Ellucid Dreaming

I slip under, feeling the hazy half-real fever dreams when your body just needs some time to protest your current activity.  It's black in here, real black, but fuzzy, kind of.

Hey.

That's new.

Hey you.

It's like a ball of bright white light streaking around inside here.  Looks like the lightning from before.

I ~am~ the lightning from before, and you will address me by my full name.

Usually my mind only summons up the occasional conscience.  I talk to myself enough, but this is different.

Stop ignoring me.  I'm not you.  Of course I'm not you.  Do I look like some lowly two-legged creature?

Well, no.  It, I mean you. . .

You may call me His great and terrible Conqueror of the western skies and all that fall below; Terror of the inland sea and. . .

Anything shorter?

. . .scourge of the great nation of Kwai; Magnificent Serpent of. . .

I'm going to call you Ning.

. . .the expansive ceiling-ocea-what no!

I'm not going to say that whole thing.  Plus, you look like lightning.

I ~am~ lightning, or lightning is a lesser form of what I am.  Don't just casually undermine my status as. . .

Come on, lighten up.  It's just a nickname.

I am not "nicknamed" by mere mortals.

What are you, then, and why are you in my head?

Weren't you listening to my titles?  I'm the great and terrible. . .

A short version oh your eminence?

Stop interrupting me mortal!  This is the short version. Now let me finish.  I have to start over now.  I am the great. . .

He's a sky dragon.

It's coming from behind me, I thought, but when I turn I don't see anything.

No, down here.

Stop.  Interrupting.  Me.

My arm is on fire again, and a form is squeezing itself out through black crevasses in the charcoaled skin.  It's orange and flame colored, flickering a little.  Not like anything I'd ever seen fire do before.

Of course not, flame spirits are quite different.  But anyway, that glowering thing is what you humans have been calling sky dragons.

Such a noble being as I could not take so small a name or so simple a title.

Like the legend of the prince and the seven seals and how he goes to restore the beauty of the land?

Hmph, I should have eaten that one when he showed up with the silly talking donkey of his.

That is one instance, yes.

Stop ignoring me, mortals!

The children's fairy tale.

I mean it!  I shall smite thee both to dust!

You are talking to a flame spirit and a prideful ball of lightning in your dreams.

Point taken.

I'm going to do it, I really am.

Oh come off it cloud-breath, you're insubstantial in here, nothing really happens.

Not until I eat him and take over his body.

Until you what?  Until he what?

Don't worry, the beast is overestimating his capabilities.  We would not make a good snack for him.

I think you will both be delicious and a good three hundred and thirty fifth paragraph for my title.

You seem to be forgetting that eating a human from the inside is not the same as eating a mage.

Mages don't exist anymore.

Just like your kind, cloud breath?

A mage?

Yes, a wielder of high sorceries.

But I'm not a. . .

Yes, well, you show some of the signs.

He most certainly isn't one.  I would have seen the aura before I jumped inside to eat him.

How do you explain me, then?

A figment, the boy has obviously imagined you in order to dissuade me from eating him.

Care to test that?

Gladly.

Ning leaps forward and the fire expands out into a huge mass of flame between me and him, perched on my arm.  Lightning meets fire and the two spark back and forth at each other.  Heat building up that I can feel, unlike the fire.  Err, flame spirit.  It takes a while, but the two eventually split apart.

Would you stop your narration, mortal, it is becoming annoying to my divine perception.

It ~is~ a bit silly.

I can't help it, this is the weirdest dream I've ever had, I have to think through it like this!

Must you though?  Can you not talk just like the rest of us?

Ning rubs his singed nose with his tail.  Ah, sorry, see?  I can't help it!

This will doubtless work much better when you are awake.

But then you two dream figments will be gone.

. . .

. . .

Right?

Things have just gotten a bit more complicated for you, I'm afraid.

No they haven't, as my divine and me-given right, I will eat him.  Not complicated at all.