Taunting Dreams (Sage/Adrain)

[Sage Foster]

Sage found herself pacing again in her office. She wore a lacey, elegant, pale purple gown with a corset back, her curves highlighted in all the right places. The nightmares had gotten worse and she was losing her mind. She could hardly sleep and was having a hard time staying awake, so she paced to keep her mind active. As she walked back and forth, she rubbed her eyes, trying to get the tired out. The nightmares were of her parents. She kept seeing them die over and over again. She wasn't even there when it actually happened, but the scenes that played in her mind were so graphic and realistic that it almost made her to believe that she might of been there and not remember it now.

Sage decided to go for a walk to clear her head. She left her office and went into a random direction. She didn't really have a destination, she was just walking. All of a sudden, she had flashbacks of her mother. They weren't like her dreams, they were nice memories. Her mother was sitting at the table, sewing a dress for her, and she was whistling a tune that has stuck in Sage's mind ever since. Sage's eyes started to tear up. She began to weep softly as she walked.

Somehow Sage managed to end up in front of the Headmaster's office. Absentmindedly, she knocked on the door. She didn't think anything of it, she just hoped for some company.

[Deleted]

Adrain would be in the rear room of the office, working in the training room in the back. Once more he was working on the time dispersion technique, with a wooden blade striking the dummy. If and when Sage decided to enter the unlocked door, she would see him running at the dummy, splitting into four blurs as he approached striking range and then the dummy getting smacked three times seemingly at once, the mage taking a knee as his weapon arm starts to bleed from several cracks in the skin.

"Damn it...still not fast enough...I know I can do this..' he growls. Serai meanwhile was laying parallel to the wall in a corner, his tail swishing as he watched his master. Adrain kneels to a healing potion and drinks it, the wounds slowly closing after a few moments.

[Sage Foster]

Sage could hear some noise coming from inside the Headmaster's office and decided to let herself in. She wiped the tears from her eyes and turned the doorknob. As she walked in, she could see that the front of the office was empty but she could hear noises coming from the back. She ventured to the rear room and walked in just as a practice target across the room seemed to be smacked three times at once. Her eyes darted to Adrain as he cursed himself at his speed ability. She quickly noticed that he was bleeding and began to walk over to him. She stopped in her path and watched as his wounds began to heal.

Sage cleared her throat before speaking. She no longer had tears streaming down her face, but her eyes remained puffy and red, obvious signs that she had been crying. "Headmaster.. are you alright?" Her voice cracked slightly as she spoke. She tried to keep the fact that she had been weeping just shortly before to herself, but her face showed it all. "I am sorry to intrude.. I was just looking for some company." She looked up at him under her long eyelashes, her purple eyes still shimmering from the remnants of tears.

[Deleted]

Adrain jumped, slightly startled that another had joined him at this point. He tumbles back and falls tripping over an empty flask, landing on his backside hard, while the wooden weapon flung backwards and knocked a few books over. As he sits dazed and looks at Sage, he mumbles half out of it. "Akal Si Ran.." he murmurs, then turning to Sage, his vision clearing.

"Oh...Sage right? What can I do for you? You look upset."

[Sage Foster]

Sage quickly ran over to Adrain's side as he fell. "Headmaster! Are you okay? I am so sorry! I didn't mean to startle you!" He spoke a few words that weren't in English, so she couldn't understand what he was saying. "Maybe I should find a healer? I am not sure if you are speaking a different language or just mumbling incoherently from a possible concussion.."

When Adrain finally spoke clearly, Sage let out a sigh of relief. "Never mind me, are you okay?" Sage looked him over for any sign of a serious injury. Not seeing one, she quickly stood up and offered him a hand to help him on his feet. She then remembered the real reason she had entered his office in the first place. "I..I was just.. I couldn't sleep. I was hoping for some company.. if you don't mind, Sir?"

[Deleted]

Adrain shakes his head as Sage was worked up and startled, waving off her concerns. "Oh don't worry about that...I'll be fine. I probably have enough healing potion in my system from the work I've been doing any damage would heal up in short order. He listened to her when she explained why she was here in the first place and nodded, standing up accepting her gesture but not using her to really pull not to strain the girl.

"Sure I don't mind keeping you company. What has you so troubled right now that you can't sleep?" he says, as he then walks out of the training room, toward the main office where couches and chairs were for this sort of thing.

[Sage Foster]

Sage laughs softly as Adrain waves her off. "Well here, at least take a drink." Sage hands Adrain an unmarked bottle that she mistakes for a fruity drink (it's really the lunar me biscuits potion) that she thought she grabbed off of her desk before roaming the halls of the Arch. "Some sugar won't hurt." Sage smiles as she waits for him to take a sip, not getting off his case until he does. "My mom used to tell me that sugar was the best medicine. It did always make me feel better, even if only for a short moment." Adrain used her extended hand to help himself up, careful not to pull Sage to the ground with him as he did so.

As the walked towards the main office to the couches and chairs, Sage answered Adrain's questions. "Well, it's really only because of a bad dream to be completely honest with you, Sir. It's one that I keep having over and over again. It never ceases to frighten me." Sage takes a seat next to wherever Adrain sits. "I can't sleep because I am afraid to close my eyes. I don't want to see the images anymore." Sage's tears began to fall again.

[Deleted]

Adrain looks up as Sage insists he drinks and raises a brow, but decides to respect her seemingly good intents. He was a little parched in any case. He took the drink looked at it and sniffed it then took a fairly deep drink of it, before he raised another brow. This tasted vaguely familiar. He couldn't quite place what it was though but it took quite some time ago that it had somewhat faded into memory.

"A bad dream?" he says, listening to her. A common problem of late it seemed. "If talking about it would help, I will listen." he says smiling warmly at her. Now that he thought about it, she was quite pretty and lovely. He shook his head slightly, to clear the thoughts. Must think with north head.

"I can look into getting a ring of dreamless sleep for you as well...its something i am working on anyway for another friend."

[Sage Foster]

Sage shook her head. "I am not sure that talking about it will help, but it couldn't help to try." She then got comfortable on the couch, tucking her legs underneath of her and hugging a pillow that was nearby. "Shortly before making the decision to come to Nova. My parents were alive.. both of them." Sage stared at the ground, her expression blank. "My father was a blacksmith in town. Everybody liked him. He was an honest, hardworking man." Tears began to form in Sage's eyes but she quickly blinked them away. "My mother was a stay at home housewife. She didn't have a job, but she worked damn hard to make sure that our house looked good."

Sage paused a moment to read Adrain's facial expressions before dropping her gaze back down to the ground and continuing. "There was an accident.. my father tripped on some loose supplies on the ground and he fell into one of his projects.. he bled out on the floor." The tears began to stream down her face. "When he didn't arrive home, my mother went out to search for him. She found him, but it was already too late.." She wiped a few tears away. "She came home and I knew from the look on her face that my father wasn't coming home that night." Sage felt nice talking about things. It was the first time that somebody had heard the story. "Shortly after my father's accident, my mother hung herself in an abandoned barn. I guess she couldn't stand to be without him. They were in love to their very last breath." Sage smiled a sad smile.

"Anyways, my nightmares.. it's always the same. Their deaths play in my mind over and over again and they are always so vivid. It's like I have a front row seat." That was all that Sage could take. The tears were more of a waterfall now. She sobbed into her hands.

[Deleted]

As Adrain listened to Sage's story, he felt a number of things. Empathy, concern, compassion...desire. His eyes watched hers, the spheres that would glisten like gems, her lips succulent and plush. Her curves, just right in all the right places. It made him warm thinking about her. But he shook his head, those thoughts seemed out of place here. He continued to listen, it must be a pure hell for this girl to constantly have to deal with this sore of nightmare. This might even be worse than what Tresor was dealing with.

As she broke down and started crying, he leaned forward to embrace her for comfort, rubbing her back with his hands. Then he caught a scent of her hair. It was nice...

"It's okay Sage. I'm sorry, I didn't know you were dealing with that.."

[Sage Foster]

Suddenly Sage was in Adrain's arms. He pulled her close and began to rub her back, a comfort she had never felt before. She melted into him and continued to weep, but slowly calming down, his embrace like magic.

She leaned back slightly so that she could look up at him but still be in his arms, tears still slowly trickling down her face. "If I could change one thing about myself, it would just be to make the nightmares to go away. That's all I want." She then snuggled her face into his chest, holding onto his shirt in her balled up fists. She was frustrated and scared. His arms around her made her feel slightly better. She inhaled his aroma and suddenly, she was at peace. The tears seized and her breathing turned to normal. She wanted to crawl into his lap and never leave, feeling as if she could finally get a peaceful night of sleep if she stayed.

[Deleted]

"That...can be fixed easily enough with a ring of dreamless sleep." he says softly to Sage. As she nestled in cloesr and closer, his rubbing would get lower and lower. The scent of the woman on him was driving him mad, and his blood pressure was rising as his desires from the primal part of him seemed to increase. Absentmindedly, his hands traversed elsewhere for a soft squeeze.

"Everything will be alright, trust me.." he says, only wanting to make Sage feel better and happy.

[Sage Foster]

Sage leaned away from Adrain once more to look into his eyes. "A ring of dreamless sleep? I didn't even know that such a thing existed." Her face was no longer wet, but the stains from her tears still remained. "Headmaster, if you could this ring for me, I'd forever be indebted to you." She then went back to snuggling Adrain, his calming warmth easing her worries. She could feel Adrain's hands wander. Hidden from his view, her face became red and a smile formed on her face. What was happening? Did the headmaster see her that way? Her mind swirled with so many thoughts.

Sage decided to climb into Adrain's lap, not thinking that he would be opposed to it. She sat on him with her legs off to the side and wrapped her arms around his neck, laying her head on his chest.

[Deleted]

"Yes...magic is boundless in theory, it takes creativity and ingenuity to bring things to reality. Dreamless Sleep is a not uncommon request so the formulae for several variations exist." As Sage spewed that she would be forever indebted to him, he shook his head.

"Of course, truly I want nothing more than for you to be content in your sleep." he says. His thoughts clouded seemingly more and more fixated on Sage. What was he doing before she got here again? He barely could know now. It hardly seemed relevant. She got closer, wrapping herself basically all around him, her scent driving him wild. The last bits of blood were draining from the brain at this point weighed down by that accursed potion to elsewhere.

[Sage Foster]

Adrain's sincerity melted Sage from the inside out. She smiled into his chest and hugged him tighter. As she sat in his lap, Sage could feel Adrain becoming excited. Surely she was imagining things? Could Adrain really want this with her? The only man she had ever been with was Xander, and he made her feel really good, but Adrain? The Headmaster of the Arch? Surely there was some rule that prevented them from having such interactions?

As Sage felt Adrain's hands elsewhere, all thoughts of the rules vanished and she shivered beneath his touch. She then looked into his eyes and became lost of them, feeling herself inch towards him to kiss him.