WHAT DREAMS ARE MADE OF

“...valiant waste the sodden plot

between the cloaked and cleared...”

Denryo Sunye Gusya VI

2:2:2:7/5, III:IX

The dreams were getting clearer. She could remember them in vivid detail, fully awake, and she couldn’t tell where memories started and the dreaming stopped. It seemed so real, quite often more real than the comfortable bed and recuperating body she now inhabited. There were claws, and teeth, and fire, and dark penetrating cold. There was fear. And there was pain.

Jorn was always there with the light. No matter how black the darkness, how searing the agony, his kind face was always there in the bright light of wakefulness, pressing back the shadows with an encouraging smile in those green eyes.

Sweat drenched her body, her thin nightshirt clinging to her damp, sticky curves. Squirming against the clinging sheets, Larin struggled out of nightmares and into Jorn’s caring arms, his solid strength gently pressing her back into the pillows as he murmured soft meaningless comfort into her ear. The light, as always, reassured her too; he kept candles burning through his nightly vigil at her side.

He blotted her face and neck with a damp towel, smoothing back the stringy locks from her skin. “Shh, it’s all right,” he soothed, and eventually the surge of thronging blood in her veins relaxed. “You’re safe now.” Helping her drink from a cup of water, he drew her hair over the pillow to let her dampened neck breathe. “Better?”

She barely met his gaze, but flashed him a grateful smile. “Much.”

“...What do you dream of, Larin?” Her eyes snapped to his face; he studied her intently. “I know it’s bad.”

Shuddering, Larin slipped her hand from the covers to grip his arm, fingers cold and weak, but steady. “I don’t remember,” she lied, trapped in her web of falsehoods. “Same when I blank out. I’m just... gone.”

He didn’t seem convinced. “You are so afraid, though.” His bare palm brushed her cheek; she fought to keep from grasping it with her free hand. All his thoughts and feelings surged into her when their bare hands touched, and she could barely manage the brunt of her own.

Pressing her cheek down against his hand, she closed her eyes. “Yes,” Larin agreed, hardly able to pretend she wasn’t shaken. “I am afraid. B-but I don’t remember the dreams, just like I don’t remember what I’m thinking about when I stare off into space. And I don’t remember the Hells.”

“You’re lucky, I think.” Though she didn’t see him, she could hear his tender smile. “I wouldn’t wish what I felt on anyone, let alone worse three hundred fold.” There was ache in his voice. “You were down there for so long.”

A sound cracked from her throat, and she gripped his hand after all. His gratitude for her safety overshadowed his lonely burden of recollection, but his encroaching emotions paled against the torture of her memories. All those things she couldn’t speak aloud, bottled into a chaos about to explode. Ninety-three days, she yearned to whisper, bearing her flayed soul over the coals of her spontaneous deception.

Instead, she broke down and cried. The sobs keened from her like whining hounds, her shoulders shaking, body wracked with shudders and tremors and hiccups, all slaked against the solid anchor of Jorn’s chest, his warm arms around her, his fingers in her hair, his scent of straw and dragon and musk as he pressed her face firmly into his shirt. “You saved me,” babbled the nymph as her wails gave way to quiet grief. “You pulled me out.” She washed herself into silence.

“Sometimes,” he murmured softly after a long while, cradling her in his arms, “I wonder just what happened, down there. I wish I could take it from you, all of it, and wound myself to the bone with it. I’d throw myself to the pit, Larin, if it meant you wouldn’t suffer.”

Fresh tears leaked unbidden from her stinging eyes. “I know, Jorn.”

“If you ever remember anything, please tell me.” His voice was serious. “Even just a scrap of a dream. Anything at all, Larin. I cannot let you bear that alone.”

Another sound broke from her throat, and the sobs returned. “I’m just– so– afraid,” she wheezed, and his palms rubbed her back, squeezing her against him as if he could somehow enfold all her pain inside himself and leave her whole again.

“Don’t be afraid. I’m with you now.”