Résigne-toi, mon coeur; dors ton sommeil de brute.
(Resign yourself, my heart; sleep your brutish sleep.)

Le Goût du néant, Fleurs du Mal – Charles Beaudelaire

~ ~ ~

I came to freezing and with a pounding headache unlike anything I had ever felt in my life.

I should probably have taken off my wet clothes before going to bed last night.

With a groan of pain, I tried to turn over. Without opening my eyes yet, I reached behind my ear for my com, to check the time. When I didn't find it I reached for it on my night table, but either I was lying with my head at the foot end of my bed, or-

I opened my eyes, blinded by an awfully bright light.

"No... don't tell me..."

I sat up on the bed, and stared at the white walls that surrounded me, and was overcome by a wave of despair.

It's not possible. How is this possible? I took the pill! I took the fucking sleeping pill! I shouldn't be here!

And yet I was. This was the same room, the same white bed, the same white walls, with those black panels that seemed to stare at me like blank, dead eyes now. The same white shelf at the other end of the room – except that it wasn't completely empty this time. Propped against the back wall as if to put it on display, the only speck of color in this room was the Queen of Hearts card that Dream had given me.

So time has passed, I realized, but nothing really changed.

My mind refused to accept the situation I found myself in, while my gaze continued to wander through the room. It fell on a white metal box on the bed beside me. Another of those white paper butterflies sat on top of it.

"Are you mocking me?" I growled, brushing it off in a fit of anger.

But the next second, I somehow felt sorry for the little thing. I picked it up again, and with a sigh straightened its paper wings.

"Well... it's not your fault," I muttered.

I turned my attention to the other object – the box. It was about as long and wide as my hand, pure white and had no clasp or lock. When I gently pressed the lid, it opened up, and a rainbow seemed to spill forth from it. My eyes needed a few seconds to process what I was seeing, they were overwhelmed by the sudden intensity of all the colors in this otherwise bland and blank place.

Paint.... I realized. It's a paintbox! This is.... For Feather?

My head was still foggy, but I remembered something important. I jumped to my feet, and almost collapsed back on the bed when the world around me spun out of control for a second. I was freezing, but the feeling of the cold floor underneath my naked feet helped me focus.

I have to give this to her. I made a promise.

I put the butterfly in my pocket, took the box in my hands, and stumbled out of the room on feeble legs. The sky dome above the atrium was dimly lit, with some brighter stars flickering but most of them invisible, signifying early evening or very early morning. I made my way straight to Feather's door, but suddenly I heard voices in the common room and stopped in my tracks.

"...disappeared, and then just turned back up, and I don't think..."

"...agree that there is a certain risk..."

"We can NOT let her..."

That was Rain and Quill, apparently arguing. Somehow, I had a gut feeling that they were talking about me. Slowly, I drew closer to the hallway, completely silent on my bare feet.

"I think you are overreacting," I heard Dream's deep baritone.

"And what is your impression of her?" Dia asked.

"Mine?"

My heart skipped a beat as I heard Cloud's voice again. It seemed like an eternity since I had heard it last, and then again, it somehow seemed like I had heard it just moments ago.

"Why... I don't think I can-"

"He certainly cannot," Rain cut him off. "He's not objective enough. She's been trying to charm him from the moment she got here."

I clenched my teeth in anger, and wished Cloud would say something to clarify the situation. I certainly hadn't been the one to whisper sweet nothings into his ear in the library.

"Maybe she is just imprinted," Quill suggested, and I heard Dia snort with contempt. Apparently he didn't agree with her, whatever that was supposed to mean.

"Or she's purposefully using him," Rain insisted.

I grit my teeth in frustration. Why wasn't Cloud saying anything? He couldn't really agree with that, could he?

"Either way," Dream said, "That alone doesn't make her a spy."

At his last word, my insides turned leaden. So that's what this is about...

My grip around the metal box tightened. I stared down at it, suddenly becoming awfully aware that I had no recollection of how exactly it had come into my possession.

"She was sent to the Well first thing when she got here. Not a very nice way for them to treat their own spy," Dia pointed out.

"And thereby exactly the kind of thing that would throw us off guard about her intent," Rain said. "So she could deceive us all the better!"

A spy...

The word was like a knife that buried itself in my heart. And still, what hurt even more than that accusation was the silence of the one person in that group who I had somehow imagined to believe in me and defend me. But perhaps after knowing Cloud for just such a short time I had deluded myself into thinking that I could trust him. The one to be deceived was me.

I had heard enough. I moved out of the shadow in the hallway and walked around the corner into the light of the common room. They sat around the table, holding their little council. Only Feather, Bridge and Arrow were missing. Edge was there, but he hadn't spoken since I had begun to eavesdrop. He, Rain and Quill were sitting with their backs to me. Only Cloud immediately saw me, and his eyes went wide with surprise.

"You're awake!"

There was an odd mixture of surprise and dismay in his voice, and his words caused the others to turn. All of them stared at me now, even Dream seemed to have his blind eyes fixed on me.

"I brought something with me," I said quietly.

My voice sounded surprisingly calm considering the raging tide of emotions battering my insides. The icy cold seeping through my body from my feet upward definitely helped me keep my composure.

I held up the metal box. "It's for Feather."

"A favor?" Dia asked. He rose to his feet hastily and came over to me.

I nodded. That's what Edge had called it, how he had obtained that paper for the origami. A favor, earned through a trial. I was certain now that was how I had gotten that box, too. Even if I couldn't remember the exact details. And if I knew nothing else about Tartaros, I figured that if I was a spy, I was a pretty shitty one, because I still didn't have the faintest clue what was going on in this place.

"Man... that's so neat! I mean, if anybody earned a favor, it would be you, after what they must have put you through," Dia commented as he inspected the contents of the box with curiosity.

"What they – what... How long have I been gone, exactly?" I asked.

"Five days," Quill said, watching me stone-faced from her spot at the table. "We thought you wouldn't come back at all."

Five days. Five days?

I pressed my palm against my suddenly pounding head and tried to make sense of that number.

Five days, five pills. I took the first pill in the night from Thursday to Friday, no, Friday night, after the Colosseum, and then... What day is it today? What happened before I got here?

An image appeared before my mind's eye. A lifeless body, and black blood – no, it had been red. It had been both. Red and black, mingling in a pool of rain water. The pounding behind my forehead grew stronger and I clenched my teeth together, forcing the images to go away.

A realization came over me. Last thing I remembered was taking a sleeping pill. And yet, I had ended up dreaming of this place again.

It's not about the pills. I realized. They never worked. They put me to sleep but I continued to dream. I think that girl I met in the marsh was right – she didn't have to make me go back because I never really left. I think I was in Tartaros all along.

But it made no sense. The places I had dreamed about – the marsh, the water maze. They seemed unrelated to this white, terrifyingly realistic hell. Then again, I remembered that the prisoners had mentioned other trials, other places that they sometimes were brought to without knowing how. And I recalled something that Cloud had said to me: Impossible things happen here.

"Are you alright? Perhaps you should rest some more. Or would you like to eat?" Dia's compassionate voice ripped me out of my thought process. He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed it. "You're pretty cold..."

"I'm fine."

Nothing could have been further from the truth. But there was such a raging storm of emotions within me that none of them could quite gain dominance over the others, and I was left in an emotional limbo, feeling nothing but numbness as my thoughts continued to race.

Across the room, my eyes met with Cloud's. He stared back at me with a mystified expression. For a moment, I was captivated once again by the impossible beauty of his face and that strange, mesmerizing color of his eyes. I averted my gaze with considerable effort.

Me, charming him? Ridiculous. I thought. As if a snake could charm a flutist.

Predominantly I was still feeling angry at them for talking about me like that, and part of me still wanted to confront them, but my headache found itself to agree with Dia.

"Perhaps I should indeed lie down again," I said, and without another greeting turned around and went back to my room, leaving the metal box in Dia's hands.