A Touch Of Fancy (Ydris x reader)

~Chapter 2~

//tldr: Ydris is being a little shit//

   When your eyes could make out your surroundings, everything was in flames around you. The heat made your cheeks feel far too warm and the smoke lingering in the air caused your eyes to sting and water. The area around you was unrecognizable from any other forest that you had been to with your horse, just that normally the trees weren't engulfed in flames like they were now. You raised your forearm to wipe away the tears that had formed in the corners of your eyes, when the faint sound of a horses cry echoed through the area. The feeling of being watched trickled up your spine, but your attention was elsewhere. "Why would there be a horse here?" your mind could not understand until you heard the cry again, only louder this time. Lumi, the cry must have been hers. Now the sound was far louder, as if she was standing right beside you. But when you looked around frantically, she was nowhere to be seen. Screaming your precious partners name, you try your best to run through the blazing trails, dodging falling embers as much as you could. Even as ash clung to your hair and many of the lower hanging branches scratched your face, you kept going. No matter how much you ran, Lumis voice never seemed to get closer. But you would not give up, so you kept on searching frantically. Everything seemed different yet the exact same no matter where you looked.

    You had no idea how long you had sprinted for, but you were nothing but glad when you arrived in a clearing, the other side of which the grey spotted horse was panicking, looking absolutely terrified. You yelled out her name, but she would not turn to look at you. It was as if you weren't even there. Taking careful steps towards Lumi, you get closer and closer to her, praying that you would be able to calm her down. "There there girl, it's alright now". Just when you were about to reach out and touch the mare, strange purple sparks appeared around the grass where you were standing on. Before you had time to even blink twice, the ground around you turned into freezing cold water, sending you plummeting into its dark depths. You tried frantically to thrash around to make it back to the surface, but your arms felt like lead and moving them was taking more effort than what it was worth. The surface of the water seemed to just get farther and farther away from you the more you tried to swim up. The last thing you saw before your vision went black, was more purple sparks around the water, almost as if taunting you.

     Waking up in cold sweat after a nightmare was somewhat normal for you, but it never made it any easier. Jolting up in your makeshift bed, you almost banged your head on the hard wood side of the stall Lumi lifted her head over from the stall right next to the one you had been sleeping in, clearly checking up on you. You took a few panicked breaths, before turning them into deeper and longer ones. You observed your surroundings cautiously. There was no forest or fire nor the cold water that had felt far too real for your liking. The stable that you had grown familiar with these fast few weeks was as quiet as ever, the only sounds coming from either you or Lumi. You stroked the mares soft head, relieved that it was all a dream after all. But it was strange, your dreams had never felt that real before. Trying not to think about everything too much, you leaned back into the rough hay. Things like purple sparkly magic could not be real, right?. The small drop of doubt that had crept its way deep inside your brain, disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, letting you fall into a dreamless slumber.

    For around a week, dreams similar to the one you had, came to you every night. Each one had started off as a normal nightmare, that you had gotten far too used to, only to be turned on its head by the same purple sparks appearing out of nowhere. Even the feeling of being watched like a zoo animal remained, as if some twisted being was happily watching you suffer. Everything from giving a sinking ship wings, just to have it crash to a mountain, to interrupting your fall with a giant trampoline. It wasn't that bad all things considered, since at least now your nightmares felt more like a fantasy movie, and a lot less like the ones that had you shaking even after they are over. Those dreams with real scary situations all but stopped. Well, almost.

    It had been an ordinary day behind you and Lumi. That all changed when you went to sleep. Some cruel god somewhere had decided that the dreams without any of your trauma attached, had ended and it was time for you to experience them again. So when you found yourself being followed by a group of snotty teen boys inside the dark halls of a school that you recognized as your old high school, your breath caught on your throat. The sound of the boys grew louder and you could almost count the footsteps of five different people. Running frantically down the halls, by instinct you moved towards your old hiding place under the fifth floor stairs. But no matter where you ran, the stairway would not appear. So in desperation, you ducked inside one of the classrooms along the hall, planning to just hide it out until the teens leave. Unfortunately, luck wasn't on your side as the boys entered the same class that you had not long after you. You turned your head to look at your attackers. There were five, all of them carrying heavy looking baseball bats. Try as you might, you could not make out any facial features, their faces seeming more like mud than actual human faces. Taking a few steps back, you looked at them in their nonexistent eyes and mentally prepared for a fight. Just as one of them had taken a step forward, the same purple glitter erupted around them. Their figures disappeared in a cloud of magenta, and when you could finally see properly again, you hoped that you hadn't. Instead of five teenage boys, in front of you stood five overly large rabbits. You didn't know whether to laugh or cry. As your new predators continued their attack in their new forms, you closed your eyes tightly, praying that you could just wake up.

  The world seemed to have mercy on you, when you woke back up inside the familiar stables, with Lumi looking over at you, her eyes filled with worry. You pet her head, trying to convey that you were alright, but your still wide eyes betrayed you. Now you were sure, something was messing with you. Not wanting to experience a second case of trauma that night, you keep yourself awake until the sun rises and illuminates Moorland stables with its warm glow.