OOM: Week Gone By

Nightmares crash over Billy, filling his mind with chaos and making him cry out in his sleep.

Almost a week has passed since he ascended to his room and he has been sick most of that time. Sick and getting sicker. Fever dreams grip him and he tosses and turns.

Old memories and new reach out to grip him in their hands, hands that feel papery thin, and dry, raspy. Claws scratch and tug and hands pull, and teeth bite, and Billy screams, deep in his dreams, his fevers, his nightmares.

Visions swarm his mind...

...of Stephanie and Zuko laying so still, and so very not alive...

flit to visions of a darker version of him, filled with hate and anger, roaring triumphantly...

flit to visions of his mother and father dying in Egypt...

flit to the man who died at his hands during the crisis...

flit to darker and darker visions...

He shudders as sweat pours off of him and he cries out , murmuring, or screaming, or groaning, as hours and days fly in his dark corner of time.

And time passes...

He doesn't see the person who treats him, who cares for him and bathes him, who changes his sheets and makes sure he gets medicine and food, as much as he can keep down... He doesn't see them, but that doesn't mean they aren't real.

And eventually, as all things do, this too passes, ad he finds himself resting in clean sheets, sleeping as deep and real sleep.

And, eventually, he wakes up.

Alive, refreshed, and ready....

...for what, he could not say.

(no subject)

He finishes packing, not much to see, and head downstairs,, then outside.

He has one more thing to do and it will strain his magic to do it, but... he wants to.

He heads outside to where... he gulps as he makes himself think it.

The place where the possessed him attacked Zuko and Steph and killed them and Zuko's dog...

He shivers as he stands there and looks down. First he scatters the dried incense around in a circle. Then he places the gold, silver and bronze coins in a pattern around the inside edges of that circle. Finally, he draws his knife and makes a slice across his palm, and watches as blood wells out of the cut. He walks the circle, shuddering, and as it closes, he feels the power ignite.

Then, after taking a long breath, he crouches and touches the ground, his eyes closing and his voice rising in a slow chant. The words are old, and powerful and he pushes himself to go through the slow stanzas of the spellsong. It takes a long time, nearly an hour, for the spell to be complete, and when it is done, he is nearly blind with fatigue. But, as he stands and moves back, the ground ripples, and a slow pattern of flowers ripples into the space.

Ambrosin, called whitedog by the people of the dreamworld on his earth, a flower known for it's use in protection and defensive magics, and it's strength, and it's ability to come back from almost anything, and for it's faithfulness as a useful drug for those who use it and tend it.

He shivers as he slowly staggers back towards the Bar. He cant undo what is done, but he will honor what happened as best he can, and so he has done so. He heads inside to sit and wait for Melpomene, and get ready to go.