Dreams return

Kael and Ria share a tent that night. With combat looming, they do little but share a kiss and a cuddle before falling asleep, though they do share a bedroll. Despite this, however, Kael’s dreams are not the pleasant peace he has known of late.

He sees himself on the battlefield, oddly alone. A mist covers the empty field, with shattered weapons and broken bodies surrounding him. His hands are empty, but stained with blood. Kael can feel the panic rising as he looks about, seeing nothing but **** around him. Hesitantly, he walks in a random direction, his legs leaden, as if he’s walking through a hip deep swamp. The fog seems to thicken, what light there is dims.

Looking closer at the bodies, he finds they’re not even human. None of them, at least as far as he can see. Orcs, dwarves, elves, a variety of the so-called ‘lesser’ races. Somehow, Kael feels the weight of guilt, as if he were responsible for this slaughter. He has no evidence to prove the thought, and yet he cannot shake it.

Wild eyed now, he looks around, and begins to run, as best he can. There seems to be no end to this, just carnage and guilt. Fully panicked now, Kael stumbles, landing face to face with the corpse of a massive horned humanoid. A holstaur, a female cow-humanoid. Her eyes are closed in ****, and there’s a strange collar around her neck. Kael’s eyes are drawn to it, made of a dark metal, and engraved with silver runes. Despite his panic, Kael knows somehow that this is important. Pulling his eyes back to the dead holstaur’s face he’s shocked when her eyes suddenly snap open.

The shock wakes him, and he sits up with a gasp. He is drenched in sweat, and his heart is pounding in his chest. Beside him, Ria sleepily sits up as well, looking at him with concern in the darkness.

“A bad dream? I thought Evie cured that…”

Kael takes a deep breath. “She did. Or at least I thought she did. This is the first night since then that we’ve been apart.”

Ria nods. “So maybe that’s what caused it? Being apart from her?”

Kael shakes his head. “No, this felt…different. This wasn’t my past. It felt like…a premonition. A warning, maybe. I don’t know.”

Ria frowns. “A vision? You’re not exactly a seer, big guy. And getting a vision through your null is almost impossible. It was probably just pre-battle jitters. Happens to all of us.”

Kael sighs, but slowly nods. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s probably it.”

Ria glances out of the tent flap. “It’s almost dawn anyway. We should be getting up soon. You okay?”

Kael smiles at her. “I’m fine. We have a battle to win, right?”

Ria laughs, and kisses him. “That’s the spirit, big guy.”

The two of them stretch, and begin to prepare themselves for the day. Kael can’t so easily dismiss his dream, and he mulls it over as he puts on his armor in the growing dawn. It’s a mystery, one he can’t easily solve.