CW:

EMARIAL POV! WOW! Nightmare attacks and memories of death and burning and LOTS of burning of things in the chappy. WOW. is a Emarial deciding to choose violence chappy.

None of the others even notice the shift, too focused on greeting the newest group of Arudian males and their Keepers.

Except… perhaps the little gemstone creatures. Each has been quiet up until now. One held tight to this young Sun Spoken’s chest and the other about Jevita’s shoulders as she worked. Each seemed to stir these past moments, and the long one even seemed to be a touch understood by Jevita.

“A… A what? A screaming forest?” The girl had asked with such confusion that just seemed to make one of her lovers giggle and murmur questions.

Then the last group arrived, and all remaining of the little emissaries’ warnings were ignored.

At least until the first shadow began to tug itself from the ceiling’s corner at my back to begin reaching down for me.

A blazing star amidst a group of tittering sparks.

Already filling my nose with the wretched smell of a nightmare’s aura.

Sweet, but fowl. Like rotting honey poisoned with acid.

But… all becomes clear when I jerk to toss flame and fury out to burn it from this Waking World. Calling up one of my more furiously quick yet simple flames. A gut twisting thing that’ll kill this thing fast but at the cost of–

She found me between two villages. Walking the Paths as our kind know to do when our Wellsprings become too engorged. The Hetaera guild hosted me for three weeks and has gifted me months of coin, travel provisions, and Amwella.

A girl a touch my senior in Sun Spoken things. We grew close as my training ended due to her own claiming's tragedy mirroring my own. And… how both our shards regarded us as well. Each of us simple toys to our Dreamer’s passing interest and muses.

But our Paths gently forked as we chose assignments and wished to explore the wider lands. It had been nearly three years since we even crossed Paths again.

So of course we chose to walk together. Three days of easy trails and mixed recipes and stories. Sleeprolls shared every night. One or both of us passing into slumber mid-word or after a wonderful embrace.

And her Wellspring was so very alight. Burning hot with carefully saved soulflame. A growing gift to Her Dream-bound lover.

I barely remember the words of the argument. A thing that grew from a soft disagreement over our different views on our Dreamers into a roaring furious thing that pulled nightmares from the shadows when she refused to calm.

Three dozen of them upon us in an instant. We barely survived to–

I break from the surface of the memory at the yelps and whimpers of sudden terrified surprise, but... Look about to find most just staring with wide shock at the corpse of pitched muck that falls to steam at my feet.

And yet instead of the smell dying with the nightmare… it seems to grow.

This isn’t the only one here.

“Everyone gather close and stay quiet.” I snap as my soulflame returns to my Amwella’s core in a hissing motion. Growling the blaze to a soft steady burn that should help me avoid drowning in any other memories as I weave more Amwella into flame.

Look about. Need to find…

“You, Rahdian.” I call out as I find the young woman.

“I… Y– yes?” The girl sputters. Half risen and eyes only pulling from the nightmare’s corpse to mine after a lover of Ina’s lovers nudges her.

“You’ve dealt with these before?”

She nods and swallows, so very young and scared and…

Brave. Filled with a fire that can only come from wanting to protect others you care for.

“Good. Stay with this group, deal with any that split off to come after anyone here.” I demand and begin moving.

“Where are you going?” Tasii demands, stepping to push her way through the group.

I can’t help but sigh as I pause to glance back. “The nightmares will come after my flame before all others. So, I’m going to find an empty space to handle them while Rahdian protects these ones.”

“And Ina?” Yrelia asks, moving to her side with Rahdian close behind.

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I shrug, “The high duenna is as capable as I am to handle these threats, and they’re accompanied by her duenna. We’ll probably meet in the middle of our hunt.”

They don’t like that, but… know that their joining me would only put them in danger for no gain.

“I can keep everyone safe here.” Rahdian interjects into the tense pause. “While you and they deal with this. Just… be safe?”

I return her nod with a probably grim smile. “If only death were that easy for me.”

Then I turn and stride off into the manor before they can bisect my careless words.

Looking for nightmares… alongside the girl and goddess that called them.

I’m not familiar with this manor’s layout, much less the direction Ina and Zigdara might have wandered off into to. But… I can just follow the wretched scent.

Three shadows become living twisting dangers at my first intersection of paths, easily burned and only the barest flashes of memory curse me. Most I recognize…

The second nightmare I ever killed. A thing that ambushed my mentor and I along the road to a stronghold. It… was my fault. That it peeled itself from the Dreams beneath us all. My still fresh grief calling it like pests to a corpse.

My mentor told me later how she was going to try and have me kill it. Teach me the consequences of not being more aware of the shadows that might gather behind my soul when I indulge in such things.

But I leapt upon it with howls of rage. Fists alighting with fire as I bludgeoned the mewling thing into pulped mulched n–

But one I don’t that crashes into my mind as a nightmare fades to nothingness.

Impossible landscapes twisting throughout an ocean that sings of joy and healing and… and 'all the good stuff'. As one of my mothers likes to say.

Not perfect. Buuuut… that’s not and will never be the point.

But we’re to try and weave new pathways to three more Rifts today. Direct routes to one of Ukalon’s domains. Mother Lyra will be there, which settles some of my worries, but… also raises others. Those two always let their hackles rise when they meet and I’ll be the only one there to try and calm Her if things get... heated. And the Godthing of the Perch apparently has a new Kujdestar or lover or daughter or... something? Don't know. Apparently a Reaver, at least, which worries me because of-

Snarl in annoyance at that, keep rolling forward with flames on my fingertips and purpose in my stride.

It has been nearly twenty years since one of the Weaver’s Dreams leaked from a nightmare like that. Which is so very bad. It means that one of these… is special. And not in that it is carrying some shard of the Goddess I need to collect and seal.

No… it carried that memory like some scavenger with a bloody chunk in its maw. And there is only one place a nightmare can get those.

Increase my speed. Nearly get taken unawares as two nightmares crack from underneath little side tables to pounce. But I burn them away with an aura that scourges the carpets and walls about me black as pitch.

Need to find them. Find out what stupid thing that girl and her Goddess did.

Should have swallowed my wounded pride and anger and… and asked her to spend a day with me. At least learning the simple lessons all Sun Spoken were taught before our order’s sundering.

Another mistake my broken oaths have laid out for others to pay for.

And even with the deaths of these nightmares the smell doesn’t weaken. Only grows stronger. More potent.

I’m running by the time I turn a corner to see…

No.

Roots and vines and underbrush and trees that reach up to try and touch the unfamiliar sky above. The hallways and manor itself just… gone. As if a painting takes up this entire hallway’s next steps.

NO!

I hiss and growl as I take my first steps into this impossible crack in our Waking World.

This is as rotten as it could be. Whether from the curse itself, or her resistance to it, or… or something worse.

They’ve attracted the attention of, and alight a pathway for, a Beast of the Weaver’s Wood to crack free of that cursed place directly into the heart of Arudia. Something I only found deep within the manor where the turned Sun Spoken had taken the males from the temple in Kretipla.

The smell would make me vomit if I wasn’t already blazing my Hearthflame to burn away everything. Even letting it hiss and snap forward like some octopus’ tendrils to tear and rip away at this break in the Waking World.

Like some wretched canvas being erased, it melts and dribbles and buckles under my working.

A howl of fury and pain and such spite erupts from the deepest bowls of the forest ahead. The Beast that wears this forest like a cloak to protect itself letting loose its challenge to my trespass.

Burn my flames hotter. A blazing roar escaping my lips as I let my Amwella pour out into this place. Scorching the jungle and leaving scars all about that show the manor’s twisting burning hallways beneath.

Need to kill this quickly. Find Ina. Make sure this thing will be the only one to crack free from her mistakes.

Only good of this is that... that the nightmares tend to avoid Beasts of the Weaver's Wood.

And then I hear it.

A song tearing through the jungle. A piercing shrieking thing that tears at the trees and limbs and forest. A challenge to something a broken shard of a goddess sees as at least partially responsible for Her wounds.

Faster. Need to get to them faster!

I abandon all slow caution for speed. Letting my flames burn the pathway ahead hotter than I’d ever dared before–

It’s… Not a relief when the rotted scent of the nightmares is replaced with that of the overwhelming stench of burned flesh and cooling blood. The still steaming corpses of… of…

Friends, sisters, lovers, attendants, duenna, and… and even mentors.

At least six dozen in this old dead place. Half of that number once bearing the titles of Sun Spoken.

All turned from the women of the Waking World to serve their Goddesses in this butchery and madness and-

Snarling as I crack free from the memory to continue charging through this cursed wood.

Need to get to them before the end. Try and help her seal this break after the Beast is driven back and away. Make sure no cracks are left unsealed.

When I finally find them… it’s worse than I feared.

The Beast isn’t anything special. A wrapping of heavily armored chitin shells about a vaguely humanoid frame held together by a twisting writhing mess of shadow and flesh and eyes and teeth and…

If you’re ever cursed to face such a Beast, remember to not look directly at it for too long. I can almost hear my mentor spit through the most gentle memory yet. Use your peripheral vision. Keep your distance. Wait for that glimmer of red flesh to signal when it's time to strike.

Good advice. Like always.

But only when the Sun Spoken facing such a thing is alone and with a modest wellspring. These things tend to focus on whichever target either tried to attack them last, or the girl with the brightest Amwella.

So I gather up my flame and fury and anger and prepare my strike for when it inevitably senses my soul.

Eyes dance past and around to look for…

Oh no.

A tearing of songcraft breaks free of what I can now tell is a freshly cracked stump. Sun Spoken and Weaver roused, pulling free. Ina’s body so very torn and wounded from the blow that sent them crashing into that tree.

Already hissing a melody akin to what they used back at the Obelisks. A slicing tune that seems to rend anything in its path from Waking World, Dream, and everything between.