Nightmares Are Fun, Right?

For a while now Lelianna had been having decently pleasant dreams. Weird ones for sure; you didn’t just run into a cyborg that could take off her head and not have that get somehow incorporated into a dream. That and all the people Lelianna had been meeting lately…It was hard for them not to occasionally pop up too.

But tonight?
Tonight the hermit was thrown into her own personal hell.

All there was initially was darkness. The drifting sort before her dream asserted itself. And when it did, it did so with a clashing of noise that made the magi’s head spin. Screams. Both in her head and coming from around her. Loud and clashing as green eyes snapped open and proceeded to widen as Lelianna registered just what she was seeing. No…

Arecia was on fire!

As though the realization opened her mind to it, the screaming inside of her head doubled in force. The connection she had with the plantlife of the forest was certainly working alright. In fact it seemed even stronger than before, as though she was hearing all of the wood at once. Agony. That was what the woods was conveying. Pure and unbridled agony as she heard- no, practically felt every blister and crack as flames greedily ate the home and friend she held so dear. Instinctively the magi slammed her hands to her ears as though that would lessen the noise but it did nothing. She couldn’t escape; it was all in her head and there was no shutting down. Even through the hands she could hear even more cries of distress. These ones were familiar: roars and howls more animalistic in nature.

Skjorn! Bastan! Stewart! All the other living denizens of the woods!

They would be trapped too in the inferno painting the sky an angry red! Numbly the magi stumbled to her feet, letting her hands fall to assist her. When had she even fallen? Had she already collapsed to her knees when she’d become aware? Feeling the ground beneath her hands finally registered the horrific image she saw before her. That and, though all the noise, she could hear a voice call out to her. Pleading. Ancient. Afraid.

~Lelianna!

Y’enthal! The singular word from the ancient tree that had spoken and given her comfort all those years ago was what finally set the magi into motion. ”NO!!!” Tore from her throat in a ragged, painful scream barely heard over the cacophony of shrieking in her head and the loud sounds of cracking from the inferno destroying everything she held close in her heart. The magi started off in a dash and managed to get a few feet before another voice, just as ragged and desperate, called out to her. One that was vaguely, horribly familiar.

”Lelianna!"

The magi skidded to a stop. Whirling around, she was met with another, equally terrifying sight. Magi fleeing in masses, some fighting and others simply running as fast as their feet could take them. Some into the very burning woods, others off and out of view. Past them all Lelianna could see the horror they sought to escape: Hunters. Hunters that were cleaving their way through the bodies of her kinsmen as one by one the magi fell; 5 for every 1 hunter they managed to take down. Through all the death and hostility one thing shone through the chaos like a beacon. A mane of fiery red hair. Of very, very familiar red hair that turned towards Lelianna.

”Lelianna, please! Help us!” Her mother screamed, throwing up a wall of rock just in time to block the hunter converging in on her. Not only her, but Lelianna’s father too, who was furiously fighting off another using his powers, growing gnarled and twisting vines from the ground to shoot out and spear through one of their pursuers. Lelianna felt her heart nearly stop in her chest as all the blood in her face drained away.

“M-Mom? Dad?” The magi whimpered. No…No this couldn’t be right! They were dead! She’d watched them die! Yet here her parents were before her, fighting once again for their lives as Lelianna felt the heat of the inferno behind her. The agonized cries of the forest still persisted, banging in the back of her skull like endless percussion. Her head and ears were throbbing as she felt her heart being nearly ripped in two. Simultaneously the magi heard two voices ring out, one ancient and one mortal:

”Lelianna!”

But…who would she save? Who should she go to!? The hunters were getting closer and closer to her parents yet she could feel the fire claiming more and more of Arecia. How could she choose?!

“This can’t...no…” The hermit whimpered. This wasn’t right. Her parnets couldn’t be here. They couldn’t! There was no possible way they could be! But Y’enthal- Y’enthal was in trouble. The very tree she’d buried those two individuals calling out her name beneath. They couldn’t be real but Y’enthal could be. And right now Y’enthal was in trouble.

The druid made her choice.

Turning towards the woods, the redhead began to run towards the fire and into the thick of the inferno. After a few steps she heard a familiar sound. Her heart gave a terrible pang as she registered her parents dying. Again. She didn’t even need to turn her head; the image played out in her mind so clearly she might as well have been looking. Lelianna stumbled once, a choked noise leaving her, before she continued on ever faster into Arecia.

The heat was intense within the woods. Practically unbearable but the hermit couldn’t afford to stop. She kept moving forward with grit teeth as the forest’s screams of pain echoed within her head. It was throbbing now like a constant barrage against her skull. But she couldn’t let it get the best of her. Not right now. Not when she still heard Y’enthal calling out to her!

However she did skid to a stop when a scarred figure came into view. It was large and bulky. What had once been soft brown fur had been reduced to nothing but black burs. “Skjorn…” The magi breathed, her eyes going wide. He wasn’t moving. “No…” No please, not him. Not Arecia and Skjorn. With a strangled cry the earth magi lashed out with her powers. The earth underneath her fallen friend lifted into the air a tad unsteadily. She wasn’t about to leave him behind. Not like this. But she had to get to Y’enthal.

With Skjorn in tow Lelianna continued on. However the bear wasn’t the only one she found along the way. Stewart. Bastan. Tavi. All of them charred husks by the time she came upon them. Nearly unidentifiable yet somehow she simply knew. But the worst was probably when she came across a humanoid figure.

“Oh no. Oh no no no, Caroline no.” A numbness had settled startlingly over the magi as she found more and more of her friends destroyed by the inferno surrounding her. But as she came to the body of her neighbor a new pang of icy pain shot through her heart. Hadn’t they only been talked a few days ago? Just as Lelianna was starting to get to know the woman, she was gone. “No no no, oh not you too.” Lelianna knelt next to the woman and looked for signs of life. A pulse, breath, anything that would indicate her friend was alive despite to horrible burns covering her body.

There was nothing.

The hermit would have wept but the circumstances surrounding her didn’t leave her an option to mourn. The cyborg would have to be buried along with the others; after the hermit managed to reach Y’enthal. Crouching down, Lelianna lifted the other woman into her arms. She was almost unbearably heavy, but the hermit was pumped full of adrenaline. She managed to carry the fallen woman and continue ever onwards.

After an agonizing eternity dashing through scorching heat the redhead finally found herself at Y’enthal’s grove. The fire, amazingly, hadn’t yet reached the boughs of the tree. It would soon though.

~Lelianna! Please, help me!

The cry of the ancient tree, now so close in proximity, drowned out all the other noise coming from Arecia. In its panicked state the sound was nearly deafening. Lelianna winced but hurried forward. She was sweating not just from the heat she’d dashed through but from the exertion she’d been expending. Though she tried to put her friends down gently it was more of an unceremonial dump.

“I’m...Here...Y’enthal.” The magi panted, staggering to her feet and looking around. She wouldn’t be able to save every tree. It was a grim realization but it was reality. She had to prioritize now and Y’enthal took the top spot.

So she reached out with her powers and extended them upwards. The mighty groans and creaks of the branches overhead moving was nearly comparable to the sound of the fires consuming the rest of Arecia. Lelianna strained again her weariness, shifting the foliage so that Y’enthal’s branches were separate from the surrounding vegetation. Isolated, it would lessen the chance for the tree to set ablaze. However, it would not totally prevent it. She needed to make sure that wouldn’t happen. So the magi reached out her powers anew, this time targeting the earth. Large chunks of dirt were torn from the ground; moist and inflammable. With this she began covering the tree and surrounding it in a protective shell.

Eventually she lost track of the motions and how long she was doing this. All she knew was that she was tired. So very, very tired. Lelianna fell to her knees as the last bit of earth she’d unstably been controlled fell with her. Her strength was sapped. She could do no more. She’d done her very best to protect Y’enthal but now she just...couldn’t. As she flopped forward unto the grass, she swore she heard Y’enthal’s voice call out one last time.

~Well done, child.

---------

Lelianna awoke with a start.

Unfortunately that meant Stewart was also startled awa- Stewart! Green eyes flew to the tiny sloth just opening his eyes to start up at the hermit. The redhead was covered in a cold sweat, breath coming heavy. Her throat felt raw; had she been screaming? Well after that dream…

Gathering up the tiny sloth in her arms the druid hugged her friend close to her chest. She could feel his heartbeat. The way his tiny arms slowly began wrapping themselves around her as usual. He was alive. He was alive.

It had been just a dream.

Even so it had felt so real. So horribly, frightening real. Even now as she closed her eyes she could still see the fires raging. Skjorn and Stewart and Caroline lying there in burnt crisps. Though she hadn’t even realized tears were already coursing down her cheeks, Lelianna began crying in earnest now. Heaving sobs that shook her entire frame as she curled up in bed and desperately tried to chase the nightmare’s images from her mind.

It’s safe to say she got no more sleep that night.