– T A Y A H –

It had been three nights on the desolate island. Three nights of coconut and construction. We were close to finishing the vessel that would carry us back to some form of civilisation–for whatever life we made of it.

I thought the dreamless nights were a blessing. I also thought they would continue. But on the fourth night I set my head down against a makeshift pillow of palms and sand, I dreamed.

I knew it was such because I was in Valhalla again. It was so damn painfully detailed. I almost believed it were real. When I walked down the cool stone of Kára's home I begged myself to believe it was real. I took in the fire pit, the light curtains that breezed gently between stone pillars–

Then I saw her.

The goddess in her glorious armour. Furs on her shoulders and gleaming armour over her skin. She faced the mountain range beyond the balcony. I went to her. I just wanted to see her face again–those star like eyes on me. Only for me.

But when I reached her and set my hand on her shoulder she became nothing more than smoke in the wind. I lowered my hand slowly and spun on my heel looking around.

"Please." I whispered to no one. "I just need to see you one more time–"

She appeared across the hall. The epitome of beauty and chaos herself. A warrior and lover. She looked at me the way she had before. It caught my breath. Seeing her beautiful blonde hair loose in waves over her shoulders. Her bright eyes looking across at me–she smiled.

Right before the blood started leaving her lips and she fell to her knees.

I rushed to her, running faster than my legs had dared take me on the mortal realm. I caught her shoulders and tried to find the injury. But there was nothing. She stared at me. Through me as the blood left her lips and her bright eyes became more grey.

"I don't blame you. Tayah." She mumbled, before slumping forward. I looked down at my hands and they held a dagger in her chest.

I woke with a shout that could wake the entire continent. 

"WHERE!" John bolted off the sand taking a half conscious swing in the night.

Kaden too looked ready to pick a fight with the nearest tree.

I stared up that the star filled sky and evened my breathing. The men finally looked down at me before realising.

"Another dream, little Ashrive?" Kaden asked.

I nodded, unable to meet their worried expressions. I turned over on my shoulder.

"I'm sorry I woke you."

"Think nothing of it." John dismissed, with a yawn. "You did me a favour–my dream had Kaden in it."

Kaden chuckled, laying back down near me. "I am quite dream worthy, it's true."

I heard sand thrown and let out a long sigh. Why did it have to be a nightmare. Why could it not be her walking into my dreams? What I wouldn't give to be with her in a way that wasn't in blood and death. It was even a big ask in reality.

Sleep would never find me now.

"I'm going for a walk." I muttered towards the men.

I heard them mumble something before slumping back down on the sands again. I strode slowly under the moonlight not sure what I sought at all. If nothing but an escape from my dreams.

I found a secluded space further down the beach before the tree line. The calm rush of waves lulled me somewhat. So I sank back and drew my legs into a crossed position. I focused on the way the heat felt cooler and the water calmed my nerves. I placed my palms on my knees and exhaled.

It felt like the most natural thing in the world.

The same way my Valkyrie had looked when I thought she had slept on that ship eons ago. The reality was... she didn't. She had told me something important.

"Communicating with those I wish to return to."

She had meditated on that ship and found a way to contact other Valkyries. Even Odin.

I took in another long breath and focused on pushing my thoughts far away. I focused on releasing myself from this realm and seeking one in particular. I wasn't sure how long I sat this way. Trying so desperately to connect to the only soul that mattered.

But I felt nothing. No sudden connection to her.

Only the salt in the air and the cool breeze in the night. I was so close to rising from my feet and seeking a way back when something sucked me in sharply. There on that beach my reality morphed around me and I was thrown into another realm.

One of carnage and battle and war.

I jumped away from a burning heat that flew past my face from a gleaming immortal. They were all so beautiful. So armoured in damandium and sailing on high in bolts of power. They held relics and tore portals open between the clouded and crystal realm they fought upon.

I dodged another shard of large floating rock that crashed into an immortal behind me.

I drew flames easily into my own hands and crashed it into a wave of water that flowed from a wide ocean below our floating rocks. It was all a chaos of elements and immortal design.

I noticed another. That moved faster than the rest. Burned so much brighter.

But I noticed her mostly for those silver furs on her shoulders and the bright purple vines of power that no one else wielded. She cut down many out of her path of destruction and rage. She danced on her own power and threw other's power away like it was nothing.

A ball of rock shattered around her as she struck through it and dropped onto a rock above me. I moved then. Running at it and launching myself up without the bounds of mortal gravity. She spun on the rock ready to unleash yet more immortal fury–

But her hand froze under the mask and the energy died with it.

She ripped the helmet away and stared at me across that rock as elements exploded around us. I stared back at her flowing blonde hair, so very disappointed I was in another false reality.

"I can feel your presence. This can't be–another dream–" She murmured in a daze.

I caught the shard of a rock flying for her as she stared in a daze and clenched a fist quickly bringing a wall of fire between her and the element. It turned to ash but she didn't even glance at it.

She took a step forward and the realm of chaos around us instantly changed with it and became nothing but a forest. Calm and controlled. 

This was her dream. I realised.

"I must stop doing this." She muttered.

I finally found my voice. "What?"

She sighed and pulled a hand through her hair. "Dreaming of you does me no good when I wake and know you're not real."

"Actually... when I find you in my dreams you're dying all over again. So I think I'm in yours." I murmured, staring across the meadow at her.

She shook her head, dragging a hand over her hair again. "It's not really you." She sighed. "But it feels like it."

I found my feet moving again and took the strides necessary to close our distance. She shut her eyes in response and dropped her hands to her sides. I didn't care, I walked right up to her and set my hands on her shoulders.

"I'm as real as it gets, Stormbringer and I didn't waste my time learning to meditate on some beach for you to realise that." I rushed out, making her eyes flash open in shock.

"That... even sounds like... you." She frowned, holding the side of my face suddenly and staring into my eyes like I would vanish.

I rolled my eyes and grabbed her face before kissing her deeply. I felt the familiar heat, the rush of energy–everything that we had when we were together in reality. It hit be like a breath of oxygen I had been needing and finally had. It felt like my body being pieced whole in a single moment. Even the scent of that jasmine and woodland filled my nose the way it did whenever I held her close–

She ripped away from me suddenly and held on fast to my face. Taking in every detail and inch of me. "This feels so damn real I don't even care it's false."

"Kára. For every gods sake I'm here." I told her, shaking her head a little.

She smiled a dazed look, pressing her forehead to mine and shaking her head against my skin. I wanted to slap her–

So I did.

Her eyes flew open and burned slightly brighter in response. She held her cheek and looked back at me in confusion. "Gods that hurt."

"Because you're not listening!" I drawled with another eye roll.

I decided to try something more. I stood back from her and sent fire into my palms. She stared at the sudden pulse–the ebb and flow of power in the air–my signature of energy–

"Gods I can feel your energy like I could with you on the immortal realm." She murmured, watching the fire.

"Are you trying to drive me mad? It's working." I growled, killing the flame from me. "Why can't you see that I entered your dream this time?"

"Valkyries cannot enter other Valkyries dreams." She chuckled, "–but I'm enjoying this one."

"Urgh!" I threw my arms up. "You're as stubborn in sleep as you are in the damn realms!"

"And you as beautiful." She told me with another smile that told me she needed a harder slap.

I pinched the bridge of my nose. "How am I going to get through to you." I muttered, glancing as she kept looking at me like I was a distant mirage. She took my hand and pulled me to her body drawing me closer in that same dazed and disbelieving look.

"I don't care." She murmured. "It's enough to have you in my mind at all–"

"That's it." I growled. "I'm going to tell you exactly what Odin told me the moment before separating us. You ask him yourself when you wake up and see just how false I really am..." 

She kept the vaguely amused expression on her face and held me near her. I grabbed her jaw and made her look at me.

"Your fates are tied to nothing but an end now. If you seek her out one of you will suffer. Know this. Let it keep you away on the mortal realm." I finished in a heavy breath, darting my eyes between hers.

They now frowned slightly as the words set into her dreamy eyes a little more. So I patted her on the cheek with exasperation before shutting my eyes and ripping myself off this realm in her head.

I opened my eyes and the waves of the ocean in the moonlight greeted me back. I did it. I went to her. To her mind. It made me suddenly giddy. Like I could move a mountain.

"I did it!" I shouted, releasing a thick punch of explosive fire into the air.

"Go do it where we're not sleeping!" A voice echoed down the beach back to me. 

I glared in their direction briefly before grinning again. Let my immortal take those words to Odin and know exactly who was in her dream last night.