Author Topic: The Nightmares of Ness Bana Anstapa - Recorded at the direction of Katja Vinter  (Read 1059 times)

diestormlie

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CONTENT WARNINGS:

Generally: Gore, violence, death.

Entry 1: Cannibalism.
Entry 2: Potential Dysphoria.
Entry 3: Dissociation, Gore
Entry 4: Dissociation, Gore
Entry 5: None
Entry 6: Fire, Death
Entry 7: Violence, death, fire, despair
Entry 8: Body Horror, Sexual Themes
Entry 9: Sensory Deprivation

---

[The script is large, but deliberate, tell-tale signs of an inexperienced but careful hand. The writing itself is mainly a mixture of Sylvan and Undercommon, drifting between scripts seemingly at random, the occasional word or grammatical construction from Common and Elven, then increasing the Mordentishes drifting in]
Entry 1

In Waterdeep. Young, Bone-Deep Hunger, but tall, knives in hand and bloody. Try to steal food from a fruit stall, mess it up, no one around, knives into the grocer. Eat the contents of his stall, but it all turns to rot in my mouth. So hungry. I carve him up, my knives turned to butcher's cleavers. I eat his flesh, bits of him sticking between the gaps in my teeth, one left behind in the flesh of his buttocks, but I swallow it down along with his bones.

I eat and I eat and I eat, but it doesn't sate me.

I hear someone coming, so I scrabble down an alley. Clank of armour, raised voices, Guard. I hide, but I'm so hungry. So *hungry*. I start eating my fingers, left hand. And I finally feel somewhat sated. But it's not enough. My thumb goes last, but I'm not finished. I'm biting into the flesh of my hand when I hear someone coming down the alley.

And I *know* their flesh will finally sate me. They don't see me coming. My Cleaver-Knife rises up, then down, cutting right into their heart. Their body falls down dead, and I begin my feast. It's hard, with just one hand, but I don't care, because they taste so *good* and *filling*. I turn them over to eat their face, and I'm looking into Blake's cold, Golden eyes.
I pluck them out and eat them, and the hunger has finally gone.

I woke screaming, waking Blake. It was small hours of the morning, and I could not sleep again that night.
« Last Edit: March 19, 2020, 12:00:06 AM by diestormlie »

diestormlie

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Entry 2

It's Waterdeep. Well, I think it is. It smells like the worst parts of Waterdeep, right where the Docks meet the Sewers, all rot and all the unpleasant things civilisation leaves in it's wake. It's Waterdeep, I think, but I don't know where I am. There's sand beneath my feet, weapons in my hands heavy and unfamiliar, a faceless crowd above me, behind me, below me, like a pearl around grit. I can't remember what the weapons are, just... Not my usual fare. Heavy, lots of momentum in the swing, but no agility at all. Was it some sort of Polearm? A sword and a Shield? I don't know.

There are Enemies, now, as faceless as the ground, bodies swaddled in loose clothing of no colour, faces so covered in tattoos, scars, brands and paints that all I can see of them is black, empty eyes. They try to kill me with weapons made of cloth and paper. I try to kill them. It's easy, at first, but the weapons are so heavy, so unfamiliar. My arms tire, my legs tire, my speed, my weapon, stripped away from me. I don't remember the first blow. I don't know how many others there are after, until I take one to the forehead. I blink without thinking, clearing the blood that'll drip into my eyes. But there's no blood.

I don't have time to think about it, because they keep trying to kill me, and they were always more. It's only when one of them opens my right arm up, along the scar my father gave me when he broke my arm, that I see. There's no blood seeping out of my wounds because there's no blood in me at all. I stare inside my left arm, as someone thrusts a weapon into my stomach. There's no blood nor bone, just sawdust and straw.

I scream. Well, I think I try to scream, but I try to open my mouth and it's sewn shut. I don't know if it always was, I can't remember. More killing, more wounds. Piece by piece, I'm cut apart. I think I lose my head last, but I was still standing, still holding weapons, even with my straw-and-sawdust stuffed arms laying in the sand around me. My head's cut off, and for a moment, I sail away with it. Then, I'm standing where I was, standing on no legs, wielding weapons in no arms. I have no eyes, but I can see, no ears but I can hear. They launch into me again, stabbing and cutting through nothing at all.

I still try to kill them. There's nothing left of me, but even so my blades weapons grow heavier and heavier, until eventually I cannot lift them, though they and I are nothing.

Blake woke me up, for I was crying and screaming. I remember nothing more.
« Last Edit: March 06, 2020, 11:42:20 PM by diestormlie »

diestormlie

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Entry 3

Is it Waterdeep? Is it Vallaki? Does it matter? A City, and it's sapient bowels. Blood on my knives, blood on my hands, blood on my armour. Knifework, just killed someone? Yes. Did they deserve it? Probably not? Do I regret it? No. It means I live, doesn't it? Live, eat, roof, blades, armour, drink. Doesn't it? Does that mean it doesn't hurt? No. Lots of things you don't regret doing still hurt you. What did they look like, the person I killed? I don't remember? Does that matter? Should it matter?

I feel unclean. Am I unclean? Of course I am, I'm covered in blood. Is that what makes me unclean? Is it the blood, is it who's blood it is? Is it the blood, or is the blood just a sign? "Here be the sign of the wicked!" Am I wicked? Yes. Is that a bad thing? Others would say so. Do I care? No. Should I? Others would say so. Do I say so? I do not? Does that make me wicked? But I already am wicked. Am I wicked for the killing, or for not regreting it? Does it matter? Do I matter? How could I? One amongst the thousands? Who- Who- Who- When I am but dust, what remains of me? Dust? Is that what I meant? What did I mean? What do I mean? When I was, did I mean? Am I... Me? Was I me? Where am I?

I'm in a Bathhouse. When did I get here? Was I always here? I- I- I- can't have been. You come to a Bathhouse to get clean, don't you? If you were always in a Bathhouse, you wouldn't need to be in a Bathhouse,  and so you never would been there at all. Is that right? It has to be right, because if it's wrong, then- then- then- then what? I don't know. Can I know? Could I have known? Will I know?

I'm in my skin? Was I ever more? No, I am more, I am wearing my skin, and blood, a man's blood. His sweet blood, blood of the father and the brother and the son, dead now, gone now. But he is not, so was he ever? He cannot be, can he not? But if he *is* not, does that mean he was? Does that mean- I'm in the water. But I was not in the water, why is the water around me? The blood isn't coming off.

I'm pulling at the blood, I'm going to scratch at it pour oils on it, I've already scraped and scrubbed, am I going to pull at it? I think it'll work. It makes sense. I pull and tug and tear, and the blood comes away like eggshell. I look down at where the blood used to be and there's bone. Good is bone? Bone is good. It's bone is good, isn't it? It isn't red, it isn't blood, it's white and clean. Those are good things. White is innocent, pure, virginal. Shouldn't I be those things again? I nod. It's good, right. The blood is the... Lock? No-no-no, fingerpick? Anti-Locks. I grab every spot of blood I can see on me, and *pull* until I see bone, sweet white clean bone.

The water is red, but I am white, and it cannot touch me. There is so little red left, and if I get it out, I was clean, wasn't I? But the red's inside of me, red-in-white and blue. But it was easy to get it out. I'm going to take my head, skull now, rise, fall, rise fall, open the Lock, up and down as dusk and dawn, drag the red from the white as was done before and will do again.

It was done. Released at last, red and white, pulled apart like tides and forks in roads. I am the white, I am the white, the red is gone from me, for it is around me but dare not touch me, and I am the white, and I slew the red. I sleep, no, I rest, free and flying.

I wake, and at the bottom of the Baths I am, red all around. I rise, pressing against the ceiling of the red-water, blood-water, life-water, the ceiling giving, bending, not breaking. But I was and will, and so I am free, the ceiling rent, and I am am free- red. I am red. The ragged edges and torn corners where all should be, every portion of what I- should be? Am? Was? Will? It is all filled, if you see. But I do not see as I did, will do.

I am red and nothing but. Whenever I am, I am not whole, and so in all of forever, I am not whole, never was and never were. I was red and white and brown-black. But now I am red, and so red is-was what I always is-was.  It is as I ever was, but I was not meant to be so. I do not matter, and so it does not matter that I do not matter.

But it hurts where white and brown-black used to be, and that matters.

This one, I did neither cry, nor weep, nor scream. Blake woke me when I was clinging her tight enough to her to hurt her, nails digging into her flesh deep enough to draw blood. I do not know how I feel.

diestormlie

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Entry 4

There's something wearing my Father's face. It could be my father. It stares out through drink-dulled eyes, screws up his too worn brow, twists his mouth into snarls and scowls and growls and hate *just so*. It could be my father. I don't know what I'm wearing, but I think it's me. Is it me that-was? But is this nothing more than me-that-was, how can I, me, be here? Because if this is me-that-was and I am me-that-was now, how can I be me-that-is? I cannot be both me-that-was and me-that-is. I am me-that-is, only *have been* me-that-was. That has to be how it is, doesn't it? Was me-that-was, is me-that-is, will be me-that-will. You walk forward, not back. No-no-no-no-no-no, you do not walk, you do not half to walk, you cannot work, you are pushed from behind by great weight, that brooks no barrier and spares none at all, only pushes fast or slow, snails and hares and mayflies.

I am a snails born of snails, snails such as the thing wearing my Father's face. I am wearing something young and small thin and frightened, all skinned knees and lowered eyes and bruises and ragged clothes, no more woman than man. It is me-that-was, me-that-is, and my father (if it is my father) has grabbed the skin of one of the arms I am wearing in his grip, and it cannot be my father, for it's grip is stronger than his ever was, somehow even crueler.

It starts with the face I am forced in, and it knows my father well. Drink and sorrow rotted away the skin of the woman he ensared, and my sister took after *him* (who is my father, not this, who wears his face.) In me, in me-that-was, in me-that-is? He sees *her*, but not just her, her-and-me, she who he, my father, not the thing that wears my father's face, broke like a cheap pot, and the one who reminds him, my father, not the thing who wears my father's face, who is twisting my arm, kicking at my shins, beating into my face, of she whom he, my father, not the thing who wears my father's face, ruined and decayed like a poisoned wound.

But it is not me? Not-me who it, who wears my father's face, is hurting, because this is... Is it not me. I want it to be not-me, but it hurts, and if by brusing the face and breaking the collarbones of not-me it hurts me...  How can not-me *not* be me? It is *not* me, it is not-me, but I am it, not-me and me taking a punch to the gut, something below the hip and above the knees giving way, and we finally cry out in pain and helplessness, and now we cannot stop, and we need to stop, because he, no-no-no-no-no, if I am not-me and me, and me-that-was and me-that-is, *that* is not my father, it is a thing wearing my father's face, but it hates it when we cry.

And it hurts us still. It hurts us, in any way it wants to us, it the worst ways it knows, anything that it wants and wills and wishes and whims, and we do not understand whats-and-whys, just how and the feel, the pain and sweat and blood and the tear-salt. He-it, father-not-father, broke our arm, and it hurts less than he-it meant it, because now we match, right to left and scar to scar, and then we smile-smirk, wolf-howl.

Wolf-Howl? We've never been a wolf, never been a- *We have a weapon.* Not me-that-was, still not-me and me, me-that-is and not-me-that-is. We have a weapon, jagged and ragged and red-white-red, and we open his-its arm. He-it make us match us, we make he-it match us now, and he-it is crying-screaming, on the floor, knees hard against splintering floors, and we know that cannot do, we cannot leave him now. Out we flash, one-two one-two, And he has no knees, and we wolf-howl, and we know why. He-it is prey and we are wolves, who fear not and kill and eat who they may, but we do not want to eat, taller than we have ever been, red-white-red plunging down and
down again until he-she-

He-She? Always it, sometimes he, never she. Where did it-go, why did it come? We cannot know, and we are wolves, and we kill who we may, and we plunge down again.

Blake woke me here. I had been smashing my left forearm into her, hard enough to bruise beneath her ribs, bruises she would be wearing still if not for her magics.
« Last Edit: March 08, 2020, 06:45:38 PM by diestormlie »

diestormlie

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We're at the Rose Day Ball, Blake and I, the Ball we never made it to, but I can still *see* where it would be held, for I have walked in it's halls. We are dancing together, no dance I nor any other know, but it is beautiful, and we are shining, resplendent in our silks and finery. No, not resplendent, shining like star and moon light on the clear sea, a pale and sallow reflection of the beauty of the Heavens, but still grand enough to outshine any earthly thing without contest or question.

We dance, and we are the most beautiful things in the world.

This one did not wake me, merely faded from me, though I woke with dried tears in my cheeks.

diestormlie

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Entry 6

I'm working with me hands. I am working? I know it's me. Why does that matter? Didn't I always know it's me? If I didn't know it was me, could it even be me at all, ever- Something? Anything. I do not know. But what I know is this: That there is wood beneath my hands, though I do not know what it is called. Do I even know what I am making? Perhaps I do not- No, no, I do not, it is easy to know. I ask "What am I building" and only "Nothing" echoes inside my head. But I am building something, so I cannot be building nothing. But I do not know what I am building, but my hands do.

I smile when I grasp the tools, for I know that Blake's steel is in them, and that my woodwork is in them too, and someone else's Leatherwork, given in willingness and love. Though I cannot name them, I can see their smile. It makes them beautiful. I know (I do know? How?) that we do not have much, but when I hold these tools, three minds and six hands wrought together into single culmination, that we have enough.

I am climbing, as lithe as Cat that I- I am inside it, now, and I know it to be built in the shape of us, my neck, Blake's legs, their gentle smile, our clever hands and shining eyes. And there is another shining thing as well, as bright and deep and light as Love, as heavy as... I do not know. An Anvil? Can an Anvil compared? It cannot, and yet, I did. So can it? I am aside, inside, the shining thing, out-and-in, swallowed and swallowing, broken and whole.

And what we built I am burning, but I am content.
« Last Edit: March 14, 2020, 12:29:37 PM by diestormlie »

diestormlie

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Entry 7

There's two of them, one short, one tall, one lumping a broken bottle, the other waving his hands like a mage, a dagger flying from his hands, stabbing and floating on it's own. There are so many ways that I could kill them. Two swords, two daggers, bow, whatever they're called that you can throw and explode like Alch's Fire. But all there is in my hands is a Sap, half club, half whip, half sock filled with coins. A Guard's weapon, a Thug's weapon. Funny how that is. They deserve to die- No, they do not. I will not feel bad if I kill them, but have I ever? Yes, I have. There are people I've felt bad about killing, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't kill them if I had a do-again.

Sorrow I feel, but not guilt. I stand by what I have done. This, I know, and all the Shadows and Accusers of the world cannot strip this away from me. And that is why I cannot kill them, because I stand by what I have done. And I shall.

I lift the Sap again, and I grin, and I am wearing Anarath's face, long-jaw and sharp, predator's teeth. I growl and pounce, sap swinging, and they crumble before be, my free hand keeping the dagger at bay, and when it does not, it cannot pierce my armour-skin-fur, mottled and dancing as Fireshadow. So I go for the short one- No. The one with the broken bottle, for they shift and slip and sneak, and one is the other, or neither, or both. But it does not matter, for I am the Wolf now, and they are beneath me, and underneath me, and gone.

The Garda are here, Halberds pointed in towards me like I'm the center of a star, faces twisted and accusing. But why? Don't they see they needed this? That I'm helping them? Doing something *worth* doing? That I was helping? They do not listen? They do not hear? Perhaps they do not want to. They Halberds dart in, and I my hand snaps to a Rapier Hilt, but No! That's not enough. Being Garda isn't enough to mark for death.  So there is nothing but a sap in my hands but a Sap, and it is still in my hands when they beat me down until I cannot lift my head, and they sneer down at me, one by one, as they tell me they will burn me. For what, they don't care.

---

Blake did not wake me up, but she told me I was talking in my sleep, asking "Why?" Over and over, without end or answer.

« Last Edit: March 14, 2020, 10:25:16 AM by diestormlie »

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Entry 8

There is something pretending to be my Father. It is not trying very hard, and I know that it is not my Father, and it knows that I know, but it persists. Perhaps it enjoys pretending, or is just used to it. I know I am. Sometimes, the My-Father Facade it is wearing flickers and splutters in and out like a intermittent lisp, and I can see that there is no thing behind it, no flesh, just form, shape and no substance.

It knows me, but of course it does, otherwise how could it pretend to be my father? It knows me, and it knows me. It knows what I want to have, what I want to not have, what I cannot give up. How does it know? It's got no right to know such things of me, delve so deep into me, eat my masks and veils and sup at the core of me, reach fingers black and long down my throat to wrap around my soul and choke.

It tells me that it can change in me all that I would want changed, give and take away as I would desire, and it does know, because it stole it all from me. And all it asks from me is too small things, but it will not tell me what. But it knows what I want. Why does it toy such with me, when it- It is odd, liking something- No, no-no-no, get out of me,  -I am being seduced by something that is pretending to be my father, warm breath against my neck, calloused but tender fingers stroking my cheek, my ears, toying with my hair, running down my flank, brushing across my lips. Breath hitching and heavy, eyes wide, skin sweat-slick, heart pounding, and I want... It to go away, and leave me be, but I can't, I can't, I can't get it off me, I want- something, anything, whatever it wants to give me. I do, for I am as I am and I can only be as I am, not as I was, not as I will be, so I am its.

So I say yes. Of course I say yes, I would have said anything, do anything it asked. So I say yes, and it reaches out and strokes my cheek, play with my hair, and plucks out my eyes. Two small things, it said. And it's not wrong, they are- were small, because I can hear them squelch, crumble to dust in it's half-father, half formless grip.

I cannot see, but I do not mind. I am with it, and I need nothing else, and I know it is reaching down to kiss me, and-

---

Blake woke me here, more in jealously than concern. I was apparently... Animated during this... Night-Thing, but when I woke I was crying as well.
« Last Edit: March 14, 2020, 03:25:37 PM by diestormlie »

diestormlie

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Entry 9

I cannot see. Am I wearing a Blindfold? I can't feel one, but I am blind, why else would I be blind. Is it just absolutle dark. I reach for my face, so I have arms, and hands, and fingers, and I feel for my eyes. Well, I have Eyes, or at least, there is something beneath my eyelids, the eyelids I cannot open, cannot pry open, cannot pull open, not sewn shut, glued shut, or any such, just closed, as final as the grave.

I am standing? Am I naked? I am barefoot, because I can feel cold stone beneath my bare feet. Am I naked? It's difficult to tell, there's not much feeling on my skin. I wave a hand through the air, and I can feel air against my fingers. So what's happening to my skin, that I can't feel any clothes. I pat a hand around me, but no, I *am* naked. I have no weapons, no eyes, stone beneath my feet, and I do not know where I am.

Think, think, think. I click my tongue, leaning my head this way and that, clicking, listening, trying to hear any difference on the sides, directions. There's nothing. I hear nothing. So I pick... A direction? The direction I was facing in? I walk. I walk a long time, until my knees ache and my feet bleed, and there is still nothing, and not even the comfort of the sound of my feet on the stone, or at least I think it is stone. I pick another direction, which one I don't know.

I walk. I walk and walk and walk, this way and that, as my feet and knees and legs fade slowly away, worn and ground down, and I still walk, hearing and touch fading, until there is nothing left of me.

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Entry 10

All is as it should be. My hair is to perfection, my dress is flawless, my jewelry polished, my make-up just *so*. The sun is shing, and I am on the Terraces of Publique, talking and gossipping, praising, backbiting, wielding all the social knives and weapons that one needs. There is a rapier at my hip, of course (it would be strange if there was not, by now) and a pistol too, because it would hardly be proper without, after all.

I see the women wander in from the direction of the Western Gate, and I indulge the curl that appears behind my lips, pointing out (quietly) of course, the pair to those I am talking with. One is in armour, and that is bad enough! And the other, approaching scandalous, her... Garments (there seems far too little *fabric* to call them "trousers") having wide slits up the sides. And they are walking really quite close, I suppose, but that I do not think much of. They are clearly some sort of vagabonds or rogues, perhaps affording themselves the lofty title of "Adventurers". Perhaps is just the bond of spilt blood? I still remember that, don't I? It has been quite long, the rapier at my side
very polished, but little used. I forget them for the moment, and go to turn bac-

They are holding hands. Holding *hands*. In *Publique!* Do they have no decorum? No respect? Oh mercy, they are *kissing*. The Savages! The Sluts! The *Whores*! I turn to give them the reprimanding they deserv-

And I am awake, thrust from sleep by some great noise inside my head and a jolt, like I had just taken a blow. My bed is cold and lonely with Blake in it. I miss her so dearly.


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Entry 11

I awake drowsy to feel the sun shining through the shutters, the bed warm from the heat of our bodies. Somehow we always end up tangled together in our sleep, Blake and Cat and I, and it never once wakes us. There are sweet kisses and squeezes of hands as we all rouse ourselves, Cat taking less and more time than Cat and I, of course. Oh, how humans age so! So strange and so fast! It is well that we love her, Blake and I, or else we could not bear to look upon her anymore. Has it been so long, that her skin is wrinkles and sallow, eyes deep-set and bones creaking, that she needs a stick to get herself around? How could it have been? How could it not have been?

Our time with her amongst us draws nearer its end. Faster for her? For us? How could we say? How could we know? It does not matter. It cannot. One day, we will have shared all that we can share, and on that day we shall know truest and bitterest grief. Shall we ever feel more Elven, Blake and I, when we bury her? When we say goodbye to the woman we shared our lives with, almost the whole of hers both not even a quarter of ours? Could we ever love anyone else again?

We do not know. We do not need to find out. Not yet, not *yet*! There is still time for the three of us to share! And there is, as ever, the thousand tasks that need doing that make an Inn run.

We kiss and embrace, all three of us, one last time, and then we slip out of our bed to begin our day.

I awake weeping, and feeling ever so lonely.