Dreamwaking: The Third Degree.

[Kylerryth]

I am but a man without meaning; a face without features; a word without context. In my dreams, however, I am reborn. In your dreams, too, I am something—no; I am everything.

* * * * *

You are asleep.

You are dreaming.

Once again, you are not certain how you know, but you know it to be true. Once again, you are clothed but possess no weapons, items or accessories. Once again, you may be somewhat disturbed by your keen awareness of this being a dream—and once again it is of no consequence, because while you are aware of that fact, you are also aware that this dream is not at all like the last.

On the other hand, you may be new to the entire experience. In either case: Welcome. Welcome, and ask yourself this:

How far would you go to escape the deepest pain?

In this dream, there is fire.

* * * * *

The night sky is aglow, yet the stars are absent and the moon’s cataractal eye is almost shut from view. This rusted horizon is eerie, enervating—it inspires alarm instead of awe, drawing a profound sense of urgency from the core of one’s self. A sharp wind rises from the north, wuthering and cold, and the trees and grasses of the surrounding woodlands become an obstreperous orchestra. Barren boughs and skeletal branches clack and quiver; the brown and broken swords of the meadows rustle and shiver; and ahead, across the East Mavoiir River, the glow creeps higher, brighter, hotter.

Myrkentown is ablaze. “De som motstår all,” as they are called in Elder Thesil—“Those that resist all”—are being consumed by the roaring, raging flames of an inferno, an enemy without mercy or compassion. Men, women and children have been reduced to slag and ash; others yet live, struggling to escape from businesses and homes. The unfortunate many that do not act fast enough transform from living beings to shrieking, flailing torches that wander the streets and alleys. This degree of catastrophe has not been visited on the Myrkenfolk since the threat of the Flood. Where the Flood failed, however, the Fire prevails. No building is untouched; no one is safe. The north wind rises again, carrying the agonized screams of the burning to an uncaring cosmos, and leaves without a trace.

You are in one of those buildings. The Fire surrounds you, smeared across the walls and ceiling of the room you occupy as though a great, searing tongue had slurped the surfaces with effusive, molten saliva. Smoke fills the air, choking you and obscuring your vision. The sheer intensity of the heat is almost unbearable—and increasing, for the Fire nears you and the unconscious loved one lying beside you.

You are now confronted by two immediate and distinct choices: Do you attempt to save the person next to you…

… or do you abandon them and attempt to save yourself?

* * * * *

Please visit this thread before replying.

Until everyone who wants to post has posted their character's (or characters') dreams, the dream has not actually occurred. It is a simultaneous but not collective experience, meaning everyone dreams at the same time but does not share the same dream.

[Tolleson]

To him, this dream is new. But the sensation seems familiar. Slippery, slimy fingers burrowing between muscles and bits of brain, the increasing cramp upon his mental presence as he is forced into a corner to accomodate someone or something else all together foreign. Tennant was no stranger to having his mind tinkered with. It had helped him, saved him, it had condemned him; and on, and on it continued to destroy him. Even still, what choice did he have, what weapons does one wield against an invasion of thought? As far as he knew now it was a dream and he would wake, surely that was all that could be done.

It wasn't dark, his eyes were closed and he found himself at the edge of waking, delightfully comfortable on real feather pillows and in expensive sheets. His fingers ran over a her hips, up and up the sculpted body of the woman lying beside him. Over the tattooed scar at her neck and through the long satin locks smelling of Jasmine and Black Currant. It didn't matter where they were, somehow knowing it to be safe, comfortable, high and away from the masses, every bit as real as it had been and would be every night, forever.

It was the smell at first, smoke, then the slight and cacophonous dim of those screaming below. The scorching, searing flames set the room to boil and it was to this inferno he thought himself awake. Panic as real and true as ever set in and beside him lay a beautiful woman, her brown skin and luscious black hair, the only woman he'd every truly loved.

Wits about him he took hold of her. Her flesh was soft, it had volume and sweat, it felt as he remembered and he shook her. But she didn't wake. Frantic panic soon overtook the red-headed boy and his eyes darted from one wall melting under the oppressive heat and another that had become a sheet of flame. He shook her hard again, again, again and stood, darting to the window and staring down at the panic below, four floors at least. "Hatena!" he turned to wake her and found the bed empty, a reflection before him. Toe to toe he faced himself, and there was a moment of shock, a cruel smile followed by a heavy, swift pain in his gut as he pushed himself.

A thousand questions threatened but fear prevailed as he witnessed, he with his own eyes, saw the curtain of fire engulf him and release him into the night air, out the other side he emerged. Broken glass followed him, trickled after him like falling diamonds and above was the diminishing window frame, wreathed in flames, receding as plunged towards the ground below.

[Jirai]

Fire. Dreams. Fire. Dreams.

Oh, the child frequently had very vivid dreams - dreams to match an overactive imagination. But this, this was different. There had never been fire before.

"Mama. Mama!" Tiny hands shook the unresponsive body of a pretty woman aged long before her time by a hard life. The child's voice was higher pitched than usual, event through the smoke, nearing hysteria. "MAMA! Wake up!" The urchin pleaded as flames grew nearer, smoke flooding lungs and bringing tears of pain to reddened eyes.

In the end, it is not a difficult decision. The child has made it before, after all. Coughing, hacking, the ragged waif abandons the unconscious woman, instinctively crawling beneath the smoke until able to tumble through a door into the dubious safety of the open air.

[Dulcie]

Fire filled up Dulcie's dream. She was in the counting house, the place where she had been held hostage all those years ago. She was barely stirring in her awakening within the dream, feeling that everything had that distinct quality about it that made it most certain that one was not awake, and yet there beside her was the sleeping figure of a well dressed, pale skinned man who looked as if he could just as easily be dead than simply sleeping.

Her heart pounded and she went to shake him, finding no response from him. She forgot about dreaming, forgot about how none of this really felt real, instead he was there beside her and she was going to hold onto him for as long as she could. "Ethan! Ethan wake up!" She yelled at him, shaking him again harder this time, though it wasn't long before she changed tactics. She'd reach for the dagger that she kept on her forearm beneath her sleeve, would would end up finding only fabric. She frowned and looked about the room, looking for something sharp. As she looked around she found some of the glass from one of the windows had been broken and she'd seize a small shard, rolling back her sleeve before she'd make a quick, shallow cut into her forearm, placing her wrist just above his lips, as if somehow the blood that would come could arose her husband from his slumber.

[catch]

He wondered if he could burn.

That, if this was a dream or not, was irrelevant. Dreamtime and Waketime held the same quality, could fool him, trick him, warp his senses and send him stumbling along bloody paths, flecked with pus, and laugh cruelly along the way. He did not know how he came to be here, but that, too, was much of his life, all a part of the confused muddle of Catch. Even with that calm, external certainty of Dreamness, he could not trust it, for how many times had it happened before?

And so he wondered if he could burn, here, in his little room that Ser Glenn had prepared for him. He sat on his bed, and watched the embers moulder, warping the wood, cracking it, turning black and peeling, flesh from bones. It obliterated the creatures within it, even the dragon, and it howled as it was destroyed. Or maybe it was the voices, the voices Multitude that scream their last agonies as fire consumes them, without and within. He breathes in the smoke, and though his lungs ache to cough it free, he cannot.

There is a song there, you see.

He instead pushes the smoke from his nostrils, drooling and golden from the licking of many-flamed tongues. He becomes increasingly aware of the fires, and there is a memory - such a distant memory! - of similar cries, of fire, the glow of it glinting on bloodied swords. It is at that moment that he is aware of the woman at his back, naked, beautiful, savage and wind-worn. Hardly a girl, he knows, as he turns to look upon her, the movement causing her hand to limply shift against his back.

Her head was the head of a wolf.

The head was still as he remembered it, caught in a rictus-snarl, and the eyes beneath the grizzled, feral brow had gone milky-white in death. The breast did not stir. He remembers her, thus, a wild woman, a witch caught as she was desperate to save a child that had come from her, and yet was not of her. He had no loyalty to this woman, this poor, feral girl, and yet it was with a gentle, trembling hand that he pulls back the fur, trailing fingers to her brow, where beast met humanity, a fringe of black hair that cascaded near to her thighs, and spread under her like blood. It is with tenderness that he casts aside, scatters, the embers that plague her.

It is because of her that he will not see if he can sit here, song in his throat and mad laughter in his lungs, as the World burns around him, until he is once again alone. He gathers her slim form to him, careful of her hair, casting it over her so that she is not so nude. He pulls that terrible, wolven head to his chest, and he carries her like an elaborate doll through the ruination of his room. He did not look back, not even as the spider wept as her webs turned to ash, and her swollen body burst, boiled from within.

The smoke blinds him, and it chokes him, and - when he emerges, finally, into the ruinous streets - he is a nightmare, a wonderful, terrible nightmare, a tiger-striped creature of crisped skin and ash, where flames had thrown their cruel brands across him, embers setting a crown in his curling, wild hair, as tendril-smoke poured, streamed, from his nostrils and mouth. This is like so many dreams that he has had, this burning, and he cannot help but stop, to look about him.

Myrkentown was Golden, and Catch felt a wild joy upon seeing it. He finally cannot contain himself, but he laughs, and laughs, and cannot stop.

[Altias_Bromn]

Her hair against his cheek brought a soft smile to his face, for a moment he thought he was waking. The clean scent of soap upon her skin was suddenly swept away as his nose was filled with the acrid smell of burning wood, and burning flesh. Screams seemed to echo from every corner of the buildings surrounding the meeting house. This dream seemed so real, even as he turned to look at her laying there on the bed. If this was just a dream, what harm in letting it all unfold around them?

Even as he thought such a thing his heart began to pound and and sweat began to pour down his face. The room grew more unbearable by the moment. Smoke filled the air, and soon enough it was hard to even see her. He could not let her die like this. Not after everything they had been through to get here.

The thick velvet comforter was suddenly ripped from the bed. Altias picked her up and drew her close. Her grey gaze looked at him in horror as she woke, not understanding the terror that was sweeping through the town around them. "Be still!" The blanket was wrapped tightly around her, in hopes it would protect her from the flames. An elbow would shatter the window that over looked the street below. It was not so far. Surely she would be safer even after a fall.

The smoke grew too hot, and the flames crawled up the walls of his room like glittering ivy. It would be too late soon enough. He kissed her cheek and tossed her from the window.

"Forgive me, Ari."

The glittering ivy began to wind around him, and suddenly everything was aglow with a warmth unnatural and so very final.

[Khalika]

Sleep comes to those who wait.

It had been a interesting couple days, with the information she gathered quite unexpectedly from N'vek and Catch about a Dagger and a man named Guiseppe. Seeing Phlynn brought back waves of uncertainty. Then Bromn's return? A possible Arianne sighting? When Myrkens childern return, it's never a good sign. Teron is a final thought....A lingering...

Dreams come to those who sleep.

Here she stands before a wall in the loft bedroom of the farm house. Paper notes, maps, lists. All manner of hand written information building into a massive tree formation. Lush and vast are its branches, thick and sturdy is the base. removing a pin, she moves a note from one branch to another. A lead writing tool is sought out but not found -strange-.
Names upon names upon names, old and new are compiled each perched upon branches. Her Hands are smeared with the black remenants of what should have been lead. Yet looking down upon them they are covered in ash...

Before a thought can register, a weirdness over takes her, balance faulters as her hand reaches out for the wall Smearing the black ash across the make shift tree as she falls to her knees. Where Ashe touches paper fire ignites from it...

Nightmares. They come to all...

Knees and hands hit the floor hard as she struggles for each breath But every desperate cough spews smoke from her mouth, vomiting it from her throat it is billowing....sufficating. She tries to stand but the fire is all consuming. Snapping whips of red lash out at the roof and walls. She tries to screams to callout to... to who? The figure that slumbers in her bed should not be there, his face is still and unmoving hidden by smoke that will not relent. Her entire insides feel aflame as she drags herself towards the bed.
During this all, she lives in the sensation that this is not.. Can not be real. Still the flames singe hair as she grabs the hand of the form in bed. It is cool to the touch, pale white in hue she looks to his face in horror...No..Not him..Please It cannot be..

She pulls at him But nothing moves. His mass against the fire and the pain leaves her hacking and falling to the floor once more...She tries to call out his name to wake him, But nothing comes...No voice, no sound, just smoke. Smoke to burn eyes red and scourch the insides of her nose..Her hand grabs for his again pulling with all her might as the bed is now aflame, his long unarmored form burning before her. fingers dig into flesh as she pulls and pulls...Till burnt flesh slides off bone and sends her falling backwards crashing into then through the upstairs window. She's falling, the heat of the burning house hits head on with the crisp night air. Eye burning, watering to a blur as she looks up at the window in a desperate sadness. The pain of loss all over again after such a short reconnection.
Her hand is reaching out But it is hand no more for clothing has ignited, the smell of burning hair finally finds her senses and when she hits the cold earth. The bruning has moved to flesh..There are no screams, even as body snaps..skin crackles, nerves send her form twitching in uncontroled spasms.. She has no Sound, only the Smoke retching out in a violent birthing from her mouth..

The Grey Ash...

[channe]

Of course it's a dream.

Of course.

Not because she's in the butcher shop belonging to Trudy's husband, surrounded by smoke and fire and burning flesh; no, because she's there with Aeryn. The smiling, driven Aeryn-that-was, not the monstrous thing that he had become, not even the sniveling, bowed coward that had been his interstitial form. This was Aeryn when she first met him, when he had been loved, and strong, and human; not the end, when that had turned to loathing and awful pity. She knows this is a dream, because in life, Aeryn is burned and buried, his pyre already long gone to the wind.

"No," she says, quietly once, and then screaming, attempting to drag him from his prone and unconscious position on the floor. "No. Get up. Get up! Not this time, obmanyvatʹ!"

Ah, dreams. Her mother always said they could be messages from Above, things to help people work out the issues people have with their lives. This fire, this man? She thinks of Aleksei, of the axe, of Kharnagar -- and thinks, of course I'm afraid, of course I'm afraid it will happen to him, too. I'm a feckin' coward. So she'll not leave. Not yet. She'll not be a coward -- the past is the past, and what is done is done, but at least, here, she could save him, and learn how to save Aleksei --

-- and perhaps herself as well.

[Caile]

It's just a dream.

The screams, the terror the pain outside so familiar of so many dreams, so many days. War, siege. The town is burning.

The town is burning.

She forces her eyes open to see which day, which town. There had been so many, a mercenary captain pledged to fight the wars of those who paid her. Was she the sieger or the besieged?

It made no sense. This was Myrken. This was her house, her room, her bed. Was this the day the lake boiled? Catch's fire? She pulled the sheets and blankets back quietly so as not to wake her husband, slipping naked to the window of their room. Orange, red, flickering flames licking at the sky, scaling the buildings. Consuming. She looked down, running torches uttering unearthly shrieks. Blazing Banshees. She recognized none of this, it hadn't happened before....yet.

A smell, a sound caught her attention. Crackling, popping, the roar of engulfing flames outside her own door the smell of smoke slipping through the cracks to seep into the room, a silent killer. Her eyes widened, this wasn't possible. Her house couldn't catch fire it had been protected. She moved for the door, put her hand on the handle and tore it back immediately as skin sizzled where it had stuck to the heated metal. She looked down at her hand, blistered and red. They needed to get out. She reached for her sword only to find it gone, her shield likewise and Brandon's weapon was nowhere to be seen either.

It's just a dream.

She could feel the adrenaline, the panic start to saturate her body even as the smoke began to thicken in the room. She needed something to break the window. There. A chair. She reached for it, tried to lift it to find it bolted to the floor. This was wrong. Another chair, the desk, the lamp even. Nothing would move. The panic moved into her throat as if it was some creature slowly devouring her body from inside but she swallowed against it and forced it back down, she would keep a level head. She still had her fists and it was with these she lunged at the window, at the glass and....bounced off. The glass would not break. She was trapped. They were trapped.

Brandon.

She went to the bed, shook him, called his name. No response. She yelled, shook him harder. He would not wake. The smoke was filling the room now, she was coughing. She could hear the flames licking at the door, taunting, whispering in their eager delight. She pushed and shoved her husband from the bed onto the floor and even still he remained unconscious. Panic had now climbed, filled her head as the smoke circled, swirled along the ceiling. She pressed her fingers to his throat searching desperately for a pulse in fear and nearly fell over with relief as she felt the strong, even rush of blood through his veins. He was not dead he just would not wake.

They couldn't escape, she needed to find some way to protect them, to keep them safe.

The tub. It was cast iron. It would be risky, it would heat and could still kill them but it would protect them from the flames, from the worst of the smoke.

....It was only big enough for one of them. She dragged the tub towards the center of the room, away from anything that could burn and then dragged Brandon towards the tub. She was sweating by the time she'd finished, they were both large and heavy, both required a struggle and now the flames were knocking. Knocking. The smoke was filling the top two thirds of the room and she was choking and coughing, her skin blackening with particles of soot that traveled with the smoke. She couldn't stop. She arranged Brandon, moved his limbs to form him to the shape of the large tub and then tipped it to cover him, encapsulating him. She could only hope he would be safe.

The smoke poured in, rushed in. She grabbed the bedding and shoved it against the bottom of the door, hoping it would slow the rush of smoke but knowing it was futile, she could hear the door burning now. It wouldn't be long.

It's just a dream.

Exhausted. Brandon had to survive, had to take care of Rhys. He was good at that, better than she was. They could live without her, had already lived without her. She leaned against the door, if she was to die better fast than slow, closed her eyes and waited. It wasn't until the fire tasted her back, reached lovingly to caress her throat that she realized this was just another way to abandon them.

[Suede]

Fire wasn't something that terrified him in general. He'd been in towns assaulted by it before, he'd charged through burning buildings as a mad bull dragging people out. And yes, he'd been wide-eyed and scared, but he'd done it anyways while screaming the entire time. But that had been one experience among many, so as he sat up in the burning walls of a merchants shop in Myrken the crackling of the fire felt muted, disconnected.

The smoke clawing its way into his lungs was a more noticeable sensation, but even that was nothing compared to something that did scare him. Ghosts. When people started seeing ghosts where he came from it was a sign of too much exposure to things best left alone, and he'd seen spirits once before during his time in Myrken. So as he looked down at the two bodies beside him it wasn't the dark complexion of the wild woman that held his attention. It was another veiled form, female but not his sister. Someone he'd seen die a long time ago. But this was a dream, so it couldn't be her, could it?

He started coughing as the smoke continued to gather, and as he bent forward, bronze eyes still wide and locked on the veiled face of that dead woman he began to notice the heat of the flames. They were closing and the only place not swallowed up near the front door was disappearing quickly. Somehow he knew that he'd never be able to save them both, Kacela and the other, but he saw both their chests rise.

His face grew confused, pained, gaze darting back and forth. She had to be dead, this was a dream. But it wouldn't matter who he saved if it was, was it? The fire continued to close, he felt it running fingers along the back of his neck and he let out a yell of frustration before stepping over the veiled woman to reach for Kacela. He knew the wild woman was alive elsewhere, even if not the one here in this dream, and he wasn't going to leave her in the fire even in fantasy after saying he loved her.

Of course she was still just as heavy in this dream as in real life so slinging her dead weight over a shoulder proved far more difficult than he anticipated. The trader nearly toppled several times before setting her in a fireman's carry and stumbling awkwardly for the front door and out in the Myrken night.

[Carnath-Emory]

Was there ever a night that she didn't wake to the bitter taste of flames?

How the world burns. She knows it even before she's reached the windows; knew it well before she drew back the drapes for a glimpse of golden, merciless cataclysm. It is Orvere, ships tumbling across an ocean which burned. It is Zwill, where they'd have fallen beneath stone that glowed like living coals if their blades had been just a little less murderously eager. It is a battered tavern some half-day's ride from here, all shattering pain and broken glass and the everywhere sweetness of burning wine -

When she turns back towards the room it is to discover it already consumed.

It is a glittering thing that's rushed the bedside. Its skin sweats living, tortured steel, and it chokes on smoke and haste in equal measure. Clumsy with its quickness, this thing which fears so much but this - death by burning - most of all, and to what has it addressed itself? Bedding onto which it's halfway knelt, to shake at a dark-haired shape sprawled beneath its blankets and so stubbornly asleep. Urgency has left these hands so carelessly rough, has left her voice hoarse when she bends her lips to his ear and shouts.

That his body does not even stir is stunning. The knowledge of what it is to burn is a thing which they share; the acrid scent of woodsmoke was bitter in the air long ago and that he would not have woken first, that he would not have had her shoved through that door and away by now, that even a shout will not rouse him and she's checked, mind, she's checked in an instant's mindless panic to be sure that he's not already dead -

The word is Inconceivable.
It burns through her thoughts as surely as any flame.

And how do we know when we're dreaming, Ser Stubbornly Sleeeping? How do we know? When we lose our grip upon the mundane. When beauty's become terrible and fragile and surely when it burns, so that in this moment she is a silhouette illuminated darkly against the flames, fire-lit and ruddy with the darkest of intents; in her hand is a cultist's dagger because if this is a dream there is only one way to defy it, and in this matter the woman has had some practice. In her hand is this ebon blade, four inches of steel growing warm against his throat and the song that it sings is First you, and then me -

The word is Unbearable.
It kills her intents as surely as if his blood were already rushing to drown that blade.

What a shout this throat looses, even stung hoarse with bitter ash; all helpless frustration and furious refusal as a trembling hand casts aside the dagger it cannot use. "I cannot hope to lift you," she breathes. Flames lick at the bedding's edge, and she has eyes for this yet but her words are only his, her words are a whisper for ears which cannot hear. "So. It must be this." Which is a narrow body arranging itself alongside his own; it is one pale cheekbone rested light against his shoulder and hands that have at last dispensed with weapons. "It is almost done now," for russet sparks have lit into the blankets, smouldering into new, golden life. "And do you know? I think it will not be so bad, this dreaming. I think it will be only the smallest thing."

As her eyes quietly close. As her senses gently flood with the scent of dying woodsmoke and withering flame; with the tang of storm and stained canvases and the warmth of desert incense...

[Jirai]

It was just a building. Not a very large one, even. But it was -her- building, and more than that, it was -their- building, a symbol of the future being built here in Myrken Wood. It was the school, and it was burning.

Perhaps it was the smoke that awakened her, or the heat. Either way, Rhaena Olwak found herself here, with the first tendrils of smoke beginning to curl around her feet. She was not alone. The room was full, in fact. School children, those one might expect to see here, slumped over desks. There were more, though. Glenn Burnie, here, and there, Kals, with Kacela beside him. Genny over there, and Agnieszka, with Dulcie and Aleskei. More, and more, everywhere she looked. All asleep.

She leapt into action immediately, calling out and reaching out to the closest to shake a shoulder. There was no response though. She ran from one to the next, touching, shaking, begging them to wake, growing more frantic by the moment. She began trying to drag them out, but there were too many, far too many. She tried though, heedless of the damage done to her fine gown. She tried, moving first one, then another, then another, just that much closer to the door.

And then the flames came.

[Lent]

Fire.

Four flames. Half of eight. All around him. The building was twisted. Wrong. Demonic text on the walls, illuminated by the four flaming pillars. The stench. Burning flesh. Ichor. Something else. Blood didn't smell like this. Lentham had so few memories but sensation, sensation he remembered. Blood didn't smell like this at all.

Not human blood. Had he done it?

Had he finally lit the flame that would scour the demons from Myrken? Did he smell pride, desperation. No, it was blood after all, demon blood. "Hnn." The words swirled around him, leaping at him as if they were claws and fangs. No. Not words. Crackling fire. Burning his arms. Damn Flask. Where was it? Put it by the bedside before he went to bed. Where was it? There? Down on the ground?

What's that? Another person. Who was it? She was familiar, somehow. The smell. Not demon blood. Something else. Home. But the face! She had no face. Just an empty space. A monstrosity.

Kurt Lentham screamed.

Where was the flask? Four pillars. Twisting, burning words.

Pain. And this woman beside him. This woman who smelled like his past but had no face. Was it coming into focus? Maybe if he squinted. He needed a drink. The fire hurt. It burned.

It was taking too long. Memories leaped at him, something coming back. No! It was the fire! Not the fire. The words.

The words on the walls were dripping of molten demon blood. That's what he smelled. Not home. Not his past. Nothing but darkness.

With a second scream he lifted up the female, the demoness at his feet.

"Hnnnnn." One grunt. That was all it took to throw his still breathing wife into the flames.

Where was his flask? Where was the holy water inside of it? It'd been too long since he drank from it. Too long! He wasn't sure anymore.

If she was a demon? What about him? Without the flask there was no way of knowing. He watched the woman turn to char and bone and ashes, and then, blindly, in a panic, he leaped into the flames to join her.

[Cherny]

He dreams of the mill as it was before, looking down on it from far above; a shell so long dead it wasn't even carrion, just bare bones of black-charred timber and slime-greened stones; gnawed upon by wind and rain, falling further in on itself with each passing day. Soon it would be nothing, a shapeless heap among the leaf-mould. Lower now, rotten wood soft beneath his feet as he stands on a jutting roof beam; he is surrounded by ruin and decay and his hoarse laughter is echoed from across the weed-choked pond.
Cherny wakes and everything is wrong.

He's in his attic room at the top of the mill, all bare boards below and sloping roof slats above, and that's wrong because it's not where he fell asleep. A dull roar fills his ears, and that's wrong because it's just noise, devoid of the steady rhythm of clacks and creaks that made music of turning wheels. He kicks off his coarse woollen blanket and stands, and that's wrong too, thin knives of heat scorching his soles through the gaps between the floorboards, bringing with them the sweetness of woodsmoke and the bitterness of burning flour. There's noise and shouting from outside, and careful steps to the window reveal not brooding pine trees but a blazing town, tongues of fire devouring houses and shops and people and that's terribly wrong. He reels back from the window, bewildered, and his heel catches something large and warm and yielding and he falls heavily, sprawling, heat stinging his back and arms through his shirt.

He scrambles to his knees and as his fingers sink into short and brindled fur he gasps in relief; his friend is here, the scarred mastiff Many-Fights, broad of chest and loud of throat and deep of heart.

Things will be alright now.

And yet as his brow presses against the beast's thick neck he knows that even this is wrong, it is wrong, and despite the now-oppressive heat in the air his blood runs cold. The dog's breath rises and falls behind ribs like barrel-staves, and yet he doesn't wake; molten light glows from the cracks between the floorboards, bringing the stink of smouldering fur where the dog lies senseless across them, and yet Many-Fights doesn't even stir.

Something falls with a groaning crash below; the timbers overhead creak and shudder in sympathy, and the boy jumps up, choking in air suddenly thick with stinging smoke. He dashes to lift the trap door, but staggers back when he is greeted by grasping claws of flame, his skin tightening upon his flesh. In desperation he returns to his friend's side and struggles in vain to lift, then to shove the hound's bulk across those searing boards. Finally he manages to seize the hound by broad forepaws and begin to drag him towards the window, each breath a torment, each painful step leaving clots of blackened fur and skin upon the warping boards.

Too slow, too weak, a scrawny child trying to move a beast at least twice his weight. It is useless, it is hopeless, but the boy still strains and coughs and heaves inch by agonised inch towards the window. The soles of his feet blister and crack, he is blinded with smoke and tears, his throat and lungs are themselves ablaze--

--so it is almost a mercy when fire-gnawed beams and boards collapse beneath him, the roof folds in from above, and sparks rush up like startled birds into the smoke-filled sky.

[Glenn]

Somewhere in Myrken Wood, the Governor, one Glenn Burnie, slept. Beside him, his beloved may have tossed and turned. There might have been the tiniest tug towards his mind due to that, but it was tiny, and it was ignored. Ever since his return from Underdark, the young stalwart leader of the province did not doubt. He did not hesitate. Most of all, he did not dream.

Therefore, as his people dealt with fire and choice and heartache, Glenn Burnie slept soundly, cradled in hard earned luxury, in blankets, in peace.