Into The Shadow Realm | Rascal x fem reader story 2023

12| Potion

Lately, as well as lying awake for hours, you are hardly getting enough sleep. It has been around three days since you fought the Glitter Force. Man, did that suck the negative energy out of you. Tiredness overtakes but all nights are the same, up at all hours of the night and early morning, staring up at the patterns on the roof of the bed. You have probably memorised them by now, and could draw exact replicas if asked. And of course there are the thoughts running aimlessly around in your head, persuading you to avoid sleep.

To avoid the nightmare.

But this will not stand. You need sleep. In order to serve the Emperor, you must be your absolute best self. Then an idea pops into your head.

Surely Brooha may have something for this.

In an instant you are dressed and hovering down the corridor eagerly, without a thought towards Rascal's shut door. As you near the brewery, you begin hearing clanging and banging.

You knock on the already slightly open door.

....

"Of course I make potions! Didn't you realise that I'm a witch!?" Brooha sits on the stool beside her empty cauldron. She has brought over a chair for you also, having caught her at a time of reorganisation.

"Yes," you reply with a slight grimace, "but what about ones, for, say...sleep?"

"Sleep!?"

It takes everything inside of you, not to notion to her to keep her voice quiet.

"Well of course I make - I can make ones for sleep. I thought your kind could sleep already."

Wincing, you hope no one can hear. "Oh, no I can, it is just I have these...I do not want...I want a ...well, you know, a peaceful sleep."

Brooha's eyes stare straight into your soul, it feels like, and you try and keep your voice hushed.

"Peaceful? You can't sleep?"

"I have these...." You silently groan, "dreams, you could say, vivid ones."

"You mean nightmares?"

Heat pumps against your skin. "Well, no, it is not – it is not a...nightmare...it is a vision more like. The same every time."

It has come to your attention that you have not attempted to explain this in what seems like a lifetime, so you struggle to clarify to the witch, having never put a label on what it actually is before.

"A vision!? Tell me more!" Although she does not yell, you are sure Brooha could be heard by the humans down in the Human Realm.

Swallowing, and incredibly uncomfortable, you give it a try. "Right, I guess it is a dream. It is not real of course, but sometimes it is difficult labelling it as real, because, when I am enduring it, it is incredibly vivid, that I can...feel."

"Feel what? What do you feel!?"

The conversation is triggering, you can feel more anxiety bubble up into your throat.

"Pain." There. You have finally said it. At once, all the stress melts off of your shoulders.

"What sort of pain?"

"Pain so intense, that every time it happens...I feel as if I could die."

"Of course you wouldn't want to sleep! How often does this happen!?"

Flinging out your hands to signal to her to lower her voice, you answer in a hushed tone. "Most nights now."

Brooha says no more, already scurrying away to collect ingredients. She returns every once in a while to toss a few things into the cauldron.