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You wake from a nightmare.
It’s far from the first of its kind. Your nightly terrors have become almost routine — the way you come to consciousness all at once, cold sweat beading on your brow and heart hammering in your throat. More than once, you’d woken the camp with terrified, sleep-addled shouts of your family’s names. An exceptionally common response to trauma, Odile had explained, your repeated apologies meeting only with achingly patient understanding from the others. It’s hardly a comfort; though it’s only been a handful of weeks, you know your own luck better than to believe they'll ever truly cease.
The dream you haul yourself up from tonight is tame — almost mundane, given the horrors your sleeping mind seems able to conjure up. The memory of it is already slipping through your fingers like sand as you try to recall specifics. (The lifeless pallor of a familiar face frozen in time. A hand in the dark, the glassy eye of a Sadness as it stares at you, through you.) You’re happy enough to let it go, but the residual anxiety of it persists in an uncomfortable tightness across your shoulders, a prickle along your forearms that you have to rub away with your palms.
Next to you, Isabeau is still sleeping softly. You consider waking him; the man had given you fairly explicit orders to in moments like these, in fact. He’d hold you, if you asked, let you talk or sit in silence together until the creeping nervousness faded from your mind. But you’d already woken him up the same way just a handful of nights prior, and he’d spent the first hour of the following morning groggy and unfocused. Though he’d insisted it wasn’t you waking him, merely a coincidence, you had your doubts. You don’t want to ruin his sleep if you can help it.
Besides — you can already tell the restlessness isn’t bad enough to keep you from sleep for the entire night. You just need a bit of fresh air. As quietly as possible, you scoot out from under the blankets — that you’ve mostly stolen again, you notice with a wince — and push your way out of the tent to go and sit beside the banked coals of the campfire.
Where you had expected solitude, though, you instead discover you’re not alone in your late-night vigil. There’s another figure kneeling by the fire already, and recognition comes easily even with only the faint light of the coals and the stars above.
You’re purposefully noisy in your approach: a tuft of dry grass crunching softly under your heel, a stray twig snapping mutely beneath your weight. You have learned, by now, that your carefully-honed stealth is enough to startle the rest of your unsuspecting family all too easily. It works; you can see a head tilt faintly in your direction, and you murmur as loud as you dare:
“Odile?”
“Siffrin. Are you feeling alright?” She asks as you take a seat beside her, crossing your legs beneath you.
“Yeah.” You say without thinking, and you realize your mistake only when she looks over to scrutinize you. You’re not sure how she’s able to meet your gaze so exactly even with her glasses off. Maybe the eyepatch makes your good eye an easier target.
But — right. Honesty. The truth. She probably already knows the reason you’re out here, but it still takes you a beat to respond. “I, uh. Nightmare. You know. Not a bad one, though, I don’t even remember what it was about.” Mostly true, and even the hazy parts you remember are nothing you haven’t told her about before. “Just… needed some fresh air.”
“Without your dearest beloved Isabeau? He’ll be absolutely crushed, I’m sure.” The lilt in her voice suggests humor, and you grumble under your breath. Your face goes a little warm.
“I’d wake him or Mira up if it was bad.” You grouse, though you know she only asks to remind you of your options. But you’re determined not to ruin either of their sleep tonight, and anyway, it’s not like you’re alone out here now. Come to think of it—
“What are you doing awake? Are you alright?”
Odile smirks at that, folding her hands together in her lap as she looks back toward the smouldering coals.
“This news may surprise you, Siffrin, but bad dreams are not the territory of you and you alone.”
…
Odile… has nightmares?
It’s ridiculous that the thought catches you this off-guard. You’d suffered from them well before your time in Dormont, and you’re sure the rest of your family have admitted to having them at least a few times. But something about Odile had struck you as too composed, too sharp-minded to let something as ordinary as a nightmare disturb her sleep. Even now, your family finds new ways to give the lie to even the smallest of your assumptions; you should know better, you chastise yourself.
“Oh.” You murmur, realizing you’ve been silent for too long. “I’m sorry.” Sorry for what, you don’t know. For assuming such things were beneath her. For being so quiet and awkward in the face of her admittance.
“I’m alright. You needn’t worry on my behalf — I’m simply rewarding your honesty with my own.”
She sounds like she means it. You consider leaving it there; prying would only annoy her, you think, would only pick at a thread of conversation better left untouched. But exhaustion frays at the edges of your patience, lets your curiosity slip past before you can quite rein it in.
“What did you dream about?”
Odile pauses again at that, and out of the corner of your good eye you see her expression turn thoughtful.
“Going to make me dwell on it, are you?” She asks, and swiftly cuts off your instinctive apology before you can even begin. “I’m only teasing, Siffrin. If I didn’t want to share, I’d simply tell you as much.”
A brief pause, hesitation; you wait, not wanting to interrupt her. “And… loath as I am to admit it, I need practice with this sharing business nearly as much as you do.”
You just nod, biting back the apology that you still want to give.
“I dreamed about… falling. I’m not sure if you recall, but I’m not the best with heights.”
(You put yourself in front of Odile so she doesn’t have to see how impossibly high you are.)
You nod again. You’re familiar.
“It wasn’t dissimilar to our little tumble out of the sky, after you’d exhausted yourself at the top of the House. The others were there, too. Try as I might, I… couldn’t grasp any of your hands.”
You flinch, horror dawning over you in a cold wash. She— And it was your—
“Odile, I’m— I’m so sorry, you—”
“Siffrin. Siffrin, hush, please, or you’ll wake the rest of camp.”
You clap a hand over your mouth, mumbling a ‘sorry’ into your palm. You can’t help the guilt that crawls, insidious and needle-sharp, up the length of your spine to drape heavy on your shoulders. Odile’s nightmare was, at least in part, your fault. You think back to how cautiously she’d touched down even with Mirabelle’s shield protecting her, the tremble in her arms as she’d embraced you along with everyone else. Stars. You’d done this to her and you hadn’t even blinding realized.
“Before you even think about blaming yourself — don’t.” Odile’s voice cuts through the lightless cloud of your thoughts, reclaiming your attention. “Unless you’ve somehow managed to invent Dream Craft while I wasn’t looking, you bear no responsibility for all of the wonderful ways the mind can twist our memories while we sleep. It could just as easily have been about anything prior to our arrival in Dormont.”
It hardly soothes your worries, but after a few slow breaths you’ve at least got a handle on your volume enough to speak up.
“I know, but— I still—”
“No, Siffrin.” She silences you again with a wave of her hand. “I don’t want to hear any arguments to the contrary. I won’t have you guilt yourself over this.” You can hear her voice soften, though you still can’t bring yourself to look at her. “Worrying you was not my intention. I told you because you asked, because you deserve my honesty. But it was my nightmare, not yours. I am the sole party responsible for doling out blame — and I absolve you of it entirely.”
It’s a decisive decree, hushed as she is in the quiet; you know you won’t gain any ground here, no matter how hard you try. Instead, you smile halfheartedly, trying to let her words wash the stubborn dregs of anxiety from your mind. “Is that how that works, now?”
“It is indeed how that works.”
The quiet that follows the end of your conversation is a familiar comfort. The unspoken mutual appreciation for quiet companionship that existed between you before Dormont has persisted after it as well, to your relief. The night around you rises to fill the silence — the quiet crackle of slow-burning wood, the lilting songs of nocturnal fauna. At some point, you tilt your head up to gaze at the stars. Even after everything, they still grip you with a fondness that settles in your chest, soothing and aching in equal measure. Beside you, for a handful of moments, Odile does the same.
‘You will not guilt yourself over this.’
You repeat Odile’s words in your mind, willing yourself to listen, to seek out the kindness you know lies in her tone. It isn’t easy — you have to fight the urge to dig your nails into your palms, to face your mistakes and let yourself drown in them. But you cling to Odile's insistence like a lifeline, dragging your thoughts away from that familiar, well-trod spiral downward. You sit. You breathe. You watch the stars. Slowly, the weight on your chest eases.
You're not sure how long you sit in silence beside the campfire; your sense of time has gone sideways, lately. Eventually, Odile stretches, rising from her knees with a wince. She hides a yawn behind the back of one hand, and you mimic it a beat later, suddenly acutely aware of just how tired you are.
“I’d best be off before I fall asleep out here. Don’t let yourself get too lost in thought, sleepy one; the early birds want us packed up and on the road again before noon.”
“Nooo, my beauty rest.” You whine, laughing under your breath. Odile smiles down at you, kind and knowing.
“...Thank you, Siffrin. Regardless of the circumstances, I mean it when I say I enjoy your company.” She reaches down to ruffle your hair, and the comfort of it bleeds the last of the tension from your shoulders.
“Same to you, Odile.” And you mean it too, with all your heart.
There’s little reason to stay at the fireside for very long once she’s gone. You duck back inside your own tent after a handful of minutes, feeling lighter than when you’d left despite the unexpected turn. Gingerly, you try to slip back into your shared bed, hoping you won’t—
Isabeau makes a noise, half-slurred by sleep, and turns in your direction. You freeze stock-still, blankets already half pulled over yourself — please stay asleep, please stay asleep, please — and watch as one eye opens, just barely. So much for not disturbing his rest.
“Someth’n wrong?” He mumbles blearily, squinting up at you. You shake your head.
“Bad dream— but I’m fine now. I’m good. Odile helped.”
Isabeau blinks up at you for several long seconds, and you pray he hasn’t assumed the worst. It’s the whole truth, for once; you’re tired, the anxiety is gone, and waking him further over it would be to no one’s benefit. You drop the blanket over yourself and settle your head onto the pillow beside him.
“I’m fine, Isa.” You whisper. “Really. Go back to sleep.”
You hear him shift, and a moment later a familiar weight and warmth drapes itself over your flank. His palm settles gently between your shoulders as he curls his arm around you. You’re glad he’s still so out of it; even now, the closeness makes your pulse leap and your cheeks darken embarrassingly.
“This okay?” He murmurs — still asking permission, still so polite even when he’s fighting sleep. It’s unbearably sweet, and your face feels warm as you tuck yourself closer to him, smiling to yourself.
“Yeah.” You say softly in response. Better than okay. Much better.
“Hafta… tell m’dame… thanks, t’morrow…” Isabeau grows more and more unintelligible with every trailing word, and in no time at all he’s asleep once more. You breathe the quietest sigh of relief. You'll have to thank her, too.
With the memory of Odile’s hand in your hair, and the comforting weight of Isabeau’s arm cradling you, you can already feel yourself slipping further into rest with each rise and fall of your shoulders. Sleep comes more easily than you’d dared hope, and this time it is mercifully dreamless.