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"I think I'm just going to lie down for a few minutes," Laios announced quietly to his party.
"Okay," came a three part harmony from his party mates, none of the three giving much of a reaction otherwise. Senshi continued to set his ingredients on the ground around him as he considered what to make for lunch. Marcille nodded where she sat, piecing her torn sandal back together with an annoyed expression on her face. Chilchuck had spread the map out on the floor and was studying it, looking for the next path to take. Izutsumi hadn't replied at all, as she had already curled up on top of a nearby wall and was taking a nap of her own.
Laios sprawled his bed roll open on the floor, took a few moments to remove his armor, and lay down. Within no time, he was snoring.
It was only at this time that the rest of the party began to speak quietly amongst themselves.
"I thought he must be tired," Marcille began, holding her sandal up to look at her finished work. "You can see it in his eyes."
"Yes," Senshi acknowledged, scratching his beard. "I had also wondered if he wasn't feeling like himself. I've never known him to be so quiet."
Chilchuck heaved a sigh, crossing his arms. "I think he's sick."
Marcille turned to face him. "You think so?"
"Well," he folded the map as he spoke. "I sort of know so." He slid the folded map into the pocket of his vest. At the sight of Marcille's confused look, he continued, sighing again. "You know I have very good hearing, right?" She nodded in response. "It's one of those things where it's none of my business until it becomes my business, but I've heard him, you know, sick, twice. Once last night right after we switched guard at about midnight, and once this morning about fifteen minutes after breakfast. I don't think he knows that I know, because both times, he managed to make it to the toilets."
Marcille gave a slight grimace. "Good grief, again? He's got to stop eating weird things raw."
"Hm," Senshi nodded, giving a glance toward sleeping Laios. "I had thought he didn't eat as much as usual. That explains it. I wonder why he didn't speak up if he's not feeling well."
"I was wondering about that too," Chilchuck shrugged. "I mean, the guy eats practically anything that moves, and we've all seen him sick because of it. The fact that he's trying to hide it makes me wonder if it's not caused by something else." He turned to Marcille. "Isn't there some kind of spell you can use to heal him or something?"
Marcille shook her head. "Not really, not without knowing the root cause. And even then, it's tricky. Falin was so much better at that sort of thing than me." She sighed, frustrated with herself. "But besides that, he's sort of been acting a little weird for the last few days in general, I think," She continued, putting her mended shoe back onto her foot to test the fit. "Kind of like he's in a bad mood. Do you think we did something to make him mad?"
"I don't know," Chilchuck shook his head. "But I've never known him to get super in his head about anything. Usually, he's an open book. Sulking isn't like him."
"I wonder what's on his mind-" Marcille was cut off by a quick "shh!" from Senshi, who reached an arm between the two of them, one finger pointing in the direction of Laios.
Both Chilchuck and Marcille looked over. Laios was pale, with sweat beaded on his forehead. His face was drawn into a scowl, and his teeth were grit tightly. Every so often, he'd utter a near silent groan. The three of them had never seen someone look so uncomfortable in their sleep before. They were silent for a few moments as they watched.
"Is he...?" Chilchuck began.
"Having a nightmare?" Marcille finished his sentence. "It seems that way. I wonder if it's the same thing that happened to me."
"That would explain why he's been so tired. Maybe even why he hasn't been feeling well. Being poorly rested can cause more harm than people tend to realize." Senshi nodded to himself as he spoke.
"I guess so," Chilchuck agreed. "We really need to all check inside our pillows at this point. If Marcille had them, we all could."
Marcille scowled a little, feeling somewhat attacked, as if Laios also having Nightmares was her fault somehow, like a contagious sickness or head lice. She turned back to face her sleeping party mate. She wondered to herself what sort of things Laios was dreaming about. Maybe he was dreaming about Falin. Maybe he was dreaming that monsters were eating him for a change. Honestly, Marcille often found Laios so eccentric that she could hardly fathom what might've been going on in his head. Whatever it was, though, it must have been very intense, by the look on his face. He didn't look stressed or angry. He looked afraid.
Seeing him groaning, sweating, and trembling with tension in his muscles made Marcille feel uneasy. Laios never reacted to anything this way when he was awake, not even when he fought the red dragon. "I wonder if I can help." She said aloud as she took her handkerchief from the pocket of her dress and dabbed the sweat from the sleeping tall-man's face. "What was it Laios did when I was having a nightmare, again?" Marcille asked, approaching his side and kneeling next to him.
"Uhh," Chilchuck paused for a second to recall. "He started by using you as a pillow. He laid his head on your stomach and somehow from there he went into your dream," He worked his way up from the floor to move closer as well. "He said something about making his way out of his own dream into yours, and that the plan was to make you realize you were dreaming."
Marcille looked down at Laios, who had begun to subtly squirm beneath his blanket. "That seems simple enough. I can do that. I read about dreamscapes in school, so at the very least, I shouldn't make it worse." Chilchuck and Senshi exchanged doubtful looks behind her back. She settled down beside him on his bed roll and laid her head on his stomach, noticing to herself how soft he was, and also how uncomfortably warm he seemed to be.
"If you're going in, be very careful," Senshi warned. "If it gets dangerous there, you need to keep yourself safe. I believe I recall Laios saying that you can die inside another person's dream."
She had known this from her studies in school, but the fact had slipped her mind over time. Somehow, it hadn't ever occurred to her that Laios had put himself in danger to wake her up that time, but it also didn't surprise her. Laios never failed to do what needed to be done for the sake of his friends, even if the job in question was perilous or poorly thought out. "Alright, I'll be careful." Marcille nodded, closing her eyes. If Laios could do that for her sake, she wouldn't hesitate to do the same for him. A secret excitement stirred in her chest. What was it Laios was afraid of? Finding out might be fun. She hoped she would be able to fall asleep without any trouble.
Marcille opened her eyes. She found herself standing in her childhood home. The smell of fresh baked bread lingered in the air. Warm summer sunlight filtered in through the windows of the cottage. Ahead of her was her Mother and Father's room. Through the open door, she could see her father lying there, his chest rising and falling. She could hear the rattle of his lungs. Right away, she recognized this moment as the day her father died.
Marcille felt a wave of dread wash over her. Her father was about to die again. He was about to die, and there was nothing she could do. There had never been anything she could do for him. She looked down at her feet as she tried not to cry. She didn't want her father to see her that way. She couldn't stand the thought of upsetting him while he was so sick.
"My dear daughter," She heard his voice call out to her. She didn't raise her head. Not just yet. She needed to calm herself first.
But... wait a minute. This wasn't the outfit she had been wearing on that day. She had been wearing her father's favorite dress, a lovely mauve colored one, on the day he died (She remembered this because after that day, she never wore it again), but now she was wearing blue, a blue dress, a blue and yellow cloak. She pulled the cloak out from her body to examine it. Something wasn't right.
Come to think of it, she didn't even own this blue outfit as a child. This was an outfit she bought herself, as an adult. An adult. She was an adult. Her father had definitely died when she was a child. What was going on? Was this some sort of spell she was under, or maybe she was dreaming?
Memories rushed into her mind of Laios lying asleep on the floor in the dungeon, pale, tense, and afraid. "Oh!" She exclaimed out loud, "I'm supposed to be helping Laios wake up!" Her mother hushed her from her father's bedside. Marcille turned around and left the room quickly. She didn't want to see any more of this, especially now that she knew it wasn't real.
She began walking around the rest of the house, looking for a way out of her dream and into Laios's. How was she supposed to know how to get to him? She wished she had made a better plan before going into this. She tried to think back to what she had read about thwarting nightmares before, years ago. She thought she remembered that dreamscapes were much more flexible than you'd expect, even more so than it was originally believed.
Suddenly, something caught her eye. In the place where her front door, a hand carved door, painted yellow and roughed with years of use, should have been, there was a large stone archway, high as the ceiling in the cottage, with a heavy looking door made of untreated wood. That wasn't normal. Maybe this was how she could get to Laios. She crossed to the door and pulled it open, hinges squealing. Outside the doorway was black as night, though the rest of the house was lit by the sunlight of that summer afternoon. She reached out into the blackness, and past the doorway itself, her own hand seemed to vanish into it. This had to be it. She took a deep breath and stepped courageously forward into the dark. Her foot met no floor inside the darkness, and she plummeted down, shrieking in fear.
All at once, she landed hard on her hands and knees. She cried out, expecting pain that never came. She did, however, have a moment of lightheadedness, one that made her think that perhaps she was going to wake up, though it quickly faded. Immediately after, and before she could catch her breath, there was a near deafening clap of thunder that rattled her body from the inside, followed by a bright flash of lightning that illuminated the darkness around her. Off ahead of her was an unbelievably large stone castle tower that was at the corner of some sort of equally sprawling wall. This was not a place she recognized, nor did it feel normal to her. This didn't feel like her dreams. Usually her dreams either felt fantastical and, well, dreamlike, or they were memories from her past. This had to be Laios's dream now. She found that she was kneeling on the grass, and as she made her way to her feet, she began to feel the steady pulse of heavy rain pouring down on her.
"Now that I'm inside his dream," Marcille said into the dark of the rainy night, "...Where is he?" She looked around. As she did, the world began to come into focus even more. There was a forest behind her, and ahead of her, at the base of the tower, was a large crowd of people. As she listened through the rain, she could begin to hear many voices overlapping into something unintelligible.
She started toward the people. She wondered if other people in a dreamscape could talk to her in any real way, or if they would be able to see her at all. If she was able to talk to them, maybe someone could help her find Laios. The closer she got to the crowd, though, the more she could hear that the collective tone was not a kind one. The people seemed to be mocking someone, some cruelly laughing, some grumbling annoyance under their breaths, some hurling insults, "Know your place!" "Weirdo!" "Idiot!" "You're crazy!" "Psychopath!" "All you do is run away!" one after the next. They seemed to be circled around something at the center.
Marcille's unease grew as she saw that the people were faceless, generic human-like shapes, and even their voices seemed to blend together into one. Though logically, it was obvious that at the center of this crowd must be Laios since this was his nightmare, Marcille didn't want to believe it. It had never occurred to her that people might be what Laios was afraid of. Hearing him dream such cruel things being said made her feel sick. She began pushing her way through the crowd, elbowing people out of the way as she went, though none of the people seemed to acknowledge her at all. As she moved closer to the center of the mob, the blank figures began to look more and more specific, with particular facial features, distinct clothes, and more individual voices.
All of a sudden, she recognized one of the people. It was one of the members of Shuro's party, the magic user, though her name was escaping Marcille's memory at the moment. A few people away was another person she recognized, an innkeeper who had given their party a hard time about something she couldn't recall. As she progressed further and further, she realized that she recognized many of the people around her. There were members of Kabru's party, the party they'd saved on the second floor of the dungeon, and people she recognized from the resurrection office and restaurants on the island. Why were all these people here? And why would Laios dream of them saying such awful things to him?
The closer Marcille got to the front of the circle, the harder it was to continue on. The people were squished so close together that Marcille found it hard to breathe. She pushed harder, harder, finally hard enough that she fell out on the ground ahead of the crowd of people and into the mud. "Ugh!" She sputtered, finding her mouth full of the taste of earth. When she worked her way up off of her face, she felt her blood run cold at the sight before her.
There, in the center of the circle, was a small wooden platform, elevated half a foot off the ground. In the center of it was a device Marcille had heard about but never seen in person; a pillory. And there stood Laios, though he didn't look quite like himself. He was much thinner than normal, skin clinging tightly to muscle and bone. His hands and his neck were clasped between the two pieces of wood of the pillory. His face was downcast, with the heavy rain pouring through his hair and running off of his jaw bones and his nose.
Behind him stood another tall-man, a gruff looking one with facial scars. He wore royal armor, a set that seemed to match a painting she'd seen on the wall in a tavern of the northern continent's knights. He held in his hand a short leather whip of some kind. He was laughing, but not a kind laugh, a teasing sort of laugh. "Come, watch the punishment of another fool!" he called out, encouraging the crowd to raise their voices. Marcille watched in horror as the man raised the whip and repeatedly struck Laios on his shirtless back. The sound was loud and sharp, even above the sound of the crowd and the pelting rain. Laios was the only one who was silent, biting his lip, not moving an inch. "This will teach you to talk back to your superiors, Touden!" The man jeered. The crowd roared. Laios said nothing.
Marcille felt herself trembling in anger. She had to do something. Even if this was just a dream, she couldn't stand to see it happen for another second. She needed to make it stop. She wondered if she could use any magic inside of a dream. As she wondered this, her staff appeared in her hand, which was more than enough confirmation for Marcille. She scrambled up onto her feet and squared her stance. She held her staff up and chanted the spell to cast fireball, which was much easier than it should've been (Marcille assumed that this was another effect of the flexibility of the dreamscape). A large ball of fire burst forward, knocking the knight smack in the chest and throwing him from the platform. The people in the crowd squalled in outrage. Marcille rushed forward onto the platform beside Laios and cast a barrier around it, encapsulating the two of them inside.
Inside the barrier it was nearly eerily quiet, the roar of the crowd drastically dulled and the rain unable to reach them. The world outside the barrier seemed to dissolve into the darkness, the castle wall, the tower, the people, all vanishing into the night. Now, standing near Laios, Marcille could see a huge area of bruises and scarring on his back, some areas even bleeding down his sides and dripping to the wood at his bare feet and onto the knees of his pants. She felt her throat tighten as she choked back against the urge to cry. "Ohhhhh, Laios, are you okay?" She asked him. He didn't speak. He didn't move. "Here, let me get this thing off of you." She moved quickly to the lock on the pillory, preparing to try to pick it, but finding instead that it instantly crumbled away into sand at her touch. She pulled the heavy top plank of the pillory open and off of Laios. He stood up, rubbing his wrists. His eyes were still downcast. "Are you alright?" Marcille asked again. He gave a very slight nod. "Who was that man? Why was he doing that to you?"
Laios rubbed the back of his neck. "I said something dumb again."
Marcille was unsure what to say. This was so unlike any side of Laios she had ever seen. She almost felt guilty to be looking at him, as if she was seeing something she shouldn't be seeing, or as if she was intruding on something extremely vulnerable by being here. Before she could think of anything to say to him, he said something first.
"Sorry."
"Huh?" She asked, looking up at him. "What do you mean? You don't have anything to be sorry for."
He shook his head ashamedly. "I'm always screwing up like this. You shouldn't feel like you have to protect me from it just because you feel sorry for me."
"Laios, what are you talking about?" She reached out to take ahold of his arm, but he pulled away from her hand. Was he upset with her? "I didn't stop that guy because I feel sorry for you. I stopped him because you're my friend and I can't stand to watch some big-headed oaf hurt you."
"Friend." Laios said under his breath, not meeting her eye. Outside of the barrier, the thunder rumbled ominously. He didn't look angry, but there was a pointedness to his voice.
"Yes, my friend," she responded. What was this about? Marcille's mind struggled to understand what was happening. Though she absolutely considered Laios her friend, she'd never said as much to him out loud before. Perhaps that was why he had reacted that way? For several long seconds, Laios didn't speak, only fidgeting where he stood as he searched for the words he wanted to say.
"Am I..." he began, but hesitated, his voice sounding sadder than she'd ever heard him speak. His eyes were soft with shame. "... supposed to just believe that's true?"
Marcille felt a pulse of indignation as his question sank in. Where was this coming from all of the sudden? Laios didn't think of her as a friend? Why wouldn't he? What had she done to get this sort of response from him?
There was another flash of lightning, and another roll of thunder, and the crowd outside began to press in against the barrier, their voices rising as they encroached upon the space. Immediately opposite her, another face she recognized, Shuro, appeared in her line of sight, and he seemed almost illuminated, as though the dreamscape was pointing him out to her. Shuro? Wait, something had happened between Laios and Shuro, hadn't it? Oh. Oh. Laios and Shuro had been in that fight. Shuro had told Laios he hated him, he had always hated him, that he never considered him a friend, after all the time they'd spent together. She supposed that, despite Laios not saying anything, that confession had hurt him more than she knew.
Laios sat heavily and clumsily down, bringing his knees to his chest and resting his head on top. He looked weary, and Marcille was reminded of a long-hunted animal, weakened by the chase and exhausted too much to stand any longer. "I've gotta figure out what's wrong with me." Marcille was bothered by the matter-of-fact way Laios spoke. It wasn't a particularly mopey voice, and it wasn't said in a tone that a person might use to gain another's sympathy. It was the same tone she had heard him use in real life, one he used when he was generally disappointed. This was something he believed to be one hundred percent the truth. He was disappointed in himself. "It's a wonder you guys haven't gotten sick of me too by now, after everything I've put you through."
Pressing against the barrier beside Shuro appeared Chilchuck, Senshi, Izutsumi and an alternate version of herself. She gasped at the sight of them. They weren't screaming like the rest of the crowd, but the looks on their faces weren't kind. This was it. This was the heart of what was bothering Laios. If his first ever friend had never been his friend, after all this time, was anyone? Was everyone just hanging around him out of pity or convenience? The lightning struck the top of the tower, blindingly close.
Marcille dropped to her knees beside him, placing a hand on his shoulder, careful to avoid the injured areas where he'd been lashed. He was wrong. He was absolutely, totally, wrong. The argument with Shuro had turned his entire view of everyone around him upside down, and he was catastrophizing. "Damn Shuro", Marcille thought to herself. What a cruel thing to do to someone. It was awful for her to see how much hatred Laios assumed the people in his life must be feeling toward him.
It was true that Laios had a tendency to come off as a bit odd, but there was no doubt that everyone in their party (Well, maybe not Izutsumi, but she didn't really like anyone, did she?) were not only fine with Laios, but saw him as a valuable asset to the party, not to mention a trusted friend. All the same, though, she felt awful for every moment she had given him a hard time about his drive for eating and studying monsters, or for saying things in a less than intended way. The whole party was guilty of it; making harsh comments in relation to his eccentricities. The realization that all along she had been unintentionally contributing to making him feel bad about who he was caused her to feel another twist of sickness to her stomach.
She watched as Namari stepped forward, and Kabru, and their respective parties. These weren't even people he knew very well, and in his mind, they were filled with disdain for him. She shook her head. She needed to bring him to reality. "Laios, that's really not true, and-"
"It's fine, Marcille. You don't have to try and make me feel better about it." He shrugged, his voice tired, but sure in itself. "It's just how it is. It's how it's always been." A group of young men dressed in knight's training armor pressed against the barrier, pointing and laughing at him. The knight who had been striking him was there too, arms crossed, smirking a cruel smirk. "I've never been able to figure out how to behave like I should. I wasn't good enough for the army, I wasn't good enough for school," A bunch of school age students pushed in between the soldiers, making unkind faces at Laios. Marcille did her best not to drown in the flood of information she was learning, surprised that Laios had somehow never mentioned being a soldier. "And I definitely wasn't good enough for my parents..." An older man appeared, one who looked very much like Laios, only older, sterner. He shook his head at Laios in disapproval. Beside him stood a woman with long red hair, crying into her hands. "I mean, at the end of the day, if stuff like this keeps happening, the underlying problem is definitely me, right?"
"Laios, stop that," Marcille pleaded. Why had she never known Laios felt this way? Why did he always seem so positive and happy? He never gave even a hint that the way people talked about him upset him, but looking at it in this light, how could it not?
Laios gave a moan from where he sat on the platform. He rubbed his arms as if to shake the chill the rain had left on his bare skin. "Ugh. And now, I'm getting sick. I'm going to slow us down even more. Falin's out there suffering by herself. Now's not the time for laying around. What the hell is wrong with me?"
Marcille watched as a distorted figure of Falin appeared on top of the barrier, bulging eyes locked on to Laios as she held her head and screamed the way she had before the lunatic magician changed her. Marcille's heart had had enough. Her body moved on its own. She found herself cradling him to her chest tightly, tears streaming from her eyes. She wasn't sure if her intention was to comfort him or shield him from those horrid visions, but all the same, she held him so close she could've smothered him. His skin was so cold to the touch. "STOP IT," her voice was loud and serious as she uttered the only thing she could think of. For a moment, he was tense in her hold, but slowly, the tension softened.
Marcille took a few deep breaths as she tried to arrange her thoughts through the horror of it all buzzing in her brain. "Laios, listen to me right now." She hated the sadness audible in her voice, but she needed to talk more than she needed to worry about how she sounded. "It's not fair of you to just decide that we all feel the same as Shuro. Not at all." Her tears fell into his hair, and his blood seeped into her clothes, but she did not care. "Shuro spent all that time around Falin too and never gave her any indication he had feelings for her, and then he proposed marriage to her out of nowhere. That's not normal. He can't just expect people to understand what he's thinking like it's normal. Any other regular person would've said something, or done something, or stopped spending time around you, you know?"
Laios was still and quiet. She couldn't see his face, but the silence was heavy with doubt. She held him silently as her mind raced, grasping for anything she could say to convince him that things were okay, that Shuro was an outlier, that he was more than welcome, but wanted. After a moment, she spoke. "Laios, don't I spend way too much time on my hair?"
Laios craned his neck away from her to look at her. He raised a confused eyebrow. "Huh?"
"Yeah!" Marcille doubled down, releasing Laios from her hold on him. "I spend way too much time on my hair, and... I-I'm careless with my magic, and I won't let you eat demi-humans! Don't those things frustrate you?"
Laios looked at her, unsure of what to say.
"But the thing is, those are part of who I am. You can't change it. I am made from the life I lived, and the things I do and the way I feel come from living that life, you know?" She paused, giving Laios room to talk, but he didn't, continuing to look at her like he was confused by where the conversation was going. "Laios, are those things about me so frustrating that you don't want to be in a party with me anymore?"
Laios shook his head strongly. "Of course not."
"And does Chilchuck being too blunt and secretive make you want him out of the party?"
"No," Laios answered.
"Or how about how Senshi doesn't want us to use any magic at all, even when it's helpful or necessary?"
Laios shook his head again.
"Even Izutsumi is a welcome member of our party, despite the fact that she's rude and inconsiderate of anyone else's feelings a lot of the time, right?"
Laios nodded, frowning a bit as the realization of where she was going with this began to sink in.
"Right." Marcille nodded, wiping tears from her eyes as she continued on. "You don't want to get rid of us for our faults, and we don't want rid of you for yours either. No one is perfect. But the good things way outnumber the bad ones. We're a team. We all stick together to help make up for what the others lack. Nobody can handle everything on their own. We all take turns relying on each other." She could see in his eyes that he didn't want to hear it, his mouth tightening further into a frown. She was losing him. The thunder crashed outside, and the lightning struck in the field where Marcille had entered his dream. She doubled down.
"And Laios, no offense, but people who can wield a sword are garden variety here on the island. The reason we are in your party is because we want to be. And even if you get overly excited about monsters, or say something wildly ill-considered, or don't think something through before rushing into it, the good things about you make up for that stuff one hundred fold. We never would've made it this far without your knowledge and drive. Honestly." She again gave pause for him to speak. He looked away from her with a sigh. Clearly, he wasn't buying it. She couldn't let him shut her out just yet. She took hold of his shoulder to get his attention back. "I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I assure you that's the case for me. You are my friend. And none of your shortcomings make me want to be friends with you any less. I promise."
Laios's tired golden eyes looked into her tear filled green ones. "You sure?" The way he asked her, in a voice that seemed almost afraid to believe her, made her heart hurt.
"I am absolutely sure." She nodded fervently, trying to ignore the warmth of her tears as they streaked down her face and neck.
A little bit of life seemed to return to Laios's eyes, and he gave a somewhat solemn nod before reaching forward and wiping the tears from her face, one side, and then the other, with his hand. "I made you cry."
Marcille shook her head, smiling a bit too brightly for the situation to reassure him. "I was just worried. It's not your fault." "Gracious sakes", She thought sadly, "even in his own nightmare, he's trying to comfort me. Anyone would be lucky to have somebody like Laios looking out for them."
The people outside the barrier began to smash against it with their hands, only now seeming to get Laios's attention. He looked around at them. "Ohh, they look really mad," he frowned nervously. "I don't think they're gonna let up any time soon. We might be tr-" He seemed all at once to notice the other Marcille, and when he did, his eyes widened in shock and suspicion. "Wait, how are there two of you?!"
Marcille gave a dismissive shake of the hand. "Don't worry about that. The other is a fake. I think she represents how you thought I would feel."
"How I..." Laios looked between the double and Marcille. "Thought...You would feel?"
A bright white light appeared above the two of them, and there was a dull rumbling in her ears, and Marcille suddenly began to feel like the dreamscape was slipping through her fingers. The lightheaded feeling she felt when she fell before came back much stronger. "I must be waking up," she thought to herself. "I need to think fast. If I can get out of here and tell Chilchuck and Senshi what's going on before Laios wakes up, maybe we can do something to raise his spirits." What could she do? Maybe she could influence the dreamscape even after she left it. Thinking on her feet, she very quickly concocted a plan. "Laios, I have to go really soon, but I'm going to leave my barrier to protect you for another two minutes after I leave." She quickly stood. "I need you to count out two minutes, okay?"
"Wait, go? Go, where? What's happening?" He asked, nervously standing up with her.
"It's kind of hard to explain," She began, feeling less and less present in the moment. "But I'll see you really soon. Remember how I said we all rely on each other? I don't know if you're going to remember this conversation once you wake up, but if you do, I want you to give me a chance to prove that you can rely on me too, okay?"
"Wake up?" Laios asked. The world around them started to shake.
"Just trust in me, and start counting!" Marcille grabbed him by his shoulders as she said this.
Marcille opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was Chilchuck, looking down at her with a worried expression on his face. As soon as she realized she was awake, she sprung upright.
"Woah!" Chilchuck exclaimed, recoiling in surprise. "Is everything alright? You were crying in your sleep."
Marcille touched her face, surprised to find it wet with tears. "I'm fine." She looked down at Laios, who still looked very pale and very sweaty where he lay asleep. She wondered if he was still counting down inside his dream. If she was going to try and help Laios's fear be dissolved, she would have to talk fast. "I'm fine, but I probably don't have much time before he wakes up. Where's Senshi?"
"Senshi went looking for stuff that would be easier on Laios's stomach. So you were able to get into his dream after all?" He asked her. "What was it like?"
"Yeah." What she had seen inside his dream was incredibly personal. She wasn't sure how much she felt comfortable sharing. Even now, as she thought about how horrible seeing him shackled up like that and hurt, her heart ached. She wondered if perhaps he'd seen some fool or criminal be treated like that when he was a boy and it had really upset him.
No, she pushed the thought from her mind, now wasn't the time for all of that. She needed to tell her party mates at least three things; that Laios wasn't feeling well, that his mind was in a bad place, and that he would benefit from a dose of added kindness for a while, kindness, she realized, that would be much better received if Laios didn't know that she had been inside his dream. She could just imagine him discovering she'd been inside his dreamscape and denying all of it, telling them none of it was real, that dreams were weird, that he was fine, and to stop with the pity. "Chilchuck, you're right about him not feeling well. He was hiding it because he didn't want to slow us down. But more importantly, he's-"
Suddenly, Laios jolted up from his sleep, crying out loudly as he did. The sound was enough to startle not only Marcille and Chilchuck from their conversation, but also Izutsumi from her sleep, and she jumped quickly to her feet and into a fighting stance. When she saw Laios, eyes searching wildly around as he sat up on his bed roll, she glared at him in annoyance and laid back down with a huff, her back to the three of them. As soon as Laios realized where he was, he grasped tightly to the chest of his shirt and closed his eyes, breathing heavily as he tried to calm down.
"Drat," Marcille bit her lip as she thought. That hadn't even been twenty seconds, let alone two minutes. She didn't get to tell Chilchuck anything yet.
"Are you okay?" Chilchuck asked him, scooting next to him on the floor and patting him on the shoulder.
"Y... yeah..." Laios breathed, not opening his eyes. "I... I must've had a n... a nightmare..."
"Oh?" Marcille asked. Chilchuck turned over his shoulder to shoot her a look. She shook her head, holding a finger to her lips to stop him from saying anything. If she handled things the right way, maybe she could still get Chilchuck to understand what was going on. She was lucky Laios's eyes were still closed. "What was it about?"
He seemed to pause to think, his breathing still hard as he attempted to stop the racing of his heart. "I really don't remember much... Maybe I got... struck by lightning, or like... squashed by something heavy?" Marcille shuddered, imagining the crowd of dream people rushing in on him as the barrier dissolved. "...maybe not, I'm really not sure..."
"That sounds rough," Chilchuck frowned. Laios nodded.
"I wonder if you've got Nightmares," Marcille brought up, "Like I did."
Laios shrugged. "Could be... That would... explain why I can't remember anything..."
"Here, let me see your pillow," she offered, standing and retrieving his pillow before returning to where she sat beside Chilchuck. Laios nodded, saying nothing, breathing hard. Marcille began to dig into her pocket for her small knife to cut the pillow open with. As she searched, she thought frantically. "Would it be too suspicious if I ask Chilchuck to come with me into the other room so I could talk to him? All I really need to tell him is to be a little extra friendly to Laios for a while. Maybe there's some way I can communicate that without taking him aside?"
There was a long silence that followed as she brainstormed and Laios sat gasping for air for what seemed like an unreasonable amount of time. "Are you sure you're alright, there?" Chilchuck continued, giving Laios another encouraging pat on the shoulder. "You seem really shaken up."
Laios started to nod, but visibly hesitated, an anxious mumble escaping his closed mouth. He opened his eyes, looking first to Chilchuck, and then a bit longer to Marcille, before looking down towards his lap. "I, uh..." he muttered in a much lower voice than he had spoken before. "I'm probably fine, but I..." he hesitated again, his face falling a little. "I'm sort of not feeling so great. I think I may be coming down with something."
His admission made Marcille's breath catch in her chest. Had her words been taken to heart? Was this his attempt to rely on them? Before she could think of what to say, Chilchuck spoke. "Yeah, I was kinda worried about that. I know it's not any of my business, but I thought you should know that I know you've been having some, erm, issues with your stomach. I could hear you."
Though it seemed hardly possible, Laios paled a little further. "I always forget how good your hearing is," he answered sheepishly.
"You know it's not a good idea to hide stuff like that, right?" Chilchuck scolded softly, wagging a finger at him. Marcille cringed. She wished that she could stop him from saying anything more. She debated taking him by shoulder to stop him, but knowing how suspicious that might seem, she thought better of it. She set to busying her nervous hands with taking her knife and running it down the seam of Laios's pillow carefully, so as not to cut it up beyond patching afterward. "What happens if you suddenly get worse and we don't have any warning? That puts us all at risk in a place like this, yourself included. It's not safe."
Laios nodded, not looking up. "Sorry." He said this in the exact same way he had when he apologized to Marcille in the dreamscape. Her vision was lost to tears. Chilchuck continued, not missing a beat.
"It's fine since we can take care of it now, but seriously, just talk to us if you're not feeling one hundred percent. We all know you're tough, but you don't have to muscle your way through everything on your own, you know. Between the four of us, we can help make up for where you're lacking, but you have to let us. We're your friends, aren't we?"
Laios's eyes widened, and he looked up quickly at Chilchuck. There was a split second of almost surprised silence before Laios nodded. "Uh, yeah. Yeah. Sorry, I'll try to do better about that..."
Laios's odd reaction was not lost on Chilchuck, but as odd as the whole last few minutes had been, the half-foot let it go, giving a small grin. "Okay, good. Let's talk about it, then." He patted Laios's back with the hand that had been on his shoulder. "You're really warm, and I know you just woke up from a nightmare, but you've got to be running a fever. A pretty high one, at that. Besides that and the nausea, what else is there?"
Laios groaned as if he were a little embarrassed. "It's really not a big deal. I'm just kinda tired and sore. I thought maybe a good nap might help, but..." Laios trailed off as his attention shifted from Chilchuck's question to something else. He leaned a bit to the side to get a better look. "Marcille, are you alright?"
Marcille's whole face had gone red as she tried her best not to cry out loud. Tears and snot dribbled down her face. Seeing Laios's reaction to Chilchuck calling him his friend had simply been too much for her to stand. Chilchuck turned over his shoulder to look at her as well, another confused and somewhat annoyed look on his face. She wiped frantically at her eyes, trying to stop the downpour, and she nodded. "I'm okay!!" She answered reflexively, sniffling loudly. "I just bit my tongue. That's all." Her tears had spilled all over Laios's pillow, and as soon as she noticed, she gave a wail. "Oh no! I'm sorry Laios, I got your pillow all wet!"
"Oh, that's okay. Don't worry," He replied, clearly not quite convinced that Marcille was alright. "I can sleep on the other side." He looked down at this pillow, which was now not only cut open, but damp from Marcille's tears. "Were there any Nightmares in it?"
"Oh! Right!" Marcille upended the pillow, pouring the stuffing out. Nestled in between the feathers were three small mollusk shells, not even as large around as a coin, which snapped shut tight as they were picked out. "Wow, only a few." Marcille was surprised to find that there weren't more of them. There had been so many inside her own pillowcase, and they had been bigger too. She supposed that indicated that they hadn't been in there for very long, and yet he was already having nightmares so strong that his rest was suffering. Marcille wondered to herself if that didn't have something to do with how recent the interaction with Shuro had been.
"I'm glad we got them out before they started eating away my life or something," Laios acknowledged, picking one up and examining it, his hand subtly trembling. While he watched, the creature peeked one eye out of the shell, but when it saw Laios looking back, it snapped shut again. "I guess we could save them for later, but there's not really enough for anybody to eat. Maybe I'll just let them go." Marcille looked him over. Despite the fact that he'd finally caught his breath, he still seemed like he felt pretty poorly. His illness was especially noticeable around his eyes, with his eyelids darkened and puffy. The fact that he wanted to let the Nightmares go instead of eating them said plenty about his appetite as well. She watched as he sat the creature back onto the floor beside the others.
About that time, Senshi came back into the camp, his arms full of assorted things. "Senshi," Chilchuck began, standing up on his feet. "We're gonna have to stop here for the night. Laios isn't feeling well."
"Oho, Is that so?" Senshi asked as if he didn't already know. "I'm sorry to hear that, but it should be just fine. We should have plenty of nutritious food to last until you're feeling better." He sat his cooking pot, which was full of miscellaneous this-and-that he had collected, down on the ground and dusted his hands.
Laios shook his head defensively, immediately attempting to stand up. "It's nothing serious. We don't have to-" Chilchuck pressed down on top of his shoulder, forcing him back to the ground.
"No, ignore him. He's got a high fever. Whether he likes it or not, we're gonna have to camp."
Laios groaned again unhappily. "We don't have time for that. Falin-"
"Falin," Senshi approached Laios. "Isn't in as much danger as she was before we saved her from the belly of the dragon. I doubt the lunatic magician will do anything to cause her harm, considering he thinks of her as a weapon." There was a dull panic in Laios's eyes. He grit his teeth. "It will be alright, Laios. A day's rest would hardly be considered a setback. I'm sure Falin wouldn't want you running yourself ragged either. Hm?" Laios sighed in reluctant resignation, hanging his head. Senshi pressed the back of his tough hand to the tall-man's forehead. The dwarf frowned beneath his helmet, and it was evident in his eyes. "Chilchuck, you weren't exaggerating about that fever. No need to fret, though. I've got something that should remedy that. Laios, pull your shirt off."
Laios did as he was asked, pulling his sweat-dampened shirt off and dropping it to the dungeon floor beside him. Senshi returned to his pot, taking out a bundle of green and slimy looking plants. He separated a few stalks and plopped them down into his mortar and pestle. Looking first to Marcille, who was a bit red in the face and surrounded by pillow stuffing, and then to Chilchuck, he spoke. "Would you mind drawing some water?
"Sure," he answered, giving Laios one more pat on his shoulder before standing to collect the pail. "Don't stress, alright? Just worry about feeling better."
Marcille set to work stuffing the feathers and bits of wool back into Laios's pillow. Working with her hands always served to calm her frayed nerves, and she was glad that this time was no different. Once the pillow's insides were all inside, she quickly stitched the pillow shut again, even better than it had originally been, she thought to herself proudly. "Good as new! Hopefully all of your dreams will be nice ones from here on out!" She fluffed the finished pillow between her hands a few times before returning it to the top of Laios's bed roll, damp side down. He uttered a tired sounding "thank you," to which she smiled at him.
As she turned to go back to her bag to put away her needle and thread, something caught her eye. Low on Laios's back, only a few inches above the waistband of his pants, were several long straight white scars, scars that had clearly healed to the best of their ability years ago. She gasped aloud before she could catch herself, and the spool of thread she had been holding slipped from her hands, dropping onto Laios's bed. "No, surely not," she thought to herself, "There is absolutely no way he's really been lashed like that. That was just a dream, something the Nightmare had stewed up based on things he'd seen or heard or read." Laios looked around at her with concern in his eyes.
"Are you okay?" He asked her.
"Oh, yes," She answered quickly, sticking the tip of one finger into her mouth. "I accidentally stuck myself with the needle! I'm so clumsy today!" Laios gave her a doubt-filled half-nod.
"You're clumsy today?" Izutsumi's voice called from where she laid curled up.
"Oh hush, you!" Marcille fussed. She bent down to pick up the spool. At this closer distance, there were even more scars than she had originally seen in that area, all neatly horizontal to each other. "Really, though, was there anything besides being lashed that would cause scars like that? Would it be wrong to ask? Would it upset him to talk about it?" Desperate to ease her mind, her curiosity got the better of her. "Laios," She asked, standing back upright, clasping the spool in her hands. "What in the world did you do to get all of those scars on your back?"
Laios looked over his shoulder, trying to see what she was talking about, then twisted sideways until he could see the scars himself. "Oh." He looked up at her, not seeming even remotely upset by the question. "I never really mentioned it, but I was in the military for a while. If you didn't follow instructions, or if you talked back, the Knight Commander really let you have it. I got that punishment a lot. You figure I would've learned to keep my mouth shut." He gave a slight snicker. "Half of the time, I didn't even realize I was speaking out of turn. I think that guy was just looking for a reason to smack somebody around."
Marcille nodded stiffly, doing her best to steel herself against the choking dread that rose in her throat. He really had been hit like that. It hadn't been some horrible thing his Nightmares had concocted for him. It was built from real memories. Evidently, her horror was visible on her face. Laios frowned. "What's wrong? Don't worry about it. They don't hurt or anything now." He ran his fingers over the scars. "I forgot they were there, until you said something." Marcille's eyes welled with tears again. She opened her mouth to talk, but all she could do was make a sad noise. She drug her sleeve across her eyes to dry them, but they gleamed with moisture again right away. Laios turned away from her and waved a hand toward Senshi. "Senshi, can you check to see if Marcille's got a fever too? She's acting really weird."
Senshi looked up at her from his work grinding a few more plants into the paste. When his eyes met hers, her tears began to pour as she shook her head. "I'm feeling fine! Honestly!"
All the same, Senshi rose from his spot on the floor and made his way to her. He gently took her wrist and tugged, encouraging her to lean down enough so that he could touch her forehead the way he had Laios. He looked into her eyes for a moment, trying to absorb what wasn't said as he looked at her. Marcille gave a quick glance at Laios, then pleadingly back at Senshi. "You don't seem to have a fever," He concluded, releasing her hand to allow her to stand back to full height, "But I think a bit of rest would do us all some good."
Marcille stifled a sigh of relief. "You're right. I think maybe I am tired," She answered. Laios seemed to relax a little after she said this, his posture slumping, muscles slacking. Marcille took notice of that fact right away. Though it made her sad to realize that he was obviously relieved that he wasn't the only reason they needed to rest now, she decided to embrace it. It was the least she could do if it would help him feel better. She returned her needle and thread to her pack and sat down, forcing a yawn that Laios didn't even see. He seemed to have zoned out, now staring into space at his blanket on his lap.
Chilchuck returned with the pail of water and sat it beside Senshi on the ground. "Thank you, Chilchuck," He said, tipping a bit of the water into his mixture. "Would you help me by starting a fire?"
"Yeah, sure," he replied, and he knelt by the fire pit and searched his pockets for his flint.
Senshi gave a bit of a "Hup!" as he stood himself up with the mixture he had made. He walked back over to Laios, who didn't even seem to notice, now looking somewhere between zoned out and half asleep where he sat. "Laios," Senshi tapped him on the shoulder. He seemed to startle a little, then looked over at him. "Can you turn your back to me? I don't want to stand on your bed."
Laios looked at the bowl of green mush, then back up at Senshi, and then nodded, shifting where he sat until his back was to him. "This is for your fever. It helps to sap some of the heat out of your skin." Senshi scooped some of the mixture into his hand and began rubbing it onto the skin of Laios's back. "It's no cure-all, but it should bring you some relief." Laios attempted to straighten up his posture to make things easier for Senshi, but the extra tension right away caused him to shake. "Relax, Laios. There's no need to exert yourself. You're supposed to be resting."
Laios groaned and slouched. "Sorry for causing so much trouble," He mumbled. There was a silent exchange of looks between Chilchuck and Marcille. Marcille looked sad and worried. Chilchuck looked at her as if he had predicted she might react that way. Senshi shook his head.
"Nonsense." He patted Laios firmly on the back of his neck before continuing to apply the mysterious concoction to his skin. He gave a slight chortle. "It's no trouble at all. You're ill. Taking care of one other is what friends are for. I'm glad to be able to help."
Marcille was unable to see Laios's face, but she could see the tension in his shoulders melt away to practically nothing. She needed a reason to excuse herself before she became a weepy mess again. "I'm going to, um," She spied the three Nightmares on the floor, each slowly sneaking along the ground away from Laios's bedside. She stood quickly, dusting herself off as she did, and then she scooped them up into her hands, causing them to snap shut once more. "I'm going to set these free for you, Laios. I'll be back."
"Okay," came a three part harmony from her party mates, none of the three giving much of a reaction otherwise.
Marcille headed down the corridor away from the room they were camped in quickly, though she was crying again scarcely after she left the room. How foolish she was, she thought to herself, to think that she would have to tell her party mates to be kind to Laios. They were, after all, his friends. Of course they would be kind to him. She put the Nightmares down on the stone reservoir surrounding the water fountain, hardly able to see as her tears blurred her eyes. Once she was totally out of sight and earshot, she let herself really cry, knowing good and well that she would never be able to get past this if she didn't. She sat down against the wall, covered her eyes with her hands, and sobbed.
The whole experience seemed to have caused Marcille much more grief than it had Laios, which she would have found funny had it not made her so sad. There were so many layers to it. The whole experience had totally blindsided her. She'd expected to stroll in there and fight off some sort of monster, or row up on a boat and stop him from drowning, or help him look for Falin, honestly anything beside what she had seen. His dreamscape had been so full of self loathing. Did he always feel like this? She hoped to herself that it was all thanks to the fight with Shuro, but believing that felt like delusion. Then, for him to carry on anyway, still trying his best to be there for the ones he cared about despite having no idea if they really wanted him around? Her entire view of him had changed. And that, in itself, was a problem. How could she face him, knowing the things she knew, without telling him what she had seen? His private, innermost thoughts about himself?
This brought her to another question. What had Laios seen when he'd been inside her dreamscape? He had never seemed terribly phased after the fact. This hadn't ever even risen a thought from her before, but now, having seen the intensity of a Nightmare with her own two eyes, the thought bewildered her. She wondered if he'd been to the memory of her father dying too, that vulnerable moment. How had he helped her? What did he now know that she was insecure about?
She took a few deep breaths to calm herself. Laios hadn't treated her differently since he went into her dream, not that she noticed. She tried her best to recall. It had only been three days since then. Perhaps he'd been a bit more considerate of her, but it was equally likely that he'd always been considerate of her in his off-beat way. Whatever he saw, he kept to himself. She knew that she needed to do the same.
She raised her hands and slapped the sides of her face to snap her body out of its incessant desire to cry. "You've got to stop crying now," she encouraged herself as she made her way to her feet. "It's not doing anyone any good." She returned to the fountain to wash her face, finding that the cool of the water was excellent help in calming down as well.
After she felt like she could breathe again without her emotions betraying her anymore, she started back to the camp.
By the time she made it back, Laios was asleep again. He was still a bit pale, still a bit sweaty, but looking peaceful, chest rising and falling evenly. Beside him on the ground was an empty tea mug.
The whole room smelled of herbs and sweetness, and Marcille spied what she assumed was a kettle of herbal tea beside the gently crackling fire. Senshi and Chilchuck sat across from each other, talking quietly so that they didn't disturb Laios's sleep. When they noticed Marcille's return, they both looked her way.
"You okay?" Chilchuck asked.
Marcille's cheeks reddened, as did the ends of her ears. Damn Chilchuck's great hearing. She could tell by the look on his face that he heard her crying. "Yeah. I'm okay."
He patted the stone floor next to himself, encouraging her to sit. She did. He handed her a mug of tea before raising his own and taking a sip. She gratefully took a sip. It was mild, warm, and tasted of peppermint. Senshi raised his own mug and sipped. They were quiet that way for a while, staring into the fire.
"I guess it was rough, in there." Chilchuck didn't look at Marcille as he said this. Instead, his eyes were on the mug in his hands, which he rolled between his palms.
"Yeah." Marcille took another sip. She sighed. "I don't think I can tell you much more than that, though. It was really raw. I don't think he would like knowing I saw it either."
Chilchuck brushed a strand of hair from his eyes. "I figured as much. I wasn't gonna ask you to."
"It seems that you made a difference, though," Senshi spoke, setting his cup down beside himself on the floor. "Whatever happened in there helped him feel as though he could trust us with his weakness."
Marcille didn't know how to respond to that. She didn't feel like she had done much besides cry all over him. She hoped that she had at least helped him feel less alone. She sighed.
The group sat sipping their tea in near silence, listening to the crackle of the fire. Eventually, silence turned to chatting, and the chatting turned to each setting about doing this and that to pass the time. Marcille took her brush out of her pocket and began brushing her hair. Chilchuck pulled a set of playing cards from his pouch and began to play a round of solitaire. Senshi sat his journal on his lap and began to write. Izutsumi snored.
After around an hour, Marcille noticed that Chilchuck was becoming increasingly distracted from his cards, looking over in Laios's direction every few minutes. Each time he glanced at him, his expression became more unnerved. Finally, Chilchuck sighed. He stood, retrieving what was left of the pail of water. "Marcille, Senshi, hold out your canteens."
Though both were puzzled, they did as they were told. Chilchuck poured most of the water between the 3 containers, Marcille's, Senshi's, and his own. "Izutsumi, do you need any more water?"
"No," she answered, rolling over to face the rest of the group.
"Okay then," the half-foot turned and walked a few paces away from the campsite and poured the rest of the water onto the ground.
"What did you do that for?" Senshi asked.
"Trust me," Chilchuck warned grimly, "We're gonna need this bucket for something else soon. I can draw more water later." He left his abandoned game of cards where it was in front of the fire and sat down with a tired huff beside Laios's bed.
Marcille inched closer to Laios to peek at him. He was beyond pale, even looking a bit grey in the face as he slept. His expression was an uneasy one, though it was nothing like the face he'd been making before. "He's not having another nightmare, is he?"
"No, not this time." Chilchuck replied. "I can hear his guts making all kinds of noise. I don't think the tea is sitting well. You may wanna stand back a ways."
Almost like clockwork, Laios's eyes fluttered open. He looked disoriented and visibly nauseous. "Hey, pal, you don't look so good. You okay?" Chilchuck asked. Laios shook his head a bit, then involuntarily his whole body lurched, and he sat up abruptly and clapped a hand over his mouth. "Here, here, here!!" Chilchuck thrust the pail into his shaking hands in just enough time for him to bury his head inside and loudly lose his tea.
Senshi sighed worriedly and began rummaging through his things for a handkerchief to give him. Chilchuck cringed, reached around behind him to rub his back, and uttered a few "there there"s. Izutsumi burst out laughing loudly. Marcille shouted at her, "Stop that! It's not funny!"
The rest of the evening was fairly quiet. After the tea incident, Laios slept soundly, hardly stirring an inch for several hours. No one had the heart to wake him when lunch was prepared, and so it wasn't until nearing dinner time that he began to rouse, sitting himself up on his bed.
The first to notice was Izutsumi, who had been lazily watching as Senshi chopped carrots. "He's up."
All three of the others turned toward Laios, who gave a sheepish wave and pitiful excuse for a smile where he sat.
"Hey. How are you feeling?" Chilchuck asked.
"I feel like I've been treading water for three days," he answered honestly, wincing as he stretched his arms and then his neck. "My body's all sore and achy. But I don't feel like I need to throw up right now, so at least there's that."
"That's good," Senshi remarked. "I'm making soup for dinner. You don't have to eat if you aren't feeling up to it, but it's made from ingredients that are mild and easy to digest."
Laios visibly paled at the thought of eating anything, but he nodded all the same. He worked himself up onto his feet. "I think I want to try to eat a little." Slowly, he joined them at the campfire and sat down between Marcille and Senshi.
Marcille found herself staring at him. It was dark, so visibility was low, but Laios looked much better than he had before. He definitely still looked a little green around the gills, but most notably, the exhaustion in his posture was nearly gone. She was glad to see him feeling well enough to do something besides just sleep. She watched the fire dance in the reflection of his tired golden eyes. Suddenly, he was looking at her. She quickly looked away, at the fire, at Chilchuck, at her dress, anywhere but at him so it wouldn't seem like she'd been staring.
"Did you get any rest?" He asked her, his voice a little hoarse.
She went red about the face once more. "Oh, uhh, a little." She smiled. "I don't rest well at night if I nap, so I'll sleep like I mean it tonight."
He nodded at her. "Good."
Senshi finished making the soup, and together, the five of them dined, talked, and wound down for the evening. After eating about half of a bowl of soup and receiving another application of the fever paste, Laios went straight back to bed, commenting that sitting up had tired him out. He fell asleep right away, and much to everyone's relief, he didn't wake up to vomit during the night. The others took turns keeping watch throughout the night quietly, not giving Laios the opportunity to wake and try to help.
The final shift of the night was Marcille's (this was something they had decided long ago, as she was the least capable of functioning on broken windows of sleep), and as the morning arrived, she was surprised to see that Laios was the first to wake. He sat up on his bed roll, stretched, and moaned. He scratched his head beneath his tousled blonde hair. He yawned. Finally, he looked towards the fire and spotted Marcille watching him.
"Good morning," she whispered to him with a smile.
"Good morning," he replied, shuffling out from under his blankets and joining her at the campfire. He sat beside her, uttering another yawn.
"How do you feel this morning?" Marcille asked him. She lifted a hand with the intent to lay it on his forehead. "May I?'
He nodded. "Still not a hundred percent, but a lot better." Marcille was glad to find that the worrisome heat beneath his skin had mostly gone away. "I think I'm about over it all. Thank goodness."
She nodded in response. "I'm glad!" Though he did also look much better, he still looked a touch sunken around the eyes. "I have some tea going, but I understand if you don't want any after yesterday."
He gave an awkward half-smile, half-grimace and an embarrassed laugh. "Tea sounds good. My stomach feels fine now, but all the throwing up I did yesterday made my throat kind of sore."
Marcille quickly retrieved a mug, blew the dungeon dust off, and poured a cup of tea for Laios. He carefully took it into his hands, brought it to his lips, and took a sip, not reacting at all to the heat of it. Afterwards, he gave a contented sigh. There were a few seconds of gentle silence between the two of them, and then, setting aside his mug, he turned his gaze back to Marcille. "Could I ask you something?"
Marcille tensed. "Oh, um, sure! What, erm, um, what did you want to ask?"
Laios looked away for a moment, a sort of puzzled expression on his face, as he pieced together what he wanted to ask in his mind. "You..." he scratched the back of his neck, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. "You went into my dream to wake me up, didn't you?"
Marcille froze where she sat. She'd been caught.
"Wait, what's with that expression?" Laios gestured worriedly with his hands. "I'm not mad at you or anything. That's really nice of you."
"Nice?" Marcille's chest was tight. What she had done didn't feel nice to her. It felt like a violation of his privacy.
"Well, yeah," Laios nodded. "You could've just let me sleep through the nightmare and we could've gotten the Nightmares out later. You didn't have to put yourself in danger for me."
"Laios," Marcille began, trying to keep her emotions from getting the best of her. "What are you talking about? You did the same exact thing for me just a few days ago. Why wouldn't I do the same for you?"
Laios was quiet, a sense of uncertainty hanging in his shoulders.
"Really, Laios. Of course I would." She nearly reached out and put her hand on his shoulder, but she stopped herself.
Continuing on, he averted his eyes as he spoke, as if disregarding her insistence altogether. "It seems like whatever I dreamed about must've upset you, or maybe it made you mad at me. I'm really sorry."
She shook her head, this time so determined not to cry that she overcorrected into anger. "Now, you stop that right now!" she insisted a bit too loudly, drawing an annoyed mumble from Izutsumi and a startled half-snore half-gasp from Senshi. She paused for a moment to allow both to settle back into sleep before continuing. "You didn't upset me, and I'm not mad at you at all." She lowered her voice to nearly a whisper.
"Are you sure?" he asked, and again, she was reminded of how vulnerable he'd been with her in his dream. She nodded fervently. "Well, then..." He crossed his arms. "I can't really understand why you didn't want me to find out."
"I just..." She sighed. "I sort of feel guilty somehow."
"Guilty?" Laios asked.
She squirmed in her seat. "Yeah, like..." She groaned. "I feel like I saw things I shouldn't have seen, without your permission." Laios quirked a confused eyebrow, giving her a suspicious look. She sighed again, this time in embarrassment and frustration. "No, no, nothing like that! Get your mind out of the gutter! I don't know! You went into my dream the other day! Wasn't it odd to be inside my mind like that, seeing all the things that scared and worried me?"
Laios seemed to think for a moment. "Hmm. I guess I can understand that. It didn't really occur to me at the time. Everything inside there felt so exaggerated that it was hard to gauge the reality of any single feeling." He picked up his tea and took another sip. "I guess it did sort of give me a better insight into how you think. But really, is that so bad?"
Marcille frowned. "I guess not." She was quiet for a few moments, and she fiddled with the hem of her sleeve as she wavered. "It felt sort of like I read your diary or something. It just seemed really..." she trailed off, twisting a lock of her hair between her fingers before continuing. "...personal."
"Huh." Laios sipped his tea again. "Well, I'm not really worried about that, if it makes you feel any better. It's no big deal." He smiled at her. She couldn't find it in herself to smile back. His smile faded. "Come on. If it doesn't bother me, why should it upset you so much?"
"It doesn't upset me," She looked into his eyes. "It just made me..." She picked at her thumbnail anxiously. "... worry."
"Worry?" He asked. She nodded. "About what? ...About me?"
"Yeah, I mean..." She turned a little where she sat so that she faced the fire instead of him. "It's just, that thing with Shuro-"
"Shuro?" He interrupted. "Shuro and I are good. We made up. I was dreaming about that?" His confused expression told Marcille that he genuinely believed this to be true.
"Yeah, sort of." Marcille looked back his way. "I just really want you to know that he's absolutely unhinged to assume that anyone should just read his mind."
"Oh, uhh, yeah," He seemed to redden a bit in the face, looking around nervously. "I know that."
"Good." Marcille picked up her own mug of tea and took a long drink. Afterwards, she gave him a sheepish look. "I'm sorry I tried to hide it from you. I wanted to do the same thing as you and just move along without making a big deal out of it, but I guess I got a little carried away. Did Chilchuck rat me out?"
Marcille swore she could see a nervous stiffening of the half-foot where he lay on his bed roll, his back to her.
Laios shook his head. "No, I figured it out on my own. I've seen you tired before, and usually when you're tired, you get grouchy, not cry about everything. I didn't remember doing anything that might've hurt your feelings, but as I was thinking, it occurred to me how quickly you brought Nightmares up, like you knew." Marcille swallowed her urge to argue with him about the "grouchy" remark, instead giving a false laugh. "I did ask Chilchuck while you were setting the Nightmares free, but I had already basically figured it out before that. I'm just sorry my dream made you cry."
She shook her head. "Don't be sorry. Nobody can control what they dream about. I'm just glad you're feeling better today." She smiled slightly. "But, um... Do you want me to..." She wrapped her arms around her knees. "... tell you what happened in your dream?"
Laios shook his head. "Nuh-uh. It doesn't really matter. A dream is a dream." Marcille nodded, doing her best to take his answer without worrying. She knew he'd react like this if he found out, sweeping the matter under the rug. "Do you want me to tell you about yours?"
"Oh, uhh," Marcille was surprised by the question. She hadn't expected him to offer. She had wondered about it, but at the end of the day, perhaps it was better if secrets stayed secret. "N-no. I suppose you're right. Even if they're based on real worries, they're not real."
Laios nodded. "I agree. I learned a little about how you think, and you learned a little about how I think, but that's about all you can really learn from what your mind does without your permission."
Before she could think of anything else to say, a long yawn interrupted her. Senshi sat himself up, stretching his arms high above his head.
"Good mornin'," he mumbled drowsily, looking over at the two of them.
"Morning," Laios replied, turning over his shoulder to wave at him.
Senshi came over to the fire and sat beside Laios. "How are you feeling this morning?"
"Better," He answered. "Not perfect, but pretty close. I think I really needed some good sleep."
"I don't doubt that one bit!" Senshi patted him on the back. "The body easily gets carried away when it's missing something it needs."
"On a similar note," Chilchuck's voice came from behind them as he, too, sat up in his bed, looking suspiciously as if he had been awake for a while. "Maybe we should just get ahead of the curve and the check our pillows. Two out of two pillows suggests the odds might point to us all having Nightmares."
"Not a bad idea," Senshi agreed. "It's good to prevent things like this from going any further. Let's check."
Senshi returned to his pillow, and Chilchuck took his from behind him. Each of the two cut the seams of their pillows open and upended them, lightly shaking until all of the stuffing was on the floor. Inside Senshi's pillow, he found one very small Nightmare, one so small it was nearly missed amidst the fluff. Inside Chilchuck's, there were none.
The noise roused the final party member, and as she yawned and stretched, Laios called over to her. "Hey, Izutsumi, do you want me to search your pillow for nightmares too? Chilchuck and Senshi-"
"No." She glared. "I don't want anybody cutting my stuff up."
Laios did his best not to look exasperated. Marcille scowled. "Alright," he said, turning away to refill his cup of tea.
"Thanks, though." Laios turned over his shoulder to look at Izutsumi. Her expression was serious, and she looked him directly in the eye for a moment before moving to roll up her bedding.
"Oh, sure. No problem," He replied happily.
It wasn't long before breakfast was over. Once all five were fed and packed up, Laios found himself at the center of everyone's attention once more.
"Are you sure you're feeling well enough to continue on?" Chilchuck asked.
Four pairs of eyes were on him all at once, and he nodded nervously as he slid Kensuke into the sheath on his belt. "Yeah. I feel much better today."
"If, at any point, you need to stop and rest for a bit, just say so." Senshi hoisted his pack onto his shoulder as he spoke. "Remember, there's no honor in wearing yourself too thin. There's only unnecessary discomfort."
"I promise I'll let you guys know if I need a break." Laios shifted his weight from one leg to the other, his armor clanking as he did. Marcille noticed that the weight of his armor still seemed a bit heavy for him. "I'm sorry about the way things went yesterday. I didn't mean for things to get so out of hand."
"Don't let it bother you. It's alright," Senshi took hold of his arm and jostled him to break the tension. "The unfortunate thing about sickness is that it rarely visits us at a convenient time. I'm sure I speak for all of us when I say that I'm simply glad to hear you're on the up and up."
"Yeah, what Senshi said," Chilchuck chimed in.
"Exactly," Marcille agreed.
"Hmph," Izutsumi muttered, though she subtly nodded in agreement.
Laios smiled, and his party was happy to see him looking much more like his normal self. "I'm grateful to have a party like you guys. It's nice knowing you've got my back."
"Anyone would be lucky to have somebody like Laios looking out for them." The thought again echoed through Marcille's mind. "Well, that absolutely goes both ways, you know," She began, looking up into his kind eyes. "We are equally lucky to have a friend like you in our corner." Both Senshi and Chilchuck voiced their agreement. Izutsumi rolled her eyes and began walking away from the party.
Again, for just an instant, a spark of surprise flickered in his eyes. He smiled wider.
Marcille smiled back.
"Well, let's get a move on," Chilchuck said, following behind Izutsumi. "I've been hearing some weird noises from a few rooms ahead. I hope it's not another mimic." He shuddered.
"Oh, but mimic is so tasty," Laios crooned, his mouth watering as he fell in line. "What would be so bad about that?"
"I hate 'em," Chilchuck grumbled. "I'd be happy if we never ran into another one ever again."
"It's better than those awful looking dryad fruits," Marcille remarked, shaking her head at the thought as she followed.
"Don't you people think of anything besides food?" Izutsumi grumbled over her shoulder at them.
"It's true that those dryad fruits might not look very appealing, but they're loaded with nutrients," Senshi poured water over the coals of the fire to douse it, then followed suit, leaving the room to settle into darkness, as if they'd never been there to begin with.
As they walked, Marcille couldn't help but notice a renewed spring in Laios's step. Despite feeling like she had done very little, maybe she really had made a difference. Maybe they all had. A thought briefly crossed her mind: Laios was pretty incredible, definitely more incredible than he was odd. How much more incredible could he be if he felt that others thought as highly of him as he did of them?
He looked over his shoulder at her. As their eyes met, he smiled gratefully. She smiled reflexively back. Then, she tripped over an uneven stone of the dungeon floor.