Morning

[Jirai]

The Trader awoke in pain.

This was pain far beyond any she had previously known. Writhing on her bed, she was yet unaware of the blood dripping from her hand, of the name tattooed on her neck. It would be several long moments until she was capable of of thought. But when thought returned, so did the memory.

She managed to tumble off of her bed, managed, somehow, to clothe herself in whatever first came to hand, though her grip left the fabric bloodstained. Shoving feet into boots, tugging a veil awkwardly over bronze hair, the young woman darted unsteadily out of her room, the door slamming behind her as she took the stairs at a dangerously fast pace. Out the door again, heedless of any around her - she was intent on her destination. A few minutes in the stable and she was off, clinging to the back of her horse, urging it faster and faster.

To Esreaux.

[Cinnabar]

There's another, meanwhile, who has something of a head start on the trader. He awoke shouting in agony in the darkness before dawn; he'd gasped and stumbled about the teahouse room, colliding with furniture, blinded with suffering; eventually, when the wracking pain subsided enough for him to see, he'd stammered a hasty explanation, clumsily pulled himself into his clothes, buckled his swordbelt, and set out.

Where to first? Wherever is closest. Ariane Emory resides at Darkenhold, several miles outside of town; Rhaena Olwak and Seth Bloodmoon at the Broken Dagger, nearer, but still distant; Agnieszka Kaczmarek at Calomel's farm, likewise; the others scattered around the place he knows not where, so it's to Esreaux on the outskirts of Myrkentown that he hastens first, though on foot while Rhaena rides out from the stables.

He's making his way across the grounds towards the house as he first comes within sight of the trader, grey-faced and tousle-haired, clad in the sturdy clothes he wears for blade training. A certain unsteadiness in his hurried steps, pain still etched into the lines of his face. He turns at the sound of hooves behind him, pausing, and there's some undeniable relief in his features as he sees the veiled girl on her horse, and waves his arms to flag her down, as if she might miss seeing him and ride by.

"Rhaena! What happened? What happened after?" After he died. After he awoke. Had Rhaena died as well, in the dream? Woken early?

"What happened to the others?"

Might they still be dreaming?

[Jirai]

For a moment, it seemed like the young woman might just ride by, in her frantic rush. But she reined the horse in as she reached the disheveled governor, though she was clearly in a rush to reach her destination. At least Cinnabar looked - well, if not good, much better with his head still attached to his body... Oh, there was an involuntary shudder at the thought, and it's a moment's thought before she can remember what the man has just said to her.

"I have to find Glenn!" She was frantic, from her voice, near panic.

Wait, that hadn't been the question.

"...They all died." That was delivered with terrifying calmness.

[channe]

Morning.

Agnieszka wakes in a terrified breath of foul air; the dilapidated Sawyer Street shack she won in a poker game at her brother's favorite hangout. She stays there, now and again, when she feels the need for solitude, but the place is still fouled with the former owner's inability to keep clean, and the cot and blanket she'd dragged there the only furniture. A moment's delusion finds her hands searching for a sleeve that isn't there, a woman who is miles away, all of them, miles away, mercifully alive.

Morning.

She struggles up to her feet. She dresses. She cries. She spends some time sopping up the blood with that dirty bedsheet. She fashions minor bandages. And then she slides her coat on and steps out onto the street. People stare at the name on her neck; she lifts her chin, she walks, she smells the outhouses and the bacon cooking, sees the children running, the sky grey and forbidding.

Morning.

She'd had a life-changing conversation the previous afternoon. A life-changing dream the night after. She was in pain, great pain; she stumbled, legs unsure. She struggled to walk. She struggled to talk.

So she refused to.

Silently, she walks from the slums to the merchants' row, and silently purchases a pair of lovely black leather boots with ties up the front, boots she'd had fitted at the cobbler's so many weeks ago; oh, these Rosamaria Rameriz would be proud of. She buys black hair-ribbons and pins, stops by a tailor to have some measurements taken, all of it silent, silent, silent, and leaves, pausing for a moment outside a tavern. She'd love to enter, to drown it all in scotch, to --

-- No. She is alive. Somewhere, Aeryn is alive. Cinnabar. Ariane. The stupid elf and that damned insane Constable.

The best way to win is to not acknowledge it happened at all.

The best way to win is to wake up.

She walks back into the tailor's, pointing to the extra material they'd spoken about earlier. The tailor watches her quizzically as she takes it and wraps Glenn Burnie's name behind a swath of black linen, knotting it at her throat.

It's morning. The Dreamwaker's day. And the brand-new Captain Kaczmarek knows exactly what she needs to do.

[Cinnabar]

That prompts a blink.

"All of them?" Well, obviously; unless there was some other way to escape the dream, to wake up. He walks alongside her horse as they continue towards the house together, with the groggy air of a man only recently roused to consciousness.

"How much longer did it go on? After I... after I woke up?" After he died; after that flash of heat at his throat and presumably a death every bit as shocking and sudden as Karolinger's. Ah. That would explain her upset, particularly if others had died before she did. Particularly if Glenn had died before she did. To the front of the house now, and he holds out his hand for her horse's reins to tie them to the post while she dismounts. They need to check on the mapmaker.

"It wasn't real. They'll have woken up afterwards, just the same." Firm conviction in his tone, there. It's obvious: it was just a dream. Frightening, horrifying, but done, now. Over.

[Jirai]

All of them. All of us. Because she had died, too - hadn't she? There had been Ariane's hands - and then nothing. And then pain.

"How long... I don't know. They just kept dying. Two and then another two... till we were all dead." The Trader was shaking as she slid off of her horse, letting Cinnabar tie the reins. The young woman hurried inside, nearly stumbling several times, assuming he'd be right behind her.

Cinnabar was convinced. She was still terrified.

Of course, finding Glenn still unconscious would not help that terror. Not at all.

[Glenn]

And after getting through the guard at Esraeux, which would certainly allow in Rhaena Olwak and Cinnabar Calomel, she would find Glenn unconscious and unable to be roused. He wore what they had seen him in during the dream. His left eye was bruised and blackened. One of his shins was badly bruised as well, but they would likely not see that. There would also be a name upon his arm if anyone chose to look for one.

Most striking however, was the somewhat healed over scarring on his collarbone, where his own knife had dug into. That seemed like a rather nasty piece of self-mutilation.

It looked as if he had been in a war. Just a dream, Cinnabar Calomel?

[Jirai]

The young woman hurried to the mapmaker's room. She wasn't worrying without reason - Glenn had died before she had, so shouldn't he have woken sooner? And she'd had time to make it all the way here. So surely he wouldn't still be in his room...

But he was.

Upon seeing him lying there, the veiled trader panicked, darting to his side. She tried everything to wake him, even risking scrabbling against Lamai's shield, but to no avail.

"He won't wake up!"

Abruptly, the image before her, of Glenn lying on the bed, was overlaid with the final image from the dream, of the mapmaker lying on the ground, head barely still attached to his body. She stumbled backwards, hand pressed over her mouth.

[Cinnabar]

Cinnabar waits in the doorway for a moment, only crossing the room to Glenn's bedside when Rhaena's efforts to wake him prove unsuccessful. Frowning as he inspects that bruising, that part-healed wound at the young man's throat, and fingers unconsciously touch to where the gem had rested in his own skin.

"He still lives. That's a good start." Guessing, there, but optimistic. Hopeful. No lasting harm. Thinking carefully for a time, before nodding and moving to wrap the mapmaker's bedding more carefully about his unconscious form.

"We'll take him to the Rememdium; they'll be able to care for him there until he wakes." When he wakes. No doubt about that in his tone. A glance for Rhaena as he works, grey eyes keen, determined.

"Tell me about the dreamcatcher."

[Jirai]

"He lives" That is true, and for the moment it is enough to calm Rhaena slightly. Hands twisted into her skirts, the one still oozing blood as she not yet bandaged it. In truth, she was only beginning to notice that it required bandaging, so intent had she been on getting here.

"I... it's in my room. Elspeth said... The viewer. If it's not ready yet, it should be soon." And there was a shudder at the thought of watching this dream. Once had been more than enough. "Ariane... made me watch. As much as I could."

[Cinnabar]

"She made you watch... it records dreams?" Well, that's certainly of use in this instance. To see what passed after his awakening. In the meantime he gathers up the mapmaker in his arms with little effort, and nods for the door. "We'll go to the Rememdium, and can check on the elf Bloodmoon while we're there. He was in the dream as well." Assuming Rhaena hadn't seen him already.

"Then to my farm - no, wait. Agnieszka has a new house on Sawyer Street, apparently; do you know where? We'll see if Agnieszka is awake. Then Darkenhold, assuming Ariane doesn't find us before then." A plan of action forms. Hopefully enough to give the girl some purpose, some focus beyond the memory of whatever horrors filled the dream after his departure.

[Jirai]

She opened the door for the burdened Governor. "I saw Seth. That drow killed the Constable and him." Or at least finished them off - Aeryn had already done a good deal of damage. "And Tebrin was there too - I don't know where he stays, though. And, um. Sir Malaroth. And some other woman, I didn't recognize her."

The Trader trailed just behind Calomel as he lays out his plan, somewhat reassured by the Governor's confidence. "I know where it is." Agnie had been so excited about that house, about the letter she had painstakingly penned to the council. Of course Rhaena knew where it was.

[Cinnabar]

Out of the room, walking hurriedly through Esreaux's halls and corridors and out into the grounds, pausing briefly beside Rhaena's horse. Adjusting his grip, the young man held in his arms like a sleeping child bundled in sheets and blankets.

"Good. Take Glenn to the Rememdium first - you'll get there quicker riding." It's disconcerting, this unnatural slumber, but the Governor does what he can not to show it.

"I'll follow, and meet you at the south gate. Then we'll find Agnie's house and see how she is." And whether she's even awake; still questions, uncertainties about this whole affair. Why he and Rhaena awoke, and yet Glenn hasn't yet. Yet. What Ariane anticipated, that she wrote a letter about the dreams to him some days since. Answers will be found in due course, though. He's sure of that.

"It'll work out. He'll be fine." He'd better be. Otherwise there'll be a reckoning, and someone will pay.

[Jirai]

The Trader nodded, swinging up into the saddle before holding out her arms to collect the unconscious mapmaker. It was a struggle to keep her mind on what was happening now, forcing away memories of what she had seen in the dream.

"The south gate." She agreed. "I'll be there as fast as I can." She blinked and shook her head, trying to rid herself of the image of Cinnabar's head exploding as he stood there.

[Cinnabar]

It takes some effort to maneuvre the mapmaker's unconscious weight into the saddle with Rhaena, such that she might safely hold onto him as far as the Rememdium. That done, though, he nods and steps back.

"Go carefully. I'll see you soon." He offers an encouraging grin, hand lifting in farewell. For the time being, at least.