Balthazar - 4. Chapter 4

Weak as a babe, he let his body shut down leaving only the barest of essential survival measures in place. Concentrating his energies on the regeneration of his draconian magicks, the world became both very fast and yet molecularly slow at the same time. It bore a striking resemblance to eating those little mushrooms growing in his neighbour's cow pasture…

The encompassing breadth of the weathered tent currently sheltering him practically reeked of Daniel’s residual magic, another mysterious breadcrumb hidden in this farcical adventure. Whatever the reasoning for his particular protections being placed upon these two, Balthazar would be daft to pass up a chance to recover in ensured safety.

Ordinarily entering this state granted him the boon of ‘walking the planes’, his consciousness leaving his corporeal form to wander the other realms…but instead his skin burned with feverish intensity. Trapped within a sleep paralysis-like state, he lacked the magick needed to transverse the realms.

The world around him bled away of color, leaving only stark shades of black and white in its wake. What felt like the span of eons likely naught more than seconds in passing, Balthazar watched as mother and daughter criss crossed his path like time lapse spectres, going about their lives.

Sometimes he was alone, other times he…wasn’t. In between the ladies comings and goings, another ghostly visage appeared to haunt his feverish convalescence. Heterochromatic eyes, their mismatched mystery colors hidden away by the monochrome surroundings. Fae feline features hovering in a static state above him focused his attention like a drowning man clutching a rock lest he be swept out to sea.

Purring vibrated the air around him, pulsating with a physical cadence against his skin. Those eyes pinned him with the same intensity as the young one staring daggers at his sheathed claws. His body remained utterly frozen, rendered devoid of the smallest of motions. A slow predatory smile bloomed across the feline’s face, one clawed finger raising up to touch their pursed lips in the motion of ‘Shhh’...taunting his lack of motion.

A soft tinkling of bells accompanied their fluid motions, the purring unceasing in intensity as they gave Balthazar the toying glances of a cat weighing the fate of a captured mouse. Snowy white furred ears sporting the same clouded markings as the mother and daughter twitched curiously back and forth through a disheveled mop of white hair.

Perhaps another member of the family investigating who he was?

And yet something about that notion seemed out of place. Just like the rest of the world, they flickered in and out of existence like a ghost, never appearing when the ladies were present. In fact, their presence never seemed to register with the mysterious spectre, so engrossed they were with memorizing the lines of Balthazar’s face and the planes of his body.

It was an unsettling experience to be bestowed such undivided attention when your very distorted current sense of reality made him question if any of this was real at all. Indeterminable spans of time passed them by in this enchanted prison-like realm, the feverish burning in his pores slowly replaced by the tracings of claws and nips of small fanged teeth.

Who are you?

His only answer was that same cat in the cream smile. Soft pursed lips pressed a kiss to the golden dragon’s cheek and with the tinkling of bells unconsciousness claimed him once more.