Asarath lounged, concealed and blended into the darkness of the room. Without the presence of his cousin in the Inbetween anymore, the strobing illuminecence of his skin settled and dimmed to a dull sheen. The dark clung to satin panther skin and bled his image into its shadows. A place of comfort for the vypnyr. Well he supposed for the half of him that was. He'd never heard too much about the fae blending with the shadows–or the dark even really like the creatures of flora and fauna.
The dark liked the vypnyr, a vastly nocturnal race steeped in black and ashen magic. To the vypnyr the darkness of night, shadow, and the absence of light, was a deity of deities. A supreme entity that lent its power to those who wished to serve it.
Asarath liked the dark and, despite his spoilt blood, he liked to believe the dark liked him too. It clung to him so nicely after all.
He relaxed into its comfort, letting it and he meld into the cool leather of the chair he was sprawled over. A deep sigh accompanied by a tingling stretch and his eyelids were slipping closed. Visions and dreams already playing on the backs of them.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
It was there again. The green field that went on forever. Even his eyes, ones that could see for miles, could not spot its end.
And he'd turn, and he did, and there he'd find a lone column of marble. It'd be crumbling and ancient and at its top would be sitting a massive owl. And there was. A massive bird of prey with a face and belly of alabaster, cloaked in a cape of tar. Black and oily drops beaded on the surface of its feathers, rolling down in tiny rivulets and splattering the column beneath it. A familiar sight was its large eyes, alert and already strained on him, pupils expanding and dilating in lacey yellow spheres. They were two moons taunting him and they sat above a sharp beak, spattered in liquid crimson.
"Have you been hunting today?" He asked but received no reply. The bird just continued to stare.
Asarath smiled at the pensive thing, folded his legs beneath him and floated into the air. It was easiest to leave gravity and its demands behind in the astral realm. He found no use standing if he didn't have to. Rolling the air beneath him, he placed himself upon it as if he were resting on a chaise, arms folded behind his head.
"Always so quiet." He commented to the owl with a hum, now at eye level. "Why do you come to me every night?" He softly coaxed, rolling onto his side. Every time he closed his eyes the owl pulled him into the astral realm. Always in the green field, always perched on the column. It never moved, only watched him.
It'd started a few moons prior. When he'd first found himself there, he had attempted to leave. The astral plane was filled with lands, yet he could find no gates or doors to access them. Just the green field. And no matter how far he traveled, he would turn around and find the owl, perched and staring at him. It had been quite ominous the first couple of times, but by the third night he was accustomed to the owl. Choosing to relax instead of fighting his way out of it.
When he had gained enough confidence he tried to touch the bird. He would lift his hand and the owl would always be just out of reach. That was well enough though. The vypnyr were born of animals, not quite like the wyr–who, like the gods of man, commanded them as their rulers–but an existence that ran more parallel. The vypnyr lived in a more harmonious nature to their animal counterparts. More like the fae did with their flowers and leaves.
Wild animals did not like to be touched, pet, or coddled. Often insulted or shamed when done so. Asarath too would be insulted if a stranger poked at him or stroked his head. So he chose to leave it be, relaxing at a comfortable distance.
Its silence was getting a little old, however. Asarath didn't typically utilize his time asleep in any meaningful way, but laying in a field for weeks on end had its limits.
"Please say something."
It's head tilted a little bit, pupils expanding and contracting in a rhythmic flow, yet remained quiet.
Asarath groaned. He swept a little away from the perched owl and twirled in a circle, scanning the horizon. As usual there was no sign of change. Not even whatever game had fallen to the owl and bloodied its beak.
He drifted back down, intentionally sighing at the creature to relay his exhaustion with the situation. Eventually he rolled his eyes. Honestly he could, at any point, will himself awake. Sleep wasn't entirely necessary to a vypnyr. It served mostly to help with mental functions. He could just simply not return to the astral realm for a while. He'd avoid sleep and hope that the bird would be gone in a few moons' time. Drumming his fingers together, he nodded to himself. Yes, that is what he'd do.
He turned to leave.
.
"HOOOOOOOO!"
It was hollow in sound, echoed all around him like some awful horn. And a blue-grey sky instantaneously turned a violent shade of red.
Hair raised and his skin crawled as Asaraths attention flung back to the owl. It remained unmoving, its feathers and the column beneath it pure against the cadmium sky. However its pupils were entirely blown out now. Its eyes no longer oscillated in a hypnotic effect. They were blackened and endless voids and they promised to swallow him whole.
"...rath"
A bottomless well. Cool winds of promise whispering in its blackened tunnel.
He was falling into its eyes.
.
"Rath, wake up."
A cupped hand to the side of his head had him alert and awake. The office now lit up, the darkness no longer holding him in his slumber. The little hairs on his neck still stood on edge, the owl fresh in his mind, as he took in his brother standing before him. "Riel," He said groggily, "You're home."
Asarath and Asariel had once looked identical in most aspects. Throughout adolescence and into adulthood they had maintained the same weight and height and were, personalities aside, indistinguishable. As children it had been entertaining. No one could tell them apart and no one was ever quite certain to who they were speaking to. However, five years ago, with the decision to revive the Palov name, the two started to become more distinguishable.
Riel began to grow out his hair. Black thick curtains that now flowed to his knees, pushed away from his face and neatly tucked behind his ears. A pair of enchanted glasses sat on the bridge of his nose, giving the sharp featured vypnyr hybrid a scholarly look. The glasses had been charmed to aid in memorization and speed up the process of reading.
Asariel had also become thinner since the last time his brother had seen him. Spending too much time in books and not enough time eating, no doubt.
It was a look in clear contrast to Rath, who was becoming thickened in muscle, with short hair he kept typically slicked back, and a persistent shadow that clung to his jaw.
The two had begun to take on appearances reflecting their duties within the Palov estate. Riel had thrown himself into bookwork and accounting, planning and delegation, while Rath had dove into refurbishing the grounds and the old barracks that stretched down into the lower levels of Kystra. They had been left to crumble for centuries and he had taken it upon himself to restore it. Over the last couple years some of its upper levels had begin to fill with staff and guards once again.
"Are you having dreams too?" Riel asked his brother who was still coming to terms with being conscious. He'd come into the dark office to find Rath slumped over a chair, brows twitching and little grunts escaping his lips.
Rath nodded. Of course his brother was having the bizarre experience in the astral realm as well. They may have been growing more separate as individuals but their blood still bound them. "An owl."
"It's a wolf for me. A large white bellied black wolf, dripping wet with manic yellow eyes." It'd just stare from a distance while a vibrating growl that refused to cease rumbling in its chest. It had taken nights worth of built courage to approach the thing. And Reil found when he took a step forward the wolf took two back, always staying out of the distance, never taking its gaze from him or quieting the rumble in its throat.
"Have you tried to escape the field?"
Asariel hummed. "Mmhmm." He'd only attempted to leave once, turned from the wolf and was met with the russell of grass and a foreign panic bubbling in his chest. He spun to the sound to find the wolf a little closer, its muscles tensed, shoulders and hips frozen in a predatory trot. Yellow eyes dripping in their craze and drool swinging from its clenched maw. "Every time I turn from the beast it begins to hunt me."
"The owl has not tried anything like that…" Asarath trailed off. The owl very clearly attempted some form of hypnosis when Asarath had decided to not return to the astral. The wolf that Riel was dreaming of had also deviated from its typical behavior when he attempted to leave. "Well when I decided I was just going to forgo sleep for a bit, the owl did try to hypnotize me."
"Did it work?"
He recalled how he had begun to fall into its starry eyes. Slightly humorous because their oscillating effect had not been the stimulation that had entrapped his attention. "I think it would have if you had not woken me." A ping of electricity shot up his spine at what might have happened had Asariel not slapped him in the head.
"I will look through the family archives this evening to see if I can find mention of an owl or wolf anywhere." Riel rubbed at his chin thoughtfully. As far as the twins knew their vypnyric lineage had been born from jungle cats and snakes. Neither had heard mention of any connection to owls and wolves. But this was not the first time the two had had strange dreams. In fact much of their time was spent either together, or at least in the same lands while they slept. It was not the first time Riel would pillage through paper and ink for information on their odd and sometimes prophetic dreams, and it would not be the last. "Until I figure out a little more, I think it may be in our safest interest not to sleep for the time being."
Asarath nodded in agreement. He wasn't planning on it, that was for sure.
"Onto other important topics," Riel clapped his hands and continued on, changing the subject to one in which had been occupying a good portion of the past few moons. "I have found the remaining schematics." It was why Riel had been gone for so long. Traveling about the realms.
Rath jumped up. Any lingering sleep and anxiety swept away in an instant. His face lit up as he gave his brother a toothy grin. "Really?"
Riel nodded, his own smile-exact to his brothers, curved into his cheeks. "Yes. We can begin construction on the railways. I finally know how to operate the old gates."
The men had inherited the Palov estate upon their parents' execution and inside of it had been a relic from the past. A massive and cylindrical metal machine hovering between thin rails. An interdimensional transportation machine called a train. It had been an ancient antique, housed in the lowest levels of the Palov estate, named the Satin Night. Thousands of years ago the train had been operational and used for Palovian enterprise. A powerful and incredibly fast machine, it could travel across lands and between dimensions at unyielding speeds. In old depictions there had been a lead locomotive that pulled along countless and varying kinds of cars. These had been used by the Palov for luxury travel experiences and to transport specialty and exotic goods across the universe. But at some point, unclear in their history, the gates had been abandoned in favor of portal rivers, and thus the train was left behind as well.
What the brothers had now was the single lead locomotive and blueprints, dusty and crumblings, for the other carts and their inner magnetic field condusing mechanisms. (Asarath had already restored and rebuilt much of the lead. So much so, that even the original namesake, embossed in rusted and holey metal, had been scrapped with a good portion of the rest of the train. He'd yet to restamp the name on its side, a real moral dilemma as the validity of it even being the same train played on a loop in the back of his mind.) It was he who originally had the idea to restore it. At first Riel had been very pessimistic towards the outdated mode of travel. To the point of not even entertaining the endeavor. But as he dove into the family archives he had found an unlikely passion in searching for information on the trains old operations and routes, ones that seemed to make no sense and jump across realms with no explanation. It eventually led him on an expedition to secure information on the old gates.
Riel's current excitement was so palpable Rath could feel it in his bones. Riel was truly giddy with knowledge. Understandably so, for what he said next fell upon his brother's ears in triumphant horns and chimes, Riels fae blood singing every word.
"I am probably the first to know how to actually operate the gates in tens of thousands of years," He revealed in an excited and trembling whisper. Various gates still littered the realms. The understanding for most of history had been that these gates were mysteriously powered and locked to their respective positions. One gate led to only one destination. But Riel had discovered this was indeed not the case. "The gates can be programmed. Just like the mapping portals their coordinates can be modified and changed to get to other places. They are only temporarily locked in their positions. There isn't a limit on travel based on the flow of plasma and dark matter like the rivers. When using the gates one didn't have to pass through port after port to reach a destination."
"How?" Rath asked his excited counterpart.
"Instead of moving matter from one point to another in a channel, they emit a field that moves the universe to the matter." Riels voice was rising on every word.
"That seems so dangerous though."
Asariel shook his head, hair fanning around him. "We've used one of them before, don't you remember?"
Rath scrunched his nose and thought. "Oh, yeah. The one in the black oak grove!" He exclaimed with a scoff after a moment. "That thing was so sketchy I thought Esali was gonna get us killed!"
The men shared a brief laugh.
"He might have." Riel confirmed and the two chuckled a little harder before he continued. "They are only dangerous in their states of decay. They need to be refurbished. The one in the forest is actually buried underneath the rocks and tangled in the roots of the trees. It's miraculous and extraordinary that it even still works. And with what I found, not only can we repair them- we can build new ones."
Rath's eyes were saucers, pupils blown wide, staring at his brother. He had thought refurbishing the train would be a bonding experience for the two. It had exceeded all of his expectations. If they could do it safely such travel would rival or even succeed that of the portal rivers. "Woah, Riel. This is all so incre-"
A loud bang echoed through the halls, cutting off Asarath and stealing their attention. Doors slamming and a momentary muted fuss of guards and maids.
"PALOVS!" An enraged voice followed another loud bang.
Asariels looked to Rath who already had an eyebrow raised and was taking a step forward. He did not even get to the threshold of the door before a figure was solidifying in front of it. Wisps of black smoke and mist condensed and solidified into a wriggling mass of coils; membraned, alive and pulsing. Worms and centipedes merged and solidified until a Vypnyr, furious and eyes raw, dewy, and alight in feral intent.
"Angus-"
"DID YOU KNOW?!" The vypnyr shouted, canines glistening and bared with every vowel, snapping on every consonant. His skin was of the less melanated variety of vypnyr complexion, monochromatic and lacking color, pale ashen grey three shades away from paper white, and even his paleness had a deathly pallor. His cheek bones protruded from his face and his hair was thinning from malnutrition. Unfortunate side effects of being without blood.
The brothers looked to each other then back to Angus. "Know what?" They replied in unison. The vypnyr was a little more than two hundred years their senior. He had been an acquaintance of their late father. When the twins were finally given their emancipation and returned their birthright lands, Angus was there waiting for them. Their father had entrusted him with wills and titles and keys. Angus walked them through the bureaucratic process, set them up with tutors and connections, then introduced them to Vypnyr society.
He'd been absent for a little more than a year now, but neither twin had found it odd as the man was apt to spend much of his time outside of the shelf city. Angus thought it was dim(it was), and musty(it was), and too much like a cave(it was) for his tastes. He preferred the sky and the stars and fresh air. He'd usually drop in once every year or so, but never had he burst through the halls in such fury.
"That damned cousin of yours and the fae emperor have had me locked in a cage for fucking moons!" He seethed.
"Esali?" Riel questioned and Rath shook his head at his brother.
"NO!" Boomed Angus. "That silver eyed little weed that looks just like his father!" Fat crimson tears leak from his eyes and a cracking sob ripped from his chest.
Asarath caught sight of a thin chain wrapped around Angus' clenched fist as the vypnyr fell to his knees, pulling his fist to his chest, infected with a plague of sobs. His crane locket held tightly in the palm of his hand. Asariel was a mere second behind in realization.
The two quietly stood to the side, letting the man cry before Riel stepped forward, placing a reassuring hand on his shoulders.
"I didn't even get to say goodbye." He wept, bloody tears dripping onto the pale marble. "She died while I was locked in a cell."
His brother patted the back of their mentor, silent, while Asarath watched as a man he knew to be fearsome and strong crumple in the wake of loss. He shifted on his feet. Grabbed the edge of the lounge chair and pulled it toward the two for Asariel to guide the breaking man into.
Love was a vicious cruel thing. And sometimes circumstance was a malicious enabler.
He waited quietly for the man to regain his composer, while a sinking feeling began to tug at his abdomen.