[closed]

[fearbringer]

Who: Dairine Callahan (wizard_redfive), Pitch Black (fearbringer)
What: Nightmare stalking and another nasty surprise
When: 5/5, night
Where: 404, Dairine's bedroom
Rating: PG for now

Barring castle-wide losses, Pitch spends most of his nights making the rounds through residents' bedrooms, lurking around and watching dreams. Not being able to cause and influence nightmares is frustrating, but it's not hard for him to adjust-- they had been a relatively new power of his, and before he'd discovered that he could influence the Sandman's dream sand, he'd spent untold millennia without them.

This isn't his first visit to Dairine's room. Tonight, he enters through a darkened corner and immediately heads over to the bed, carefully stepping around errant stuffed animals to avoid tripping over them. He leans over the sleeping girl, hoping that it's a nightmare she's having to night.

Comments

[wizard_redfive]

"It's not the same, and you know it." Dairine is fairly certain of that, like she's heard it somewhere. That Pitch was most powerful when people feared him, not just random fears.

Ohhhh, Pitch, you are treading on dangerous ground indeed.

"They aren't, but I don't really need a Guardian to kick your butt. I can do that myself." She flexes her hand and suddenly there is a bright light in her grasp. It writhes like she were holding a live lightning bolt. "I prefer showing over telling."

[fearbringer]

"Why wouldn't it be? I bring fear. I am fear." Though not necessarily in Paradisa, he's realized. People felt fear here before he came, and they'll feel fear if he leaves. It's weird, and it contributes to the feeling of powerlessness that he feels here sometimes, but he also gets something in return: more believe than he's had in centuries.

"And I'm not interested in a fight. I don't fight humans." He's done it, of course-- when those kids back home had decided to with the Guardians, he hadn't backed down from attacking. But for the most part, he considers humans in a completely different domain from himself. There's no reason to fight them. They aren't worth it. They aren't threats.

... But this girl clearly has some sort of power.

"Are you human?" he asks. Because if she's not-- or if she's from a place where humans can be powerful enough to go toe-to-toe with spirits-- he'll need to be more careful. He's perfectly willing to get into fights when he thinks he has a chance of winning, but he doesn't particularly like antagonizing beings that are more powerful than him (he already leaves Will and the demons alone). He hopes he won't have to add Dairine to that list-- her fears are interesting, and she annoys him enough that, even if she isn't a mere child, he bristles at the idea of backing down to her-- but ultimately, he knows he'd prefer it to setting himself up for an unavoidable ass-kicking.