A cool mist overlays a graveyard, and in its lethargic wake, the malnourished form of a young woman.
Her breathing heaves, and her fingers clutch onto the grass that has long since grown over the two graves marked ‘Hallera’. She sleeps between them until she’s forced upright with a start. The mist draws away from her, but soon moves back in to embrace her, as if offering comfort from the cold sweat on her brow.
There's a scent of blood and a feeling of death, there, but not there, waning in her mind each second she pulls away from sleep.
She shifts with discomfort, preparing to stand, but halts as a hushed scold reaches her: “Why are you sleeping on the graves again?”
It’s loud in the silence of the night, startling to a woman who’s clearly panicked. The man who issued it notices immediately, but does not rush. He moves to her as if he’s done this before. He kneels before her, a hand settling on her knee, and looks at her with a knowing concern. There's lightning in his touch. Or maybe hers. Or maybe there's none at all.
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An unsteady breath leaves her as her own shaking hand moves to briefly grasp his. She squeezes it, and he does the same to her, but she is made to release so she can ‘speak’ to him. Her hands move to make her words, and he reads them with ease. Ease which is stirred when he comprehends what she’s told him:
“I had a dream.”
To many, this phrase is meaningless.
“I had a dream”, they say, before they muse about whatever silly sleep induced hallucination was brought to them in their beds. But the sudden tension on the man kneeling at the girl’s side would tell any that it doesn’t mean the same to her.
“What about?” he inquires with hesitance.
The girl’s green eyes blink back something heavy in her mind; a haze of red clouds and red electricity, and physically, tears. She shakes her head, brow knitting with concern as she tries to force her thoughts into line. “I don’t know.” Her hands tremble as she relays this. His own reach up to take hers, and he presses on them gently, bringing them to his chest.
“We can’t fix it if you don’t tell me. Take a breath.”
She complies.
“Now tell me what it was about.” He releases her hands, and she clenches them briefly before giving a firm start, and pausing once more. It takes a moment to gather her thoughts, but once she does, Serenity signs, “A man with many faces has a crown, decorated with the scales of a dragon,” then she freezes. “He hears it, and it guides him…”