Violence was hardly a common reaction that Koray had displayed since moving to the Sanctum, but she was terribly close to throttling her best friend. The Moon was only half waning, which usually provided just enough light for her to read by, but just as the words came into focus, she saw Tynan flick his fingers in her periphery. The pages were overtaken by an abysmal shadow that had her stomach lurching at its depth.

“Stop doing that,” she hissed as she turned the page.

Tynan’s voice was painfully monotone as he said, “I didn’t bring you up here to read. I brought you up here to rest.”

“I took a catnap on the way up here.”

“Doesn’t count.”

“Since when is that not resting?”

The book in her hands thudded shut as she rose to grab a different one. Keeping her footsteps light, she moved towards her bookshelf…only to see it go up in darkness. How was he doing this with his eyes closed?

“Since you’ve likely gone an entire day and a half without real sleep,” Tynan stated as he lowered his hand back down to his chest.

“You don’t sleep.”

A smirk appeared on his lips. “Different circumstances.”

Where her frustration would usually flood her veins with the chilliness of her magic, there was only her blood pumping through her veins. A glance at her door showed her the threads of wards that were barely holding, a realization that had her conceding. “Fine, I’ll try to rest, but…”

A bump at the back of her knees had her turning to see Arctos determined to push her towards her bed. When she remained, he bumped her palm with his nose and began to whine.

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She was dangerously close to full depletion then.

“Will you stay?” she asked, as the shadows disbursed long enough for her to set her book down on her desk and make her way to her bed.

“Whatever it takes to make you start snoring again,” Tynan replied, his hand patting the empty space next to him on her bed.

She followed Arctos, who now pulled at the sleeve of her shirt, to the edge of her bed. Where the trek across her room in the night was usually a flurried sprint and silent prayers to her Patroness, Koray was soothed by Tynan’s passive presence. She had chalked it up to their longstanding friendship at first, but she could no longer deny that something more ancient was between them. The Moon and the Dark, Life and Legacy juxtaposed against Death and Grief. Their magics were likely calling to one another.

That bond felt undeniably safe.

She slid over her goose-down comforter to take up her usual space in the bed. The exhaustion pulled at her then, like leaden anchors at the end of ship lines she felt herself sinking out of consciousness into whatever dreams or dark lay in wait for her. With the last dregs of her stubbornness she asked, “I don’t actually snore, do I?”

“Not always,” Tynan whispered, “but when you do, you could wake the whole Sanctum.”

She scoffed, her eyes too heavy to open. She used the last of her energy to weakly shove his shoulder. “You’re a man of few words, Ty. You shouldn’t be so rude.” She felt his arm shift under her palm to send her hand plummeting to the comforter.

But then his hand was eclipsing hers as he gave her knuckles a gentle squeeze. “Let go, Koray. Please.” The monotone had returned to his voice, though this was deeper, verging on a command.. She could tell by the silken aura that emanated from his hand that he was drifting in that magical epicenter. The Tomb, he called it.

She let that silk draw her into the darkness of her mind. At first the space was still, an impenetrable black with small flashes of light - likely from eye strain. Her spirit gave a strange shudder that made her want to reach for awakeness, but she was too exhausted to jostle herself awake. Instead, she began to fall, her soul falling through layers of soft, dark silk that rippled with each surface her careening body broke. She was shot through a plume of smoke, her body jarred by the hard stop as she hovered just above an obsidian floor.

“Well this is new,” she whispered to herself as she tried to figure out how to actually touch the floor. Her dreams were usually more scenic than this, there was plot, and almost always other characters, but this was–

“You’re…not supposed to be here…”

She arched her back to look across the obsidian floor to where she followed the contour of a male form. He was a man made of smoke, black diamond constellations, and the shades of night…but she would know him anywhere.

“No,” she said to Tynan, “I don’t think I am.”