“Grandpa!” Andie whipped around to look behind her, spotting Finnegan leaning against the building’s rooftop entrance. “You’re here!” While the crisis had passed, and Andie wasn’t one to flinch at high stakes, it was still nice to know she’d had a safety net.

“Of course! A dreamwalker’s awakening is hard to miss.” Finn smiled earnestly but uncertainly. “Well… to be fair, I’d normally have waited until the next day for a celebration - but I was a little worried after what happened with… Maddie was her name, yes?”

“Yep. No need to worry though, she didn’t show up.” Andie paused, a brief doubt giving her a blip of hesitation that was quickly overrun by her celebratory mood. “Wait, are you saying that if it weren’t for Maddie you wouldn’t have come to help? …and what’s an awakening, anyway?”

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“It wasn’t Maddie’s presence that made me worried, Sprout. It was her existence.” Finnegan sighed a dreary sigh, though his smile did not waver. “See, awakenings are something anyone can have. They begin when you realize who you really are, and they end when you either understand who you really are… or when you break down trying. For dreamwalkers though, they’re a little more special. Unlike other people, dreamwalkers always have an awakening - and thanks to us being blessed with an inability to ignore our shadows, we always face ours early. Oh, and they come with a bit more spectacle, too.” Finn shook off his worries with a chuckle… but they shortly returned. “Until recently, I also thought that a dreamwalker’s awakening couldn’t fail. That they always ended with shadow and ego combining to form the true self, a Dreamwalker with a capital D.”

“That’s… where nightwalkers come from, isn’t it.” Andie felt her mood wilt back to normal. “They’re dreamwalkers that failed their awakening.”