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Jace Beleren jolted awake, head burning with scenes from a nightmare. Gold, the color of the sun, the color of dragons that ripped apart the sky. Gold seared his brain, but silver was no better, welling up behind his eyelids and crashing into him, sweeping him away on dark tides to lands unknown.
Where was he?
Oh.
Right.
On Ravnica. In his study.
He dredged his mind for why he was there.
Gideon had called a “sleepover”. Whatever that was. Apparently it meant communal sleeping, in the same room, all together. It struck Jace as a childish thing to do, but it wasn't as though many of them were far beyond that stage of life.
It was him, Gideon, Jace, Nissa, Ajani, and Chandra, and Teferi too. It had been harrowing, these past few weeks.
Reconciling Gideon and Ajani had been painful. Lots of arguments that Jace and Chandra had to quell, to varying degrees of success. (One night when words nearly came to blows, Jace noticed that Chandra was... surprisingly amazing at handling emotions, now. When asked, she smiled and said she'd finally taken a certain somebody's words to heart.)
They had managed. Teferi had been a big help- the oldest planeswalker of them all at the moment, and the wisest. He and his warm humor and gentle guidance had helped Ajani and Gideon settle their differences, and so now Ajani lay next to Jace on one side, fast asleep, Gideon on the other, also dozing. (Jace was grateful neither snored.)
Finding Nissa had been painful, too. Zendikar needed her, after all.
Chandra had been the one to bring Nissa back with them. Convinced Nissa that though she need not rejoin the Gatewatch, that the people of Zendikar were doing well in healing their beautiful, terrible world, and that Nicol Bolas’s defeat needed to happen, and happen soon if Zendikar’s life and freedom stood a shot at survival. Nissa had hesitated, had fretted, and Jace understood. After Amonkhet…
Jace forced his memories to quell themselves. Amonkhet was not what he wanted to think about. Gold was not the color he wanted to recall.
Nissa had rejoined, retaken oath. “To heal what has been hurt, I will keep watch.” Jace rather liked that. He reached out psychically, sensed Nissa and Chandra asleep nearby, close together, the one’s head rested on the other's shoulder.
He wondered what kind of oath Vraska might take, if she joined the Gatewatch.
Vraska.
Jace remembered his last words to Vraska. “Coffee and a book.” The neat bundle of her memories still laid inside the well of his mind, undisturbed by his or anyone else’s hands. Vraska the pirate, the talented, Vraska his friend.
Vraska who was still in the clutches of Nicol Bolas.
Jace tensed, gold burning into his mind, panorama of images boiling over from his mental well and flooding his brain. Vraska was trapped as a pawn of Bolas, and Bolas had the Immortal Sun, and Liliana was nowhere to be found and the scars from Tezzeret’s mana blade all hurt so much, Kallist was dead, Jace had ripped Alhammaret’s mind apart, Emmara Tandris lay without memory, the Guildpact danced on a frayed thread, Lavinia must be so mad at him and just what were the guilds plotting, what did Ugin even want, and dear gods above, would the blood, the blood, the blood he'd shed and been made to shed ever wash away from his hands-
Ajani shifted in his sleep, soft fur brushing against Jace’s hand, and the torrent of static pounding down on Jace’s brain, the blurred horror of memories buried, the cacophony of cacophonies piled atop one another quieted. All that was left was the night, the dark, the crickets chirping, the rain pattering down the window, his friends’ slow, deep breaths.
Gideon was warm.
Chandra was warm.
Nissa was warm.
Ajani was warm.
The mind mage roused himself, looking around at the Gatewatch, all around him. He heard the faint sound of Teferi humming, somewhere far away.
He smiled, once, to himself. He laid back down, and closed his eyes.
No dragons screamed through the sky of Jace’s dreams. No sphinxes writhed at his feet. No crocodiles thrashed with mouths full of flesh and blood.
Instead, Jace’s sleep was finally filled with warmth, with blue skies and soft rain and pirate shanties and the embraces of friends and the bravery of gorgons.
Jace rested.