After Eleonor had fallen asleep on Victor, he stared down at her for a long while. He had met many people since he'd been cursed, never hid anything because they never needed to, and never tried to get into a fight he couldn't win. Ever since his curse had turned him into a human, he'd been feeling his strength leave him. It was slow, but he could feel it. The armour he wore, too, was an intricate topic as well.

His armour was him. It was all that he was and would be - the remnants of what made him him. He didn't quite understand why he could wear it, but he knew it was essential to survive, as well as one of his only ways to exert his previous ability if only a portion. It gave him comfort, too. Setting down Eleonor, letting her sleep on her back in what he believed to be a comfortable pose, he turned the other way and entered slumber.

A dream, he thought. I wonder what those are.

Victor got what he wanted. Victor's thoughts halted suddenly, and he soon found his consciousness pulled towards a light. A light he couldn't escape. It began to engulf him. He felt his skin harden, peel away and turn to dust, leaving nothing of his human body in its wake. His mind returned, soon, and he looked around the wide-empty space. He looked down; there was no flesh. He turned to look "behind" him; there was nothing. He was floating. He merely was.

Victor tried to imagine why this was happening, what this was - he began thinking it was a dream but wasn't sure - and how long it would last. Within the vastness of white, Victor saw a figure cloaked in black. It spoke words he didn't understand, and he felt anger. He felt hatred. A seething, boiling rage directed at the form.

Cler'cus. He growled mentally. The white around him turned red. Five points of conscious perception formed, and he felt a body -- the body that Victor owned, which someone stole from him. The body he was cursed to no longer have unless he killed the thief who took it and devoured it. The form, which Victor called Cler'cus, outstretched a hand, and Victor saw a fifth of his vision blackout, leaving him screaming in place, giant feet clawing at nothing and yet scraping against something.

Cler'cus held, in his hand, a part of Victor, and he placed it against his chest, the portion that he'd taken absorbed into him. And another. The second part of him left his body. Another. Again. Until the last part of him was remaining and Victor had begun to swallow his pride, he instead spat. A giant inferno had appeared from his saliva and sprout upward like a hurricane. The form burned. Cler'cus burned. Victor watched as the thief burnt away into nought but ash, leaving satisfaction and pain the only things he felt. Remaining in a state of unconsciousness, Victor recouped. Through trial and error, Victor discovered that the entire white space he was in was mouldable. Interconnecting cubes that had formed together to be able to contain his immense, natural draconic form.

With a thought, there was a bed. With another, there was a chair. There was a table, food, a room, all of which Victor imagined. He formed several walls of stone, a roof of white oak trees, a raging flame within the hearth at the foot of the table. A world for him. Away from his quest. Away from his soulless body. Free reign to transform between either form as he pleased.

But it's fake. Victor thought. All of it is fake. Suddenly, his arm began to push and pull rapidly. He growled in anger but didn't react. His forearm, however, twitched violently, jerking over his chest. Blasted nerves, he huffed angrily, and suddenly his eyes shot open.

He was awake. No- not awake. Almost awake. The border between sleep and consciousness.

"...tor... V...r..." The words came jumbled, a familiar tone said them, yet he didn't recognize it for a moment. As he watched his mental creation float away, there was a depressing air about it, as if it was a living thing, trying to pull him back to it. Loneliness. Depression. Anxiety. Fear. He felt connected to it.

But he would not falter. He would return, he thought. Sometime soon, perhaps. The creation mellowed out, shrinking before disappearing with a large blast of flame that struck Victor in his core, forcing him awake.

"Victor!"

"Eleonor. What is it?" She didn't respond, merely throwing herself over him. He smelt fear, relief, worry, and plenty of exhaustion from her.

"You deaf bastard!" She yelled, forehead pressed to his chest, which he realized had become doused in sweat. The bedsheet was soaked, both wet and singed at the same time. "Why did you not wake up? The bed was I-It was... it was on fire and then you started sweating a... and I didn't know what to do and so I panicked and..." Victor sighed, pushing Eleonor off of his person to look at himself. He felt... sluggish - off. Like he had suddenly lost a sense for a day, only for it to come back in the morning. She pushed against him again, though. Holding herself close to his body, Victor felt that she was warm. Extremely so.

Sitting up on the bed, he had noted that the wall as well was burnt to almost a char. That would set him back a couple coins, something he didn't wish to give up. Staring down at the back of Eleonor's shaking body, he rested a hand on her scalp before slowly pushing her away.

"We'll be off today, after I receive my demands from lord Bern." A vicious snarl crossed his face for not even a moment before he was back to his previous scowl.

"No! I want to know what the hell that was! I came back from breakfast today and thought that... I thought you were dead. I didn't know what to do a...and... I panicked." She sobbed quietly against him, and he let her stay there for a bit.

"I don't know what it was myself. I believe I had one of those dreams, though. Strange, anger-inducing things they are." She looked up into Victor's eyes, confused before she pushed away. Standing and dusting her clothing, she cleared her throat.

"I'll... talk to the innkeeper. How many coins do you think this'll all cost?" She asked, looking to the bed, floor, and walls.

". . ." Victor didn't want to think about it.

Two hours later and Victor and Eleonor were out of the inn, with less coins than before they left. Victor was wearing a new tunic, a dark tunic of a special kind of flax, as well as a pair of trousers, coloured the same way. They were off to eat breakfast. Eleonor decided that, after this morning, she would tag along even if she'd already eaten. The cook's child was there as always, serving tables their drinks and food with a bright smile on his face. The cook looked up and quirked a brow, and his boy, the young, effeminate boy, followed his father's gaze. The whole room practically lit up, leaving Victor with half a mind to block his eyes. A thought that Eleonor entertained by giving an exaggerated gasp while blocking her eyesight.

"So bright!" She breathed. Victor didn't reply and walked to the table he usually sit at. It wasn't in the corner, it wasn't in the centre, it was by a small glass window, partitioned off with a single panel facing the door. A seat was pulled over by Eleonor. And the boy, looking confused at first, gave a strained smile. Victor flared his nostrils as he took a few deep breaths, trying to get an idea of what the boy was feeling.

Anger. Joy. Distrust. Jealousy. A weird cacophony of smells which caused Victor to stop sniffing immediately.

"What can I get you Victor, The usual?" Then the boy looked to Eleonor and narrowed his eyes before asking slowly: "Miss?" They asked, holding a small circular tray. Victor nodded once, and they both looked to Eleonor.

"I-I've already eaten, thank you, I'll just have some water." The boy looked at Eleonor for a few moments before he heard the clatter of coins on the table. Five copper coins. The boy grinned widely, scooping them up, giving a small wave of his hand from beside his head, and bound on over to the counter where his father waited. The coins were placed down, scooped up again, and put away all in a swift exchange. The boy looked over his shoulder at Victor and grinned.

"Just give him a couple minutes Mister Victor!"

Victor sighed, mentally exhausted a few moments later. He rubbed his face with one hand and placed his other on the table as casually as if it was his own home.

"I will miss this food. It's simple. Filling. And it tastes good enough." He said to no one in particular, but Eleonor responded nonetheless.

"I assume you've been here for a bit then?" She asked. He nodded. "About how long?" They asked. He raised five fingers. "Five years, or five months."

"Months. My journey began a few years ago. I've been getting funds while I've been acting as a wandering knight, and we have enough that money won't be a problem for at least another five." He relaxed into his seat, shoulders drooping slightly as a heavy breath left his nose. He stood up straight, however, and looked at the table. Not a moment later, there was suddenly a plate covered in lamb chops, seasoned with local herbs, just as usual, and the boy smiled, holding that tray over his chest in an X. Picking up the food with three fingers on each hand, he began to practically inhale the food. His body absorbed it through his mouth with ease inhuman, and his teeth seemed almost impossibly sharp for a moment.

The boy looked on in joy and wonder at Victor as he ate the food as if it was a delicacy given to some barbarian. Eleonor, however, stared in horror; yet was also entranced at how he left no mess.

"Wh... ho... huh? I guess... that's to be expected? I guess the foods good then." She cocked her head before looking awkwardly off to the side, catching sight of some prostitutes looking over at her as her gaze crossed over them. They grinned and stood up, walking over slowly, sashaying their hips. They stopped in front of the table that the boy, Eleonor, and Victor were all at. Victor, meanwhile, had finished one of the chops by the time they'd arrived. One prostitute held the young waiter boy by his shoulders. He looked and smelt both angry and relieved at the same time when he sensed they weren't there for him.

"Young man," One of them said, face white with powder and paints, with more makeup to attempt to create a blush. They looked at Eleonor when they spoke, not having seen Victor yet. Yet when Victor looked up at the duo of brothel-bound workers, his eyes narrowed slightly. The makeup they wore seemed to be meant to terrify people in battle, Victor thought. Horrific things, the makeup did. "you seem to be a bit... inexperienced... me and my lovely sister would love to accompany you... if you have the c-"

"I'm a girl..." Eleonor responded blankly.

"And she's not inexperienced." Victor replied, making the prostitutes jump as they heard his voice, turning to him at first in surprise, then in want.

"Ahhh, a man after our own hearts then?" Said the prostitute that clung to the currently-nameless-waiter-boy. The boy was, at the moment turning around to look to his father for help, and he shrugged. The orders were complete, no one asked for anything else, and they were slow-paced for now. "I think he looks rather wild, don't you think, Sister?" "Why yes, I do believe he does, and I do like myself a rugged, wild man..."

Victor narrowed his eyes before standing, wiping his mouth with a napkin, and deftly slipping past the two women and the boy.

"The food was pleasant." He said. "Eleonor, come. Go pack your things. I'll get my recompense. We are leaving once I'm ready." The two women, and the boy, gawked at Victor as he left, and Eleonor sped behind him.