That was the first night in a long time in which he dreamed. Not that he had stopped doing so since he arrived in Elthea, but the tiredness and the constant changes made him sleep so deeply that he did not remember it. However, this was a different occasion because he was aware of it.

Finnian was at home, at that breakfast where his world was twisted. He couldn’t even speak or grab his parents before darkness consumed everything. As soon as he opened his eyes, he was nowhere but floating into a void in which he saw his parents. There were also his grandparents, who disappeared instantly. Aer, Rune, Leith, Nero and Ead appeared in the same way, as did other friends they had made over the past few weeks.

But all of them, one after another, vanished.

He sighed, relieved that it was over when he opened them again. But it was when he looked for the others that something had changed. He was alone, and neither his friends, the wolves, nor anyone else was within reach. The colours had faded, being replaced by different shades of grey. The only exception was him and his clothes. Well, and the little creature in front of him.

At first glance, it resembled a puppy dog, though more so because of the size. It was hard to describe something that gave off light. With four short legs, its entire body was white, and it wasn’t easy to figure out precisely what it looked like, except for a pair of purple eyes, more striking than the rest.

“Who... Who are you?” Finnian said, crouching down to be at his height.

The elthean cocked its little head, almost as if it was waiting for his reaction. Then it took a few steps towards him and, with one of its paws, touched his pendant, the one he always carried with him. It lit up as soon as it came in contact with the light elthean, at which point he not only heard him speak, but the colour returned all around her.

“Can you hear me?” the elthean said.

“Your voice,” Finnian said instantly. It was sweet and high-pitched, like someone smaller than he was, though that wasn’t the only detail he noticed. “Why have the colours come back? Did you do it?”

“I was calling out to you. I’ve been doing it for a long time, but I couldn’t reach you. And now they were catching to reach you.”

Far from the sadness in his words, he was glad to have him there. It seemed familiar, as if it was not the first time they had seen each other, but at the same time, it was. That didn’t end up missing him, not when everything around him was peculiar.

“Am I dreaming?” Finnian said though he knew the answer.

“Partly, but that doesn’t make what you see now any less real.”

Finnian turned his head as soon as he perceived a new noise coming from a giant (also of light) that passed them without making them shake with its footsteps.

“Don’t worry. He’s a very gentle big fellow, though he doesn’t look like it,” the little one said after the giant had vanished.

“Where has he gone?” Finnian exclaimed.

“Maybe he was hungry, or he will visit another friend. You stay by my side, and everything will be all right.”

“Where are we?”

“In the dream world, of course.”

“But it looks like Elthea,” Finnian said.

“Here, everything is connected. Besides, this sight is regular because we are both in Elthea!”

“But it’s not the first time I’ve been here?”

The elthean smiled (or so it seemed to him) and ran off, looking sideways at him to follow him. Finnian ignored whether it was a lucky break, but if someone was trying to get to him and ended up like this, something told him he had better not standstill.

His surroundings changed, and the natural scenery of trees, plants, and flowers became a mountainous one. The terrain, full of rocks and nooks and crannies, made it more challenging to move forward, although he was not tired. His steps were lighter than ever, and he felt a different strength every day. Besides, the elthean was not advancing far enough to move away from him.

“Are you starting to remember?”

He shook his head, hoping he wouldn’t disappoint him, but instead, he jumped on his shoulders, just as Aer sometimes did. He was soft and warm to the touch, his pulse quickening as he felt the creature’s affection. He smiled, unable to contain it, but shook his head.

“Don’t worry, sooner or later you will,” the elthean assured him.

“And what am I doing here? Where are we going?”

“Where you have to go.”

Four words as simple as they were mysterious got them moving once more, with the elthean leaping to the ground to go ahead. They reached a lake where Finnian saw new creatures on the shore resembling his friend, though they were blurs of energy with more concrete shapes.

“Watch out. Those are nightmares. They may complicate things,” the little guy said, stopping suddenly.

“Why do you look like that, and they are more defined?” Finnian asked.

“Because fears are always there, even if they change form. As for me, some determinations have not yet been made.”

“Determinations?”

What Finnian ignored. He thought he’d been pretty adamant about his mission, about what he had to do to help Elthea. Where was he going wrong?

The nightmares resembled monkeys with grey and phosphorescent green fur that kept hitting each other. They gave off black and purple energy as volatile as the ones generating it with each blow. He was no expert, but if he needed a way to tell the nightmares from the elthean, that had to be the key. His buddy looked at him, asking if he was ready, to which Finnian nodded, just as the monkeys noticed them.

Before they came within grazing distance of them, a sword flashed as it appeared in his hand. His arm swung without thinking, slashing right in front of them and making the monkeys disappear. Too simple, but it felt so real.

“There is something you are hesitant about, but you must make up your mind,” his friend insisted.

“You talked before about calling me and not reaching. Why is it different now?” Finnian said, crouching down before the luminous creature.

“Someone’s interfering, and it’s no one good!”

“How does it do it?” Finnian said.

“I only know what you feel. We’re connected!”

What was it that this creature saw that he didn’t? Or what he needed to do to make that blindfold on his eyes disappear at once?

“Do you see what’s up ahead? It’s the Silver Orchid.”

He pointed with one of his little paws towards the new path that had just emerged, even when he wasn’t showing him what the dorean looked like, that some golden letters were floating by was enough, wasn’t it?

“That’s where I’m going now,” Finnian admitted.

“You can’t dawdle anymore. You need to know everything that happened here.”

“Why don’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t there then!” the dwarf cried.

“Wait a moment.”

“Nian, time is running out. Trust your friends, trust me and no one else. Do not hesitate. The five of you can get here without any trouble.”

Everything around him blurred. The landscape that he could appreciate more accurately before became blurred, causing him to focus on a large door that remained closed. However, even though there was no apparent change in it, he knew it was the one he had to open.

“Now, you must wake up before they discover us.”

“Who? Ariel? Is he the one trying to trap me in my sleep?” Finnian said.

“You have the answers in front of you.”

“Why?”

“I hope the next time we meet, it will be different. It’s up to you whether we’ll be able to see each other or not.”

The light elthean embraced him, aware that his time there was coming to an end. The dream was ending, though not because either of them wanted it to. His surroundings changed again, his guide disappeared, and Finnian was suspended in the void, sensing a new presence trying to break through, more wicked than I had ever known before.

He put a hand to his chest, where not only his Mark rested, but the key that was causing so many headaches. It was a reflex action, for he did not need them to use his magic, but it instilled a confidence in him that he had not had in the past.

“What are you!” he shouted at the top of his lungs.

No one answered him, or not in the way he would have preferred. The pressure of a spell was still there, trying to affect him in any way. He used his energy to fight it, denying that unknown presence. Then he sat up suddenly, returning now to the real world and looking around, searching for whatever was threatening him.

“What’s wrong with you?”

It was Blanche who had spoken. He found her on the floor, glaring at him.

“Why did you conjure up a barrier? Couldn’t you hear me calling for you?”

“Call me?” Finnian repeated, still dazed.

“What bug bit you? I was screaming at you. It sounded like you were having a nightmare,” Blanche said.

“It’s not like that,” Aer exclaimed, “You just wanted breakfast, and you couldn’t get your hands dirty to do it.”

“And for that, you had to use your magic to push me away?” Blanche said.

Now that was an excellent way to wake up.

“Besides, we told you to let him sleep. He went to bed later than you,” Ead said.

“And he’s carrying all the weight of the fight by himself,” Rune added.

“What do you mean, all by himself?” Blanche exclaimed, crossing her arms. “We protected you from the Bandit, and we were the ones who got out of there.”

“We would have defeated him. And Kali wouldn’t have gotten us out if it hadn’t been for Finnian,” Leith said.

“Well, haven’t we done anything?” Blanche said.

“What you heard,” Aer said, turning on her.

“There’s no sleeping like this,” Finnian rasped, taking a swig from his water bottle to clear the desert from his throat. “Can’t even a discussion like this be postponed until after breakfast?”

He didn’t have enough strength or courage to face something like this if he wasn’t going to devour anything in the next few minutes. It was enough to see them be sure that this would be a much longer day than any previous ones they had had so far.