Inarael continued to smile, even as the white void engulfed her, she barely even watched Akio leave, but she felt his presence vanish. As the scattered images of the dream were drawn away and reality was beginning to set in once more, Inarael sat up first, eyes rolling in her head a moment before she stared at the ground. The first thing she did was cough painfully. Her cheek was swollen and her hand had raised to cover her mouth, however she drew it away to see the blood that was there.

Her first quick move to grab a cloth from her pocket allowed the rest of the pain to settle in. She froze initially as the uncomfortable feeling washed over her body. She grabbed her cloth and quickly wiped her hand. She could hear the sound had alerted her parents. The two rushed up the stairs, having been told the moment they heard sound again it would be over. The elf lurched forward, holding her ribs painfully and grimacing a moment. Now she had to summon up physical strength in the real world. The trouble with her powers was; whatever happened in the dream realm translated to the real world. Which of course meant that death in the dream world spelled death to her real body. Sure she had been severely injured in dreams before, but there had been ways to counteract the effects, especially through healing. Of course she'd had no time for it in Sherry's mind.

"Sherry!" Her mother called as the two parents burst into the room, seeing the hunched over elf, yet scarcely aware of her existence at all next to the girl on the bed. Sherry wasn't awake yet, not completely, however she no longer writhed, she no longer held a face that was pained by the troubled nightmares, she looked at peace. It would have made any mothers heart stop, that mixed moment of hopefulness, as well as the terror that it might be something else. However the latter was not the case as the girl stirred a little, taking a soft breath then sighing as she finally began to awaken.

Inarael was used to being ignored, she knew what would happen as the two rushed over to the bedside, her mother grabbing the girl's arm and sobbing a little. The father stood over her too, hands on the woman's shoulders whilst Inarael got up and hobbled to the door quietly, leaning on it a moment, though she heard the mother behind her,
"Bless you, bless you, thank you so much." She stated, it allowed Inarael to smile a little as she looked back at them, putting on that confident smile again,
"How can we ever repay you?" The father asked, but then Inarael's smile withdrew a little. She didn't mean to say what she said, but the words just came out,
"I don't need anything from you humans." She stated, but then she caught herself, the man gave her a strange look, he heard the less friendly tone, but the elf she smiled again, "Seeing this was enough.. You don't need me here anymore." With that she turned again, though her ears twitched when the girl spoke,
"Thank you, Inarael, and.. Akio too.."

She would have to tell that man she said thank you, if she ever saw him again. Maybe even clobber him one and give him a talking-to immediately afterward, because that girl had no idea Akio could have killed them both. The parents were giving their daughter odd looks, far as they knew, only Inarael had been in the room, but also that she knew the elf's name, was it proof she had done as she'd said? She really entered their daughters mind and freed her from the curse? That would all certainly be awkward to explain, but she knew they had something more important to worry about; a living daughter, no longer tainted by the nightmare plague. Inarael clambered down the stairs quietly and emerged from the home, ears hanging low as she limped towards the distant church silently, eyes focused on the ground and keeping her footing.


"How strange." Whispered a voice most-familiar to Akio spoke out behind him, a red cloak hung in the air at first before a man stepped out from it. It was Laneras. He held the hem as a cap that soon swung down and hung behind his shoulders, lifting a sword and resting it upon his shoulder as he stared over at the half-cast prince, a smile on his face, "I come this way, drawn to the scent of death, yet suddenly, the failing life is restored, fate blinks its eye and changes its mind. And here you are, young lord, walking in the opposite direction. Curious.." He pondered aloud, tapping a finger on his chin with a wry smile, "You know; it is getting difficult to keep track of you," He added, pointing the sword down to the ground and leaning on it almost like a cane, "I'd be proud of you for it, if it did not overly distress the more.. Paranoid of our people.." He was of course referring to those who would wail and shriek about the dangers of leaving the confines of the underbelly of their world.
Laneras was a death-seer, a knight-protector of Akio's family, older than Akio, charged at one time with the protection of the prince. His kind were outcast by humans for their gifts, like most of the unnatural creatures that resembled humans. The death-seers were drawn to death, the scattering of lost souls, they could harness the knowledge of the fallen, consume the lost spirits and, in some cases, even raise the dead and command them to fight. This final practice was abhorred by Laneras, always proud of his own abilities. He had cultivated an unusual moral outlook that couldn't allow him to use the bodies of the dead in such a way that meant defiling what they once were,
"To think fate would change its mind.. I missed something interesting, did I not? Why must you have all the fun..?"

__________________