ADARA

You.

It rolled in her ears with a hiss while she ran through the undergrowth. Blood dripped off the moons and created acidic rain. Holes burnt through the canopy and hit the ground with a heavy thud. Bubbles formed on the dirt while crimson muck wrapped shadowy sinew to create the hungering beasts of the Obscura. It groaned and cracked with bones and ligaments tearing through the undergrowth. Her feet stumbled in a hole, and she hit the ground with a wet smack.

Her heart exploded with her fall, and she snapped off the grass and back into the chirping night. Tightness crushed it with an iron fist as she hauled herself off the ground with the quiet flicker of a campfire. On the other side of the fire, Yuven, who rested with his head in his arms without responding to her once again. Stars twinkled in the sky, the night young, and her nightmares ferocious with their couple days of endless traveling with very few breaks.

She brushed her finger down her nose and breathed deep of reality. Another one... at this rate, I won't be able to keep up. Soreness crept through her thighs at her rush of the night and days. Off to the side, Fenrer had his back to them both. Flakes of bark fell from whatever he whittled at with careful hands, and Adara straightened herself out. "How long have you been up?" she questioned.

"Haven't slept," he responded, unstartled from her voice before turning on his small seat of logs. A small sphere rested in his hands, glowing with magick. He slipped it into a small pouch. "The sun is still a ways off."

Adara groaned and rested back on her arms. "I would, but..."

"Nightmares?" he asked.

"Again." Adara sighed and tugged out one of the books she took from the Warden outpost to keep herself occupied from training and walking both — with her dreams added a sprinkle of death to the mix of pain. "I mean, I used to have nightmares a lot as a child, but nothing like this," she added to the wind, careful not to disturb Yuven, all to avoid his wrath about schedules and lists.

Fenrer drew his shoulders upwards. "Do you want to talk about it?" He ran a small glyph up the dead log he sat on, which tugged out the wood and bark and curled into a serrated sphere. It returned to his hands, and he pressed his knife against the uneven pieces. His movements were methodical and practiced, trained on his work. "Nightmares often come from something deep within the mind — something the river of thoughts finds itself trapped against."

"Oh, I'm not having ominous prophecy dreams?" she asked with a smile, and her fairy tales bloomed to life.

The edge of the knife hesitated on one stuck out piece of bark, and he turned to her with a soft huff. "I don't know. I suppose that depends."

Adara froze at his wording. "Are you saying people can have prophetic dreams?"

He hummed, soft with the ocean. "It depends on how you define a prophetic dream," he pointed out and continued his work on the sphere full of magick, protected in a wooden casing while he whittled it to a smooth coat. "Dreams can have meaning but have no bearing on our reality is what I meant," he corrected with a smile at her. "The mind tells us things through the river of aura and emotion, and it is hard to define it. Minds aren't books." He sighed and finished off the sphere, holding it in his palm.

"Yet... you can read them?" she dared to ask the question. "Minds, I mean."

Fenrer put the sphere into the pouch and set his knife back into the sheathe along his armor, and didn't look at her. "Not in the way you're thinking of." He moved his legs over the other side of the log and considered her. "If you asked me to tell you what you're thinking of at this moment, it would not come out in a way that makes sense." Arms folded against his chest, he tipped his head at her, then slid to the ground and rested his back against the fallen logs. "You should get some sleep."

Adara tipped her head at his subtle switch, and she sat back down on her sleeping spot. "I don't think I can. It's just the same nightmare every night." Legs tucked against her chest, she rested her arms against them and stared into the dying fire. "It starts off well enough, but then it follows me into it — that thing that killed Rosa, that I turned to stone earlier." Her fingers dug into her pants and broke her soul. "It remembered me." Ice swept down her spine at its licking tongue and its taste for blood, and she drove her hands into her temples. "It knew who I was when I entered the house. It sensed me that whole time." Acid boiled her stomach and she hugged herself to get away from the growing shadows. "It waited. It consumed her and waited for me." Anger and pain swallowed her throat and she tried to dig the nightmare out of her head.

Bells tolled, but never rocked the forest into ash.

Soft footsteps broke the dissonance, and Fenrer knelt beside her. "Derelicts contort the world around them," he explained and sat beside her, his voice pushing out the cracking bells. "Most have a base level of intelligence, but the older they are... the more they learn." He tipped his head. "I'm sorry for the loss of your friend. Until that moment your magick unleashed, I couldn't sense anything in Prunal. I did not even sense it when we first ran into each other," he admitted. "It was like... a veil over the whole town."

"Could it have been the crystal?"

"Most likely. It suppressed the Goliath in the bowels beneath the castle," Fenrer said with a nod. "Magick like that wouldn't hold forever though. You're not to blame. It was not in your control."

Blight.

Adara bit on her tongue. "I still feel responsible — and it's not helping me sleep."

Fenrer glanced to the sky, where the stars reflected in the green spirals. "I understand, for what it's worth — that sense of responsibility," he added. "That sense of having something in your hands, but being unable to change anything with it, of preventing the destruction Derelicts oft bring. Both of us understand it." He nodded at Yuven, who remained fast asleep. "I know we are strangers to each other in the grand scheme of things, but we volunteered for this." He ran his hand through the stalks of grass, where it shimmered green sparks and he rubbed his fingers together before standing up with a huff. "Sleep is hard to come by, but closing your eyes is sometimes enough. Resting, if not sleeping. We still have a long journey ahead, and Yuven will push us to Haneka."

"I can barely feel my legs by the end of the day," she grumbled as Fenrer smiled, then stepped from her. "And even that can't get me to sleep." Her hand touched the shimmering grass, where solid ground met her fingertips and reminded her of the truth, and the idea sparked in her mind. "If you can do all these things with the mind... can you also induce sleep, Fenrer?"

Fenrer froze like a cracked whip, spine straight. He twisted back to her with widening eyes. Adara met his stare, then jolted and raised her hands. "I'm sorry if that was insensitive," she said, but pressed her hand against her mouth when Yuven rolled over, setting his arm back over his head and blocked his feathers and pointed ear. Fenrer sucked in his lips and moved his hands as if trying to find somewhere to stuff them along his armor.

"It wasn't insensitive," he mumbled and turned his back to her, lowering his head. Adara sat on the ground and waited for him while he brushed his fingers, then nodded. "I... can, I suppose."

Relief spread through her at the escape, but it wasted into nothing when he refused to look at her. "Is it difficult?"

He shook his head.

"What's... wrong?" Adara forced out and dared to bridge the distance.

For a couple long seconds into the night, his response to her question never formed. Adara readied herself to lie back down and try to fall into restless sleep, but he turned back to her with his hands laced together with his head bowed. "If that is what you wish of me, I can, Adara," he said and returned to her side, but never broke her personal space. "Except, you must be completely certain; inside and out."

"I wouldn't have asked if I wasn't certain."

Fenrer's smile softened. "Not quite what I meant. You can say that you are certain, but what matters is what you feel inside," he explained. "That is where it matters, and that is where the law draws the line. Willingness can change in an instant." He studied her. "Besides... It is a temporary solution. You will sleep well tonight, but I..." He sucked in a breath and returned to his sheepish fidgeting. "I kindly request that you... only ask this of me once. I will help you in other ways, but if you need the sleep, I will do it."

His uncertainty embraced her heart. "I just need to sleep before Yuven drags us to Haneka." Hesitation dripped off her tongue, and she reached her hand out. "It goes the other way, Fenrer. I won't make you do this."

"It's fine," he said. "If you're certain, I need you to lie down and give me a moment."

Adara obeyed and laid down on the soft pillow of flattened grass while his footsteps drifted off to his area of rest. Waves of twinkled stars danced along the horizon and lit through the night. His footsteps shambled back to her, and she frowned when he loomed over her with a tip of his head. "Are you still sure?"

"Yes?"

Fenrer moved to her head and sat down, his hands in his lap as he considered her. "If you ever have a second of doubt, tell me. Feel free to defend yourself. Feel free to unleash your magick to push me out. It is your mind, you have the right. Understand?" he said and leaned over her again, where the moss greens reflected with the beautiful silver aurora he carried within the galaxy.

"I understand."

Fenrer nodded and straightened himself out, and she found himself mesmerized when the spirals weaved through his irises. "First, I want you to close your eyes."

She closed them and shut the world back into the growling dark. "Now what?"

Her breath caught in her throat when creeks of light slipped down her eyelids, and lit up the silver lake it carried its truth. It rose into the sky and bloomed with the lilies of an aurora and danced with the cluster of stars. It followed on a trail of fiery wings, and she longed to reach out and brush her hands against it, but lead filled her lungs, from her head straight down to her toes.

"Empty your mind of the dark," his voice whispered in the wind, but held the strength of the ocean. "Understand the delicate balance of the mind and the heart."

A twilight mirror rippled from underneath her feet, but she took each heavy step again and again to reach the bright light in the distance. It bounced with starry waves, where silver birds broke the endless sea and flew into the sky around her. Memories, bloodied, flashed past her, and she tensed. It screamed out at her, taunted her, but she dragged herself through the muddy patch to reach the other endless side.

"These nightmares do not define who you are," Fenrer guided her along the ocean of truth, where she met the spirit of the crystal when it unleashed her memories upon her. "Just as your magick does not define what you are."

Tainted. Blight. Monster. Monster. Monster.

Exhaustion swept through her, but she stayed on the path, and dragged herself through the fire of faith. Her walk matched his own while he carried the staff to the dead, and opened the portal into another life, free of pain.

I believe.

Adara found herself in the sea of stars, where the spirit waited for her again, in the visage of Fenrer. His voice disappeared into the night, and she prepared herself for the confrontation.

He turned, and it shimmered with a clarity the crystal never had.

"Fenrer?" she asked.

"You're almost there," he said, then opened his eyes.

Beautiful crystal stars danced in the spiraling greens which filled his eyes and left nothing of his pupils. It rang out with the call of the phoenix. Her memories washed out the blood while she shared her first kiss with Tara, while Garren taught her to push out the pain and told her stories of another land and set aflame the wanderlust in her heart. Stars exploded around her, and she came closer to Fenrer. "Where are we?"

He frowned, unblinking. "I don't know, what do you see?"

Adara took in the twilight, umbral sea while purples and blues spread out to swallow the crimson and to add the light of the rising sun on the neverending horizon. "It's the same place as the crystal..." she murmured while small streams bounced and danced between her and Fenrer, where a small star whisked into her hand, small, but powerful in its brightness. It bloomed with the shade of the moonlily, and she mused, "What are you seeing?"

Fenrer sighed, and the world went still.

"Only what is right in front of me," he said with a layer of determination, and raised his hands to press his thumb and forefinger together, breaking the silver mist around her. "Are you certain?"

"Yes." Adara breathed in the beauty.

"Look in the distance," he whispered.

Adara looked at him.

And believe.

"Goodnight, Adara," he said, closer, and he snapped his fingers with one smooth, confident stroke.

It rippled through the world, and went down the drain of the sea. Everything fell silent into her peace, and he disappeared into the horizon.