[[OOC Note: all bunnies between characters are approved]]

*

Bare feet upon the water’s surface, Elijah walked alone. Above spanned a sky of jagged mountains, engulfing the horizon with rows of rocky fangs. Deep, deep below the gently rippling waves, all the stars of heaven glittered. White feathers drifted in the breeze. One spot marred the ocean’s endless perfection, a half-submerged figure. Step by step, he made his way across the chill waters.

He blinked, and suddenly he was beside the stranger. The girl’s white hair and horns bobbed with the currents.

“Hello,” he said, his voice a distant echo. “You know you can just stand, right?” It seemed a sensible thing to say.

The horned girl tilted her head and met his eyes. “That’s sensible,” she said, placing her hands on the ocean’s surface to hoist herself up.

“What’s your name?”

“Sophia. I think.” She gazed past him to some far-off place. “Wait, no. Azza.”

“Azza…” He blinked again. Now, the white-haired girl stood hand in hand with two others. Horned and winged, they were identical to her, except insubstantial, somehow. Smaller and frailer, translucent.

“I was missing pieces,” she said, as though it explained everything.

Blink.

Now they ran across the waves hand in hand, Elijah and three Azzas. Wind howled through the mountainous sky, their rocky peaks spitting ash and smoke. Beneath the water, a dark shape hunted them, a spindly-limbed shadow over the stars. It surged forth, rushing beneath their feet.

“Hurry!” Elijah pulled harder on the girl’s hand.

The shadow burst from the waves! Writhing across the surface, it towered over them, a creature birthed from ink and smoke with a red pulsing heart. An eyeless face leered. Long claws flexed, dripping ichor. Elijah pushed the girls back and stepped forth to face the demon. Was he afraid? He couldn’t remember.

He cast his gaze to the starry night beneath the sea. The great constellations became clear. Reaching down as though to grasp them, he traced the ancient Sign of the Dragon. The demon slithered closer. He traced the sign again, eyes clamped shut with will bearing down upon the heavens like an anvil. The shadow raised its claws to strike.

A roar shook the earth above. The sea bubbled and roiled, blasting forth jets of steam. From the depths rose the Dragon, the head of a great wyrm forged of mist and starlight. Its jaws breathed white hot flames. The inky specter hissed, writhing as fire consumed it, black mist and ichor washed away in a maelstrom of steam.

Blink.

They stood alone atop the mirror sea, not a whisper to marr the silence, or a breeze to disturb the water. Azza, once three, was now one. She seemed… sturdier, more substantial in ways he couldn’t articulate.

“I promise,” said Elijah, feeling the waning grip of the dream, like sobering up after a night drinking. “I will find you when I wake up.”

They stood facing each other as moments trickled by. Why did they remain? He blinked again, and a fog cleared from his eyes. The girl facing him looked different, yet the same. White hair, horns, and wings, deep red eyes wide yet inscrutable. She was taller now, coming up to his chin.

Not just a dream, but a memory of one. The chef garb of his youth dissolved into motes of light, drifting away on the breeze. In its place appeared his familiar traveling clothes beneath a cloak of sea green scales and black feathers. The dreaming landscape of starry sea and skybound peaks remained, but Elijah remembered when he was.

“I did,” he said at last. A smile crept across his lips. “I did find you. It just took me twelve years.”