On the Beach of Dreams

[MadEmperor]

A tenderness was briefly visible in his eyes before he turned them away. "I was in his head. His fear of losing his Kiara was like a black pit I could barely see out of. It was so strong that it could only be love and nothing else."

"The kind of love they write songs about; happy and sad alike." He chuckled. "The kind that reaches between worlds, apparently."

[DragonSong]

"Fucking hells." Kiara's shook her head and reached up to rub at the back of her neck. "I mean—I guess."

She gave a short, sharp, incredulous laugh and shook her head again. "Gods. What are we supposed to—I mean what the fuck, honestly."

She glanced sidelong at him. "You didn't...get anything else? When you were dreaming of them?"

[MadEmperor]

Dan stroked his chin as he thought. "Well, it wasn't the dream, but the other Kiara mentioned a connection not between the four of us but between the six of us. I believe she also implied—or maybe it was something in the dream—that both of them are linked with Ser Kit."

"Perhaps that imbalance is part of the problem? Only five connected instead of Six."

[DragonSong]

"They both had a connection to Kit?" She frowned as she turned that idea over in her mind. "That's...I mean, I've heard of dragons bonding multiple times in their lives, but that's usually...well, when they lose their first rider. It's really rare to happen simultaneously. And Kit and I..."

She sighed and shook her head. "We've been together since I was three, since he hatched. I don't—it would take something incredibly intense for him to forge any sort of bond with someone else."

[MadEmperor]

Something intense? No. That was crazy. He couldn't believe he was even going to say it out loud.

"It's absolutely insane, and obviously the very last thing we should do, but..." The nobleman let out a mad chuckle. "Would taking down a corrupt noble qualify?"

[DragonSong]

That startled her own sharp burst of laughter from her, and Kiara stared at him incredulously. "Well, first of all--I meant intense like, shared emotion. Although..."

Was she seriously considering this?

Slowly, she found herself saying, "I mean...the other you...his parents were dead. I have no idea what his noble house would have looked like. Maybe--maybe that is part of the difference?"

[MadEmperor]

It was Dan's turn to stare in disbelief that she was going along with that.

"It makes a mad kind of sense. Don't ask me how I am sure of this—maybe he can communicate on some level when he dreams—but it seems your history prior to this job was the same. Mine, however, branches off when I was a small child."

"So perhaps this force binding us wants the six of us to put a stop to my brother before he achieves whatever horror he's plotting. Because, believe me, he is a true zealot when it comes to mages. He sees no distinction between those that abuse their magic and those that never use theirs at all."

[DragonSong]

"...I must be out of my mind." Kiara shook her head, then made a wide, helpless gesture with her empty hands. "Well! I don't have any better ideas, so I guess...fuck it! Let's do this."

She frowned, then wondered aloud, "Do you think...they have to, too? Because, just from what I could pick up...we're a little out of sync, like...time-wise. Maybe...maybe his brother has some sort of plan that's going into motion at the same time yours tried to kill you?"

[MadEmperor]

"Then they have no time to waste. I only pray they are still dreaming of us and they get the message," he answered. "Because I believe we'll need to somehow work together to win the day."

He looked back toward Kit. "Do you think we can sell him on this insane quest?"

[DragonSong]

"At this point?" She glanced back in the dragon's direction, expression falling. "I think he'd try anything..."

She looked down at her hands in her lap. At the way her skin still shimmered slightly, even in the dark, away from the campfire. Her brows drew together and she flexed her fingers.

It felt different. Being like this. She didn't know if she'd expected it to feel more different or less, but it was definitely...different. There was a faint buzzing, a tingle just under her skin, a contained energy ready to burst forth at a moment's notice. The subtle warmth of magic in the center of her chest, which she had always thought of as an ember she could coax to life, now felt like a fully-born fire that leaped and licked at her ribs and breastbone.

[MadEmperor]

Dan watched her for a moment, and his expression softened again. He could hardly even imagine what she must be going through. She must feel like her body was no longer entirely hers, and in a sense, it wasn't; she was sharing part of herself with another, happier version of herself.

Happy with him.

He shook off the strange bit of envy he felt for his other self and said, "I wish we had met under better circumstances, as they must have. Perhaps something may have come of it. I would be lying if I said it wasn't nice to think about... finding someone who could love me like that."

[DragonSong]

Kiara looked at him, momentarily startled by the admission.

"Someone could be, y'know...anyone," she pointed out quietly. "You could still...find that. With someone."

Gods. She didn't know how to do this. How to be open with someone. Especially not him, this would-be lord who some version of her in another life was in love with.

[MadEmperor]

"Oh, I don't intend to try and win you over," he answered with a rueful chuckle. "Our other selves have unwittingly poisoned the well in that regard. Even if we did somehow grow more fond of each other, we would always wonder if it was really our choice."

"As for that special someone... I will... have to figure out who I am without having my whole life mapped out for me before I even begin looking."

[DragonSong]

"Well yeah, I didn't mean me," Kiara huffed a laugh. "Just, y'know..." She shrugged. "If that was something you wanted, no one's saying you can't go find it. Well."

She pursed her lips. "After we deal with your brother, I mean. Assuming we survive that."

[MadEmperor]

"Well, you will. Aren't you an immortal fae now?" Dan joked hesitantly, unsure if it was in good taste.

Honestly, he didn't much care for proper decorum just then. After all, he was planning to kick the hornet's nest and be labeled a rebel. He truly couldn't go back after that.

[DragonSong]

Kiara winced. "It...doesn't really work like that," she sighed. "The fae aren't immortal, immortal. They just...don't die of old age. They can still be killed. Hurt."

She paused, then reached for the dagger sheath at her thigh. "And things like this?" She carefully unbuckled the sheath, then held it out in her open palm between them. "My daggers are silverite. Even the hilts. But this buckle clasp right here?" She gestured to it. "That's plain iron. Which means..."

She steeled herself, then clasped her free hand over the sheath with a hiss and a wince of pain. She forced herself to hold on for a long second, then drew her hand back sharply, shaking it.

"...I can still get burned." She turned her hand to show him the mark of the buckle that had been seared into her palm.

[MadEmperor]

Dan's face fell into an apologetic frown. "I apologize for my ignorance. My education put little emphasis on matters of the Fae, and what I've read in books was full of superstition and hearsay."

"Which, I suppose, sums up how little Connloathians truly understand about magic."

Say what you will about the naïve nobleman; at least he had an open mind.

[DragonSong]

She huffed and shook her head. "Don't apologize—the fae folk are secretive by nature, even people who grow up at the edges of their forests rarely know much more about them than bedtime stories will tell you."

She chewed at her bottom lip and stared at her palm as the burn mark slowly started to heal. That was also new...

She shook herself, then glanced at him with something close to the beginning of a smile. "So. What's the wildest thing you've heard about the Fae? I bet I can tell you if it's true or not."

[MadEmperor]

He thought it over, stroking his chin. "Ah!  Alright. Do they really steal children and replace them with fae creatures, as if they were little more than cuckoo birds? Changelings, I believe they call them."

"Mind you, I can't imagine why they would do such a thing."

[DragonSong]

"Oh!" She half-laughed, half-groaned. She should've known that would be one of the first things he thought of.

"Ummmm...yeah, actually," she replied with something like a nervous chuckle and rubbed at the back of her neck. "Some do. It's not normally a creature, though, it's a Fae child. Usually it's done with a baby who might be in danger in the Faerie Realm, so the mother swaps it with a human infant and glamours it so it can grow up in the—I suppose relative safety of the mortal world." She shrugged. "They're both called changelings, the human and the faerie."