Where… am I?

She had been having strange dreams intermittently for a while, often of places she had never been, and things she had never seen. There was one, though, that would constantly recur. A dream of an endless expanse, split by an insurmountable wall with a singular resolute gate. A gate without visible lock or key other than a very small hole in its center, through which unintelligible whispers could be heard. The gate itself was covered in countless runes, some worn and others with a strange and unnatural sharpness to them.

However, this time… felt different… this time… she touched the gate, and just as suddenly as it appeared in her dreams, it was gone.

Diane’s vision was focused with a level of clarity far beyond anything she had ever experienced before, the level of detail was almost too surreal…

The subtle movements of each leaf on the trees towering nearly a hundred meters overhead… the frosted tips of mountain peaks piercing the heavens… the splash of a small droplet of dew shattered by the rapidly beating wings of a beetle… the glints of moonlight dancing off the countless scales of a titanic winged lizard as it marched into the meadow, slowly emerging from the cover of the otherworldly forest.

…

…

The titanic winged lizard.

The one that is looking right at me.

Move! Move! Move! Damnit! Why can’t I move?!

With each step the creature took, she could feel the earth tremble as a soft *boom* reverberated through the air.

It was a creature she had only ever read about in books, proclaimed extinct by the gods, and seen at best with an artist’s depiction based on some ancient statues. It was a creature far more majestic and intimidating than any wyvern.

This is dream! It has to be a dream! None of this is real! Dragons don’t exist anymore! NOW MOVE!

Diane’s body finally started moving, but not in the way she wanted at all. She turned half-way, and started to slowly pace around the dragon, her unblinking eyes transfixed upon the creature… its razor sharp teeth protruding like deadly lances… its snarling lips… the plumes of smoke billowing from the corners of its maw… and the horrendous claws protruding from its feet, each easily the size of a great sword.

It had finally stopped moving, and was now slowly turning its head, following Diane’s path. The creature’s piercing gaze followed her every movement, with undoubtedly no less detail than she could observe of it and analyzing her.

What is going on?!

Almost as if in response, she could hear a voice begin speaking… slowly, strongly, and with authority…

“Trauxis, watashi wa Bahamūto ni michi o yuzuru koto o yurushimasen. Yagate, koko ni sumu subete no hito o zetsubō kara kaihō shimasu. Hoka no basho no kamigami to no sensō o tori, soshite sari nasai!”

(Trauxis, I will not allow Bahamut to have his way. In time, I will release all who live here from their despair. Take your war with the gods elsewhere, and begone!)

This…. This is the voice I keep hearing in my head! But… why? Why can’t I understand what it is saying?!

A slow rumble slowly filled the air and the smoke began to billow out more furiously from the dragon’s mouth, as it produced a sound as much a laugh as it was a mighty roar!

“Orokana chīsana dēmon! Sudeni hajimatte iru koto o tomeru ni wa oso sugimasu! Anata no sekai wa jūbun ni ōkiku, bahamūto ga doragon no furusato ni naru tame ni sore o erabu hodo no hōfuna shigen o motte iru koto o kōei ni omoubekidesu!”

(Foolish little Daemon! It is far too late for you to stop what has already begun! You should be honored that your world is large enough and has such a bounty of resources that Bahamut would choose it to become the home-world of the Dragons!)

Is it… answering that voice? It wasn’t in my head?

The voice echoed forth again, dripping with derision and indignation while matching the force of the dragon’s voice. The air itself began to quiver as the contest of wills continued!

“Anata ga koko de hateshinai sensō to kurushimi o motarasu toki, anata wa watashi ga bon'yari to taiki suru koto o nozomimasu ka? Jinsei jitai wa jūbun ni kutsūdesu! Watashi wa sudeni kono sekai o danketsu sa sete itadeshou, soshite anata no kanshō ga nakereba watashi no ninmu wa kanryō shitadeshou!”

(You wish for me to stand idly by as you bring endless war and suffering here? Life itself is pain enough! I would have already united this world and my mandate would be complete if it wasn't for your interference!)

It sounds so near! But why can’t I look for it?! Why can’t I… is it..?! Coming from me?!

Trauxis’ eyes narrowed into a cold glare, focused in on Diane. It slowly began to march forward again, slowly turning to match her path circling around it. Its voice rapidly lowered, before building again to a grand and furious crescendo!

“Anata wa hontōni kamigami ga anata no yume o jitsugen suru koto o kanō ni surudarou to shinjite imasu ka? Karera wa watashitachi no tame ni kite iru no to onajiyōni anata no tame ni kurudeshou! Anata no `sukui' o todokeru koto o tsuikyū suru koto de, anata wa haruka ni ōku no kurushimi to itami o motarasudeshou. So no yōna orokana gizen o wasurete kudasai! Kamigami ni taishite watashitachi no soba ni! Sore wa watashitachi no dare ni tottemo iminoaru mirai ga aru tame no yuiitsu no hōhōdesu!”

(Do you truly believe the gods would allow you to fulfill your dreams? They will come for you just as they are coming for us! In pursuit of delivering your 'salvation', you will bring far more suffering and pain. Forget such foolish hypocrisy! Side with us against the gods! It is the only way for there to be a meaningful future for any of us!)

The voice coming from Diane became cold, harsh and utterly hostile.

“Kore wa chaban ni sugimasen. Watashi wa sudeni ishutaru to jibun no keiyaku o musunde imasu. Anata ga susunde saranainara, watashi wa anata o tsukuranakereba naranaideshou!”

(This is nothing more than a farce. I have already struck my own deal with Ishtar. If you won’t leave willingly, then I will have to make you!)

“Fumu! Saigomade oroka, chīsana dēmon.”

(Hmph! Foolish until the end, little Daemon.)

Diane felt that if she could, she would be gritting her teeth in fury right now.

I don’t need to know what you are saying to know when you are looking down on me! You stupid Dragon! Just wait until I… EEEEEEEEH?!

A viscous pool of black began to form in front of her, as ‘her’ arm reached forward, and a massive dual blade rose out from the slime. Except… her arm was very… black… and red… with a blade of bone protruding from her forearm through a gap in thick plated armor that was as dark as the void.

In spite of ‘her’ eyes never losing sight or focus on the dragon, as it reared up to colossal heights and an ominous orange glow started to gather in its throat, she couldn’t help but be focused on what ‘she’ was.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

WHAT. THE. FU-

*THOOOOOOOOOOOOM*

Everything was moving fast. Incredibly fast.

WAY. TOO. FAST!

While she felt like her eyes and body were able to see and respond without issue, her mind was an absolute blur. It was as if she was jumping through countless perspectives in fractions of a second, and before she could mentally adjust, she was somewhere new again.

All the while, hellfire rained forth from Trauxis’ mouth, melting stone and turning the gargantuan trees to ash! She could feel herself blend with the shadows, before erupting forth behind the dragon with a vengeance!

*KKKRRKK*

With a sickening crunch, she felt as if her side was about to explode as she was sent hurtling through the air by an impact from the Dragon’s tail. She felt as if she could her words shouting, but her mind was too far into shock to process any of them.

All the surrounding plants began to rapidly wither as the pain dissipated from her side, before the nauseating flitting around the battlefield began anew.

However, this time… rapid fire rays of darkness would form and fire from her face and thunderous blasts of lighting erupted from her palms, shaking the mountain with its fury!

Blast after blast was deflected off the dragon’s crimson scales, redirected into the sky or the earth… blasts that were shattering all else they came into contact with.

The damnable monster began to laugh again, as it began to beat its wings and it unleashed a hurricane! She could feel it… as the wind ripped and tore at her, turning even the smallest of stones into deadly projectiles, and ripping away all surrounding wildlife.

How… how can a dream be like this… how did anyone even fight dragons if they were really like this?!

‘Her’ body still didn’t run, and it stopped flitting around the battlefield, and instead she felt an intense amount of energy gathering… focusing… as the orange glow began to form in the dragon’s throat again…

No! No, no no no no no! I will not die! Not now! Not in my dream!

“GWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHA!”

She could hear a laugh, almost maniacal, resounding from her. Unabated. Unrepentant. Unstoppable…

Standing tall against the furious wind, her blade pointed towards the joint of the dragon’s wing… she unleashed an insanely small, fast and thin blast of energy. For a moment, it almost felt like things slowed down again… as she watched it pierce through a scale grander than a dozen of the best Dwarven shields, before a meaty explosion severed the wing from the dragon!

With a furious and painful roar, it unleashed its hellfire yet again! Rage fueled its eyes, as it targeted the mountain itself… its breath ripping out support and unleashing a landslide.

Why… why won’t he stop laughing?! Why? Why can’t I understand them?

She could feel the flow of energy changing in her body yet again, and this time… lines of energy rapidly began to carve themselves into the sky in the shape of an eye. Slowly, slowly it began to open…

The world. Everything. All things before her. All things behind her. All things around her, under her, inside her. Inside the dragon. The drakes circling and screaming around the collapsing mountaintop. The wyverns abandoning their collapsing nests. Countless birds fleeing the dangerous trees. The ants and beetles and worms popping from the heat of raging forest fire and the cracking of the earth itself.

In that moment, a complete and total sense of everything flooded into her mind. An utterly inconceivable, overwhelming sense of everything. Something beyond the limits of a human mind… her mind.

“KYAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!” She felt as if she was unleashing a terrible, overwhelming yell inside her own head, as the world surrounding her became nothing but white, filled only with a mad, echoing laugh.

----------------------------------------

Diane’s eyes shot open long before her mind caught back up with her, her body frozen in place almost like the sleep paralysis felt when waking from mid dream. Except… this felt quite different… as her eyes slowly meandered around the ceiling, followed by an incredibly slow blink.

*iiiiiiiiiinhaaaaaaaaleeeeeee*

*eeeeeexhaaaaaaaleeeeeee*

Why…. Does…. Everything…. Feel…. So…. Slow?

In the space of what felt like an eternity, Diane slowly raised her arm to look at her hand, each finger slowly separating until her palm was fully open. Then… with the momentary sound similar to a sudden downpour… her mind caught up to reality.

Almost hyperventilating, she twisted around and yanked her spell book out from under her pillow, before rapidly flipping it open and reading between each of the spells. She hardly noticed that, in spite of the darkness, she could still see the pages as if it were daylight out… her iris’ gleaming yellow, as a very different reality slowly set in.

Its… the same… Shadow Step… Devour Life… and that one must have been Devil’s Ray… all at the top tier, and then there were more! What was that piercing beam?! Or that last spell before…

Diane’s eyes winced hard, as simply recalling the experience caused her mind to shudder. When she opened them again, she glanced quickly around the room just to make sure she didn’t disturb anyone.

Emily snuck off to sleep in the closet again…

Diane pouted a little, before freezing up.

Where’s Clover?! And where’s Thistle?!?!

She jumped up from bed, looking around frantically for a moment as a quick shadow broke the constant stream of moonlight from the window.

Was that..?

*PFFFFT*

As Diane quietly crept towards the window and stuck her head out, a large fluffy tail smacked her dead in the face, filling her mouth with mounds of Saber Tooth Cat hair!

“Clover!!” Diane sputtered out, her voice both sharp and in a whisper to try and avoid waking anyone!

“Get back inside! Hey, listen to me you oversized cat!”

Lacking any response from Clover, while deftly dodging some chaotic tail swipes, Diane finally had enough and managed to clamber onto the roof herself from the window, only just noticing Clovers numerous scratch marks on both the window sill and the side of the roof.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, Thistleman was also laying passed out on the roof with one leg dangling lazily off the edge, using Clover as a pillow. Perhaps… the most practical use of an oversized cat, if you didn’t particularly worry about its massive teeth?

Diane looked almost as if she was going to berate Thistleman, standing proud with her chest puffed out like a drill sergeant. However, she instead let out a small sigh before sitting down on the roof while hugging her knees, and her pajamas ruffling slightly in the breeze.

“The moon is really quite nice tonight…” she muttered quietly to herself, and then just sitting in silence while lost in thought, listening to Clover’s rhythmic breathing.

After a short while, Thistleman began to stir a moment, before bolting up.

*eeek!*

The sudden movement took her by surprise, and she couldn’t stifle a small yelp.

“Diane, when did you come up here?!” The surprise in his voice was palpable.

“I should ask the same of you!” Diane countered quite matter-of-factly.

“I… uh… well… thought it would be nice out…”

Got youuu!

“So you took Clover on to the roof for a nap?!”

“… It was really nice out…”

“Hmph! Well, I suppose it is.”

Diane took a moment to act like she was appraising the night while she appreciated the guilty look of someone caught doing something they shouldn’t have.

Laugh at me getting drenched in alcohol again and I will tell Auntie Rhyme you’re damaging the inn! Fufufufu!

After she took her moment of self-adulation and enjoyed her secret blackmail plot to call in later, she asked another question to try and get past her sudden pang of guilt.

“Were you dreaming?”

“Yeah.”

“What about?”

“… just some old memories that got dredged up, things that I felt like I’d forgotten.”

Thistleman looked wistfully back up at the sky, before turning to sit on the edge of the roof. Diane came and sat down next to him, and after another moment of silence, she continued.

“Were they happy memories?”

“…that all depends on your definition of happy.”

Confusion was certainly written all over Diane’s face as she tried to process… well, that.

“What? Happy is happy, you know? Its like… a time where you smile because your kind of satisfied and your enjoying yourself? Kinda like in a peaceful or fun kinda way?”

“I see… then… I suppose not.” Thistle continued to stare off into the moonlit sky, his eyes weighed down by a weariness that crosses countless lifetimes, a weight inconceivable to any who cannot feel such things themselves.

“Oh…”

Diane’s voice trailed off slowly. Her face scrunched up in thought, before she stood up and balled her hands into determined little fists.

“Then… in that case, c’mon Clover! Get up you sleepy cat!” Diane got a little loud, but still not too loud, as she tried to wake the Saber Toothed Cat up. It was an action that, for just about any other adventurer in history, would be considered sheer folly. Then again, those adventurers also hadn’t managed to successfully adopt a Saber Toothed Cat without getting eaten in the process.

Thistleman looked over, as it was his turn to be confused yet again!

“What… are you up to?” Thistle managed to push out his question, as Clover stretched and yawned, his claws also stretching out of his paws and cutting nice grooves into the roof.

“I am going to have some fun.” Without skipping a beat, she hopped right on to Clover’s fluffy back.

“What? Now? But aren’t we still grounded?” Thistle’s confusion was only getting worse.

“Then I am sneaking out. Ready Clover?”

She patted Clover on the head, as he closed his eyes and gave a soft yowl almost in affirmation.

“If you want to join me, then catch up! You might think you were so sneaky, but I have seen how fast you can run!” With a small giggle, she gripped tightly on to Clover’s fur, as he leapt into the street below and bolted off into the city.

Thistleman stood on the roof for a minute, his mouth still somewhat agape.

When did she see me running?! I’m not that bad at staying in character, am I?!

Thistleman’s eye twitched a little at the thought that he might not be as good at doing things that don’t involve destroying other things as he thought he was.

If you really want to see fast… no, no… just… normal fast… calm… don’t accidentally break the city again…

After a couple deep breaths, Thistleman hopped off the side of the roof and lightly jogged after Diane and Clover. It’s pretty simple really, just gotta follow the scent of Saber Toothed Cat!