Raster stared at the sword that had skewered his chest just betwixt his ribcage. It was an odd expression, his eyes wide and glazed over, as if he couldn't quite believe that death had dropped in for a visit.

A scream that would never be heard rattled around in Fenn’s chest, battering itself against his ribs like a caged bird. His throat caught. Hot tears leaked from his eyes and froze cold to his cheeks. All he could do was stand paralyzed in fear as Raster fell to his knees with a pained gasp. The coin pouch fell from his hands and clattered to the cobblestones below.

In the span of a heartbeat, the Drakari bent to grab the pouch and slid Raster off of the blade, sending the thief sprawled to the ground in a trembling heap.

The marketplace itself was silent with shock as Raster collapsed. A woman fainted over her fruit stand. “Apologies for my reflexes,” the Drakari murmured neutrally, her strong accent carrying across the street. Fenn’s breath came to his in aching bursts as she casually wiped her blade clean on a handkerchief pulled from her pocket. She turned to the merchant with a mild concern. “I forget that your kind lacks scales that lessen the bit of a blade. Death will stay this thief’s hands -- is that how you normally deal with them in this country?”

~ § ~ § ~ § ~

“Pigwidgeon!”

~ § ~ § ~ § ~

He found himself stepping forth from the shadows without even meaning to. Suddenly, Fenn's form shimmered and vanished in a whirl of freezing magics, a Glamour creeping over his skin and replacing his visage with something else entirely.

“BEAST ON THE LOOSE!” someone shouted, and a chorus of screams rang through the marketplace.

Fenn charged directly for Raster, and ducked out of the way with a yelp of surprise, just barely brushing past the illusion without going through it, luckily for Fenn. The Dheathain merchants abandoned their goods in fright, valuing their lives above their money. Their hired Drakari muscle shrugged and followed after them. They weren’t paid to slay deadly beasts of burden.

The harecat illusion stomped around and rounded, soundlessly snarling, on anyone who got anywhere near the dying thief. By the time his Glamour failed him, the streets were nearly empty, with only a few quivering citizens hiding in the shadows of their front doors hanging around. Fenn gasped as his illusion finally fell apart, flickering rapidly before it completely disintegrated in a burst of snowflakes.

Exhausted, the boy fell to his knees next to Raster, staring at the gaping stab wound through his friend’s stomach. The cherry red blood pooling on the cobblestones frightened him, and Fenn wanted nothing more than to force it back into Raster, to rewind this day until his friend was safe and unhurt again. The little Fae’s cheeks were iced over with his tears as he wrapped his arms tightly around his father’s shoulders.

Raster moaned and gave Fenn a forlorn look. He struggled to sit up, returning Fenn's hug. “I told you to stay hidden, lil’ bud,” he choked out, his strength failing him. A little blood dribbled out of his mouth. “They’re gonna come back for their stuff. They might hurt you. You gotta leave… Please.”

Fenn shook his head in angry disbelief. His gaze hardened, and he moved to grab Raster under his arms, struggling to drag him away. The streets were frighteningly silent.

“Fenn, buddy, I ain’t makin’ it back home. It went through my spine, I think, and heavens know what else. Go back, go tell the others... what happened.”

~ § ~ § ~ § ~

“BY HAIL AND FROSTFIRE, FENNIK GLENWEY, YOU WILL PAY ME HEED.”

As if he was a yoyo on a fraying string, the shackles around his raw wrists snapped.

Fenn landed on a solid ground, gasping and coughing for air. There was a bit of spittle clinging to his lips. When he wiped it off, he realized it was tinged grey-black; maybe with blood. Maybe it didn’t matter why it was black, because this was a dream he knew now, and those could do…

...was he still in Forstford?

It took a moment of hard staring for Fenn to comprehend what he was looking at. No, this wasn't the real Forstford. Where he found himself now was a crude caricature of the trader town, featureless brick houses and broken stalls erected like a wall around the street. There a lifeless, still quality to the world, much as a pencil sketch or a chalk drawing might hold. The crowd had vanished. Raster had vanished. It was only him now, kneeling on all fours on the bland cobblestone.

Briskly, strong hands picked him up from behind, lifting him onto his feet. Dazed, he turned to see his current company. As expected, it was Barion who stared down at him. Both her faces twisted in bitten-back rage. “You have some explaining to do, my pigwidgeon,” she spat.

If he wasn’t so drained, Fenn might have offered her a biting answer. Instead, he collapsed on the fakey-fake chalk road, coughing on colorful dust. <What am I supposed to be explaining?> he asked, rubbing his eyes.

“The nightmares. Do you have these dreams often?”

Hissssss. Weakly pushing her hands away, Fenn folded his arms together and shrank into himself. He didn’t much like this line of questioning. He liked to forget that these dreams happened altogether. There was a buzz in his head like the drone of a thousand snowstorms. Anger beat steadily through the boy's veins, ice water in his black blood. No-one had done anything after Raster’s death; nothing except lock their doors and look away. No-one in that damned apathetic town had it in them to step forward and say something about the man bleeding out on the street right before everyone’s eyes. No, Fenn didn’t miss Forstford much. He wasn’t sure if he missed Amari. His feelings for her were fucked straight all over the place.

Why was he even thinking about it? He shouldn’t even think about it. This was stupid. He clasped his hands over his ears, paralyzed as he wished this would just… fade away.

Banrion tapped her foot impatiently. Her left head spoke in clipped tones, as her right diverted its gaze. “Fennik, you are not paying me your full attention. Do you have no answer for me?”

A a slightly resentful shrug was all he had to offer.

Banrion’s eyes narrowed astutely as she took in his stiffness. “Then I take it you have them more often than you would like.”

<Maybe,> he said reluctantly. <It’s fine, though. It’s all fine.>

The Chancellor’s gaze flicked down to Fenn’s raw wrists, which the boy hastily folded under the sleeves of his cloak. “Are they of only of your… deceased strongly-bonded human paternal figure and she of red?”

He flinched and pulled the cowl of his cloak over his head. All he wanted to do was disappear, to melt between the stones like spring snow. <Do I have to talk?>

Her right head’s eyes wandered back to meet his. “You are my herald,” the right explained patiently. “Your wellbeing is of great importance to me. Tell me what you can, please.”

Shaking his head insistently, Fenn turned away. <Doesn't matter. I wake up and mostly forget I had them again. It’s fine.> The realization that he always, always remembered dreams with Banrion in them struck. Fuck. Well, he’d just have to extra-distract himself when he woke up this time.

A thievery spree might be sufficient. Food too. Food was good.

“Pigwidgeon, that is not fine. What that woman did to you is not fine, and what happened to your parental figure is not fine. These nightmares you had today are new memory to me.” The right flashed bared teeth, but only for a regretful instant. “I am surprised by how much you resisted us changing the course of this dream. How used to this are you?”

<What’s it to you?> he shot back.

“I had no idea that you had experienced such a deep loss. I have weathered my share of sorrows too.”

<I don’t need your help with this,> he said, forcing himself back to his feet. The icy-hot anger was back, a thick clot in his chest. He wasn’t sure why. He was, however, pretty sure that it wasn’t going to be patted away by meddling, maternal hands. <No help. I’m not a child — I’m not your child!>

“But you are a child!” the left head snarled, causing the right to wince. “You are a child in many ways. You mistake chronology — human chronology nonetheless — for maturity. And if you are going to claim otherwise, then do not be so frustratingly petulant. Act it, then! Without the baseless claims of adulthood!”

He stopped and stared blankly at her. What was the point of that? What was even the point of trying to look adult when inevitably the next person would come along and treat him like some small kitten again? That was how it was. <I take care of myself. Isn’t that enough?>

“How well do you do it?” the right prodded gently.

<How well do you?>

Banrion’s mane hackled, and both heads drew up indignantly. He could sense her patience becoming short. At once, he felt glad at the thought that she might leave him be — and a twinge of guilt for wanting her to leave.

<Don’t need to talk.> His thoughts were tangled together. <Talking’s not my thing. Fae… we’re weird. We live really long lives, don’t we? I’ve thought about it a little. Everything that happens? All the bad shit? I’ll live another thirty years, and, and, it’ll all seem so far away, and I’ll forget what scared me in the first place. Why would I talk about it when I can forget it more and keep going?>

“You may find that time alone does not heal all wounds,” she replied simply.

Shrug.

Barion’s heads drew up, gazing down at Fenn with a sheer coldness that made his stomach turn. Her hands wrung together in vexed knots. “Reject my help then. Do as you will. In any case, this dream has harrowed you. I shall leave you to your rest now.” Two sighs dripped from her lips. To Fenn, she seemed very old in this moment. There was something about the turn of her jowls that did it. Wrinkled, withered. “Sleep well.”

<Night,> he directed quietly.

“Merry part,” she murmured, and faded away into nothing.

Fenn’s eyes turned up to the blank sky. A soft, warm drizzle replaced his Chancellor’s presence. The ugly scene of Forstford slowly melted away, muddling together like the chalk drawings they were. Fenn, a speck of frost amid the downpour, melted too. He closed his eyes as he became one with the endless water for a moment -- in body and in mind. Featureless, fuzzy, comforting.