CW:

Dreams and night terrors. Memories and thinking about meeting abusers. Memories and mention of having a limb cut off and cauterized. and finally.... BIG GUCKING CRAB IS BACK BABEEEEE! Welcome, FINALLY, wibblers and wobblers to the reunion with the Craaaab!

Apologies for the last week without a chappy! Wiggles got SO wobbled in our life.

We know we drifted off with Jevita and even Kque in our arms. Lulled into gentle sleep by the sway of our carriage, little happy hoots of the Quelekita pulling it, and… and the relief of finally leaving Arudia.

Once again tumbling into the other kind of dream we have now.

Before, our Amwella would always pull our thoughts into the shard. All dreams shared deliberate melodies one of us could control pretty effortlessly. But that also meant that we could only ever interact with present thoughts and ideas.

Like, sure. We always would find ourselves getting lost and forgetful of things beyond the shared dream. But everything was focused will made as real to us as anything in our Waking World. Often more so.

But now… Well, it depends on who you ask.

Yrelia thinks this is Aceso, in her words, ‘loosening up eternally clenched bits’. Not trying to control everything now that she’s agreed to trust others. Which… I was worried would upset her but instead sent Aceso into a tittering of giggles for at least half an hour.

Tasii… mostly agrees. But thinks this also has something to do with our mind healing. Sort of… too weak to actually control something as big as a shared dream well until we fully recover.

Kque hopes this is a sign that our mind is like… fully assimilating the shard. Sort of like how bodies that undergo heavy Cultivation or intense healing do. That our Dreams were, perhaps, the space between rejection and acceptance of a second spirit and the shard holding her.

Rahdian is mostly just a bit of a mess over all their theories. Hopes whatever we learn from this can be used to help her shards heal. Would love to pull them into the Waking World like we do.

Zigdara doesn’t have any theories. But wants so badly for this to be a sign that the World Song can heal. That the Curse is weakening. Maybe even that we’re a rekindling of what it was meant to be.

“Nothing is Always and Forever.” She mused just last night, half asleep. “Even good things, but… most importantly the bad. Even the worst wounds, if survived, can fade into scars that eventually can be lived comfortably with.”

That sent Aceso, and then me, into such bubbling tears. Both because it meant the World and all Her Dreams to hear Zigdara say that about us. But also because I’m pretty sure it reminded Aceso of her mothers or… sisters?

Because our secretly favorite theory about this, of course, comes from our brilliant Jevita.

“I think this was her plan.” She murmured while clutching our long gemstone cutie to her chest. “The Weaver’s, I mean. Even before the bad stuff. She didn’t want to… like… be all powerful here. Be a Goddess. Just dealing with Her own life was probably hard and she wanted help. Wove the World Song to keep everyone safe from that Rot you’ve mentioned. Gave us all little sparks of Her Amwella. She told us all that. So… I think this change like… is maybe what She would have liked for everyone? Possibly even the ability to reach out and easily weave magic without a shard. Sun-Spoken weren’t meant to be just the girls that got her shards but… anyone who wants to be?”

We both adored that.

Hoped so much we could someday help our Jevita feel the World Song again. Maybe even touch and change it like we do.

But… not today.

Today we rest, and dream the way most people do.

And… not always well.

Turns out, my nightmares didn’t go away when Aceso claimed me. My anxiety dreams, night terrors, and… worse, were just… not able to reach me before. Always swept up and into the dream she was trapped in. And I think our brilliant lover’s whimpers and… and that final look in her eyes dredged up something from my past.

“I’m not okay.”

Words wept while memories of being used stole everything else away.

I… I know that feeling. Wanted to scream it for years and years.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

But, how do you tell such an amazing family that loves you and adores you just… just how… broken you feel sometimes? How small? How… how used?

Dirty.

Thank fuck there are no faces in my dreams. Years of endless people will make it hard to recall any but the most important people in my life. The dream is messy, and stupid. I’m at some… half Arudian half Lyttoral manor with far too many doors and far too many girls who… um…

Were people I was sold to. Nightmare woven from my very real fear of bumping into a girl I was forced to be with and um… them recognizing me.

I’m trying to avoid them. To keep them from my lovers. To… to tell them that I’m not that person. To stop… stop touching me! Stop trying to pull me back into the chambers set aside for them.

It’s honestly… really stupid. And makes no sense. Too many doors, too many blank faces, and the temperature kept shifting from blistering heat to cold ice. And… we don’t even crack it before a bump in the road, and a burp from the gemstone who adores pretending to be a sleeping scarf, jerks us from the nightmare and into the warm snuggles of the Waking World.

Deep breaths. I insist to ourselves, not wanting to flinch too hard and possibly wake others.

Just a dream. Aceso agrees. A horrible one, but… nothing like the real ones we often will still find most nights.

Look down to find both our lovers still nuzzled close and sleeping well, it seems. Glance up to see the mountain’s side still passing by. Slowly and lazily and… without any rush.

So we wiggle to get comfy again, and try to focus on getting a little more sleep before meeting everyone at the mountain’s base.

Focus hard on having a good fucking Dream this time. I sigh and imagine nuzzling Aceso with… with…

All the headstalks we don’t have.

Fuck.

Sorry. Aceso whispers. It… I think that is a sign, more than most others, how bound we are now. My headstalks were things I wove for myself. Part of a form I knit from nothing but song and will and desire. Inspired by one of my mother’s gorgeous mane from the moment I understood them.

Can’t help but smile at how much I enjoyed feeling them in our Dream. No it’s… Honestly wonderful. I adore them. Just… we’re gonna need to gather up so much Amwella to grow something like that! I wouldn’t even know how to start to make something that complex!

Aceso can’t help but warm at that. Bask in my desires to let this flesh change for her too.

So… She shares memories that softly bubble up. Some early moments of growing accustomed to a head full of limbs that love to betray unspoken emotions and feelings with their wriggles. But… most are from later. When she wore them with pride and confounded lovers with their deft workings. Helping… well, helping younger siblings weave their own even.

How much she loved them. These little wiggly parts that felt like refractions of Her own spirit. Like some many limbed cuties from the ocean. How they inspired her to mix and mingle magic like only… only one mother could do effortlessly.

OH, and how they could dance! She giggles and wiggles and swoons. Always and endlessly, to some unsung beat of my soul. Even when asleep. Especially then. Only really understood when I watched a sibling’s do the same on the first night with her own mane.

How many did you have? I ask, letting her feel my snoozie wander at the shared words and memories. Both from the first time she showed me herself in our shared Dream and these fuzzy new ones.

At least a dozen. She muses, but… sadness is starting to tint the joy of this. And wretchedly painful memories of a monster cutting them away and searing the wounds closed with blazing iron else his prize die from–

How many should we grow? I ask, abruptly. Tugging her from that terrible memory that will absolutely consume us both. Will we keep some hair? Um… How long will it take? Once we start gathering up more Amwella along the Paths?

That stutters her to a halt. Even takes her a few seconds to whisper back. Ina… We need to be gathering a Wellspring for emergencies. Not… not…

No. Nope. Fuck that. No excuses. I insist, echoing my first lover’s words to me. You’re life. Your body now too. You deserve to live in it well. This is important. And we’re going to like… be getting so much Amwella now that we’re away from the Academy. Away from danger and threats and just… be a family wandering the Paths towards Lyttoral.

She huffs but… can’t argue.

The idea of actively weaving songs with me throughout our days has completely enthralled her. This partial week since the freeing of the Arudian males and our full merger has led to so many new songs and inspiration and… and so many of them take almost nothing to weave!

And feeling this one take root in Her now is amazing.

Like watching a cute little crab shed an old broken shell while shyly wiggling into a new one. And as the new shell’s current other inhabitant I’m gonna do everything to make you comfy. Okay?

She agrees and tumbles into surrendering to this scheme. And… Well, of course the dream we slip into from there is a soft and silly thing. Involving us trying to fit in the same shell, then sailing it around the ocean like a boat after a wave knocks it over. Gets a little scary for a bit when shadows stir below but… we find the shore. Even figure out how to walk about like… like…

“... A Crab?”

Yes. Exactly. If we’re gonna get up the mound of sand we just gotta walk like a crab. We agree, then start to try and…

But hands shake us awake as a soft voice whispers. “Loves?”

Can’t help but grin as we work very hard to push our eyelids up. Focus on the girls kneeling before us.

“Um… We… There’s one of those big gemstone Zeridii on the road.” Jevita explains, expression such a contrast to before. Eyes alight with excitement and an easy smile on her lips. “And Rahdian’s little cutie already ran off and up to it and… um…”

That sparks us to wake up really fast, so much that even our sleeping scarf rumbles a little complaint before we let it scuttle down our arm and onto Jevita’s shoulders. Stand up and look out and see…

A huge gemstone crab. I think they're called… um…

Carbuncles. Aceso remembers.

And this big cutie is just… napping on the road. Settled in for a long snooze from the looks of it. Between two sharp cliffs too. Cutting off pretty much any good road from the Academy for the near… two dozen carriages waiting here with ours?

Like I sang for it not to do all those weeks ago.

Rahdian’s little cutie is sitting just in front of it. Practically yelling a litany of little ‘Helps’ and ‘hi hi hi’. Some sound happy others seem… So annoyed.

We can’t help but grin and move to hop out of the back of the carriage while everyone else stares at the big pretty crab. Followed carefully behind by Jevita and Kque. Move up beside Rahdian and take her hand in ours.

Then tug our fellow Sun spoken forward through the mess of carriages and milling duenna while starting up a little song of soft greetings and… also requests.

Please wake up, big friend. We need this pathway.

“Help help help!” The little one shouts into my bubbling melody. “HI!”

The Carbuncle stirs a little, even seems to twist to aim that crack we think its eye or other sensory parts sit inside, to look directly at us.