TW: Angst, Death? Maybe? It's up to you to decide

  ZOEY POV BRIGHTLANDS

She looked up at him standing over the bodies of creatures he had slayed; his eyes were a dark amethyst as he bent down a retrieved the weapon that helped him make this carnage. Gagging from the sight of dissolving endermen bodies she started up carefully towards him, it was never a good idea to approach him in this state. He once attacked Ravs, his best friend after one of their attacks, but despite knowing that she had to try; it was Rythian after all.

Retrieving the weapon Enderbane the mage began walking out of the pile of quickly decaying creatures to the nearby river, not paying attention to her approach at all. "Rythian?" The redhead's voice came out sounding shaken; she wasn't used to combat and for the most part avoided it, but they both agreed that she would fight if push came to shove. In response the multi-colored haired man gave her a glance before cleaning the blade in the river with his hands. She could tell he was trying to keep under control, the attacks were happening so often now that it would be harder not to notice the ground she walked on.

Knowing it was a giant risk, but not really caring, Zoey placed her hand on her teachers shoulder, he stirred then breathed deeply. Sometimes it was the knowledge that he wasn't alone that kept him from becoming.... Becoming what? She knew there was something inside of him but didn't know what to call it or what it was, and asking him yielded no results either. "I'm fine Zoey," the cut dry response was followed by something she knew already, "I'm just tired is all."

"At least let me look you over you could be hurt!" the normally extremely childish girl said hoping she could keep her friend from putting up the larger than life walls he did after an attack like this. He looked at her and she noticed that the dark, toxic and violent glowing amethyst had turned into the calm, thoughtful and intelligent violet that she was used to seeing in his eyes. She loved that color. Taking his nod as a 'go ahead' she began looking him over and helping close wounds that the fight had given him; the one magic thing that she found herself better at than him, healing.

Once finished the two began walking to the home they had built back when her apprenticeship had started. Greeting them at the perimeter of the farm area was a green dinosaur armed with an emerald sword and a newly built sniper rifle. Teep looked as if his weapons had seen a lot of use recently as he accompanied the two to the front of Blackrock Hold, he then handed Rythian a bunch of ender pearls before heading off to do whatever dinosaurs do. The two tired humans retreated to the main bedroom of the house. It was a large room on the second story that was designed by Zoey to be a comforting sight as well as symbolize everything good she saw in herself and Rythian, but currently the only thing they cared about was a large bed being cut in half by a line of pillows in the middle of the room. 

hough the sun's light had started over the nearby mountains the two felt more like they needed rest. Their nocturnal attackers would not bother them with the sun shining. Thankful for that fact the two climbed in their respective sides of the bed intending for sleep. As soon as Zoey felt the sheets turn warm and the feeling of danger pass, she fell into a dreamful sleep and soon after, his dreams started as well.

RYTHIAN POV DREAM REALM

The Ends walls enclosed around him as he found himself standing face to face with Dovah do Oblaan. His first reaction was attack, strike against the creature that has been sending its armies against him and his

apprentice, but was stopped when a red-haired girl came into view. "Hello Rythian it is good to see you again. Do you like my new prize? She will be a benevolent addition to our world do you not think?" Rythian mumbled a slight curse and found it hard to not rush to the redhead's aid, but he steadied himself, after all one wrong move and she could wind up dead, or worse.

"What do you want Vania?", immediately he knew a spell being cast to bring him here, knowledge that bright little relief, after all it didn't mean that any threats made here didn't translate into the world of the conscious, and injuries, something he knew from experience. "I want what everything intelligent desires mage; unending life, freedom, my old friend back. However you fight me each turn. Why? For this frail creature?" Vania used her tail to bring Zoey farther into view, she looked terrified, like a small child watching their favorite toy being dangled over an open flame.

"A creature like this has no more purpose than a river has to fire. I offer you everything I can Rythain, and yet still you threw it all away for, this thing, and it's species. It has no true relationship with you, so why keep it around? Or do you wish for it to have meaning? If so I will kill it, it and all like it. To save you the trouble of course." Vania seemed to smile her threat hung in the air like a balloon tied to a tree. Controlling his anger, Rythian tried to think of a way out of this, a way where Zoey isn't hurt and he wouldn't be facing armies when he awoke.

"And why do you care now Vania? Why do you care what others think? This has not stopped you before, not when I told you what spell would, do not when you mother, or anyone else for that matter. You destroyed the World of Dawn despite all warnings and turned it into the End." He said carefully, half hoping to draw the dragon's attention away from Zoey, half out of true anger from the past.

"That my love is not like now. Now I only wish to share what I have achieved. However currently I wish to know why this creature, who serves no purpose; has earned your affection more than it knows." Rythian's anger once again turned his eyes back into the toxic and violent amethyst, but his voice stayed calm; in the end what mattered was getting out with Zoey and waking up in his bed outside the Dream Realm.

"I am not your love and I never will be." The mage hissed, forcing himself not to look at the extremely confused redhead, she never learned the language he was using to converse with the dragon, so she probably was trying to get his attention to find out what was going on. However if he did give her his attention then Vania would do something, and he couldn't afford that. Frustratingly, it seemed as if Vania only wanted to talk about Zoey and if he couldn't get the dragon from talking about her how was he supposed to get the beast to put her down?

"Ah but you do not treat the pests Ravs or Teep this way, this thing is different. I have seen how you look at it, you wish to call it love do you not? You wish to see her when it arise from slumber each day, and you wish to detract me from it so it can return to Brightlands do you not?" The mage gritted his teeth, the idea that she had been watching was frustrating, but he had expected it. What really had him cursing to himself was the fact that he hadn't been more careful; she would target Zoey and she would use any leverage she could find against him. The worst blunder he made was the fact he never prepared his apprentice for this mental attack.

Right now though, he needed Vania distracted so he could free Zoey and get her to wake up. Problem was that she knew that she had to keep Zoey so he would stay and was going to prevent him from freeing her at every turn.

Careful not to attract the dragons attention Rythian did his best to get a view of the surrounding area. Spells that summon creatures to the Dream Realm had to have an object that held a purpose in the land it was imitating, which right now was the end, which meant that he would recognize it as soon as he saw it, he just had to find it. Once he did he could destroy it and all parties in the Dream Realm would leave unharmed, unless if killed in the dream; if he couldn't get the dragon to put his apprentice down, he would destroy the dreams anchor.

Fortune was not with him tonight it seemed. The dragon, angered at the mage for looking for the anchor, let out a loud rawer that was then followed by a high pitched scream. Rythian went into an aggressive stance as the dragon held its tail and thus Zoey over its head. "Pay attention!!!" It shouted also going into a battle stance, "or this worthless creature falls!" The one thing that guarantees death in the Dream Realm was a fall, one would waken with injures if 'killed' in any other way, and Rythian definitely didn't want her to die.

"You have my undivided attention." Rythian replied a lot more calmly then he felt. He still had no idea where the anchor was located and once he did had no way of destroying it before Zoey hit the ground. He was trapped; with no control over what was going to happen next, and with no way to get his apprentice to a safe area, there was not a way to get them both out safely. Unless... It was!

Switching to a language she would understand the mage yelled as loud as he could what she needed to do and prayed that she would be able to do it.

ZOEY POV DREAM REALM

For the last 15 minutes Zoey had felt scales cutting into her clothing, frozen air surrounding her every muscle and a pinkish purple crystal right beside her arm; not that she could move it at the time. The surroundings where very foreign to the redhead and she found it particularly horrible. Not a single piece of plant life was around, the sky was not just a dark blue but completely black as if there was never any color at all, and the only living things around was her Rythian, thankfully, and the dragon what was holding her very tightly.

Zoey didn't know what was going on nor did she like it.

Rythian and the Dragon, which from what little she understood of the conversation was named Vania, where talking about something. What it was she honestly didn't know, she didn't recognize the language form anything that Rythian told her about or what she knew instinctively, like with the mushrooms, but whatever it was made Vania angry.

Zoey was lifted high into the air her arm coming loose as the dragon shouted something. Dazed by the sudden high altitude and the dizziness accompanying it; she didn't comprehend what Rythian was trying to communicate to her, but it quickly dawned on her that he wanted her to do something, fast.
"Destroy the gem!" Destroy....gem? Zoey quickly glanced around for the gem that had been near her arm before the movement, but had also been moved from it. Lady luck was favoring dragons tonight, as soon as Zoey reached out to grab the object in question; the dragon lifted her higher by beginning to fly.

"Perhaps I was wrong!" the dragon screeched making the girls ears bleed, "Perhaps you care not what happens to this creature!!" Next thing the red haired girl knew she was falling, falling into a black abyss that provided only it's dark, cold, nothingness.

"Zoey!!!!" Her teachers call steadied her free falling hands as she grabbed the gem and threw it down ward with all of her might. And just before she hit the ground, just before the rising colorless stone met her just as water had done before; a sound of shattered glass echoed threw out the imitation of the destroyed world called The End and the dream ended.

RYTHIAN POV BRIGHTLANDS

Rythian shot up from the warm covers that earlier was a welcoming sight, and climbed over the mountain of pillows that separated him from his apprentice. She hasn't moved, why hasn't she moved?! Panic quickly spread in the mage as the idea that she could be dead ran threw his mind. Carefully he gathered her up in his arms and let hope overtake him as he felt her bright and warm life energy still plus threw her.

"Come on Zoey, wake up. Please wake up....." Rythian begged, several thoughts bombarded his mind as he made a mad dash out of the large bedroom, down the stairs and threw the kitchen to his destination.

The room greeted the new inhabitants gratefully as the magic that resided within surrounded the two that placed it in there. It shifted, as if burned, when it tried to greet the girl, causing a loud hissing sound to echo through the castle. Rythian placed Zoey carefully on the inactive Redmatter furnace before he searched for something to wake her, or at the very least keep her alive.

Time Skip

The mage threw the potion down in frustration, the shattering bottle reflecting all his failed attempts at reviving his apprentice. It had been a month of tests, attacks, and failures and he was no closer to waking Zoey than he was the day he awoke from the dream. He was sure that if it wasn't for the Life Stone he would have a lifeless body instead of an unconscious one. He was also positive that what was wrong with her was of Vaina doing. The dragon did something to the redhead before Rythain had appeared in the dream, and whatever was done, changed her very magic, making the magic room hiss at her whenever she was brought in. In the end she was spelled and with what he couldn't figure out. He already gone through every spell, enchantment and magical illness in his books as well as the ones that he simply remembered, and there was nothing.

He felt useless.

"Goddammit," he cursed as thunder rolled over the land, doing very little to mend his frustration. Rythian looked over at Zoey, she was lying in a bed that he had moved into the room covered with a blue blanket, her flame colored hair was gliding down her shoulders and her bright ice blue eyes still closed. In one sense she looked peaceful, like a sleep that she was in started simply a hour ago and she would get up in a few minutes, in another sense she looked gone, as if the bouncy girl he knew wasn't even there to begin with, and that is was scared him the most.

What if she never wakes up?

The defeated mage settled himself onto the bed careful of his apprentice's sleeping form. Without a word he took her hand and simply held it. Vaina was right, he cared for Zoey much more than he ever said. Was he paying for not saying anything sooner? He let out a heavy sigh and his voice left him, "Teep decided to see if he could take care of the farm today, i know that you didn't want him to but you're not really in the position to try, and I'm still..." He stopped, a part of him wondered what he was doing, why he was talking to her if he knew she couldn't hear him, but he had to, he just had to. "I'm still here Zoey." he tightened his grip on her hand and simply sat there.

For the first time in years he didn't know what to do. He always had some type of idea of what was going to happen once he did something, though it didn't always go as planned, but now, now he was lost. Everything he had not tried yet brought her closer to death than simply doing nothing would. He was at a loss, this was the first time he cared for anyone this strongly and they were going to slip from him before they even knew.

The mage waited, as if there was something to wait for, and found himself shaking, a mixture of emotions flew threw him, anger, sadness, hatred, and then they left, leaving their mark, their pain, and him simply defeated in their wake.

Carefully he stood up and retrieved his apprentice and proceeded to carry her into their shared room. He was never going to give up on her, as long as she was alive she had a chance, and he was going make sure she kept that chance.

Tomorrow he would head into The End and do his best to destroy Vaina, and perhaps wake Zoey up that way. But that was tomorrow, tonight the mage placed her on her side of the bed, on the opposite side of a mountain of pillows, and covered her in the bright blue blankets, and sat on the edge of the bed in tears. Tonight he said something that he once typed on a computer, the same message meant for her, and once again she wouldn't hear.

"I love you."  

Credit to i-exsist on Deviant Art