I was about to go to sleep, wrapped up in Eshanai’s coils by the fire, I was warm and felt safe. She had tried to teach me how to sense my power, how to look inside myself, but I had felt nothing, no incredible surge within myself as she described it. She had looked troubled for lack of a better term, did she think I would have another episode like what had happened in the village? She had assured me that such a thing was very unlikely since I had already awakened my power shouldn’t manifest itself except by my command from here on out. She admitted that she had little knowledge about dream magic, as was my affinity apparently, and that such a thing could happen again. Strangely that comforted me, she wasn’t trying to hide things from me, not being treated as a child was refreshing.

I was a bit worried about what that guard had said, going to the university would have to wait now I guess. Did they take in known criminals? Probably not, perhaps I could get in under a different name, disguise myself maybe. My worries must have been plain to see because Eshanai hugged me tighter and told me everything would be alright. She started telling me stories about where she came from, her island, it still fascinated me that everyone there was a woman. I didn’t really believe that every Naga, as she called her race, came out of some cave. She told me that they had gotten on just fine without men for as long as she could remember, doing all the jobs that were traditionally seen as “men’s work” back at my village. In fact, she hadn’t even known or seen a man until she had gotten to the mainland. For this reason alone I wanted to believe her, and I hoped her story was true, no one would look down on me there for wanting to reach for something greater, something different. I fell asleep listening to her soft voice talk fondly about her home, and I found myself looking forward to seeing her village and tribe of Naga.

I woke up with a start by a sound coming from outside, I was disoriented at first, thinking I was in my bed at home, I panicked a bit when I saw the dark cave and felt the scaly tail wrapped around me until I remembered where I was and what had happened yesterday. I calmed down, what had woken me up? There it was again, the sound of a stick or something breaking was clearly heard now that it had stopped raining. The fire had gone out, only embers giving off a faint light, in the darkness of the night. I looked out of the cave, but all I could see was the stars of the sky, and was that movement? Maybe it was just the trees swaying in the wind? I couldn’t be sure.

“Eshanai,” I said trying to be quiet, shaking her arm I tried to wake her. “Eshanai please, somethings out there and is coming this way.” I shook her arm again but got no response, now that I thought back it was strange that she hadn’t woken up to my panicked flopping about. I untangled myself from her coils and stood up, I suddenly froze at the sensation of eyes staring at me from behind. I slowly turned around and there they were, two sets of red eyes looking at me from outside the cave. I stared, completely frozen for a while, “Eshanai, it would be really nice if you could wake up now,” I said not bothering to be quiet I kicked the side of her tail only for her to grumble in her sleep and turn over.

As if the movement had set it of something sticky attached itself to my leg and pulled me off my feet to drag me towards those eyes. I scrambled for something to hold on to, but everything I got a hold of seemed just to crumble away to dust. As I got closer to the exit I could make out the thing outside more. Clearly, those eyes weren’t two sets, they were four eyes belonging to the same wolf spider. It had caught me in one of its sticky silk strands and was hauling me in, doubtless to wrap me up and inject its venom into me.

“Not again, not again, not again,” I said, truly panicked now I looked back to Eshanai. “Eshanai,” no response, “Eshanai, help me,” still nothing. “HELP ME!” I screamed in desperation as I was pulled bodily towards the spider. This time I could feel something happening, it was as if something unlocked inside of me, a new power I wasn’t aware of before welled up from my chest and shot out in a purple light towards Eshanai. When it entered her body, she shot up to her… tail and looked around wildly when she saw what was happening to me, armor appeared around her body, and a spear and shield were in her hands. She lept over me, and landing on the webbing she stopped my forward progress only to pull hard on the string. This made the spider fly towards her, I was scared at first, only to breathe a sigh of relief as she smacked it to the ground out of the air using her long tail. Before it could skitter away, she impaled it on her spear, and I watched as it stopped moving to lay still on the ground.

When I was completely sure it was dead I ran towards Eshanai and hugging her fiercely I said in a rush. “There was a sound, and I tried to wake you, I tried, and I tried, but you just lay there looking like you had a pleasant dream. I was so scared.” I started to cry then and angry at myself that I was always crying I balled my fists up and hit Eshanai, I hit her again and again not noticing that her armor was gone. She let me hit her for a while until she brought her arms around me and hugged me towards her, my rage grew impotent in her strong arms, and I started to cry again, making little hiccupy sounds. “You wouldn’t wake up,” I said, my voice sounding tired to my own ears.

“Shhh, I’m here now, it’s okay,” Eshanai said softly, stroking my hair. “I’m sorry for not being there when you needed me, but you need to get behind me, there might be more of them out there.” I nodded softly as I quickly complied with her suggestion. Eshanai was right I realized, as I looked out of the cave I could see multiple red eyes approaching at speed from many different directions. We backed up further into the cave until we were back at the fire-pit, Eshanai waived her hand at it, and it burst to life again, giving us more light to see by. Three sticky silk string webbings preceded the spiders, they all got stuck on Eshanai in various places on her armor. She resisted their pulling, and grabbing them up in one hand she gave them a hard pull as she had done before and three wolf spiders came tumbling towards her.

She impaled the first one on her spear as it flew through the air, she pulled it free to stab the other one on the ground. The last one jumped at her, but she shoved it away with her big shield to stab it deeply right between its four eyes, pinning it to the ground. She yanked her spear free to stand at the ready for the next spider to dare attack her. Come they did, they attacked her in pairs of twos or threes, but as time went on, they started attacking her in greater numbers. Watching her fight was a sight to behold, she would switch to a bow and arrow to shoot at the spiders when she had killed all close to her with her spear and shield. She was never idle, able to switch quickly between weapons as she did.

Eshanai, I don’t think this is real, a voice suddenly said as if out of thin air, Eshanai seemed to hear it though as she responded.

Oh yeah, seems pretty real to me, she said as she stabbed another spider. The strange thing was that her lips didn’t move.

“Who’s that? Do you know him?” I asked, and Eshanai looked at me, seeming surprised that I had heard the voice. In her distraction a spider jumped on her back and tried to bite her through the armor, she grabbed it and threw it to the ground where she splattered it to mush with her tail.

“That’s Lubus, he’s my friend, it’s a bit complicated. I can explain things further when we are safe.” I nodded at that and now moving her lips, Eshanai talked to her friend as she defended me from a seemingly unending amount of wolf spiders. “What do you mean this isn’t real Lubus?”

I think this is a dream, Lilians’ dream to be exact. That’s probably why she can hear me actually, came the explanation from the invisible voice. That sounded crazy, I pinched myself to make sure, but the pain I felt was real enough. My exploration was interrupted when an absolute horde of spiders suddenly appeared outside the cave, red eyes stretched all the way to the horizon. The behavior of these spiders was a bit weird, they usually hunted in packs, but this was an uncountable number of them. Eshanai opened her mouth, and a gout of flame leaped from her throat, it covered the floor between the spiders and us and burned high, creating a wall of fire.

“If this is your dream Lilian, you need to wake up, then this will all be over,” Eshanai said, and I could hear the scittering of spider legs as they moved around on the other side.

“But, how do I do that?”

“This is your dream, now you know so you should be able to control it, just wake up.” She said and placed a hand on my shoulder giving me a comforting smile before she turned back to the fire, her shield held high. Just wake up huh, could it be that easy? I closed my eyes trying to concentrate ‘wake up’ I told myself, but nothing happened. As I thought of something else to try I noticed the wall burning lower, I didn’t have much time. What was that digging into my back? Nothing was there, but the sensation wouldn’t go away, it must be the ground I was sleeping on or maybe Eshanai’s tail. Now that I noticed it I could feel her scaly tail still wrapped around me even though I couldn’t see it. The ghostly feeling brought me out of my thoughts, and I suddenly noticed little inconsistencies in the cave. The fact that I was fully clothed I should have noticed, I had gone to sleep in my underwear, my clothes should be drying by the fire. The first of the spiders jumped through the fire followed by many more, and I gasped as it all disappeared and I sat up, still in the embrace of Eshanai’s tail.

“It worked Eshanai, it’s over,” I said in relief as I stood up, Eshanai didn’t answer, however, she lay still seemingly still asleep. “Eshanai, wake up, you can wake up now,” I said as I shook her slightly, but she didn’t respond. “Not this again, Eshanai, you need to wake up, oh, what is going on?” I said, my voice turning worried.

“She is still under your spell, stuck in your dream, you need to wake her up,” there was that voice again, coming from Eshanai, Lubus was his name.

“What do you think I’m trying to do here?”

“Use your magic, as you did in the dream,” Lubus said, had I been the one to bring Eshanai in there with me. She was most likely still fighting, it was now my turn to save her, I closed my eyes looking for that power I had felt before. It was very obvious to me now. I told it what I wanted it to do and it obeyed, shooting out from my chest in a purple glow. As it entered Eshanai, she opened her eyes.