trans_9 | Beyond the Walls of Sleep

Slowly but surely, the nightmares have been chipping away at the mental defenses of the crew.

Even those who attempt to stay awake to avoid the nightmares find themselves too on-edge to completely concentrate their defenses.

And the Nightmare King has not been idle during all this, no. He has been slowly feeding off the crew, gathering his strength so that he may yet break free from his prison.

And he now uses that new found power, reaching out to affect the minds of the crew even in the waking world. Even those avoiding sleep will find themselves drifting in and out of their nightmares, bringing everyone a taste of despair.

After all, no one can escape the grasp of the King of Nightmares.

No one.

[ooc: OH NOEZ. As you can guess, the Nightmare King is getting stronger. As such, the crew will start experiencing waking dreams. These are much more subtle than the normal nightmares, however, and are more so depressing and surreal than actually brain-breaking. Mostly they would be miserable versions of the character's normal life, or perhaps even their life on the ship.]

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Katara shook her head. "This kind of fighting was really more something Aang was better at. Sokka and I and Toph and Zuko were all very strong and capable, but things that bordered into the spiritual and mental were always more Aang's thing. He's a monk, and very tempered in these kind of matters. He...knew himself better than most people. Maybe that's why I want to help him so much."

She grabbed his hand, looking at him seriously. "That means a lot. If there's anything I think that can beat this thing, its our combined strength. We aren't helpless as long as we have faith that we can pull through. The Nightmare King wants to divide and conquer us: we have to let him know we won't let him."

"Or maybe ye want to help him because ye love him. There's no shame in that, Katara." If Victoria was trapped in a similar way, Jamie knew he would help her, no matter what.

He nods as Katara grabs his hand and places his other one on top of hers. "I know. I keep trying to think like that." It's just hard, at times. However, Jamie does have faith that they will pull through in the end, and isn't afraid to say it. "We will beat him," he says firmly. "We will."

Katara didn't say anything a moment. Her feelings for Aang was usually not something she talked about aloud about, and she turned a little red when he mentioned it in the first place. "Yeah, well...she looked down at her hands. "That goes without saying. I want to save him."

She could think about loving him and how she wanted to be with him when they were actually fighting the Nightmare King. Thinking about it now hurt her unexpectedly.

And here, Katara smiled. "Good. Remember to tell yourself that. Because I'm not going to be defeated by this guy, and neither should you."

Jamie winces a little at Katara's expression. He did something there he probably shouldn't have. He's just not sure what, exactly. Maybe it's just that Katara is like him and doesn't like to admit it...but she did, before, he thinks?

"Och, I didna mean to upset ye, Katara. But, if it helps, ye will save him. And neither of us are going to be defeated by the Nightmare King." He sounds quite positive about this.

Katara shook her head. "It isn't your fault. I always thinking of Aang, to be honest: every single day, every single moment. I guess I don;t talk about it because a part of me has been wanting to see him anytime we had a mission or anytime we left Earth. I've missed him for a very long time, and even with all of the things that have gone on, I know he's till trying to protect me."

She sighed. "But I also have to put a stopper on those emotions too. They're strong, stronger than most of the feelings I have. The Nightmare King has already made me see a corrupted teacher and my mother: I don't think showing me a dead Aang would be out of what he can do. He WANTS to mess with Aang's resolve in the first place. Part of beating the Nightmare King is making sure he DOESN'T beat me."

Edited 2010-02-21 20:47 (UTC)

Jamie's not sure that he's quite following all of Katara's logic there. Yes, not letting the Nightmare King beat her is important. But there's something else that doesn't quite match up.

"Wouldn't those emotions give ye strength, though, because they are like that? Something solid ye can hold on to?"

He may be wrong about that, but isn't seeing why.

"The Nightmare King's intention is to take your most private thoughts and emotions and use them against you," Katara said. "I may not talk about it a lot, but my feelings toward Aang are very real, and they are me at my most vulnerable. If he knows that, he will make me see things that would try to undermine everything that we are. He can't...not really, but I'm not going to let him show me something painful either. The less he knows about those feelings, the better."

Not that she was going to be happy doing this, but as long as he didn't know who she was, the better.

"That makes sense," Jamie says, but he's got that slight frown he gets when he's thinking. "And I can see where it would be dangerous, to be that vulnerable. But what if he figures it out anyway?" From Jamie, maybe, or someone else who knows how Katara feels about Aang. He doesn't think that Aang himself would slip and let his feelings be known, but that might be a possibility as well.

"What happens then?"

Katara didn't say anything for a time. That was always a possibility, somewhere in the back of her mind, that was the thing that would put HIM in danger, and she knew that she was at risk at that point too. At the same time, she also knew that there wasn't any way she was going to let something like the Nightmare King be the end of her and her friends...especially not Aang.

"Then I deal with it as it comes," Katara said. "But I never give up. Not ever."

Beyond the Walls of Sleep

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