Work Text:
I had a dream of the Sufferer in Shadow, wrote Dagger Reinhardt in his journal.
His form was that of the moon, a shape outside the sky. He told me of the consciousness, the Gatherers of Night, and the ground shook and the wind blew all the leaves from the trees while the Sufferer beckoned me into the dark.
I didn't go. I woke up; but what if there is something out there, in the night — beyond the stars, above the Aether, at the edge of all the world? What if it wants us to come back?
What if we happened to go?
Dagger set his pen down and sat back in his chair, considering the possibility. He'd heard of this figure before, the Sufferer beyond the stars; dragons had spoken to each other of the mysterious darkness at least as long as elves like Dagger could understand them. The lore had carried on into Silvani tales as a kind of spook-figure, a warning against venturing too far into the stars like the Rixin tribes had done, a tale that told of the ways in which one might become themselves like the night surrounding all nights.
He glanced up at the corkboard above his desk. Pinned newspaper articles and letters between contacts. One of an Inglish person who'd murdered their children after seeing endless shadows in their eyes; an ad for a sleep study relating to the shadowy Hat Man that plagued the dreams of the Kingdom's inhabitants; the disappearance of university students; the howling of the drakehounds when they can't see the stars.
He had half-bothered trying to pin threads of yarn between different articles, but there was no point; he knew there was a connection, a pattern to the dreams, a rhythm to the fear. The Gatherers of Night were real, and in some way, for whatever reason, they were becoming more active by the passing of each day.