A dragon thinks deep thoughts…. (WoD)
Snoring is one of those things that only the truly deaf or the truly drunk can sleep through, Ian decides as he swings his legs over the edge of his bunk. The growling gurgling sound emanating from his bunkmate’s nasal cavities as air whistles in and out is more than even he, who could sleep like a baby through Hawk’s snoring(and that was REALLY impressive), could handle. So he gives up on sleep and trundles on bare feet encased in unlaced combat boots towards fresh air and what little breeze the warm summer night had to offer. AND a cigarette. Couldn’t forget that.
As he stands shirtless in PT shorts and dog tags, he yawns and rolls a cigarette, lights it with practiced ease and stares up at the face of the full moon shining high above him. The sky was bright with stars, the Milky Way visible even here in the heart of the City. The sight touches him in a way he’s never felt before; he is surprised to feel his pulse racing and his heart pounding like a tripping sledge. His eyes glitter greenly in the darkness as he takes a drag off of the cigarette in a vain attempt to settle his nerves, exhales a soft blue puff of smoke between even white teeth and shifts his feet uneasily. He couldn’t remember when or even why he’d started smoking, and the absence of this self-knowledge bothers him, though he’s not sure why. Who cared if he smoked? Hawk smokes, Mr. Albrecht and Mr. Springs do too, in fact, so many people Ian knows smoke that he hadn’t even thought about the why’s and when’s before. Maybe he’d been drinking when he’d picked it up and just forgot about it. That had to be it.
This answer does nothing to soothe him. He takes another drag and leans against the mortar of the barracks building, looks out over the street with hooded eyes. Who was he kidding? He couldn’t sleep because he was afraid to, that was just plain fact. His bunkmate’s snoring and his smoking addiction had nothing to with it. His dreams had been strange and distorted lately, surreal and violent, brutal and graphic. Rivers of blood, women weeping and tearing their hair, high discordant howling that both raised the hair on the back of his neck and aroused him at the same time. And there were some consistent repetitions as well, recognizable events and people. Images of a girl with dark hair and too much white makeup and her eyes ringed black with kohl. She carries a backpack slung over one slim shoulder and a haunted look in her hollow eyes. A man, tall and red-haired, with hundreds of pictograms inked in black covering his whole body, as he practices forms in the shade of a forest glen. A black-haired man with burning green eyes beats a skinny boy in a sun-lit kitchen as the boy’s mother holds a bloody washcloth to her mouth. A study, all in English leather and polished wood, smelling of firesmoke and thwarted ambition. A grandfather clock ticks interminably in the silence. A meeting in darkness, under a streetlight, where two men exchange power of various sorts; one man in a wide-brimmed black hat and the other in a black Armani suit. The second man is smiling, even white teeth bright in the moonlight. A girl’s scream, high and lonesome, as she is dragged into a stone keep, surrounded by men whose bodies were painted the same blue as the heather that grew in the meadows of the Highlands. They are laughing as she weeps, her hair a curtain across her pale face.
He clenches one fist and slams it against the brickwork of the barracks building. What the hell was all of this? Why did he have the sinking feeling that someone else was crawling around in his head as he slept, as if he was remembering events and emotions that happened to someone besides himself? He places the cigarette between his lips and inhales nervously, exhales an abrupt cloud of smoke. Maybe it was one of those weird Garou things; dreams and visions, and all of that. But most dream visions were abstract, spirit quests and whatnot. His dreams were occasionally abstract too, but there were too many tangible events and images. As much as he wanted to believe that this was all just some strange message from Gaia, he couldn’t. Not really. If Gaia was sending him these dreams, She was a lot more fucked up than anyone guessed.
His eyes drift back to the still face of the moon. Who could he turn to? His dad? Hell no. Jason Eins was a kind, patient man, but if he found out his oldest son having the kind of dreams he was, he’d more than likely blame himself and then send Ian to the Sept, which was the LAST place he wanted to go. He shivers in the summer heat. The Sept would have no patience for someone they might consider on the receiving end of dreams from the Wyrm. Or the Wyld. Or whatever. But whatever was sending them to him meant him harm, of that he was sure. So, no Sept. No Dad. Someone else.
Mom? Ian smacks himself in the forehead. What the hell? No way. Mom would ship him off to the Sept before you could say,"My son needs an exorcism. But first let me sic an emu on him." No Mom.
Mrs. Albrecht? Maybe. She was everyone’s confidant at some point or another. Just another example of how lucky Old Man Albrecht was. Besides, all of the boys had a strange sort of respect for/crush on Hawk’s mom and telling her about dreams where he killed people and did other terrible things was not exactly something he was comfortable with. Only if he could think of no one else.
Ian goes down his list of possible confidants, his list getting smaller as he mentally crosses them off. He thinks briefly of pale blue eyes and a small hand enclosed in his, each step choreographed with music and light. For a moment he reaches for the thought, feeling her name rise to the front of his mind before he checks it off the list. No, he couldn’t dump this one on her. She had had enough happen to her, he could see that in the hesitance of her step and the shadows under her eyes. He wasn’t going to expect her to carry his burden. If anything, he would try to carry some of the weight he could see pressing on her thin shoulders.
There was no rest for the wicked, he’d heard someone say once. He had to find some way to blow off steam, some way to vent his troubled mind and get a breath of fresh air, or else these restless nights were going to be the death of him. As he field-strips his cigarette and grinds out the ash with the toe of his boot, Ian remembers another saying, "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." Quit borrowing trouble. Worrying about it wasn’t going to fix it. Fixing it would fix it. He would think about it later. For now, he would try to sleep, as best he could. Maybe he wouldn’t dream tonight, maybe he wouldn’t remember it when he woke. Yawning as he turns and re-enters the building, his green eyes glow with sullen light as the moon drifts along its course and the stars flicker and fade one by one, giving way to dawn.