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Takumi was eight when The Dreams first appeared.
Mikoto had told him of them countless times-- he, and Sakura, and even Hinoka every once in a while. He'd pretended to be bored with the story, to listen only because it was Sakura's favorite, but... in truth, it had intrigued him.
"Long, long ago," she would speak, at so quiet a whisper it could not be heard unless all else was silent. "There lived a dragon in a world of dreams and song. And so, too, lived a princess in a land ravaged by war. In the ruins of her own kingdom, she wandered, swept into obscurity by the mists of time, until at last she came upon an ocean. Struck by its serenity, even when all else seemed lost, the princess found her voice. And she sang, she sang the most beautifully that she'd ever sung."
"Like Azura," Sakura would add-- hushed, hesitant, as if she was afraid she would somehow break the story by speaking.
"Exactly," Mikoto's voice trembled, as if that one word held tremendous power. "Exactly like Azura. A song of strength, and creation, and beauty. The dragon heard this song, and gave it life. He plucked it from her throat, like a thread from a piece of cloth, long and bright red. But he had not the same power as a dragon in the world of the living-- he could only use the thread of her song in the world of dreams, where he reigned king... and so, to give her hope, he connected her dreams to those of a handsome king from a faraway realm, one who would love her with all of his heart. Her soulmate."
Sometimes, Mikoto would trail off here. Lose her place in the story, as if she hadn't told it a hundred times by now. But then, Sakura would yawn, or Hinoka would gently nudge her, and even Takumi was known to helpfully cough from time to time.
And so, she would continue, "On the night of the full moon, she dreamed of the king leading his soldiers into battle, dreamed that he protected her from foes, and had healed his wounds in turn. This gave her the strength to wander for a month more, searching for the man in her dreams. When she fell into despair again, the gentle dragon plucked the string once more, and on the next full moon, she dreamed of the king in his court, of moonlit walks beneath the trees in full bloom, and of dancing on through the night.
"Desperate to meet the one in her dreams, she wandered yet a month more, wearing holes in her shoes, oft unable to find food. At last, on the night of the full moon, she collapsed in the streets of a foreign city, starving, exhausted, convinced that the one in her dreams was just that-- a mere dream. But, that night, she dreamed of horses, and of whispering directions in the king's ear, directions she herself hardly knew the meaning of."
And this time, when Mikoto paused, it was Takumi who would always impatiently interrupt, "And then?"
"When she woke up the next morning, it was to the sound of hoofbeats landing from a lengthy flight," and Mikoto smiled, then, overjoyed that perhaps Takumi liked this story, after all. "The king lifted her from the dirt, offered her food and drink... and when he saw her face, newly washed, he asked if he knew her from a dream. The dragon, upon seeing their joy, as so moved that he decided all people should share in it. And so now, when we and our soulmates have shared the notes of a song... so, too, do we share in their dreams on the night of every full moon thereafter."
"Why," Takumi would ask, even through his yawns, "Why the full moon?"
"Some say," Mikoto would whisper, softly brushing Sakura's hair as the youngest princess drifted off into her own dreams, humming the notes of her soulmate-song half-asleep, "That it is because it's when the realm of dreams is at its strongest. Some say that it is to honor the princess, and her struggle to find the king. But most, I think, would say that it's because the moon provides just enough light for the dragon to pluck at all those strings of song without missing even one."
"That's ridiculous," Takumi wanted to reply, but even though he had not yet begun to Dream, his eyes grew heavy like any other child's, and he would fall into another fitful sleep.
And so, that night when the Dreams first appeared, Takumi knew that they were truly Dreams, and not merely the dreams he'd known.
The dreams he'd known were full of darkness, blacks and blues and greys, shadows that hovered over him in the depths of night. At best, they were the echoes of his siblings, voices warped into gibberish as the darkness slowly faded over his dreams. At worst, it was the creepy mask in Mama Mikoto's room, supposedly a religious idol, laughing with a loose jaw, threatening to swallow him whole.
There were many nights where he could not remember his dreams at all, had woken breathing hard, legs tangled in his sheets, in the middle of the night with no recollection whatsoever of what he'd dreamed of.
(Sometimes, those nights were the scariest.)
But when Takumi Dreamed that first night, he saw meadows with strange flowers, ones that he'd never seen before, not even in books. Light filtered through each strand of grass almost too-beautifully to be real, the haze of a warm sun settling into his skin. And, he thought with wonder, the world glowed.
Takumi had never before dreamed of the light.
There was an unearthly air about this place, something that he couldn't truly describe. Perhaps, in that moment, he understood how delicate the world of dreams could be. Perhaps, he worried irrationally, merely breaking the silence might make the the entire world crumble into the nothingness characteristic of his own dreams, gone forever. There was something too sacred about this ground, too ethereal, to taint it with the shadow of a voice.
He wandered, then, and the grass did not rustle where he stepped-- the dream, in its silence, too delicate. He cast his gaze towards the sky-- blue, so blue-- and attempted to use the crisp sunlight to gather his bearings. It was close to noon, he thought... the sun was high, but not quite the highest it could have been.
There were the quietest of notes in the wind that passed him, almost soft enough that Takumi almost missed it. But ha, he thought, the corner of his lip quirking up. It seemed there was nothing here that could escape his notice. And so, he he began his trek to the source of the sound, as curious as any other of what their soulmate looked like, dreamed like.
The echo of the wind carried him through a forest, first-- silent, vacant. Birds nestled in the trees but did not call, leaves crinkled beneath his feet but did not crunch. Scarcely could Takumi hear the heavy thud of his own heart, even as his silent footsteps carried him over a craggy hill. A temple lay within the vale, though Takumi couldn't recognize the weathered symbols on its walls, lichens seeping into every stone so that bits and pieces crumbled when he touched it.
He almost hesitated to open the door. Almost, but not quite, and so he pushed it open, beheld what was within.
It was as if he had discovered it was possible to dream of light all over again.
There was simply no other way to describe it, Takumi thought. The boy seemed to be made of sunshine, its brilliance seeping from his very skin. It was not-- as some others might mistake-- merely the way the sun filtered through his hair as he turned to view his visitor, nor was it the near-outlandish yellow garb he donned, all at once completely foreign and utterly, comfortingly familiar. He seemed hewn from the light, born of stardust, and POW! The way he sparkled almost hurt Takumi to look at too long, glimmering as if the gods themselves had selected him for some unknown task.
His eyes didn't seem to come from any real dimension, stars within themselves, inquiring. A flicker of light, and it became clear that he was smiling at the stranger before him, supposedly a dragon-god's careful choice, but still a stranger yet.
And in that moment, Takumi managed to forget the fragility of this dream, managed to forget how very delicate it was. Forcing his lips to open seemed a momentous task, but still yet he continued, slowly, heavily. The last warning went ignored.
In a burst of uncontrolled weakness that he would regret in the years to come, Takumi blurted out, "Who are you?"
And all at once, the boy burst into nothingness, each shimmering particle fading like a dust mote in the wind, and the rest of the dream shattered behind him, falling from its place like broken glass from a window-frame. Piece by piece, in crude chunks and jagged edges, it dissipated and left nothing.
Nothing, save for emptiness.
Then, Takumi dreamed of the darkness, of the shadows swirling about him fitfully, of mirror shards that cut at him if he tried to escape. He dreamed of his own reflection, twisted into strange and hateful expressions, before it, too, cracked and shattered like his flesh was porcelain. He dreamed, slept fitfully, panicking as his his legs refused to move, refused to run--
And then he awoke, his heart pounding in his chest, to the pitch black of night, too dark for even the earliest of birds.
Takumi was eight when The Dream first appeared, with its soft meadows and comforting light. Takumi was eight when he learned, at last, that the legends were true, perhaps truer than any other bedtime tale, the sound of eyes-like-stars shattering, echoing still in his ears. And so, that night when the Dreams first appeared, Takumi knew that they were truly Dreams, and not merely the dreams he'd known. Indeed, after that first full-moon night, Takumi knew that he never truly had dreams at all.
They had all been nightmares.
It wasn't until many, many years later that the second Dream took root, crawling into the sleep of a teenager trapped mid-apocalypse.
Owain-- for he had been Owain, then, before the light in his heart had faded in favor of the doomed, abyssal dark-- Owain had not Dreamed, by then, for almost six years, his mind conjuring fantastic reasons why his soulmate could not reply, could not dream, for seventy consecutive months, and just as many full moons.
The boy he'd seen back then, the one with cleanly-tied hair, fogged in Owain's sight as if through frosted glass, and if hard-pressed to recall his features... Owain was ashamed to say that he was unable to do it, save for that his hair was silver, glorious, flowing around his face as if he were the full moon itself and his hair, its very beams made tangible. A subdued, ethereal glow, Owain thought-- just as soon as he was old enough to know what the words "subdued" and "ethereal" meant. He blurred at the edges, flickered in the breeze. Maybe dream-Owain needed dream-glasses.
But his voice, Owain would remember eternally, that cracking lilt of who are you. It was the same voice that interrogated him in every nightmare he'd had since his mother's death, reminded always that she had been the last beacon of purity and hope in a land of ruined futures. Reminded, indeed, that she had died taking an arrow to her heart, an arrow meant for Owain himself, and that the last words of dying mothers and heroes in fairy-tales were just that-- merely fairy tales.
She had almost died instantaneously, gasping in pain as the arrow tip protruded from her breast, having pierced directly through her back. There was no time for any of the speeches that the chosen heroes of yore had heard from their dying parents, only agonized hands slipping a delicate pair of rings into Owain's-- Lissa's own wedding band, and his father's.
"Owain," her voice seemed to strain from even those two syllables, and she trembled, fell to the ground before him. With her dying breath, one word: "Run."
His mother had deserved a better fate than to become another battlefield casualty, body unrecognizable from the remains of a dozen others who had sacrificed their lives that day. Ylisstol still stood, if but barely; the beds of an ancient temple turned hospital were filled to capacity with the sick, the injured, the terrified.
The people of Ylisse now turned to Lucina, the Heiress Exalted, a young woman of scarcely sixteen summers. But with Grima's looming shadow, hovering in the sky above them, they despaired. And just as Lucina had taken up the mantle of her father (dead for nigh a decade, by now) so too Owain should have taken up the voice of hope among the citizens of Ylisse, to become their beacon of light.
(He would profess to trying his best, truly, but even yet did a childish voice echo in his mind, who are you, who are you. And so, too, did Owain have to confess that he wasn't entirely sure.)
Perhaps... perhaps before his mother had died in front of him, her blood dripping from a wound no stave could repair, he could have told himself that his soul-bonded dreamsharer was merely nocturnal, or perhaps lived in a faraway dimension that took years and years for shared dreams to arrive, even on the most deft of plucked connections. Perhaps not just the moon, but the stars too, had to align in order to deliver to him the thoughts of his chosen one, eons away in both time and space.
Perhaps he may have been able to imagine then, before the very light of Ylisse had died to protect him. Before the edge of dark stole into his heart. Owain had to acknowledge, now, that there was the slightest possibility (however slim it may be) that his soulmate was dead, killed in the Risen invasion.
He slept more fitfully, after that, knowing that on nights of the full moon, his silent worries would be given silent proof.
In the end, it had been Severa who brought him the dream-- Severa, who had bitterly tossed him a vial of ash-gray sludge one eve as she threw herself into one of the barracks' ancient chairs.
"What's this... a secret poison meant for me to use on our foes?" Owain caught it purely on reflex, eyeing the viscous substance. "A weapon of pure awesome, designed to have effect on even the undead abominations we face?"
"Gawds, Owain," and Severa couldn't even muster the energy to sound vitriolic, only exasperated. "It's a sleeping potion. Laurent invented it. You haven't slept in like, a week."
"Ah... so then, our intrepid mage friend discovered it recently, bringing relief to those who cannot sleep," Owain grinned, "His own variety of heroism towards the frail and the restless down in the hospital."
"Uh, no," Severa scoffed. "Laurent invented it almost two years ago. But you've never shown signs of having sleeping problems before, so I guess you wouldn't know about it. How about instead of asking me where it comes from, you thank me and take it, so you can get a decent night's rest?"
"And leave another sleepless? Nay, I refuse to take that which would offer relief to a citizen of my realm!" Owain theatricated.
"Ugh... look, I won't be doing this again," Severa scowled. "For your information, it's supposed to be mine. But on nights of the full moon, I can't sleep anyways, no matter how much of it I take. If you don't use it, it's just going to go to waste, so just shut up and take the medicine, okay?"
"Severa..." and here, he looked at her oddly, trying to figure her out for a moment. That girl could be nigh-incomprehensible, he thought. "Very well. At the behest of a dear friend, I shall imbibe the draught of the living death that is sleep. O, parting is such sweet sorrow!"
"Whatever... just make sure to get some rest, okay? Lucina's worried about you," Severa rolled her eyes, but it was clear that she did not mean only Lucina. "No one can afford to be distracted like that, especially in these times."
It was for Lucina and Severa, then, that Owain accepted the potion, the gray sludge sliding down his throat with a curdling sourness that made his tastebuds wail for reprieve. He coughed, sputtered, and a dribble of it spilled from the corner of his mouth as he rushed for water, gulping it down to wash the taste from his mouth as best as he could. The aftertaste bore a disgusting bitterness, Owain thought, his stomach churning as he wiped the gray slop from the corner of his mouth. But, he supposed, he was rather tired after all, and clambered into his cot for another night of emptiness.
He did not expect the second Dream to come that night, the skies so darkened by the Fell Dragon's shadow that the moon itself was concealed. But it came, then, taking root in the sleep of a teenager trapped mid-apocalypse.
It was the shadows that appeared first, subtle flickers of light, overlapping grays. They set Owain immediately on edge, his hands reaching for his sword, pulling it from its sheath as if one of the shadows might slip from the labyrinth of darkness in degrees. There were subtle, hissing whispers, fading into each other wordlessly like assassins in the night.
He took a step. It echoed in the vacuous dream.
"Who's there?" a voice cried, harsh, but still yet familiar, and when Owain turned, he found himself nose-to-nose with an arrow tip-- glowing, blue, the deadly hum of the vibrating air seeming to come from the bowstring itself.
Lucina's emergency reaction training drills kicked in almost immediately, and Owain lashed out with his sword, swinging the blade up and out, and the arrow missed its mark as the bow itself was jostled upward, soaring dangerously close to, but solidly missing his head. In the next swing, Owain brought his sword down, finding that it met the metal arc of the bow with a resilient clang, and twisted his arms over both weapons in an attempt to disarm his attacker.
"You will not vanquish me, beast of the shadows," Owain exhaled, panting as he was countered, pushed back to skid against the floor, the shadows whispering even more loudly now, almost loudly enough to begin making sense. "For 'tis I, Owain Dark, Avenger of Righteous Justice! And I will not be controlled by that which runs in my veins!"
"I'm the shadow?" and with the next stretch of the bow, the glowing, blue magic arrow lit up a face, scarcely recognizable, but round like the moon, framed by moonbeam-pale hair that Owain could have recognized anywhere. The voice, too, familiar-- older, now, deeper, but decidedly familiar. "You're wrong! I'm just as good as my brother... I'm no shadow!"
And this time, when the arrow released, Owain was too frozen to move, the tardy realization and the memory of an arrow, not too different from this one, flying towards him in the Risen siege of Ylisstol, his mother's body, swinging between him and his impending doom...
Suddenly, then, the dream morphed, sharpened. The shadows flickered, fell over the echo of a memory instead, and two dreams became one and the same. The whispers became an underlying track to the muted cries of battle, the broken voice, "Owain, run."
The glowing arrow dissipated three inches from Owain's body, as if it had never been shot to begin with, its archer distracted, taken aback by the terrible scene of battle.
"What is this?" a panicked noise escaped from a throat framed by moonbeam-hair, and the strange boy turned, firing madly at the crowd of advancing Risen. "What are they?"
"Risen!" Owain cried back, the terrible nightmare made even worse by the prospect that his soulmate, who he hadn't seen in over half a decade, could die here too. "Run! There's too many of them to fight... there's always too many of them to fight in this dream!"
"Too many of them for you, maybe," the boy answered, pulling his hair back into a high ponytail. He narrowed his eyes at the foes, pulled the string back with a tremendous focus, one that not even Noire could manage on her best days. "But there's two of us now! Come on... we've got a chokehold, we've got tree cover. If you've got my back... we can do this!"
When met with a determined look like that, Owain could only nod, "All right, we're in this together then. With all speed, let us fight!"
And perhaps it was the confidence his soulmate had spoken with, the bravery in his stance, or perhaps how, when his heart beat this time, it did not fill with the toxic ache of darkness, but with the strength of a brewing storm. But this time, when Owain dared to test his mettle against the Risen siege, they fell easily to his sword hand, perhaps weakened by the scattershot of glowing blue arrows. Or, perhaps if he thought about it, maybe he had been the one strengthened by this boy in otherworldly garb, and this absolute support.
They defeated the dream, that which had haunted Owain for months, and even the shadows that had been the other half of the dream seemed less menacing, now.
"Thank you," Owain breathed, catching his breath as he readied his sword once more. "Let's fight yours, too!"
"No... not these ones," the archer hurriedly pushed his arm down. "These ones are my family... it's not like it's their fault I can't dream in anything but shadows."
And, indeed, now that Owain had paused to look and listen, there were signs of familial affection among the shadows. The outline of a woman, praising a young girl for learning how to use staves. A teenager on a horse, perhaps some sort of pegasus knight, guarding a swordsman in a sparring session. The shadow of an ambiguous toddler, fainter than the rest, running through the halls.
"Do I," Owain began. Curiously, "Do I look like a shadow to you?"
"No," the boy answered, shaking his head, "You've always looked like... like light. That's how I knew I didn't just make you up... everything else is dark here."
"Your face has graced neither my dream nor sight in years," Owain confessed. "It's not exactly characteristic of Owain Dark to have any doubts, but..."
"I know the feeling," sighed the boy of moonbeams, and Owain took a few moments to memorize that face, lest he forget it again, lest it be years before they shared another dream. "I'm not sure why we don't dream of each other every full moon... maybe I'm cursed. But I'm real, and if we meet... when we meet... just remember me. Okay?"
"Okay," answered Owain. "I swear this vow of solemnity upon the blade of my forefathers...!"
"You can cut the theatrics," his soulmate tisked, "A promise is good enough."
"Then," Owain looked more solemn than before, less like he was trying to come up with things to say. With full weight in his words, "I promise."
Owain woke, then, jolted awake by a hand shaking his shoulder, Inigo's voice hissing in his ear, "Wake up, Owain, they've found us, we've got to move!"
"Wha-- Inigo, what manner of foe hastens your charge?" Owain rubbed the sleep from his eyes, tried to swallow the words in his too-dry, too-bitter mouth. He shucked on his overshirt, grabbed the blade from beside his cot, "Risen?"
"I know, they have dreadful timing," Inigo winced. "They probably figured that most of us would be off our guard, at dawn the night after the full moon... didn't count on Severa and I still doing rounds, though. She went for Lucina; help me wake the rest?"
"You've got it," Owain nodded, already making his way through the barracks. "I've got Brady and Yarne, you're good for Gerome and Laurent?"
"Of course," Inigo winked, trying to keep the mood light, "I knew I could count on you... you're the biggest loudmouth in the army for a reason."
"I take offense to that!" Owain scowled, ducking into Brady and Yarne's room to end the conversation.
After all, they had a battle to prepare for... and Owain, the soft hum of a glowing bowstring still lingering in his head, had a good feeling about this one.
And, dimensions away, in a castle in Hoshido, a young prince woke from his slumber, restful and complete for once. Perhaps, he thought, the Fujin Yumi would cooperate with him in practice today, and summoning the bowstring would be easier this time.
He got out of bed, that dawn, to train. Wouldn't want to disappoint Owain, after all, when they finally met.
Years passed, again, before Owain shared another Dream. Enough years for Lucina to see victory over Grima, enough years for a ruined realm to fade into merely a bad memory. Enough years, even, for the dragon-god of a faraway land to come in contact with him, to choose him for the task of saving a world in desperate need of a hero or three. Enough years to forget what it was like to hold a blade in hands that ached for blood, and learn the ancient and mystical rites of dark magic in its place.
Enough years for Owain to cease being Owain, or at least not quite the same Owain he'd been before. Enough years for him to fall into the persona of Odin Dark like a favorite cloak, whatever minor slip-ups he might occasionally have around Laslow and Selena.
There was something tremendous about why the three of them had left in the first place, tremendous and terrible that they should leave a world which had just met its first peace in favor of a foreign one that was gradually losing theirs. They'd discussed it, spoken at length about their decision. In the end, their motives were as selfish as they were heroic.
Selena had left, in part, because of an old family curse, refusing to let it dictate her life. Where she was meant to Dream on nights of the full moon, she instead fell into the dream of another, someone who'd already had a soulmate of their own, doomed to fall in love with them and watch them fall in love with someone else entirely. Her mother's had been Lord Chrom. Selena wouldn't tell, not even in confidence, who hers was.
Laslow had chosen to answer the call, he confessed, solely because his soulmate had told him he was entirely unwanted. Not that anyone could blame them, he'd added. Of course nobody wanted to have him for a soulmate, even if they shared dreams every full moon, knew all of each others' desires and insecurities. He claimed to be withholding their name until Selena confessed the name of hers, but it was obvious he hated to speak of it.
But Odin, Odin had chosen to leave because of a wrenching feeling in his gut, one that tugged at every heartstring, vibrating, glowing blue like the string of a bow from a Dream long ago. He left-- not to escape his destiny, his dreams, his soulmate-- but rather because something told him that by agreeing to this, he would be running headfirst towards it. As if he'd been destined to travel worlds and meet a man (surely the boy in his dreams was a man by now) somewhere hidden within.
But years still passed, dreamless, in that world, enough that Odin had secured a job as retainer to Nohr's Prince Leo, enough that he began to wonder if it had truly been destiny, and not his own foolishness, which had placed him here.
(It was still worth it, he thought, as Laslow seemed less prone to pining when there was a universal rift between here and Ylisse, though definitely more prone to flirting. Even Selena had found her place, with Beruka whose soulmate had died by her hand, and Camilla whose dreams still had not appeared into her twenties.)
Enough years had passed for Nohr to fall into a war with Hoshido, Odin thought, absentmindedly handing Lord Leo a few herbs from his potioneering shelf. Enough that the youngest prince of Nohr had been embroiled in devising strategies ever since his siblings began slowly defecting, desperate to prove his continued loyalty, and Odin had not seen the light of day for weeks, much less traveled.
Part of him secretly worried that his soulmate had gone on and died in this war. He was only able to quiet these thoughts by repeatedly assuring himself that the archer had been more than skilled in his last dream, and certainly, by now he would be even better. Good enough to survive, for certain, except perhaps if faced with one of the royals of Hoshido or Nohr, or whatever place Corrin's group of renegades claimed to represent.
It was times like this where Odin wished he had thought to ask for his soulmate's name.
"Odin? Hello?" Leo reached his hand out, giving him a strange look. "The Nightmoss? You did remember to bring it, right?"
"The rarest of mosses, growing only in the Nohrian swamps upon the exposed root of an Aschetree?" Odin queried, spouting the first bit of information that sprouted into his mind. He fumbled with a pouch for a moment, "Sorry, milord! It's right here, I--"
"Odin," Leo cut in, halting him where he spoke. He leveled a look in his direction, "I need you to focus, for all of fifteen minutes. Will whatever's distracting you interfere with the scrying spell?"
"I, er... probably not," Odin looked faintly embarrassed at having been caught out by his boss.
Niles chuckled, to his faint surprise-- good humors had been exceedingly rare in the castle, as of late.
"Then," Leo straightened his back, primly plucked a lump of moss from the pouch. "I can help you find a solution after we complete the scrying ritual. Niles, the Dawnstones?"
"Right here, milord," the corner of the outlaw's mouth quirked upwards as he held up a handful of the iridescent rocks from the border. With a subtle dig, "So, milord... will we be spying on the Hoshidan army?"
"The Hoshidan army... we already know their next movements," Leo shook his head, plucking exactly three of the stones from Niles' palm. "They're apt to retreat into, or at least send for reinforcements from Fort Jinzou on their border. After meeting a stalemate with them in Nestra, it would be suicidal for either side to enter a pursuit straight into enemy territory with their few remaining forces. No, we're going to be looking towards the movements of a far less predictable army... Corrin's militia."
Odin watched as his liege dropped both ingredients into the cauldron at once, "And Lady Camilla, and Lady Elise?"
"And... other traitors, left unnamed," Leo admitted, dropping his voice to a whisper. Like an unspoken taboo, softly implied that his own chosen was among the renegades.
They were all silent again once more.
"Lord Leo," began Niles, at last. He held up a scroll. "The incantation now?"
"Of course, Niles. There's no time to waste," and Leo took up the spell circle, began chanting the words at its edges, "Volvire vere, acuo e cordo, reptilia cordo, vere! Volvire vere, acuo e cordo, reptilia cordo..."
And slowly, the murky potion morphed, shaped like a mirror. Glass, faintly fogged, like a dream long ago in his childhood, and then--
Then, an army, marching among the distinctive crags and depths as they grew nearer to what was obviously the Bottomless Canyon, the schism that divided Nohr and Hoshido. There was Corrin, at the head, and too, Camilla, Elise. The youngest princess, of course, was talking to a girl of a similar age-- ever making friends, Odin thought, even in an army filled with dissenters from Hoshido and Nohr both.
But, a moment, and there-- Camilla fell back to say something to Selena, consulting her on some matter or the other. The tight knit leadership seemed to disperse, slightly, and there, just through the gap between Corrin and Elise: moonbeams.
"It's him," Odin found himself gasping, mouth moving without his permission.
"What?" Leo's brow furrowed, perplexed. "Who's him?"
"That one, the one whose hair speaks only of the light of the moon, the archer with a lunar countenance so fair that... that..." Odin trailed off momentarily, fumbling for words. Eventually he breathed, leaning closer to the cauldron that he may see more clearly, careful not to touch the water as to mar the sight with ripples. "So fair that it renders me speechless."
"I think," Niles drawled, thickly teasing. "Odin means the one that he has Dreamed of, milord."
"No, that can't be," Leo tisked, shook his head. "Odin, do you mean to tell me that you've been dreaming of Prince Takumi, of our Hoshidan foes? I've spoken about crushing his forces for months, and you never thought to even once mention that I've been intentionally sabotaging your soulmate? Somehow I find that difficult to believe."
"I remember the face, as clear as day," Odin looked affronted at the accusation. Then, deflating just slightly, "I... never got his name. I didn't know that he was the Prince Takumi of Hoshido you've been targeting. Or... were targeting, before he went and joined Corrin."
"His forces were the least organized... it was a perfectly logical decision, before they became part of the border rendezvous at Fort Jinzou," Leo explained, as if he hadn't dictated it to his retainers several times already. Then, the prince exhaled-- slowly through his nose.
A subtle nod at Niles, and the outlaw swept the perimeter with an agile ease. When Leo turned to Odin, did the same, he knew that was his cue for Odin's Sursurration Incantation, which would change their speech to faint gibberish to anyone eavesdropping. When at last, both retainers were complete, Leo drew them near once more, watching figures slowly move within the cauldron.
"I think," said Leo at last, "We may need to make a trip. I don't know what Corrin's planning, but... whatever it is managed to persuade Camilla and Elise, and the younger two Hoshidan siblings. I'm... I'm not sure it's wise to stick around here in Krakenberg much longer."
"Fucking finally," Niles shook his head. "Um... I mean, I'll follow you wherever you wish to lead, milord, but leaving the capitol may be our best bet."
"Your initial statement was adequate, Niles," Leo sighed. "I believe... I have been too long denying that my father may be going senile. Odin, your thoughts?"
"It is time," Odin answered, fingers gently hovering over a moonbeam visage, Prince Takumi's visage. "It is time for us to do that which we were chosen to do, by our destinies and dreams. Naught else but the fates which run through our pulsing blood could have led us here. Our choice has already been made."
And, when he touched the face, almost-real in the cauldron's reflection, the vision rippled, rippled, and then dissipated.
Odin dreamed on it, that night, after he'd taken his near-customary sleeping draught-- his mind filled with Lord Leo's change of heart, mad kings slowly losing their senses, cauldrons where beautiful faces (Takumi, his name was Takumi) rippled and faded, as they had in that very first dream. And, though he wasn't quite-entirely-aware of it, in the movements of the craggy canyon, Takumi, too, Dreamed, of sunshine-yellow in the gloom of Nohr's potioneering room, a mage gazing delightedly into a cauldron, and then gazing right at him. The world seemed to melt away that night of the full moon, and though the Dream was silent, there was somehow something understood.
Years had again passed before Takumi shared another glorious Dream, but when it at last arrived, he woke with a smile on his face. One that mirrored the excited grin of Owain-- a decidedly different Owain, but so definitely Owain-- miles away, bounding out of bed to commit high treason against the Nohrian court.
It was, Takumi thought, just like Owain to make the most dramatic entrance possible-- even from their limited interaction did he understand so much.
Though, running in belatedly as part of a Nohrian retinue just when their army needed reinforcements... perhaps needlessly dramatic.
(Endearingly dramatic, something within him argued. Takumi refused to acknowledge that thought.)
It took only a few turns for Owain to clip his way towards their side, the place where Takumi and his siblings, reunited, fought together against their common foe. The Nohrian Prince (that asshole who, Takumi was sure, had been the one to make his life a tactical hellscape while he'd been getting his Hoshidan command organized) carefully led them all to regroup, and Takumi found himself fighting beside a familiar face, albeit one who used tomes instead of blades.
"Owain," he cried, trying to make himself heard over the din of battle, too surprised to hide his desperation.
"It's all right!" Odin answered, swinging in beside him with a wink. "I've got your back... it'll be just like the last time!"
"Owain!!" Takumi repeated, alarmed, as he shoved him out of the way of an attack. "What do you think you're doing?"
"Fulfilling my destiny," Odin smiled brilliantly, turning on his heel and firing a vicious Thunder into their foes' midst. As if an afterthought, "Oh! Right. By the way... I changed my name to Odin. So... Odin Dark, wielder of the Fell Tome Sindhfandael, whose blood aches full of the night itself--"
"Oh my god," growled Takumi, piercing the heart of an advancing foe in the next second. Of course destiny would saddle him with this man, who thought the appropriate time for an introductory spiel was mid-battle. "Shut up, Owain, and fight!
"Patience, my friend," Odin answered, and honest to god, was that actual darkness gathering around his hand? "These words lend tremendous power... all right! Eldritch... smackdown!"
And, okay, when he saw this total goofball of a man take down two enemies with that single shot, tearing through one before knocking down the other, Takumi had to admit he was just a little bit impressed.
They fought together, almost too well, the memory of that solitary dream guiding their motions as if it were a courting dance, Takumi with his holy bow, and Odin with his Thunder tome with the unnecessarily fancy made up name. Odin's every breath seemed to sing in Takumi's ears, his own pounding heart thrumming like the deadly hum of his weapon, a bassline for their song, punctuated with claps of magic, the percussion of blade-upon-blade.
Takumi had never understood what Mikoto meant about soulmates, sharing the notes of a song. He hadn't, at least, until that very moment.
It was almost a shame when the battle faded, when Odin's breathing calmed and the pulse of Takumi's heart, quick as a bird, slowed to something comparatively normal. They sat on the ground, almost anxiously close to the edge of the chasm, waiting for the healers to make their rounds. Still, the presence of Odin beside his own felt strangely invigorating, and Odin-- for all that he professed to have the blood of the night itself-- still glimmered with a light not unlike the winter sun, still radiant against the grays and shadows of the canyon in the waking world.
Perhaps, something whispered doubtfully, perhaps he was still dreaming.
He quashed that whisper, as hard as he could, but it echoed and, purely for proof (and not reassurance, he assured himself), he nudged his hand in Odin's direction, trying to be subtle and failing dreadfully.
Odin smiled, looking every bit as brilliant as he ever had in that dreamworld the first time Takumi had ever dreamed of light, and took his hand.
"So," Takumi began, tentatively, almost as if the dream would shatter if he spoke. When it did not, he slowly formed the next words, "Why'd you stop using the sword?"
"The end of my ill-fated affair with a blade named Missletainn..." Odin cringed, "It's a long story."
"Yeah, well..." and Takumi settled in against him, last in the queue as their injuries were relatively minor. "We have time."
When the next full moon arrived, enough time had passed that they'd fallen into the chasm, discovered a hidden world with a name too cursed to speak.
("Honestly," Odin confessed one night, with the dry humor of a man marching towards his could-be death, "That sounds like something you'd find in a children's adventure novel!"
"It definitely does," Takumi shook his head. Perhaps a bit teasingly, "Explain to me how your 'aching blood' thing works again?")
Enough time to defeat a corrupt dragon, enough time for Xander and Ryoma to be crowned the kings of their respective countries, enough time to bring an end to the fighting that tore at their borders. Enough time for Corrin's own coronation, and even enough time for the cities to begin rebuilding, for offenses dealt as wounds to begin mending.
That full moon, Odin and Takumi did not Dream, but dreamed, upon having woken.
Time passed still, as it was wont to do, enough time that Krakenberg rose once more and enough time that Shirasagi, to the casual observer, bore no marks of a sword exploding in its square. Enough time that Laslow (Inigo, Odin reminded himself, he was Inigo again) had given in to the cry of his heart and the pull of his dreams, had returned home. Enough time that Odin and Selena decided that they would never want to do the same.
("You know," Takumi snorted, over a shogi board one night, "Izumo just elected its new Archduke. After all this time... I suppose, though, it would be tough for anyone to live up to Izana's legacy."
"A noble man," answered Odin solemnly, despite only having met him once, on a diplomatic mission with Leo. Time had passed, but not enough for anyone to truly forget.)
Before the next full moon arrived, a team of the finest mages in all the countries had gathered in an attempt to determine why it was always so, so very long before they dreamed of each other-- Hayato, Nyx, Orochi... even Prince Leo.
"Our best guess, I think," Orochi had said, "Is that... something happened with time. Maybe there was a blip. Someone whose timeline ran like those deeprealms we visited... though probably, neither of you."
"Haha, right," Odin laughed, and Takumi thought that he had always been a terrible liar. "What a ridiculous notion."
"In any case, it should be about seventy moons from your last shared dream..." Hayato fumbled with a few scraps of paper. "Based on the information you gave us, I mean."
"You're young," Nyx added, with an ironic 'tch!' "You have time."
"There is no curse... though," and Leo's eyes flickered to Takumi for a moment. "You both have some... very unusual sleep histories. I think you both know what I'm talking about."
"..." Takumi narrowed his eyes at his Nohrian counterpart, but did not deny the reference to his odd nightmares. "... maybe."
"I happened to bring a supply of Nightmoss," Leo began primly, "And I managed to pick up a handful of Dawnstones from the last time I was in Val-- ugh, please stop looking at me like that, we broke the curse with that counterspell months ago-- the last time I was in Valla. Odin, I think the theoretical spell you sent me to remedy this... sleeping issue... has promise. I hope you'll send me a letter detailing your results."
"Really? So awesome!" Odin beamed, eagerly accepting the spell components. "Thank you, milord Leo!"
"You can drop the formalities, Lord Consort Odin," Leo's smile was wry. And, in a gesture that would be seen by all as an enormous leap in diplomatic improvement, "And, I suppose, if he must, your soulmate may as well."
And time passed, time passed still, and the full-moons peeled away like a slow countdown, brought them to the fourth time they would blissfully, blessedly Dream.
"Except," Takumi confided, hesitant, pausing as he sat up in their bed. "Except nightmares are scarcely blissful. And definitely not 'blessed' or whatever other adjectives you can come up with."
"Worry not," Odin whispered then, blowing out each lamp, save for a candle to read by. A brilliant smile danced upon his lips, "For I am Odin Dark, steward of the night, guardian of thy dreams! No foul mares of terror can appear as long as I'm the one weaving this dream. What do you wish to dream of, milord Takumi? The only limit is but imagination."
"You're the one with the imagination, here," Takumi sighed, leaned against the pillows, uncomfortably alone. "I suppose I'll leave it to your discretion... just as long as you join me there quickly."
"For one such as I," Odin grinned, "The power to will myself to sleep is second-nature!"
Takumi shut his eyes for what was meant to be a moment, merely to collect his thoughts, "Or you brought a sleeping potion with you."
And, perhaps it was merely his imagination, but Takumi caught a bit of fondness in Odin's next chuckle, "There's no hiding from sharp-eyed archers, then, whose eyes see only truth. All right... how's this for a plot? The streets of Hoshido, during a summer festival... wearing yukata, eating fried food, playing festival games... I always wanted to try the fish catch!"
"Mh, sure, whatever..." Takumi slurred, already fading into sleep at the very prospect of a night filled with shared, peaceful dreams.
There was a second of pause, as if he were about to say something more, Odin waiting for the silence to break. But Takumi continued with only a soft snore, his breath deep and even.
In the quiet of the night, then, as if speaking too loudly might wake him, Odin lit his herbs, whispered softly over the bed, "Then, while you're still impressed by my amazing skill at winning festival games... I lean down on bended knee, and present you with my mother's ring. As a solemn vow to be beside you in dream and nightmare alike, the two of us chosen by destiny to meet, even over time and space and alternate dimensions. And... when I ask you to marry me, we will wake as rosy-fingered dawn spreads across the sky. I want to hear your answer from your real voice."
He muttered a closing incantation, then, and carefully slipped under the sheets, beside Takumi, downed the acrid sleeping-potion as he had so many nights in the past.
Its bitter aftertaste, this time, faded into the sweetness of a shared Dream.