NationStates Jolt Archive

White founts falling in the courts of the sun,
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run,
There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard,
It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips,
For the inmost sea of all the Earth is shaken with his ships.

Nicholas awoke from his drug-induced sleep. Still half-asleep and drooling foolishly, he turned over on his side and feel to the floor. He hit his nose on the delicate and expensive carpet, and while cursing the bed for having shrunk half a feet during the day, he reached for a towel. The foul beast, a serpent of finest silk, sunk its deadly fangs, several feet long, jagged, and sparkling like diamonds in the midday sun, deep into his pale arm. He screamed in terror and pain, throwing the dragon, which now had grown dark and terrible wings, away into the corner. It turned into but a shadow, a blood red shadow that stalked him from its elevated position, seated in the dark shadow throne on the walls and the ceiling; as he raved throughout the room. Somewhere, far away on the other side of the vast velvet desert upon a high and mighty mountain of ebony, a woman stirred. She turned her head, a string of saliva connecting her mouth and the pillow. Nicholas looked dizzily upon her, at her firm white breasts, her jet-black hair and her delicate nose, her crimson lips and the white teeth behind them.
The floor was water, finest ebony turned to salty ocean. Mighty waves roaring from one end of the room to the other; sea monsters moving ‘neath the carpet, ready to strike at any moment. Sea beasts, minions of Proteus, rushed forth as the wardrobe turned into a gateway between the dark bedroom and the ocean.
They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the morn, from temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes in scorn; they rise in green robes from the green hells of the sea where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be. On them the sea-valves cluster and the grey sea-forests curl, splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl; they swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks in the ground, they gather and they wonder and give worship to their god. Cthulhu, Scylla, Charybdis! Tiamat, Leviathan, Curruid! Fell creatures of the deep; horrors of Poseidon’s realm.
‘’Guards!’’ he called in terror. The mighty doors to his bedroom burst open, the hordes of light charging through to conquer the dark. In the middle, like a messiah, stood a lone figure wearing the plate armour of a medieval knight, torch in hand. Multiplexed shards of crystal, brighter than a thousand suns. Lucifer – Light-bringer. Turning his head, a mighty black helmet, terrifying horns upon it which seemed like spears, the fallen angel spoke, hellfire and brimstone spewing forth from his mouth’s furnace.
‘’Duke!’’ he said; the thunder god riding in his chariot across the sky; tempest raging.
‘’No, you won’t have me!’’ he cried in absolute horror, throwing his arms over his head as to protect him from the terrible might if the Devil.
‘’Break up the mountains where the hermit-folk can hide, and sift the red and silver sands lest bone of saint abide!’’ and little imps rushed from every cavity in his body, dancing like flames on the floor and up on the walls and around Nicholas, setting the room on fire. Nicholas fainted from terror.

He awoke next morning, in his bed. His girl, some local loser, a prostitute from the street, was beside him. He jerked upright, instantly remembering the terror he had experienced during the night; the demons from the deepest ocean, the serpent and the Devil himself. He looked upon his arm where the towel had bitten him. There were no bite marks, and he did not feel any lingering pain form two jagged fangs as he rubbed the pale skin.
‘’Did you not hear anything during the night? Did you not hear the horror?’’ he asked of the girl, awakening her from her pleasant sleep. She stared at him, not certain what to say to the ravening madman she had slept with.
No, of course she had not, he concluded. No sound ever comes form the Gates of Eden.

She turned over, instantly returning to the sweet lands of her dreams in which she sought refuge from cruel Reality. In them, she was no longer Kyrie. No longer an outcast prostitute, the scum of the streets and the eternal fugitive. Of course, it was just a dream. There was no mercy on the streets of this station, no matter how long she slept. Just a dream.
Nicholas massaged his temples and wiped the sleep form his eyes. He had managed to catch some sleep after his drug-induced nightmare; seeking comfort by Kyrie’s bosom. Now he sat on the edge of the bed, tired and aching for more. On the carpet below, he could see a dark red spot. It was his blood; he knew it. He lifted his hand to his aching nose. Why hadn’t he felt the pain before?
Carefully massaging his nose, he stood up. Swaying to and fro, hung-over from a bad trip, he made his way to the large wooden desk that was in his room. Artificial sunlight; cold, emotionless and lifeless it was. Was indeed. A wondrous product of the modern age where natural light was too expensive a commodity to be distributed so freely, and where man lived not on the face of a planet, in the rural vision of a romanticist, but in the sunken city, amidst starlight and cold void and industrialized nightmare; the sinister and inauspicious vision of an anti-transcendalist. Was indeed.
The old wooden table was laden with holo discs, a quantum computer no larger than the palm one one’s hand, candles and artifacts of bygone eras of piracy. He stumbled over to the table, knocking the chair over and tripping on it, just barely catching the edge of the table in time to pull himself up. Suspended on his elbows, he dragged himself up until he had a clear view of the wooden surface. Cracks in the wood ran like ravines and canyons across the dark oak desert. Ravaging through the towers of holo discs and ancient objects, many of which did not work and many more of which he did not even know the name for, he finally found what he had been searching for; a small jewelry box made of silver and Tyrian velvet, set with gemstones of aquamarine and emerald. He opened the container, picked up a small plastic cylinder in the process. He held it up between his thumb and his index finger, and gazed upon it with the spark of curiosity in his eyes. It was filled some white powder of unknown origin. He laid it down again, considering it better not to know what it contained. Turning towards the still sleeping girl, he lashed out in a moment of clarity.
‘’You lie there, thinking you’re different. Sleeping your hours away. Ticking away they are, the hours you are. Well, no matter how long you sleep, you’ll still be a slut. People’ll always look down on you, you tramp, you sleeping beauty, you. There’s no mercy on the streets of this town. We ain’t gonna find no miracles here. There’s no mercy in the face of strangers. You’ll always be an outcast, you whore!’’ he shouted at her. She was still asleep.
‘’You think anything of this is gonna last?!’’ he howled, gesturing at the luxurious furniture and decoration in the room.
‘’Lemme tell you, girl, that what you don’t surrender they take anyway. Oh yes, they do. You sleep there while the clock ticks perpetually. A moment closer to death with every breath you breathe, without having experienced the moment. You’re loosing it, girl. Retreat to your castle of dreams, shielded temporarily from the savage nature of reality. Well, you can’t hide forever, can you? The beasts are going to tear down your fairytale walls, and drag you down into the filth again! And here you lie, unprepared and oblivious to your inescapable destiny. The longer you sleep, the harder you fall! You’re loosing it, girl. You’re wasting it all! And so am I.’’

He picked up the canister again.
He consumed it.
He dreamt.

what is this? the title said it was a pirate thing!