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Tonight, that dream is back.
The one with the whirling wind beating against every inch of fair skin of her face. The one with the bright sky stretching for miles into the horizon, no end in sight, perhaps genuinely limitless and ever-expanding. Clouds, too, sometimes. Big, fluffy masses moving effortlessly like floating vegetables in a steamy, warm broth upon the stove.
The winds are knocking her hair every which way. Her bangs are getting jostled, her glasses nearly struck clean off her ears and the bridge of her nose.
Her balance is teetering. The stable ground underneath her feet has grown small and difficult to balance on—has shrunk to the narrow beam of the edge of a building, her heels leaning off, only the toes of her shoes grounded to any sort of surface.
The winds knock her off as effortlessly as a piece of paper caught in the breeze.
Odile falls.
She is falling.
Her stomach feels like a devoid pit of nothingness. No nausea. No queasiness. No sickening anxiety turning her insides out.
Her mind is empty, too. She can’t think to scream, so she doesn’t. The fall is always silent. Even the wind beating at her ear drums is muffling and suffocating. Her hands are outstretched and open, yet nothing is there to catch onto and save herself.
She sees her reflection in the buildings’ windows as she descends.
She knows the bottom is getting close when the reflection of signs and lamp posts, street lights and other, smaller buildings are approaching, and she can make out the ground underneath as her body comes closer.
Her body comes closer.
H e r b o d y c o m e s c l o s e r t o t h e g r o u n d a n d o n l y t h e p a v e m e n t c a n c a t c h h e r .
She squeezes her eyes shut as she watches asphalt come within an inch of her back in the windows’ reflective gaze.
. . .
Something tickles at her chin.
At the side of her face, where her cheekbone meets her jaw and her jaw blends into her chin and starts the descent of her neck to her collarbone. Something warm has settled against the side of her body, with a tickling sensation akin to hair or fur teasing at her skin.
She stirs and shifts, trying to get away from it. It feels weird as all hell—
—but she can’t move.
Something else is wrapped around her frame, keeping her cradled and hooked in around her stomach. Something lean and lithe and long, like a snake coiled around her abdomen, except she feels the hardened and blunt solidity of bone within it too.
She stirs again. She can’t break free.
She feels her inflection grumble out of her throat, an annoyed groan surfacing from her lips. She hears it, in her raspy, sleep-riddled voice.
Then, she hears another voice, that is decidedly not hers.
“ —dile…” It half-whispers, half-pleads.
Odile’s stirring stops, and she stills in place, thinking as she hears this. Realizing that she is awake, has been awake for a moment now, and that her windy descent was just the 12th time she’s had that dream in the last month and a half. Yes, she’d been keeping track.
But another realization follows:
She is not alone here, but she had definitely gone to bed alone, because she definitely remembered slipping extra to the innkeeper to have her own room so she’d not have to deal with any of Isabeau and Siffrin’s flirting, nor Mirabelle’s late-night readings (and vocal reactions) nor Bonnie’s snoring.
(She loves them all, but she needs her sleep. )
The voice pleads again, a little louder.
“Dile…” It’s whining now. It’s choked up and teary. It’s upset.
It’s crying.
Odile knows that voice.
Her eyes fly open as panic invigorates her. It is dark and blurry, which is exceptionally unhelpful in this scenario. Her glasses are on the nightstand, a struggle-and-a-half-to-reach away, and the lack of sunlight nor candlelight in this room is making it nearly impossible to make out anything more than a few inches away.
Which is somehow fine, right now, because Bonnie’s face is nuzzled against hers, their unruly hair teasing at her chin, their arms holding tight to her stomach, and her hands having subconsciously found themselves at home, wrapped back around the little preteen in return.
She doesn’t remember moving to hug Bonnie back, but it feels right.
Bonnie is sniffling, their breaths hitched. They’re trembling.
Odile’s arms around them tighten gently, a hand rubbing at their back.
“Boniface, what… What’s wrong…?”
She can’t quite see their expression when they hesitate with their words before mumbling.
“... i had a nightmare…”
They almost sound ashamed when they admit it. Like they know they need help, but lately Bonnie’s been in that inbetween phase of not quite being a child and not quite being a teenager, and thus less susceptible to accepting needed help because, ‘they’re too old to cry about everything and anything.’
Odile wants to say there is no age limit on needing help and comfort, but to be honest, she remembers feeling similarly when she was Bonnie’s age. She remembers the humiliation she felt when she needed to come to her father for something as minuscule as a bad dream, even if he was very calming and very comforting about it.
She never did enjoy that feeling.
“... Let’s talk about it, then. Would you like to?” She asks.
She still can’t clearly make out their face, but can see the movement of their head when they nod quietly. One of Bonnie’s arms retracts from around her and, through the blurry moving of a striped pajama sleeve, she can roughly see them wipe their eyes dry.
Odile swears she is not the protective type. She is certainly not a motherly type, and has never wanted children, nor ever seen herself as the best candidate for managing Bonnie’s outbursts—Isabeau has always been the bigger expert in the feelings department, even if she genuinely cared for Bonnie all the same.
But she can’t find even a centimeter of spirit within her that has the heart to turn them away. She wouldn’t be able to rest knowing they were upset.
Bonnie sniffles again, and it breaks Odile’s heart just a hint more.
“... ‘B-Bout Nille…”
“Nille…?” She asks.
“My sister,” they quickly follow up, “Her name’s Nille…”
A knowing frown grows on Odile’s face even further. She, and the others, knew all too well that Nille was time-frozen in Bambouche right now.
The entire reason Bonnie was with their party was to give them a safe space to be looked after in, when their home was no longer an option, and with the Curse continuing to creep upon the nation, their safest bet to avoid it was to stay with their ever-moving band of travelers and hopeful-saviors. On that fateful afternoon, when Siffrin had first alerted them all to a weakened, sweatied, dehydrated, half-awake child traveling in their teary lonesome and struggling to even stand anymore, Odile had decided then and there she would never let any further harm come to Bonnie.
Not now. Not ever.
“... What if she never moves again?” They ask. Odile, somehow, doesn’t need her glasses to see Bonnie’s chin move upwards, their eyes directly on hers, their voice still teary and distraught.
They’re still trembling. “What if… What if we can’t beat the King? Or what if we do, and… And nothing changes? We go all the way to Bambouche, all the way to our house, and I run up to her, and…”
“... And she is still frozen in time? As if the Curse didn’t wear off, and everyone who is struck by it is stuck that way forever?”
Bonnie nods. They sniffle again, a shaky breath wracking their frame. That must be the sort of thing that haunts their dreams often; that all their efforts may go to waste and nothing can save their sister, after all this time.
Odile’s heart shatters a hint more and she has to force herself to look away to keep her own eyes from feeling wet and glossy.
Child-rearing is hard. Being there, being everything that a child could need, is hard.
But someone has to be there for them.
She can’t just up and leave them behind. She can’t just uproot everything and leave them wanting and abandoned.
Not like a certain someone else she knows. Or rather, never got the opportunity to know very well.
But her father was there for her. He tried. He always tried his hardest, and it was always sincere, and always honest, and always loving. He loved her.
Odile loves Bonnie, even if she is physically allergic to using the dreaded, “L-word,” and letting that phrase actually leave her lips.
She gently rubs Bonnie’s back. Little, comforting circular movements. It always helped when her father did that, and Bonnie’s trembling seems to cease when she does.
“Boniface,” She starts, her tone soft and quiet, “We will save your sister. I mean that. And you know I’m not the person of this group who will just blindly throw out anything for the sake of false-hope. I wouldn’t say it unless I really believed it, and I wouldn’t lie to you, ever.”
“But you don’t know that…” They sniffle again. “How can you know that?”
Because she will fight tooth and nail to ensure Bonnie gets everything they ever need or want in this life.
Because someone has to look out for them.
Because they deserve to be loved, and Nille undoubtedly loved them from how highly they always spoke of her.
“Because we can defeat the Sadnesses. We’ve been doing so. And Mirabelle and I have Crafting skills far beyond the average person, and Isabeau is a hell of a lot stronger than most people could hope to be, and Siffrin can outrun anything they’d need to. We are an exceptional group going on an exceptional journey. We’ve already been accomplishing things no one else in Vaugarde could do.”
… Her hand moves in to gently wipe the tears from Bonnie’s cheek; a favorite move her father always took to calm her in her youth.
“... If there is anyone in this world who can undo the Curse, it’s us, Boniface. And I wouldn’t dream of giving up until we do. I swear on that. Have I ever broken my swears to you before?”
They shake their head. “N-No… None of you guys ever have.”
She feels her lips curling into a smile. “Then put your trust in us again. We’ll get you back home to Bambouche safely, and make sure your sister can hug you again.”
“... Do you promise?”
She chuckles. “I promise.”
“Do you super promise?”
Oh, gems. This kid…
“Yes, Boniface, I super promise.” She tries hard not to roll her eyes, though she is still smiling.
“But do you super duper promise, Dile?”
GEMS ALIVE.
Odile’s hands lower to Bonnie’s stomach, starting to tickle them until they erupt in boisterous laughter, squirming around like an earthworm in the dirt.
“S-Stop, Dile…!” They snort and chuckle, still wriggling.
She cackles. “Not until you accept that I super duper promise we will save your sister, and go back to sleep!”
“Okay…! O-Okay, okay, you super duper promise! I’ll believe you!” They can’t help but keep wiggling, keep laughing, the joyous boom of their voice being a welcome music to Odile’s ears.
Suddenly, her heart feels warm and mended again.
… But even as she retracts her hands, Boniface is giving her a look that she doesn’t need her glasses to decipher. As if they still need something.
“... Yes?” She asks, a brow raised.
They look off and away, then back at her.
“Um… Do you promise not to laugh?”
“Hm? Of course, Boniface, I’d never make fun of you. But what is it?”
“... Can I stay here and fall asleep with you? Please, Dile?” Their voice is soft and sweet again. Endearing, so much as it is terrifying. Because Odile has never recognized herself as a soft and sweet person, and does not want to be the one to shatter Bonnie in any way with her unintentionally rough nature.
So how can she say anything else but: “That’d be more than fine, Boniface. So long as you don’t kick me in your sleep, that is.”
They laugh. “I super duper promise I won’t.”
Odile smiles. “Then you can stay all night.”
She dries the last of tear stains from Bonnie’s face with the swipe of her own sleeve and returns to wrapping her arms back around them. She isn’t huge on hugging, but… she can enjoy it, for now. This one time.
And after suffering her own nightmare, the company isn’t unwelcome.