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The dreams began when he was first given a bouquet of cecilias.
It’s been months since — feeling the wind kissing his face in welcome, seeing great white wings in flight, touching hands so pure. Alatus wakes up catching his breath as if having flown prominent distances himself.
He blinked owlishly, shaking away the remnants of sleep from his mind. He cannot think straight — his brain is fuzzy, and his heart is racing rapidly. When his attempts to calm himself down proved to be futile, he stands up from his bed to look in the mirror, hands shaking, and when he meets amber eyes shining nearly molten gold in raw want, it makes him almost nauseous.
“Where are you?” He would whisper, because it is only himself he could console when he knows he’s caught himself in what can only be described as desperation.
He tightens his hold on the sink and tries to remember in clarity
He heard a voice, he thought. One he believes to have heard for the first time today. But the memory stings, and there is a name at the tip of his tongue he cannot reach. He tries to picture the man with fragmented shards of a dream. Twin braids of deep blue they’re almost black, the tips glowing green, hooded white robes accentuated gold cut at the midsection to show half of a green mark, and he’s spotted a cecilia atop his hair, he thinks.
But his face — in all these months the man has visited his dreams, he has never seen it. When he tries to look, his sight is welcomed with a radiant light of blinding white. His memories are blurred at the edges, and he blames himself mercilessly for it.
Whenever he wakes, all he remembers is him. Whatever they do, what they tell each other, if they even speak at all, the entirety of it remains in dreams he cannot hold. Each and every time the dream haunts him like a ghost of his past, he does this as if it’s routine. He wakes up, and he would be gasping, catching his breath, and when he remembers where he is and what has transpired once more, he would close his eyes and chase. He’s never bore fruit despite his efforts, though.
So he gets ready and goes about his day.
✦
“Xiao! The script arrived in the mail today!” Hu Tao’s scarlet eyes brighten as she waves the thick stack of paper in the air. When she steps foot in the living room and sees Xiao was not there, she goes straight upstairs to where she’s sure he’d be.
As she arrives in front of his door, an idea pops into her mind. Well then .
She places the script mindfully by the floor, careful not to ruin the pristine pages of a film literally the whole country is waiting for. She clears her throat, her fists ready to pound endlessly on his door until he hears her over his, well, soundproof earphones.
Just as she was about to do so, however, the wooden door opens to her roommate looking as though he just got out of the shower. From hell.
Xiao’s whole face was covered in sweat, his hair almost soaking with how much he was perspiring. His black shirt is sticking to his body, the dampness most visible by his shoulders where the ends of his teal highlights meet the collar of his shirt. His breaths were coming in quick, hollow puffs, so when he says, “where is it?”
Hu Tao drops her boba tea.
“What… where is what?”
“Hu Tao, are you high? The script.”
“Am I high? Have you looked in the mirror today?”
He blinks slowly, her words processing. When he seems to realize the state he was in, he goes back inside his room and shuts the door at her face.
“Xiao!”
✦
When Xiao arrives on set, there is a lone cecilia on his work table.
“We have half an hour before filming, you should get changed.” His focus on the flower breaks, and he looks behind him, Zhongli’s knowing smile a warm greeting.
Not trusting his voice to speak, he gives his cousin a small nod before taking the flower absently, walking towards the olive-colored changing tent meant for him. It is quite small, intended only for quick outfit changes — there is a fixed white bulb above his head, the different outfits for his character, Alatus, hanging on a metallic rack stand.
He selects the usual one he wears: a sleeveless shirt with a high scarlet collar, baggy red pants, a necklace the color of bones, and mahogany boots overtop. He glances at himself through the film crew's makeshift mirror, remembering to put on his green contacts. After he finishes, he is once again a whole other person.
Alatus.
“Xiao, are you finished changing? I’m coming in.” Zhongli’s voice reverberates throughout the small space of the room, and Xiao startles.
“Yes.”
The flaps of the tent part, and the light spilling from the rising sun was almost blinding. Zhongli’s voice of baritone shatters the morning silence, “Are you doing alright? Hu Tao mentioned that there was an incident last month and I wanted to check up on you. It might not look like it, but she’s terribly worried about you.”
He hums lowly. “Oh. No, I’m quite alright. There wasn’t really an issue that day, I probably should not have… shut the door on her, though. I will apologize to her when I come home.”
Zhongli opens his mouth to say something but decides against it, so instead, he gives him a curt nod before gesturing outside. “Shall we, then?”
“Let me fix something, I’ll catch up with you.”
When Zhongli closes the flaps back down, he reaches for the white flower.
For a moment, he just stares at it, a multitude of thoughts running through his mind. Minutes pass, and there is a shout outside, calling for stand-by.
The flower drops to the floor, and Xiao leaves.
✦
Roll 4, Scene 17, Take 1
When he opens his eyes, he does not awake in the comfort of the cream-colored walls of his room. The sky is tinted the darkest shade of blue that it is almost black, the only light that illuminates this plane of fantasy is that of the striking purple lighting of the goddess of eternity.
The first strike of lighting falls and Alatus had to take a sharp breath by the scene before him — piles of dead bodies decorate the earth, the haunting color of blood a flood untamable. He takes a look at himself and almost screams. He’s coated in red.
Red, red, red.
Instinctively, he reaches for a mask by his hip.
He does not find it there.
Was there supposed to be one there when here, he is Alatus: a weapon meant solely for ruin and death?
He inhales, and this time, the air chokes him.
Gasping helplessly for breathe none could give him, Alatus tastes a thousand dreams on his tongue. Of anguish, hatred, agony, regret. It floods all his senses — he sees the death of a mother by his hand, hears the scream of a child, smells the unmistakable iron of dripping blood, tastes the dreams of countless innocent souls, and feels the bruising whips of a god flogging him.
He forces his eyes open, gasping greedily for air.
This time, when he sees the blood dripping from his hands, Alatus screams.
✦
Roll 11, Scene 43, Take 1
“ ...and with this name, a new beginning. ”
When he opens his eyes again, he is lying in a garden of white flowers.
Cecilias.
He gets on his feet and takes in his surroundings. Unlike that day, the sky today is a clear blue, the clouds dancing in a slow waltz with the wind. The birds fly merrily through the heavens above him, enjoying the warm glow of the afternoon sun.
Today, Alatus breathes easy. He makes an effort to lay back down, wanting to rest and relish the peace for this brief moment in time’s cruel cradle.
He catches sight of a passing blur of green and white, and at once, Alatus runs.
Runs, because it’s him.
Runs, because today is a good day.
Runs, because for once, he wants to share this peace.
Runs, because today, he wants to be selfish.
He brushes past the thousand petals of cecilias, and Alatus chases.
The figure stops, and he realizes that the sun is muted against the glow of this man. Ah, but is he? He knows he is not man, but god, so when he looks back at him, there is a sudden itch for him to kneel and say his prayers. For peace.
For freedom.
Their eyes meet, and Alatus stops breathing.
Today, for the first time, he sees not blurry lines of a sketch unfinished nor the blinding white light of divinity, but pools of aqua green shining almost teal. He blinks, thinking it was a fragment of his imagination — a desperate part of himself who wants to form a full picture of a person he’s been longing endlessly to see. When the figure does not fade away, he almost sobs. The male gives him a smile, and his heart stutters.
And then, as if a whisper of a long-forgotten memory, Alatus breathes in the silence of the dreamscape, “Barbatos.”