Dictated

[lightbranded]

[The last week had been difficult with so many new revelations.  Eventually Will had decided to distract himself with one of his favorite pastimes.  Gently teasing his acquaintances with his favorite reading material.  And that is why today you will hear a boy reading aloud into the journals with an air of great solemnity.]

The black graines (that is the seed) to the number of fifteene taken in wine or mead is a speciall remedie for those that are troubled in the night with the disease called the Night Mare, which is as though a heavy burthen were laid upon them and they oppressed therewith, as if they were overcome with their enemies, or overprest with some great weight or burthen, and they are also good against melancholie dreames.

Comments

[thatrabbitsdynamite]

[And painted in the journal is a picture of these lovely horses. Aren't they lovely, Will? Underneath, Bunnymund writes:]

Night Mares.

[Also getting drunk won't help you]

[lightbranded]

[Will stops and stares at the image for a long moment. They weren't exactly the same, but he saw some similarity with the dark horse like a whirlwind the Black Rider had once been carried by. At last he responds with a quick sketch of a spray of Holly. And a note.]

It is said that the Holly is an excellent protection against the Dark. Also lightning, sickness, and bad dreams.

[thatrabbitsdynamite]

It doesn't work half as well as a good kick up the backside. Not that they're anything to be afraid of, anyway. They're just bad dreams, nothing more.

[He'll be damned if Pitch gets a foothold again. He'll get people believing he's nothing to be scared of ahead of time, just in case]

[lightbranded]

In themselves, no. [Will still wasn't entirely sure of the connection between the drawing of the dark horses and nightmares. Was it as simple as the pun? Or was there something more to this?] In every human heart there is some darkness. Just as there is some light. Nightmares are a part of being human, just as is the knowledge that the night cannot last forever.

Once, there was a greater darkness that came in the darkest parts of the year and brought nothing but shadows and nightmares. All that was pain and anger and war and bigotry.... that is what the Dark was and wished for. For a shadow to fall over the hearts of men that would never end.

[thatrabbitsdynamite]

[Pitch DOES love his puns] And they're usually controlled. Stopped form getting out of hand.

[WELP GOSH THAT SURE SOUNDS FAMILIAR] We had something similar, in my world, a long long time ago. We stopped it, but it was a big problem.

[lightbranded]

In my world as well. Less than a year ago, it was.

[thatrabbitsdynamite]

[These kids and their crappy worlds man :(]

How are things now?

[lightbranded]

The Dark was defeated and cast out beyond time. [And Will was left behind alone to watch over the world, the only one left in all the world who remembered anything of the great war against the Dark and the magic of the world. That was his duty now,]

[thatrabbitsdynamite]

[Kid your life sucks balls]

So it can't hurt you again?

[squartatore]

What sort of seed, exactly?

[lightbranded]

Why, the poppyseed of course. [Will's tone is gravely serious.]

[squartatore]

[she feels like she should ask why this seems so important to him]

Uh. Right. [his explanation...doesn't really explain much...] I'll keep it in mind.

[lightbranded]

[Will was mostly teasing. His sense of humor was very odd and tended toward making odd statements completely seriously and pompously.]

Grand way of putting things Old Gerard had.

[squartatore]

Who?

[meanwhile, this conversation continues to baffle her at every subsequent turn]

[lightbranded]

A writer from long ago. He's the one who wrote this.

[squartatore]

Oh. That explains the weird word choice.

[it's not weird, Sayaka, it's what people of that time used]

[lightbranded]

A little, yes. [Will's tone was amused.]

[lioneyed]

[Something about that particular herbal remedy seems familiar, and after a moment of thinking, Thamuris has an idea why.]

...Laudanum?

[lightbranded]

Something like that. Grand way old Gerard had of putting it, don't you think?

[lioneyed]

I should think the wine alone would be enough for insomnia.

I don't think I'm familiar with Gerard.

[lightbranded]

A writer from long ago. I am reading from his herbal. He had some of the most interesting ideas. Some of them completely wrong, of course. There's this marvelous bit where he speaks very seriously about how barnacle geese hatch from barnacles.

[lioneyed]

Ah, I see. History does real some... rather interesting beliefs.

I take it it's primarily a medical text?

[lightbranded]

An Herbal, actually. Gerard's Herbal.

[lioneyed]

Ah, I see. Then it covers all the possible uses of herbs?

[lightbranded]

Plants of all kinds, really.