The realm of mist

[Sinbad]

Sinbad had no idea how to react to this accusation, let alone what to reply to it. The confusion on his face by now let him look very much dumbfolded, while he was trying to retrace the last moments in his mind seriously trying to find out what could possibly have triggered this outburst. Something told him that they were talking about different things, but he couldn´t for the life of him figure out why she was so mad at him right now.

"Wh..what exactly did I do wrong now?" he asked, utter confusion in his voice. And besides all that, the anxiety stayed, and became worse. He couldn´t find its source and that made him even more antsy. And he didn´t like that kind of feeling at all.

He therefore more felt than knew what was coming next. They weren´t standing too far from one another, just a leap and that was not too far. A moment before a shriek ripped the silent blue of the sky, simultaneously overturning the summer sky into something darker, he could feel something and, spinning around from instinct, could react just in time when he saw a huge, ugly monstrosity of a bald headed bird head towards them, claws extended.

Abandoning all thoughts, he leaped towards Maeve, aiming to do the only thing that made sense right now: to knock her over to get her out of the reach of those claws.

[Maeve]

Even though she was looking straight at him, she was so blinded by her anger and annoyance, ready to spat something probably as clever as her other replies back at him, that she didn’t even see the shift in his features, the sheer confusion changing into shock while he turned to the sky swiftly. In a heartbeat, he had ducked in her direction unexpectedly, his body colliding with hers and sending them both roughly to the ground before she even had the time to process anything, let alone hear the screech that had motivated his move. Therefore, landing on the ground with a muffled groan, with him on top of her with no apparent reason, her first reaction was to be utterly bewildered and highly pissed off. “Are you mad?! Get off me!!” She was already shoving him to the side, glaring at him with fiery disbelieving eyes, shocked by the rapidity, but mostly the boldness, of his move.

[Sinbad]

Maeve seemed to have no idea what was going on, but that wasn´t one of the things that seemed to matter right now as Sinbad tried to keep his weight off her with one hand and reach for his sword with the other. Dream world or not, hitting the ground had hurt, but before he had time to wonder whether it was normal or not for a dream to behave like that, he was told again that whether or not it was, it was very well possible to give him physical pain - with a suppressed yell he let go of his weapon before he even had had the time to pull it when he felt a mighty swoosh and a pair of claws scratch along his back. No doubt they would have had more of an effect if he had not pushed them to the ground.

Another, this time far more infuriated screech, came of the creature. A scream of anger and frustration about a prey that had, for now, escaped his grasp. Ignoring Maeve´s cursing and pushing, SInbad rolled off her, used the momentum to make a full role, ignoring the stinging pain on his back and had his sword in his hand before he even staggered to his feet, facing the attacker, again trying to keep a distance between the thing and Maeve.

It was the first time he could see the thing properly. It was about the size of a man or a bit bigger and once it spread its wings that would give him even more of an appearance. Its feathers looked grey and dull, the head was bold as if it had lost too many feathers over too short a time and the black, notchy beak made the creature look like it had just stepped out of a nightmare. Which was strangely fitting.

The thing gave another sound, no screech this time but something more hoarse and strangely more vicious, its head reaching towards him as if it wanted to let him know that it wasn´t scared of the sword. Sinbad´s thoughts raised while his body snapped back into fighting routines. Where had this thing come from?

[Maeve]

Everything was happening so fast that Maeve was having trouble registering what was going on. First off, when the second screech, which she heard this time more clearly than necessary, ripped the sky as a shadow flew over them, she stopped struggling in a flash. Only then was she able to notice Sinbad's wincing features and hear the low groan he tried to repress as he vainly attempted to unsheathe his sword to slash out at whatever it was that had just dove towards them unexpectedly.

Then he swiftly rolled off her, immediately standing up again and poising to defend them, and Maeve just knew that the dark flying creature had injured him, and she also knew that it was her fault and that she should have been the one to receive the blow, not him. As usual, had she had better control over her emotions and had she stopped adding more fuel to the fire in their conversation sooner, none of this would have happened. She had endangered them because of her green-eyed stubbornness and because of her ostensible incapacity to restrain herself from picking up fights with him ever since this whole dream mess had started.

Feeling unbearably guilty, her chest crushed by an insufferable pain that probably hurt as much as his back, she shut her eyes angrily for a split of second before standing up as well next to him, facing the creature for the first time. The initial description that came to her mind when she glanced at it was something along the line of big-ugly-bald-chicken. But then she was alerted by the sound it made, which was not a screech, but a gruff, raucous grunt. Somehow, without really basing herself on anything except for the crusty growl of the bird and her gut feeling, she just knew what was coming next, and Sinbad’s blade would provide no solid defense against it. He was already hurt, a predicament that was madly consuming her with both guilt and fear, and there was no way she would let anything happen to him again, not because of her.

“Huh-huh! Not gonna work!” In a heartbeat she grabbed his hand and started running, leading him away in their little wide-spaced forest surrounding to escape the monstrous bird, which, after revising her previous observation, was now a big-ugly-bald-fire-breathing-chicken.

How on earth had she come up with that creature?!

[Sinbad]

Sinbad had already had his hand raised, ready to deliver a more suicidal than helpful blow at the creature before him when Maeve grabbed his other hand, jerking him away. Not a moment too early as it seemed: he gave a suprised yelp when he felt the hot breath of fire passing by, turning the spot where he had just been standing into an ocean of flames. Only for a moment, no longer than the blink of an eye he stayed, staring at the beast, then he followed Maeve´s insistant hint and started running himself, ignoring the strangely real sting across his back, grabbing her hand and catching up with her, his other hand holding the sword still half raised.

The forest was rather close, if one could call it a forest, it was more like a grove with the trees standing rather far apart. Too far, he knew. He didn´t have to even turn around to know that the beast had started to pursue them, following in half clumsy leaps, flapping wings and hissing. A short glance across his shoulder told him it was too close for comfort and he pushed Maeve forward so the made it between the trees just in time before the creature´s nasty beak could snap for one of their feet. The thing gave an angry shriek when it noticed that it would be able to make it through the trees with its wings spread and the stems of young trees shook violently when the wingspan of the thing crashed against it. But the thing seemed to learn rather quickly...

[Maeve]

She couldn’t bring herself to look back. The only thing that mattered to her at the moment was Sinbad’s hand holding hers, indicating that he was right behind her and following. She just kept running, ducking and turning and zigzagging between the trees, trying to avoid the deadly beak of their feathered predator. She couldn’t see it, but she could very well hear it; its angry screeches, the loud crashing of the trees it was smacking on its path close behind them and the flickering fire of its breath inflaming the leaves and the trunks. If she turned her head to glance at the forest, she knew that everything left of it would be ablaze and if she based herself on how fond of fire their tweety friend seemed to be, Maeve had no doubt that it had indeed come from her mind, and that her anger had unleashed it, but right now, she had no time for a guilty conscience. Her fear was the only thing guiding her; the fear that anything else might happen to him because of her.

Clutching Sinbad’s hand as firmly as she could, she focused on her thoughts. She had to be rational and objective for if she wanted to get rid of the beast, then her head was what she had to concentrate on, not her heart, the latter being the source of all her problems.

Think. Think. A branch whipped her in the face as she made a swift turn behind a tree to stay on the narrowest path possible where the raging bird had the most difficulty pursuing them, but the flames were spreading so fast from tree to tree that she was beginning to have difficulty orienting their escape run.

Rain. That’s what she needed. Anything fiery hated anything watery.

Maintaining their frenzied pace, her mind hurriedly set to work as best it could and in a matter of seconds, droplets of water were falling down.

[Sinbad]

Sinbad couldn´t tell for how long they had been running and it didn´t matter anyways. Sometimes it was him who was ahead, sometimes her, dragging each other along while he tried to save as much energy as he could while running as fast as he could, now and then hastily raising his sword to whipe off an all to dangerous branch that was hanging in their way.

They didn´t get away as fast as he would have wished, because they were holding each others hands and because there were areas where the trees were standing a little more closely together and of course they were heading for those, but for nothing in the world would he have let go of Maeve´s hand now. He just ran on, staring ahead, his thoughts more or less switched off, just concentrated on running and trying not to think of what it might mean that he was sure he could feel the heat of fire far too close for comfort.

The first thing he properly noticed besides their frentic running was a drop of rain that dropped directly into his eye so he shoock his head to get it out, cursing under his breath before he even started to wonder what this had come from. Back somewhere in his mind a small voice had started to whisper that they wouldn´t be able to run on like this forever with another voice immediately throwing in that yes they could if only they wished for it, because this was a dream! That triggered it.

In this moment, he had no idea that the drops were Maeve´s doing, he simply didn´t think that far, but he caught the idea on the right edge anyways. If only there was more rain, rain to at least keep the fire from spreading. For a short moment a mental image flashed through his mind of a wave rushing through the trees behind them, taking the beast with it, but the thought was also strangely scaring so he tried to ban it. "Rain!" he shouted instead, the yell as much a confirmation of what he saw as it was a desperate attempt at trying to urge the rain on. "Come on! Give me more!" He didn´t waste a thought about the fact that this had to look and sound completely stupid and he didn´t consciously try anyways, but their earlier haywire experiments were giving him a wild hope right now.

[Maeve]

His wild hopeful exclamation about the rain reached her ears in a deaf echo through the trashing of the bird and its blazing wreckage, and it would have amused her under other circumstances but since they were currently running for their lives, Maeve just yelled back at him through the rain as she dipped under a branch at the last minute.

“I’m trying!”

And it was working. With her own efforts now apparently coupled with his, she noticed how the drops were getting heavier and denser with every second that went by. The rain was soon loudly pouring over them, almost swallowing up all the other sounds the relentless predator was making except for its raging cries of anger. The water, which was near freezing Maeve realized with a shiver, was drumming on her skin through the fabric of her white chemise and sharp drops were annoyingly falling in her eyes. But it was worth it since the flames had considerably subsided, which had slowed down the progress of the fiery bird in the process.

Straining to see where she was going through the thick drape of rain, the ground going slippery with all the water bucketing from the sky, a flash suddenly overwhelmed all her other thoughts for a split of second; that of a brief powerful wave crashing down on the forest and wiping away all the remaining flames as well as their instigator along with them. The image just disappeared as soon as it came, without her being able to do anything about it.

As disturbing as it was and aware of the inevitable, Maeve knew the only way to get rid of the ruthless beast was through such a wave, but if they didn’t find a safe spot to cling to before it crashed down on them they would be washed away with it. That’s why she suddenly came to an alt, squinting through the rain as she secured her grip on Sinbad’s hand once again and as her eyes frantically darted around searching for a solid enough tree to hold on to.

[Sinbad]

The rain had gotten heavier - much heavier - so that it was getting increasingly difficult to see and Sinbad shoved the sword back into its scabbard finally, because he didn´t want to risk slashing anywhere where he couldn´t see properly. Once his one hand was free again he once more shook the water from his eyes and dared to have a look across the shoulder, trying to ignore the unpleasant feeling of cold soaking through his clothes - he was used to that after all.

The water indeed seemed to irritate the bird since it had slowed down. But, and he could see that, too, it hadn´t abandoned its chase and was still on their tails. That, and they had had to slow down, too. Even though there were no flames erupting from the thing any more, that still didn´t cross out a pair of needle sharp claws and that wicked beak.

The earlier thought about the wave was back, more persistant this time, but once more mingled with anxiety. This is a dream, he told himself, whatever happened here couldn´t have any real impact - or could it? He couldn´t wrap his mind around the questions, just as if the very thought was somewhat ... foggy.

"We need something bigger to get rid of it." he yelled to Maeve, trying to make his voice heard above the rain. "Maybe we can control this together." He had no idea how, but it was the only thing he could think of - and that wasn´t even a too well defined thought.

[Maeve]

Drenched to the bones with her hair plastered to her face, Maeve had a dreadful feeling in the pit of her stomach, a feeling that was growing considerably fast every time she studied their dead-end options. None of the trees surrounding them would resist a wave as huge as the one they needed in order to wipe away the beast. The trunks would tear and rip under the pressure of the current and they would be buried alive underneath. But if they didn’t think of something fast other than that tsunami-like wave alternative, the razor-sharp clawed beast would get them. And they wouldn’t be able to run forever. They were stuck.

Sinbad’s shout over the rain interrupted the crazy desperate thoughts throbbing in her head and for the first time since he had knocked her to the ground, she looked at him, anchoring her straining gaze on his face. Together. The vivid uneasiness washed over her once again, an unbearable ache ripping her chest from the inside. Together. Where had that led them? Ever since the dream had started, it had been life-threatening situation after another. They had been confronted with their own thoughts and feelings, betrayed by them, and Maeve felt like their discussions were bond to go into destructive circles, unsolvable because of all the things they wouldn’t and couldn’t say. She couldn’t tell him she had been watching him all this time since the storm. She couldn’t. The issues concerned with such a revelation would raise feelings too powerful for her to cope with, even in a dream. And maybe they had been apart for too long and the clash of the respective worlds was too strong for them to deal with, Maeve wondered with dread as she could hear the monstrous bird dangerously closing in on them. Maybe they had both changed beyond any possible reckoning and maybe they were having this shattering dream to realize it.

She glanced down at their hands tightly clenched together, wondering if the poignant fear of losing him was making her delusional. But then her thoughts drifted to his back, to the cuts and scratches the spiky lethal claws of the beast had inflicted upon him, and it made her sick. Her secrets and her jealousy-covered unacknowledged feelings had done this to him.
Right here, right now, in this dream where everything linked to what they thought and felt was taking form, she was dangerous.

“This is all my fault…” It was almost a whisper, something she just voiced out for herself to truly let the guilt sink in. Her lungs were burning. It was difficult to breathe. The world around her was down to devastated trees, deafening hammering rain, a deadly raging beast close behind, and a pair of blue eyes that she couldn’t gaze into without doing it through a veil of lies blocking any truthful conversation.

Then a thought occurred to her, a thought that didn’t ease the dreadful terrifying pressure in her chest. Maybe it would work and maybe it wouldn’t. It was worth a shot. She had to try. The worst that could happen was that she would wake up if she wasn’t strong enough, or that the dream would end, somehow, and strangely she didn’t consider that last option as a bad one right now. But she didn’t want to wake up. Not before he was safe. Raising her eyes tremblingly up to his again, she let go of his hand, her voice almost inaudible because of the torrential rain and her fingers already longing for the warmth of his. “Run.”

[Sinbad]

They had come to a halt, stuck between a particularly narrow passage of trees, but not safe and they both knew that. It seemed like the rain had even increased, but Sinbad couldn´t tell for sure.

His thoughts were racing and his heart was hammering faster than the falling rain, yet everything around him was strangely clear to him. The cold of the rain, her face before his and the sound of cracking wood over the rain that indicated the monstrous bird closing in on them. He didn´t know what to do about it, he seldomly know about such things or planned them ahead, he more just acted. And this was what he was going to do now, too. Staring into her eyes, he saw something inside them that he couldn´t place but that he didn´t like. Suddenly, there was a new fear that was chilling him far more than the rain could and he grabbed her hand again from reflex. Whatever had gotten into her head, he was not going to just run. In this moment, even though in the back of his mind he was still aware he was dreaming, all this seemed so real that it nearly came as a deja vu. "No." he yelled back at her, making his voice heard over the rain. "I´m not going to let this happen. Not again."

He was barely aware of his last few words, but in his mind he saw it vividly. A similar scenario and yet so different. Only that here and now he did have a choice. And that choice meant not to lose her again. The pain in his lungs, the rain in his eyes and the gash across his back didn´t matter.

[Maeve]

If there was one thing she was grateful for about the heavy soaking rain; it was because her tears were masked by it. Her eyes were burning, hot and cold mixing together, blurring her vision, and when he grabbed her hand again decidedly, sending a strange comforting heat up her arm immediately, she knew there was no use in telling him to run. Deep down she had known he wouldn’t since the beginning. He would never do it. Just like she would never do it if he asked her to. On that level, their stubbornness was equal and nothing would ever change it. Nonetheless she shut her eyes painfully at his words and at the cursed memory they brought back. The situations were so similar and yet so different…She could fight back now. She was prepared. And the plan in her head, if one could call it a plan, still spun on its wheels. She would protect him. Not matter what.

Her heart pounding like a sledgehammer, eardrum-splitting blows thundering in her chest louder than the rain on her skin and reverberating everywhere in her body, her hands itching with adrenaline and energy, she heard the loud deafening screech of the horrid bird rip the air right before the bird itself came crashing into the trees next to them, its fiery beak peeking angrily and frenetically through the branches, ready to torch them through the rain or tear them to pieces. But she was faster, her veins boiling with the magic flowing within them. Jumping in front of Sinbad swiftly to shield him, her thoughts unbelievably clear, a red beam of energy unleashed itself from her hands, aiming straight for the beast.

[Sinbad]

This time he didn´t react fast enough and the rain was by now having such a heavy impact on his vision, that it added to it: he couldn´t avoid her pulling free, but what he could see her do and also the sense that her order to him to run suddenly made gave him heart a painful jolt.

"NO!" His voice sounded overtaxed and panicky and it appeared strangely clear to him nearly blinding out the roaring rain for a moment before the beast was hit by the red energy blast that suddenly erupted from Maeve´s hand, hitting it square across the chest, making the thing screech in fury and agony. He had seen her do the like before: ages back it seemed, an act of desperation back in that village with the invisible walls and he also remembered how horribly it had drained her.

To him it seemed like an eternity, but it was just a brief moment. Maeve´s blast hit its target, the creature shreeked and staggered, clearly wounded, but he doubted it was fatal. Then Sinbad managed to shake off the rising panic and his thoughts started to race again.
There was no chance to step in front of her, because that would mean to get into the line of fire and he was very well aware that this was probably the reason why she did it this way. For a brief instant he had the idea of helping her with this kind of thing but the image of himself doing any sort of this kind of ... magic was ridiculous. Too strange to wrap his mind around it, even in this world. But there had to be something! Something he could do to bring that damn thing down.

His eyes searching frantically while the horrid screams of the monster were ringing in his ears he saw nothing... nothing but rain and trees. He shook his head in annoyance. Just trees. ... Trees.
A strange, weird and desperate plan was starting to take shape. He was no wizard and he was glad for it, but he did have some sort of imagination and for a strange reason this idea would not have been possible without that little sunflower incident from earlier. Because only after that he knew now that he could do some things here that he normally couldn´t do. Like letting flowers appear from nowhere. Maybe like... knocking over things he´s usually not be able to knock over?

He didn´t allow any doubts to manifest, but sprinted from behind the cover Maeve provided, diving to the left. There were trees everywhere and he didn´t waste much time to make his choice. Running behind one that was twice as broad as he was he jumped back a few steps hectically, then ran - and slammed against the massive trunk at full force, shoulder first. For a moment he could see neither the thing nor Maeve, but he tried not to even think of that, focussing instead on the weird little hope that had started to form in his head.

The impact was hard enough to make his teeth cling together painfully and he gave a suppressed grunt of pain when he felt the gashes on his back respond with more pain. But he had put all his power into this blow, everything he had, combined with everything his unused-to-magic-and-weird-kinds-of-imagination mind could come up with: FALL!

[Maeve]

Her heart skipped a beat. She didn’t have to turn around to know that he was gone, leaving an awkward empty coldness in her back. But she also knew that he was still somewhere close by, and she dreaded what he was up to since she couldn’t see him at all but she couldn’t let her energies waver because as long as she remained focused on the creature and maintained her powers on it to keep it at bay, then he was out of danger.

But the drain was unbearable. She had never been able to hold her energies up for so long without intermittence before and yet the red beam was still there, surging from her hands and weakening their wicked predator with every second that passed by. But it was weakening her too. The energy flow coursing inside her, sucking her life force out, added to the ice-cold rain drumming down on her body like sharp nails and the agonizing fear for Sinbad’s life raging in her heart, was diminishing her strength rapidly. Too rapidly. Her legs were already threatening to give out under her but she refused to let them, not before she could see where he was and not before the hideous beast was weakened enough.

Clenching her jaw as tightly as she could, she took the deepest breath possible, knowing that once she didn’t have any air left in her burning lungs, she would be forced to stop. The creature, paralyzed by the blow, was letting out angry cries of agony, the painful twists of his feathered body growing less and less agitated. But her own body was aching too much now, and even if she knew it wouldn’t be long before the beast collapsed for good, she couldn’t hold on anymore.

Her magical surge broken, her hands fell down exhaustingly and she stumbled back to the nearest tree to her right, leaning on it with all her weight for support. Her chest was heaving painfully and her legs were going numb as her eyes desperately strained to see where Sinbad was. But she couldn’t see him. And the beast was huffing, sending a black vicious glare in her direction as if it knew that it still had more energies left than she did.

Then suddenly, a thunderous cracking sound. The sound of a trunk being ripped in two.

Struggling to stay into a standing position, she tried to orientate her eyes to the origin of the loud snap and through the heavy rain blinding her, Maeve somehow managed to witness the final blow on the beast; the large tree bending in a deadly arch just a couple of feet away from the weakened bird, its roots tearing from the ground in splintering rumpuses. The raging animal as shocked as she was. But it wasn’t strong enough to move out of the way in time. The trunk crashed down on its body heavily with a crushing thud, engulfing it once and for all.

Then, nothing. Just the rain.

Maeve shivered violently. The pouring water was the only thing she could hear, suffocating her with its sickening ruffling sound on the remaining trees, on the dark ground beneath her feet, on her trembling body, and the vicious, constant silence behind it scared her to death.

But then she saw him. To the left. Right where the fallen free had been standing.

[Sinbad]

Sinbad had not been able to see what had happened to the tree. Not just because he had been standing behind it, but rammed it sidewards, but also because running against it at full force had swept his shoulder and back with pain so intense for a moment that he had had to press his eyes shut. He opened them again, panting heavily and trying to straighten up, just in time to see the huge bird twitching for the last time.

The rain was still pouring hard as ever, but all of a sudden it seemed far more intense, because it was the only sound around. The terrible shrieking was over, there was no longer the sound of trees crushing under the beasts feet, apart from the rain it was all silent. And that realisation sent a near electric bolt of fear through his body and he hastily looked to where Maeve had been a moment ago, attacking the beast.

He didn´t see her at once, but spotted her a dreadfully long moment later, cowered next to a tree, her hair loosely falling about her face. With a few long jumps he was next to her, letting himself slump onto the soaked ground, surprressing another flinch, deciding once and for all that it needed a little more than a few stupid lashes across his back to bring him down. He carefully took her by the shoulder to see whether she was all right, but suddenly the fear for her broke away and he pulled her close as if to protect her from the rain, but really just more than glad that she had gotten away.

"That was stupid..." he said, his voice audible over the rain, but not as stable or strong as he would have wanted it to sound. It was maybe a strange thing to say, but he was exhausted, he would rather have let this thing run him over than let it do her any harm and even though the choice of words could sound like a reproach, it was none.