WHAT DREAMS MAY COME

“...in solitude the journey back

through wretched wastes and lonely sole...”

Ndehjyn Varwun Dynde VII

2:2:3:1/5, III:IX

She awoke to a smear of blood on her hand, a few drops from a nosebleed that wiped clean and left her sniffling. He was there, with a kerchief and his kindness, and she rolled to face the wall, disgusted with herself. “Here, blow your nose,” he urged, slipping her the kerchief and receding to give her some space.

Larin did, a rigid glacier settling in her stomach. He was so loving, so gentle, so constant in his care, and she couldn’t bear to look at him for the guilt that carved up through her gut. “Thanks.” She knew the word bothered him; maybe if she made him uncomfortable enough, he would leave her to wallow through her misery in peace. “Thank you for everything.”

“Always,” he answered in a soft voice. Sensing her discomfort, he suggested brightly, “Are you up to taking a walk, Larin? The dragons have been asking to see you.”

“Maybe later.” With a shudder, she closed her eyes, willing herself to slip into dreamless sleep that might actually do her good. Fire danced on the backs of her eyelids, alive with skittering forms and pocked faces. Snuggling down into her folded arms, she snorted to dislodge the images, and a light spray of blood spattered her hands from her staunched nosebleed. “You can go, though. You can’t waste your whole life sitting over my bedside.”

There was silence behind her; Jorn didn’t breathe for a long moment. “No,” he supposed, the word buffered with logic and constraint. “I guess not.”

As if aware his presence was somehow adding to her tension, he rose without another word and slipped out, the door easing closed behind him. Alone at last, Larin clutched her bedclothes to her chest, drew up her knees, and gathered the shattered pieces of who she was around herself. Too empty to cry, she settled into her forbidden memories and began the long journey back from darkness.

Jorn couldn’t help her, here. She would have to find her own light.