Shattering Dreamscape #3
Something twists in her stomach at the thought that it could be her.
When Euphemia realizes he’s still watching her, waiting for a suggestion, she clears her throat. “Perhaps it’s best if you decide?”
They walk in silence. She wraps her arms around her shoulders, and scans the area for any signs of a threat—she doesn’t realize it, but for the first time in a long while she does not search for the nightmare.
They crest a small hill, giving them a modest viewpoint of the rest of the dream landscape—and from up here, she is almost certain it is a dream, for the strange wine-soaked vegetation seems to stretch for an eternity in every direction.
Somewhere in the distance, a low keening howl echoes across the lands.
Despite herself, Euphemia scuttles closer to the beast of a man. He doesn’t seem to notice, his attention remaining attuned to wherever the howl had come from.
Only once it doesn’t seem like danger is racing toward them, does Euphemia ask again, “Well? What name have you chosen?”
“I’ve chosen none,” he chuckles, though he does not peel his gaze off of the horizon.
“Well, I must call you something.”
“Call me anything you’d like, Euphemia.”
Her chest heats at the way he says her name. “But I do not know you well enough to name you.”
“That makes two of us.” He sighs heavily. Finally deeming the threat gone, he turns his attention upon her, arms out, apathetically presenting himself. “What is the first thing that comes to mind when you behold me?”
Now Euphemia does clamp her mouth shut. The words pummel her skull though.
Beast.
Monster.
Demon.
A derisive snort rumbles from him as if he can hear her thoughts. “Call me that then.”
Euphemia’s jaw widens. Her parents raised her better than this. Surely, she can muster an unoffensive name for this strange, mildly pathetic but also intimidating creature.
He protected her from harm that she otherwise would not have known was upon her.
He’s forgotten himself, and yet he strives to remember her name.
He has been nothing but respectful. A vigilant defender of her well-being.
And yet, those cloven hooves make her stomach quiver. The fire of his gaze gives her pause.
Something happened to him—this man caught between two worlds. A man of fear and steel. Of fire and bone.
A word drifts to her as if it were the fog creeping into her mind.
Not a name, necessarily.
More like something left behind in the wake of destruction.
“Ash.”
Just one word. One syllable. And yet, a multitude of meanings are packed within it.
His chest rises and falls. He tilts his head, as if considering it.
“Ash,” he says at long last, no recognition in his voice. No resistance. But no elation either. “Ash it is then.” He scans the horizon again, sword twitching at his side. “Now, tell me, if you are not dead, then why have you come here, Euphemia?”
Euphemia looks around them as well. She notes the thick tree roots that carve scars into the earth, even though there are no actual trees in sight. Only these strange roots that twist and bulge.
Euphemia rests atop a particularly bulbous one, as tall as her knees. She holds out a hand, delighting as snowflakes drift up and around her fingers, falling back into the sky.
“It’s simple, really. I’m here because I am dreaming.”
Ash angles his head at her. “Dreaming?”
The way he says it though, it’s like he’s never heard of such a thing. Or perhaps it is one more thing he’s forgotten.
But overhead, the sky seems like it’s starting to lighten, a window of baby blue shining through.
Their time here might be ending soon.
Euphemia can spend the rest of the dream trying to teach him all the things he doesn’t remember. But there is so much she’s curious to learn about as well.
“Is the whole place like this?”
“Like what?”
Enchanting is what she wants to say. But years of scorn make her swallow the word whole. “I don’t know. Impossible? Surreal?” Still sensing his confusion, she gestures to him. “Take, for example, your eyes. They dance like firelight.”
Tentatively, Ash reaches a hand up toward his face. He pauses, a mere graze away. As if he fears the bone might scorch him.
Euphemia gets the strange feeling then that he has no idea what he looks like.
She looks back down the hilltop toward the river. Unfortunately, the nightmare is still grazing there. It wouldn’t be worth the risk to go back. If only there was a river closer—
The moment the thought crosses her mind, the meadow shrinks. The river bursts beside her in a sudden whoosh. Euphemia gasps, jumping up from the tree root and colliding against Ash’s broad chest.
His hand wraps around her waist, steadying her. He is as sturdy as a tree and smells like one too. Cedar and embers. Like logs burning in the hearth during the harshest winter.
But Euphemia keeps her gaze trained on the river as she rights herself. She hears it babbling, even though the waters remain still. Not a droplet has spilled or been disturbed.
Even the nightmare still grazes peacefully, as if it never even moved.
It is both remarkable and unsettling.
Pressing herself as close to her own spine as she can manage, Euphemia nods to the water now beside them. “There. Have a look for yourself,” she says, a little too breathless.
Ash watches the mystical water. Unmoving.