Snippet #2719130

Another beautiful day in the Dreaming, skies shimmering with an early afternoon incandescence. The sound of young laughter on the wind, from the throats of lilies in the fields. Purple trees growing and breathing as the eye watched.

What a load of bollocks.

Lan took in a deep, gurgling snort through his slender neck and spat a hot, putrid something onto the plush ground, casting an ambivalent sneer at the beauty around him. He needed a frigging drink. Having woken up not long ago, his mouth was dry and his tongue was tacky, creating a sticky smacking sound as he flexed his angular jaws and thin, cracked lips.

Wobbling through the brush, with a greyish blue, long necked bottle in his hands, Landon cast an eye of disdain around before uncorking his breakfast and putting the nozzle to his lips. Ah, how divine. Yesterdays drunk would become todays, blending one incoherence with the other seamlessly. Like the phasing of a dream.

Landon chuckled at his joke but quickly the laughter abruptly died when he realized there was only a swig left in his bottle. Seemed oblivion would take a little time catching up to him. He had to have another, didn't he? Tossing aside the bottle with a flippant wave of his hand, Landon sniffed through a softly pointed nose as his skinny, dirty fingers began pawing through all the pockets in his ratty, brown jacket. The first plunge, he came up empty handed, running worried fingers through his short, curly, ruddy hair, fingernails scraping in irritation at his scalp and the back of his neck. With a blow of air out of his cheeks, he went searching again, every pocket, even his trousers, invaded.

Sand? In his trouser pockets? Where had that come from? ...Oh, right. When he'd fallen asleep here last night, he'd flopped into unconsciousness amid sand dunes. He'd forgotten how quickly the scenery changed outside of the towns; without the Ember Core that sat in the middle of every city and town, you never knew where you were gonna wake up. Hm, well, that also explained the little white fleas that pestered him now. Finally, after rooting about his clothes for nearly 3 full minutes, he came out with what he sought with a small bark of triumph. Hah! A flask! When did he acquire a flask? Probably wasn't his. He unscrewed the cap and barely gave it an experimental sniff before slogging down on what it contained. Relief, at last!

That's when something caught his eye. In the hills above him, their faded shapes overlapping as they gathered in the distance, were gigantic balloons. And in their centers, floating as if in water, were the shapes of humans. Great. He'd found himself in a field of dreamers too. Double bollocks. Taking another swig from his newfound friend, Landon was about to turn away when he noticed something else. Close to one of the nearest bubbles was the small, spindly form of a goblin. With interest, Lan turned back to watch as the thin creature circled around the bubble, soon becoming noticed by the dreamer. The bubbles didn't usually give the sleeping dreamers a view of the real dreaming, but kept them wrapped up in the fantasies their own minds made. For some reason, though, this little goblin was making itself known to the human.

Lan soon found out why, when fingers, impossibly long, and slender like blades, poked through the bubble and stabbed out at the dreamer. It was all over in a flash; the bubble sustained for a moment around the piercing arm, and the next, the little demon pulling back with something glowing with an internal shine, trapped in its claws. The human boy was left hovering, even as the bubble slowly disintegrated around him, and then he was unceremoniously deposited on the ground with a heavy thud.

The look of absolute bewilderment on the lad's face, so goofy and ridiculous, it forced a loud bout of laughter from Landon, his voice hoarse and crackling with the sour drink. What was even more delightful, the boy, having discovered the apparent theft, started to flop and flail around after the goblin, which moved much faster than any human could hope to catch up to. Landon was still bent over at the waist laughing when the creature zipped out of sight over the hills, past the other floating dreamers.

"Oh, boy! You're sure up a creek now!" Landon roared in merriment, grateful for the afternoon entertainment to start out his day with. Oh, how delightfully tragic. "That looked like one of Gammon's minions. No doubt he's headed to the Night Lands to deliver your dreamer's light. Better catch up to him, if you can! Bahaha!" Shaking his head with a smile, Landon proceeded to knock back more of his drink as he turned and stumbled in the opposite direction.