of silver appeared in the air, thinner than a hair, brighter than the sun.  It lengthened, until it reached almost from the floor to the wooden ceiling of the cabin.  Once it had lengthened, it began to widen.  The silver thread became a narrow split in the air, a hole in reality.  It grew wider still, until a room was visible through the hole.  A room almost as dark as this one, rough cracked plaster walls, and a shuttered window.  Once the hole was a little wider than a person, he stepped through it into the room on the other side.  She stepped through.  The hole snapped shut, and left the cabin, that floating hovel, empty and quiet, save for the creaking of the boards, and the rushing of the water outside.

 

Aran'gar.

Chosen.