Hi! I'm alive! :) I might be gone for a while again, but I think I'm starting to figure out how to write at least one requested chapter!
Chapter Sixteen: A Dream Deferred
Skylands is a world governed by magic, practically filled to the brim with it. There is so much magic that the power of dreams can hardly stay contained in it. As such, a separate realm connected to Skylands was born- the Realm of Dreams. This realm houses the collected dream worlds of Skylands people, keeping them safe for all time.
Horrible nightmares are also kept there, contained by the Dark Stygian- a force of dragons brought into the universe for the soul purpose of keeping the Realm in order amidst the lucid chaos created by the imaginations of all dreamers.
So when a dream vanishes from your mind, it never really goes away. It is saved in the Realm of Dreams, where it is saved for all eternity.
But Blackout's story truly begins in Skylands, where all dreams begin.
To be more specific, a dream begins in the mind of a resting person in Skylands. Blackout was born in the mind of Portal Master Eon, a protector of Skylands, one late night. Eon was still young at the time, and not as wise and experienced as he is now. He didn't see the beauty in the strange dragon, with broken wings, dark scales, and a large horn on his nose. He was a nightmare being, and all nightmares had to be purged from his mind.
Blackout didn't give up so easily at first. He was still new to the universe. He sought out friends to play with. He was hardly aware of his terrifying appearance- wasn't this how all dragons looked?
Eon soon put a dream-blocker spell on his dreamworld, keeping everything in there calm and serene. That managed to kick Blackout out for a time, and he kept himself to the Realm of Dreams permanently. He didn't understand. Eon was his creator. Why didn't he want him? Had Blackout done something to make him mad? He just didn't understand it.
Blackout kept to himself in this realm, wandering around on the celestial plains, looking at the beautiful creations brought up by the dreamers of Skylands. Everything on the celestial plains was abstract, melded together by stray dreams that escaped dream worlds, despite dreamworlds being mostly in order despite also being somewhat abstract. Cute creatures flew about, usually bubbly pink or blue, as well as more complex creatures like the dragons and the sphynxes made from dreams. Dark, twisted nightmares also roamed about, taking the form of snakes, spiders and other horrible monsters, terrorizing the bubblies, before being captured by the Stygian.
Cute, twisted, Blackout thought it was all wonderful. But he could see where the line divided between the bubblies that dreamers preferred. He would take a peek in other people's dream worlds every now and then, and see what was going on. The dream figments that people created to represent themselves preferred to play and sing with the bubblies, acting in the same personality as the dreamer. However, when nightmares were created in the dream world, the dream figments would flee from them, finding their worst fears in the creature. "Get away! Leave me alone! You're a monster!" They would say that to the nightmares before shoving them out into the celestial plains.
Blackout compared himself to these creatures. He was dark and scary. He looked to be made of shadows. He had a foreboding appearance that could scare someone. No wonder Eon never wanted to play with him, he realized.
Soon he stopped seeing the joy in the Realm of Dreams. It wasn't fun to scream with no sound. It wasn't fun to hit the wall and feel no pain. It wasn't fun to fall down the stairs and catch yourself. It wasn't fun to fly, to leap through portals, to find your dream girl. None of that was fun, since Blackout was always alone.
One day, he found a bubbly messing around in another person's dream world. But was that what she actually was? She was a floating head with light blue skin and dark blue hair, wearing a bow on top. The girl looked very much like a bubbly, but she certainly didn't act like one. She actually created figments inside of a dreamer's dream world. Sentient ones, that actively tortured the dream figment and made their lives miserable. Blackout, who'd hidden in the dream world to watch her, was pushed out along with her when the dreamer woke up, locking them out until he fell asleep again.
"And I thought you were a good dream," Blackout told her.
"Well, good dreams can be deceiving," the girl said, flashing him teeth with metal attached. "I can manipulate those dream worlds, changing them into my own."
"Can you teach me?"
The girl's interest peaked. "It's something only I can do," she began. "Nobody else can do it. But I'd like to see you try."
"That's great!" Blackout said.
"The name's Dreamcatcher. You?"
"I'm Blackout."
And the Dreamcatcher bubbly began teaching Blackout how to manipulate dreams. They started small- changing doors from brown to green, switching dining room chairs with bean bag chairs, and eventually changing the hair color of a dream figment. Blackout caught on quickly, however, surpassing Dreamcatcher's expectations. He eventually created sentient figments just like she could. The figments were his new favorite thing, and he spent a lot of time creating bubblies of his own.
"Is that all you can do with those?" Dreamcatcher scoffed. "For a nightmare such as yourself, I expected to see more dark figments come from you."
Blackout looked away from the bubbly sugarbat he'd created and looked at her. "Am I doing something wrong?" he asked.
"Not necessarily, but I think you're wasting potential with those things," Dreamcatcher explained. "Think of all the damage you could do to these dreamers if you took it up a notch, created the most terrifying figments imaginable, shoved it in their faces!"
"Why do I want to do that? The dreamers haven't done anything to me."
"They also haven't done anything for you, now have they? They've never done anything for either of us. We barely matter to them!"
She had a point. Blackout took another look at the celestial plains around them. Why did this place exist? Why did the two of them exist? Why did they stay in here, unknown to the wider world of Skylands? Everything in here, all of the wonders and beauties and nightmares they saw, had all been discarded at one point or another. Dreams deferred, dreams forgotten. They had all been tossed away by dreamers that quickly forgot about them. That had to be the reason for all of this, right? That made sense to him.
Blackout looked back at the sugarbat he made. It was cute enough, as sugarbats went. He suddenly started tearing it apart, limb from limb, until all parts lay before him once more. The ears were replaced with horns that sat squarely on the head. The head was stuck back onto the torso, but where the tail had been. The wings were stuck high up on the back, and talons were put where the wings used to lay. The tail was stuck onto the neck, and Blackout molded it until a maw with six sets of jagged teeth were set on it.
His beautiful masterpiece had been turned into an abomination.
And he wasn't done there.
He stretched its body out, growing it bigger and scarier. The purple color scheme was replaced by a wonderful palette of browns, grays and blacks. The eyes turned red, like those of a ravenous pack animal. Blackout then tore one of the eyes out, sticking it onto the chest. The sugarbat was now a nightmare, not even a true creature. It's only purpose now was to terrify some poor lost soul out there, becoming the fear that kept them up at night.
Dreamcatcher looked at his creation, a crooked smile set on her face. "Nice job," was all she said.
The misshapen nightmare was set to attack the dream world of a young boy; a short fellow with a fierce temper, who tried to resemble the terrible face of the creature whenever he attacked Skylands with his army of trolls and Greebles.
Blackout and Dreamcatcher became a true team. They devastated the dream worlds of several people in Skylands. In the waking world, most dreamers were left traumatized, catatonic, unsure of what to do in order to escape the nightmares. Some dreamers became shy, too afraid to take a chance on the basis that they would get hurt. Some shut themselves in, too afraid to even dream, until it was noticed that their dream world disappeared altogether. It was absolute chaos.
Blackout had never enjoyed himself more. He had never had someone to play with before, and he could play with Dreamcatcher all he wanted. Sometimes they'd team up to create an especially horrifying monster, one that didn't stay for too long but nonetheless ripped apart the dreamworld in a cataclysmic event. Blackout found new joy in creating these nightmares. He relished the way that the dream figments suffered, either by bleeding out before the dream world closed, or by being torn limb from limb, or by falling into an endless pit. Their silence gave him pleasure- they didn't even have the ability to scream.
"We make quite a team, don't we?" Blackout asked Dreamcatcher one day when they found the very edge of the celestial plains. Beyond that very ridge was a floating prison, known as Lucid Lockdown, where the Dark Stygian locked up the nightmares. Escaping the Stygian was a mere hobby for them at this point.
"I wonder if the waking world of Skylands has caught onto us, yet," Dreamcatcher giggled.
"Hey, I wanted to ask you this before...I was curious about it when I met you...but what made you start destroying dream worlds?"
"You know that reason. They neglected me, forgot me, threw me aside like I didn't matter. They should see now that I do matter."
"And you're a nightmare to boot. All dreams are thrown away, but nightmares are hated upon before that happens."
"Exactly!"
"But you used to be a good dream at one point, too, right? You don't seem like a nightmare. Do you remember how you changed?"
Dreamcatcher didn't answer right away. Something was going on inside her mind, but Blackout couldn't tell what it was. "I don't remember," she finally said.
It was this fact that seemed to bother her, even slightly, no matter how strong she tried to appear in front of Blackout.
"Not at all?" Blackout repeated. "Not even a little piece?"
"Not a piece," Dreamcatcher confirmed.
"Do you remember who dreamed you up in the first place?"
"Who remembers that detail? I'm sure you've forgotten by now."
Blackout stammered out, "...It was just a thought." But the truth was that he did remember. He remembered Eon, though it had been long ago since he tried to get in. By now, unbeknownst to Blackout, the dream-blocker spell had worn off, Eon having forgotten why he'd been scared enough to place it up. Blackout hardly thought about trying to get back in. Rejection stung like poison, coming upon the thought that Eon hated him. Blackout had decided long ago that he hated Eon, too.
It was this thought that fueled his anger.
As they talked about these things, the Stygian came upon them. The shenanigans of Blackout and Dreamcatcher hadn't gone unnoticed by these dragons. The Dark Stygian had been onto them, and now they had the crooks surrounded. Blackout and Dreamcatcher fought back, using the dream energy they'd stolen from traumatic dreamers to their advantage, but the forces working against them were too great. The two were overpowered, and taken to the Lucid Lockdown.
Blackout hadn't imagined what these walls would be like. Truth of it was, the only reason the two of them were captured was because they'd gotten cocky. "It'll never happen to us," they told each other. "We're too good for the Stygian to track!" And here they were now.
The walls of the Lucid Lockdown were...actual walls. Grey, boring walls. The interior of the prison was like a normal prison in Skylands, except extremely boring. That was the Dark Stygian's plan for eliminating the nightmares permanently. The nightmares were isolated from each other, locked alone in separate cells with nothing to do, until they faded from the Realm of Dreams into the stardust of the universe. Apparently there was a way that dreams could disappear- if they simply lost the will to go on.
Blackout wouldn't stand for it. Each day in confinement, he would train himself. He pushed against the wall, strengthening his legs and arms. He sliced at the bars of his cell, strengthening his wings and claws. He worked every day, keeping himself busy, keeping himself strong. Blackout would survive. He would get out of here eventually.
Nothing seemed to escape the ever-watchful eye of the Dark Stygian. Blackout's tenacity was no different. The leader of the Stygian confronted him one day, hoping to recruit him into their forces. They were always looking for strong dragons to send to the dream worlds of Skylands' hated villains, hoping to discourage them from villainy- apparently that was one of their goals as well .Blackout didn't really want to work with this goody-two-winged organization, but it was his ticket out of the prison, so he took it.
"You've made the right choice, Blackout," they told him once he'd officially joined. "Nobody gets out of Lucid Lockdown alive. And, frankly, you have a set of skills that are...necessary for our cause."
They pointed out his skill with creating the figments, he knew. He also knew that the reason he was selected for the Stygian was because he was a dragon. Dreamcatcher hadn't been selected for it, purely because she wasn't like them. It was the thing he hated the most about this elitist clan.
No matter. Dreamcatcher eventually made her own way out as well.
The Stygian had their own headquarters as well, located in the very center of the Realm of Dreams. It was a large citadel floating above the celestial plains. It held only a single large room, adorned by a single large crystal ball. The crystal was actually how the Stygian got to different dream worlds remotely. They wouldn't have to travel all the way to a dream world, but go through the crystal in their work place and make it there and back before breakfast. The dragons heading into a dream world would receive the name of the dreamer they were to see, then say it aloud and be transported there immediately.
Blackout found little joy doing the Stygian's work. It made his talents useless and boring. Everyone could create figments used to rip apart dream worlds, so he had nothing new to offer them. They basically told him what to do, and he had no choice but to do it. Blackout wasn't supposed to ask questions or challenge authority, or else be sent back to Lucid Lockdown, this time with restraints on his feet. Ripping apart dream worlds became a chore for him, and it was hardly fun anymore.
However, he still enjoyed the tortured look of the villains' faces. They were the worst offenders. They thought they owned the universe, and insisted that it was theirs to control. That power was beyond them. Only Blackout had that power when he was in their dream worlds. He could show them how wrong they were about everything. He could make them suffer in any way he saw fit- strangle them, drown them, distort the appearance of the dream figments to show how twisted they truly were inside. All villains were the same, and all dreamers deserved to suffer.
"Your methods are a bit extreme, aren't they?" the leader asked after a while.
"They get the job done, don't they?" Blackout insisted.
"I remember the damage you used to do to average dreamers before you came here. I don't want to see that in your work now. Doing so will make you no better than the villains we touch."
"It's the same amount of damage that everyone else does. I'll sometimes poke in the minds of villains that other members have touched, just for inspiration. There's hardly any change among the damage they do and the damage I do."
"Yes, I've noticed that, as of late. It wasn't how we used to do things around here, and I was worried for a while."
"And you didn't do anything about it?"
"It gets the message across- don't mess with forces you can't possibly control. That's the thing that all villains misunderstand, and what inevitably leads to their downfall. If they see that early on, they can be set on the right path. I've got my eye out for infractions, and I'll correct anything that I see unfit."
A Stygian member named Aku, the one member who'd actually asked Blackout to call him by something, came up to them. He held a slip of paper in his paw, which he formally gave to Blackout.
"This one is a strange case," Aku began. "There's absolutely nothing I can do to influence this girl. I'm sure you have the capabilities to do so, Blackout."
"Who is the girl?" the leader asked.
"A white dragon named Spotlight. She popped out of nowhere and into Skylands a few months ago. She sounds like bad news, so we should set her straight immediately. But she has nothing for me to change, to manipulate, into doing this. Shouldn't we have Blackout take a look?"
"I guess that seems appropriate."
Blackout nodded, and went straight for the crystal ball. He touched the clear surface, requesting to seek the dream world of Spotlight, and in a moment he was there.
At least he thought he was. There was just a blank space that went on for miles and miles. It was unearthly, unseen, frightening. Blackout had seen everything there was to see in the Realm of Dreams, and to see nothing was just a complete slap to the face. He wandered for a short time, and eventually found a white dragoness in the middle of the space. He almost missed her- the only thing setting her off from the white were the gold rings in her wings and the gold star pattern on her head. The dragoness smiled patiently, as if waiting for something.
Blackout stepped up to her slowly. He had no idea what to do, either. His most pressing concern was how the dragoness would react- if she ran away from him, he might not be able to find her. But as he got closer, and she saw him, she didn't run away. In fact, she smiled when he came forward.
She couldn't know what a nightmare was.
She'd just come into the world of Skylands.
She was like a dream, like a reflection of what Blackout had once been.
"You must be Spotlight, correct?" Blackout asked.
"How did you guess?" the dragoness, Spotlight, asked.
"Well...this is a dream. Everyone in a dream knows your name."
"I don't find people in my dreams. You're the first one I've ever seen. Who are you?"
He'd more than blown his cover at this point. He could manipulate a villain's dream all he liked, but the dream figment wasn't supposed to see his true form. Blackout wasn't hiding, and he hadn't changed at all. Here was Blackout, showing his true form in front of someone he was supposed to give a nightmare to.
"What are you doing right now?" Blackout asked.
"Waiting for sunrise, so I can wake up and do stuff," Spotlight explained.
"You know, you can do whatever you want in a dream."
"It doesn't look like there's much to do."
"Not yet, there isn't. You know what a canvas is, right? Well right now, this whole place is your canvas. You can change and make it into anything you want."
Blackout showed her. In front of her paws, he created a small, delicate purple flower. It was the first thing of true beauty he'd created in years. It was innocent enough to lure her into this idea.
The flower seemed to work. Spotlight placed her paw in the spot next to the purple flower, letting a white flower sprout up. She was intrigued by this act, and ran around springing multiple-colored flowers in her wake. Spotlight forgot about the grass, so Blackout waved his wings forward and created a lush green to surround the flowers . Working together, they made a large field.
"You haven't filled up the whole canvas yet," Blackout reminded her, referring to the white walls.
Spotlight nodded, and pointed her tail to a white spot to her left. A large castle made of crystal came forth as if painted by an unseen force. Blackout busied himself by growing large oak trees in the field they'd made, putting little squirrels and doves in the branches. He backed away as he did so- he was making bubblies! He'd sworn not to make bubblies again!
But he caught himself in the masterpiece that Spotlight was making. She turned the sky into a purple night, dotting it with a cluster of star systems far beyond them. Blue stars, yellow stars, white stars, pink and purple stars, they all swirled together in some beautiful pattern. A large full moon appeared as well, moonlight streaming toward the castle, and the castle spreading the moonlight across the field dotted with the flowers and trees they'd made.
It was the first time in a long time that Blackout had thought about the masterpieces he'd made. There was a kind of life to everything he created. He looked back to the squirrels and doves that ran about. They were perfectly at peace in this world. He couldn't simply tear them apart and turn them into amalgamations of other, strange creatures. He couldn't simply torture Spotlight, who was so young and inexperienced.
He realized that something didn't quite add up with his assignment, either.
Blackout dismissed himself from Spotlight's dreamworld, heading back into the citadel of the Dark Stygian. He started poking in the dreams of villains that other Stygian members touched before. He had visited to see what they'd done before, but now he was paying attention to the dream figments of the victims. There were villains in the list, like Brock the Drow or the puppeteer Mesmerelda, but Blackout was shocked to see who else had been affected.
The innocent Mabu, who have always been peaceful with the creatures they lived with in Skylands.
The denizens of Dragons' Peak, who had done absolutely nothing wrong in the world.
Some Skylanders, protectors of the world, who had only ever tried to save people.
The Stygian members had changed long before Blackout had been offered to join. They were aware of the power they wielded. They knew what they were supposed to do. "Don't mess with forces you can't possibly control," they said. But the Stygian could control these forces, and they did so for their own pleasure.
Blackout was the only one who could do something right now.
But why should he? The dreamers had never done anything for him. They'd left him here to be forgotten. Eon had quickly discarded him soon after conception. And it wasn't like Blackout didn't enjoy watching the dreamers suffer. Their expressions were amazing! They all deserved what they got! He wouldn't be forgotten by them any longer!
Then was this...how he wanted to be remembered?
Blackout would start with Aku, and give him a piece of his mind. Oh, but where had Aku gone? Blackout looked in the crystal ball, checking for the last dreamworld that the dragon had visited. There was one dreamworld, a complex one, where Aku and the majority of the Stygian had gone into. He could easily track him in there- but this dreamworld was one he couldn't simply go into without his anger boiling to the limit.
Even so, he touched the crystal and requested to visit that world.
"Master Eon."
Several long years had passed since the last time they saw each other. Blackout was unaware of the true time, but at this point Eon had become a true Portal Master. He was the human leader of the Skylanders, and was wiser than the earth below them. However, there were parts of him that Eon found incomplete, and was going back in a dream to face his deepest fears.
The dream world was set in a labyrinth when Blackout arrived. The walls and corridors were constantly shifting, turning itself into a puzzle for the dream figment of Eon. It would be impossible to find the Stygian in here.
If it were more complicated than that.
Follow the trail of destruction. Several walls had been torn away, created by the Stygian in an attempt to find the dream figment. Blackout took the rubble and transformed it, creating a figment army made from the bricks and stone of the labyrinth. He led them through the dreamworld, charging down the path of destruction. Blackout came across a giant pillar depicting a terrifying dragon more menacing than Blackout, and it was here where the Stygian had gotten stock.
"Aku! Come here and face me!" Blackout bellowed.
Aku turned and stepped forward, meeting Blackout at his horned nose. The Stygian dragons stepped behind him, prepared to attack. A war was going to break out here.
"I was going to invite you," Aku insisted. "I know how much you enjoy terrorizing the dreamers. I see it in your eyes every time you return to the citadel. It pleases you to see them suffer."
"Apparently you enjoy the same look more on innocent bystanders," Blackout replied disdainfully.
"Is that wrong? Is that really wrong of me to do? I was bred to create nightmares to reform villains, and that's all I've ever done. For thousands of years, I've been stuck in this rut that I cannot possibly get out of. I wondered if that was all I was good for- just a means to an end for one impossible goal. There are always going to be evil people in the world! Nothing we do is going to change that! I'd rather have fun before the Stygian leader catches on to me."
"The point is not to keep evil from rising. There will always be dark as there is light, and that balance is necessary. What matters is what we choose to do, and I'm ready to turn it around and change my ways! I don't have to let you go down for this, and I don't want to fight if I don't have to!"
"A fight is necessary! You'll just tell the leader what we've done if we stand down right now!"
Both sides lashed out at one another. The rest of the Stygian attacked the nightmare warriors, forcing them off each other's backs. Blackout and Aku wrestled with each other, kicking their faces and guts. Blackout had Aku pinned on the ground at one point, bashing his head into the stone. Aku threw him off, ramming him into the statue. The statue crumbled and fell apart, landing on a few Stygian members in the way.
Aku came upon Blackout again, but was quickly shoved away by one of Blackout's nightmare creations. With this opportunity, Blackout stood up and launched at Aku again. They locked once more, thrashing about the labyrinth, leading each other away from the battle. They fought near the edge of the walls, which had been cleared away to reveal a large, bottomless pit. Aku cornered Blackout here, slashing his face with long claws, trying to push him down. If they fell in, they would be pushed out of the dream world and back into the citadel, unable to manipulate the dream further.
"You think you can be a hero?" Aku insulted him. "You think you can change your path? There are no other options for you! You were born as a nightmare! You cannot change your destiny! You are set to forever be on a path of destruction! None of us can change who we are, where we end up! You're another great fool in this sea of fools, trying to change what cannot be fixed!"
Blackout grabbed Aku by the wings. He spun him around, launching him off the edge. Aku fell down into the pit, his connection with this dream world severed. Blackout raced back to the battle, creating cages to trap the Stygian dragons. With knowledge that their ring leader had been defeated, they dismissed themselves from the dream world willingly. Blackout had more power over them at this point, and besides, what were they going to do without Aku telling them so?
The labyrinth cleared away, forming into a linear path. A dream figment in a blue robe and white beard walked forward. The figure wore a helmet on his head- a token from his old home, Blackout remembered.
This was Eon.
"I knew of a disturbance in this place," Eon told Blackout. "What happened here?"
Blackout scoffed. "Nothing I couldn't handle," he simply said. Eon certainly had the gall to talk to Blackout as if he were a friend.
Truth of it was, this was part of Master Eon's ritual. He was ashamed of the fears he'd had as a child, the fact that he hadn't wanted to explore them as he got older, and was now taking the time to face his demons. He wasn't going to run away this time. Eon simply thought that Blackout had stayed in his subconscious all this time, hiding in the back when he decided not to face him. It couldn't have truly been known that Blackout had given up seeing him, given up on playing with him, and absolutely refusing to try and return.
"I see you've changed," Eon continued.
"I haven't changed," Blackout spat. "I'm a nightmare. I've always been a nightmare. You threw me out long ago, and that let me thrive in the darkness. You forgot about me in that time. And now you have the nerve to speak to me again!"
"I never forgot about you. I remembered how much your form terrified me as a child, and I always wondered what I'd find had I decided to confront you."
Blackout hadn't been forgotten? All this time, Eon had remembered him? Blackout started crying at the notion. For the first time in his life, he cried. Everything he'd bottled up, all the anger and sadness, just came out at that moment.
Eon placed a hand on Blackout's head, comforting him and showing him that it was true. "I don't know what I was thinking, before," he explained. "You've broken out of this shell. It's easy for you to live as the nightmare you appear to be, and even harder to try and change people's perception of you by being something else. The will to change and break out of that shell defines who you truly are, and I think I know where your true place is."
That seemed true. Blackout could break out of his shell, become something more than what had defined him. He started to smile once again. He hadn't been forgotten after all.
True dreams are never forgotten.
Title for this chapter comes from the poem "Dream Deferred" by Langston Hughes.
