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“Meili... Meili... Meili!”
With a startle, Meili woke to find herself standing up. Dazed, she looked around briefly before her unfocused eyes finally settled on the concerned maid in front of her.
“Good morning Petra.” Meili said before letting out a large yawn. “Thank you for the wake up service, but has nobody ever warned you about waking up a sleep walker? I couldn’t be blamed if anything were to happen to you.”
“Sleep walking? Oh come on!” Petra stomped her tiny foot, before taking her anger out on the vegetables she was cutting.
“Uh-oh, we’re in the kitchen? I wonder what I was looking for?” Meili teased in her usual tone. “I hope it wasn’t anything sharp.”
“Meili, you’ve been up for hours. You’re only here because I made you because you’ve been dozing off all over the mansion. You aren’t sleep walking, you’ve just become a narcoleptic.”
As Petra spoke, the memories though foggy were coming back to Meili. She had fallen asleep at the table, and then again at the sink after breakfast. And she must have fallen asleep again after Petra forced her to accompany her on her chores.
Her face contorted into a slight scowl. This was much less cool than sleepwalking. Sleeping in the middle of the kitchen like some baby who had missed their nap. Sleeping, it did actually sound sort of nice if she really thought about it. Her eyes were already closed so–
“ Meili!” Petra said, giving her a quick shake on her shoulder. “Geez, how late have you been staying up?”
“Staying up isn’t the problem,” Meili said with an exasperated sigh. “I just keep having some unpleasant memories that wake me up and then I am thinking about it all night.”
“Oh, you’ve been having nightmares?”
“I did not say that.” Meili said, uncharacteristically indignant. “I just wake up with a lot on my mind. And, well after I turn on the light there is no point in going back to bed.”
“You could just keep the light off.” Petra said, trying to help. Meili dramatically turned away, ignoring the suggestion.
“Petra dearest, have you ever had this problem before? Bad memories at night interrupting your dreams?” Meili said as she slid onto a spot on the floor, out of the way of Petra’s busy kitchen work.
“Nightmares?” Meili grumbled, but Petra continued on. “Yeah, I get them every once in a while.”
“How did you deal with them?”
“Well,” Petra took a moment to think. “If it was really scary, I’d usually crawl into my parents bed for the night.”
After a brief pause, Petra realized who she was talking to.
“But! But, we’re grown ups now. I’m living on my own now, so of course I wouldn’t do that anymore. And you certainly wouldn’t be missing out on anything if you didn’t have a parental figure you could lean on in this scenario…” Petra puttered along as the gears spun in Meili’s head.
“Maybe that’s worth a try.” Meili said, her sleep deprived brain coming up with an idea that just might work.
***
It was late o’clock, or something like that. Ever since his phone had died, Subaru had no way of telling time when it was pitch black outside. It was maybe 1 am? Or 4am? Sometime around then. Or whatever that was in solar time. It was the time of day when his brain didn’t work and he didn’t know what time it was. But he did hear his door creaking open.
His left arm flexed, and he could feel Beatrice snuggled up in her usual spot against him. He was laying on his back, his favourite spirit on his left. That made sense. But then who could have opened the door?
“Emilia?” He optimistically croaked out, his voice not ready to wake up.
“Ew, no.” Meili said as she climbed onto the bed on his right side. It was a large bed, she was a small girl, and she saw no reason to bridge the gap between them. There was silence for a few moments as the gears in Subaru’s head began turning.
“Meili? Everything ok?” he asked, eyes barely open and head groggy.
“No, not really. I can’t sleep.” Meili said with a tinge of frustration.
“Huh.” Subaru said. He paused for a suspiciously long time, before his snoring became evident and Meili whacked him with a throw pillow.
“Sorry, sorry, I’m up.” He said unconvincingly. “Why can’t you sleep?”
“I’ve been having flashbacks of bad memories while sleeping.” Meili said in a forced casualness.
“Oh, nightmares.” Meili grumbled, but Subaru continued anyway.
“Anyways!” Meili said briskly. “Petra said that this might help. You did say all that nonsense about adopting me, so you have to try.”
“I get it, I get it. Nightmares suck, I’m glad to be of service. Do you want to talk about it?”
“Well, in my dream I lost all my humanity and was turned into a pile of toads. It was… quite unpleasant.” Meili said, turning her face away even in the dark room.
“Yeah that sounds scary. But remember, nightmares aren’t real.” Subaru said sleepily.
“No, that really happened to me. Mother used to do that. Frequently.”
“Jesus Christ.” Subaru mumbled in a horrified daze. “Right, right. My brain just isn’t working. Sorry, that’s what I usually do when people have nightmares, I just remind them they aren’t real.”
“Do you ever get nightmares?” Meili asked, her hopes of this meeting solving her sleep issues replaced with a vague curiosity.
“Oh all the time. Things like being eaten alive, or falling off a cliff, or my friends dying in front of me.”
“Does it help if you remember that it isn’t real?”
“Nope.” He said after a long pause. “Can’t say that’s ever helped me.”
“Well what did help?”
“Me, I suppose.” the irritated great spirit said, poking her head up like a meerkat over the covers of the bed.
“Sorry Beako.” Subaru mumbled. To be honest, Meili had forgotten Beatrice even slept in this bed but she wasn’t one to be intimidated by others so she kept pressing.
“But what did you do? Is there a spell or something?”
“No spell, I suppose. It’s quite simple. The secret to sleeping…” as Beatrice spoke, the covers began to rise and emit a faint glow as they soon enveloped the trio.
“Is sleeping.”
And with that, the blankets descended, pulling Meili into a warm snuggle beside Subaru. It was humiliating, to be perfectly honest. She was a killer. A badass. A menace. Asleep.
She was asleep.
***
If you would agree that Meili ever had nightmares before, she still continued to get them afterwards. Beatrice’s blanket magic was not some miracle cure to insomnia. But Meili had noticed that they had become a bit more tolerable.
And on the rare occasion that they built up, and she found herself nodding off in front of Petra… well she had a way to deal with it now.