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"Definitely! I'd love for you to see my house, though I'm afraid it isn't as cool as yours..." Dawna pauses for a moment. "Hey, Anen, wanna know something dumb, but kinda cool?"

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"Yeah!" Anen stands up straight, listening. " ... Secret?"

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"Well, not really a secret... but I still think it's special. You see, you know how we barely know eachother, right? Well... I kinda... already think of you as one of my closest friends. Silly isn't it?" Dawna asks with a shrug. "It's true though..." At that, Dawna glances at her watch randomly and her eyes widen. "Oh, man! I have to go home now... I hope I get to see you again soon, Anen. Thank you for showing me around your awesome house and garden." Dawna hugs Anen quickly and waits for Anen to respond to what she has said, before taking off into the sky.

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Anen blinks twice, then absolutely beams at Dawna. "You very good friend, Dawna." He hugs her as tight as he can, then lets go so she can go. "See again soon!" he says hopefully, waving.

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several nights later

Sire's quest

Anen slips in the door from the garden, turning to shut it as quietly as he can. He turns back to the living room and freezes as he sees cat eyes reflecting the moonlight from the couch.

Prox's voice is cool and angry. "Anen. Where have you been? I've been sitting here for an hour, waiting for you to come back." He rises and pads across the room to stand in front of Anen, folding his arms across his chest.

Anen looks up at his father. I can't - Strings. Strings everywhere, for a blink of an instant, like the strings connecting the barrel of the gun to Aadil, like the strings when he fell - that's it. He forces himself to beam up at Prox. "Daddy! I learn fly! Not sleep, go out, learn fly!" Truth, just not all of it.

He watches the look of furious worry slide off his guardian's face, replaced by a look of blank startlement, then a slow smile. "You couldn't sleep, so you went outside and figured out how to fly?" Anen is scooped up into a hug. "I knew you'd do it. You're a smart kid. I'm proud." Prox lets go of Anen again and adds, "But you still worried me half to death. Since we've talked about letting someone know where you're going before, and it hasn't sunk in yet, I'm going to ground you for two days. No TV, no computer, no HQ."

Anen nods. It could be worse. "Tired, Daddy," he says.

"I bet you are. Come on, let's get back to bed."

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Prox's journal
Anen disappeared for a while last night. At least an hour; he may have been gone longer before I woke with the vague thought that I should check on him and found him not in his bed. When he returned, he told me that he'd been outside learning to fly.

I'm proud of him for that. He taught himself. Is that usual? I'll have to ask other Guardians.

I get the sense he's not telling the whole truth, though. It's just a suspicion - I have no proof, other than the expression on his face when he came sneaking back in, and the faint scent of fear and adrenaline under the scent of night air when I hugged him. That, too, could have come from flying, but my gut tells me something else happened.

When I got out of the shower after my exercises this morning, I happened to look back out to the garden. Anen was standing where I had been, going through my routine, but with his walking stick rather than a bladed staff. I knew he'd been watching me in the mornings, and I knew he's a gifted natural mimic, but I hadn't been aware he was paying this much attention. He has the steps and movements memorized. The look on his face, distant, determined, and worried, told me that he has found some reason of his own to build the strength and coordination that a weapons exercise builds.

My child is keeping a secret from me already. What happened? Where did he go last night? What did he see?

Am I doing something wrong? I've never been a parent. I don't remember being a child. I don't remember how my parents handled it when I did things. I don't remember my parents. I will never tell Arri, but I am sometimes jealous - though his parents are gone, though he tells me they never cared for him at all, he remembers them. He knew them.

I have the sense, too, that the few Guardians I know well enough to be comfortable asking for advice are in the same place I am, struggling in unfamiliar territory. Can I ask?

Between my mysterious enemies and Arri's ill health, I worry sometimes that something will take one of us from Anen. The capricious universe has given me a family. I will do all in my power to ensure that it does not take it away again. Anen will have a family to support him. His children, if he chooses to have them, will have grandparents, damn it.

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Anen sits on his bed and stares at his journal, legs tucked up, wings huddled behind him. More things he can't talk about. He unlocks the journal, takes a pencil, and starts to write, slowly and carefully, his tongue sticking out with concentration.

Anen's journal
I SE ADIL TODY

HE GET BETR

HE MAD AT ME

DONT NO WY


He stares at the wobbly letters for a few minutes. Writing it down has helped, but not much. He wonders if it will work better when he learns how to write more neatly and easily.

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((Sorry if I'm interrupting anything))

Lana runs up to the door quietly in the middle of the night, and leaves a box of candy, a rose, and a little note, folded over, with Anen's name on it. She looks at it for a moment, her heart seeming to skip a beat, and she clutches her chest for a moment. "erf.." she says, and then runs away quickly, before she can be noticed.

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Anen opens the door to get the morning paper, and picks up the note and rose and candy. He blinks at it, unfolds the note, slowly puzzles out the words. Paper forgotten, he heads back inside. "Daddy, what is prom?"

Prox looks up from his coffee. "What? Oh - has someone invited you?" He raises an eyebrow.

Anen holds up the note. "Lana gave me rose and candy too."

"Well. A prom is kind of like a party; people wear fancy clothes and go to dance and talk together. Usually being asked to a dance like this means the person who asked you thinks you're pretty neat. You want to go, Anen?"

Anen looks thoughtfully at the rose. "Have to dance?"

"Dancing can be fun. It's kind of like the exercises you and I do in the mornings. We could find someone to teach you, if you feel nervous about it." Prox hides a smile.

"Okay," Anen decides, and finds a cup to put the rose in.

"Don't forget to write Lana a note telling her you'll go with her. Tell me if you need help with the words."

"Okay," Anen says again, and gets the cereal down from the cabinet for breakfast.

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"Anen? Time to do writing practice." Prox steps out the back door. "Anen? Where'd you go, kiddo?" He pads across the small bridge over the pond, heading down to the edge of the garden where he'd seen Anen earlier.

Anen is entirely absorbed in what he's doing and fails to notice he's being called for till the edge of a shadow falls across the small grassy bank he's sitting on. He looks up and smiles at his father. "Look, Dad, I make houses for a story." He points at the small structures built out of grass, sticks, leaves, and mud, seeming not to notice that his arms are muddy nearly up to the elbows.

Prox blinks and hunkers down, intrigued. "What's up, then?" He leans over to have a look at the small structures half-dug into the damp ground. They're actually quite complex, he notices. The one Anen has been working on doesn't yet have a roof, and there are walls delineating five rooms inside, with doorways and small stick-and-leaf constructions inside to represent furniture.

"That house of mama," Anen explains. He points at the largest room in the tiny building. "Forge! She work there. Here bedroom, and here sitting room, and here kitchen, and here study, like yours, Dad."

Prox looks around at the miniature city Anen has been building. "Do they all have rooms and stuff inside?"

Anen nods proudly. "This Guild house, and here, this Council house, and this house of bad man."

Prox rests one hand on the ground and leans over to have a closer look at the construction, noting that the roofs are woven into the structure, not meant to be removed. "This is really nice work, Anen. Why'd you cover up the rooms, though?"

Anen gives him a strange look. "Houses need roofs. Don't need to see the rooms. People who live there know what they look like. Story needs roofs, anyway."

"Oh, hey, okay. I get it." Prox leans back and settles onto the grass. "Wanna tell me all about it? We can write the story down when you're done, if you like."

Anen lays a large leaf over the top of the house he's building and starts fastening it down with grass blades and mud. "Okay, Dad. See, mama who live in this house, she have son, about as old as me. She teach him how to craft. One day, man come to visit... " He continues, absorbed in his story and his construction.

Prox sits back to listen, amazed all over again at this strange, bright, wonderful child. It's a good story, and one he's never heard or read. He wonders how many stories Anen carries around in his head.

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((Related RP starts here and continues to pg 6652 of HQ.))

The lights are still on in the house when Anen lands on the back patio. He wipes the tears off his face and puts on a neutral expression like a mask before going in.

When he shuts the door to his room, the mask slips off again. He catches a glimpse of himself in the small mirror leaning against the wall on his desk, and is startled by the emptiness of the expression on his face. He crosses the room, pulls his journal out of its drawer, flips through the pages. The first few are filled with doodles and practice repetitions of letters, and the story Dawna wrote down for him. A few blank pages, and his own handwriting starts.

He turns the pages slowly. A few ragged attempts at stories. Illegible entries about ordinary afternoons. Here and there, something significant. He turns to a blank page and stares at it for a long few moments before picking up the pencil.

Anen's journal
I flew tonight.

Aylana calls nightmares. She sang in the woods. I saw them. My nightmares are nothings.

Aadil is not my friend. He is the nothings too. I did not understand. Only tonight.

Nyoka was hurt, but she is okay. She is strong.

There is a place I do not ramember. I starting to think I need to ramember what hapened when it is black like that.


Anen bites his lip and stares at the page. Was that right? Close, anyway.

A knock on the door. Anen shuts the journal and locks it, turning out the lamp with another hand as quickly as he can. He flops down on his bed and pretends to be asleep. He hears the door click open, feels the light from the hall fall across him, hears his father's soft voice. "He's asleep. Must have been tired." The door shuts again.

Anen opens his eyes to the dark room. He is tired, but he's not so sure he can sleep. He watches the moonlight travel slowly across the floor, and thinks thoughts barely formed enough to be thoughts. Eventually he does sleep, a restless and troubled sleep in which the images of the nightmares' attack recur over and over in his own internal dreamscape.

Teratus, outside the window, keeps watch. He has his own secrets. For now, he holds vigil over his dreamer's child. One encounter with nightmares is enough for a night.

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Elsewhere, a few days ago. Two voices.

"I have news, lord. He has a child."

"Excellent. We can use that."

"Here. Look in the crystal."

"Ugh. What is that?"

"The child, lord. He has adopted it."

A long silence.

"It's all you'd expect from a halfblood. You won't have to be too careful, then. Take it or kill it, I don't care. Just draw him here so I can complete the ritual."

"Yes, lord. My pleasure."

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Anen heads down to the edge of the woods. The sun is bright and hot today, having completely burned off the mist and overcast that usually accompanies day in Dream, and he wants to get into the cool shade of the Forest. He's planning to visit the nearby ruins today. Sometimes fascinating artifacts appear there. Anen likes to bring them home, try to draw them, make up stories about them before they dissolve again. He pushes his walking stick into the grass, feeling energetic.

He glances over to the bank where he built the tiny city a few days ago and stops short. It's been destroyed. The small structures are crushed, their components scattered. It looks like clumsy feet have trampled across it. He stands over it, his face pulling into a distressed frown. Who would do something like that? He spent a lot of time and care on making those.

A sudden prickling shudder sweeps over his wings. He's jumping forward, over the ruins of the miniature houses, before he consciously realizes that the prickling means that someone is behind him, making the air press against the tiny, soft hairs on his wings. He lands on the Council-house, the remaining twigs of the structure crunching beneath his foot and making him half-stumble as he turns. He forgets the destruction as he sees what's behind him, though.

A tall, paleskinned man in Victorian dress stands there. There are ... things tucked into the band of his top hat, and the lace that decorates his clothing is stained and tattered. In one hand, he clutches a long black cane with a silver skull for its handle. In the other hand, a long knife with an odd, zigzag, jagged blade. Its tip is shattered off, leaving sharp splinters of metal there, and it is coated in some translucent green stuff that gleams faintly where the light hits it.

Anen understands suddenly what Kia was talking about when she told him about boogeymen. This must be one. Except he's not hiding in the dark. He's walking out in the daylight. Anen takes a stumbling step backwards.

The man smiles a slow sweet poisonous smile. "Prince Anen. Won't you come with me?"

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"W-what?" Anen takes another step backwards. "Who are you? I'm not going anywhere."

The man raises one neatly plucked and redrawn eyebrow. "Duke Karlyn d'Tignon of the Fourth District of the Grand Hall. Your loyal servant." His tone of delicate distaste is almost entirely hidden, but Anen catches the note and steps back again. Definitely a boogeyman.

"Don't be afraid," d'Tignon offers, in a voice he obviously thinks is soothing. "There is nothing to fear from the nobles of your Court, my Prince." The subtle shift of his knife hand and his posture and the sudden faint glitter in his eyes contradicts him.

"DAD!" Anen yells, hoping the study window is open. He falls back, bringing his walking stick up into a defensive posture, trying to keep himself from trembling.

d'Tignon's face twists into a scowl. He struggles with his expression for a moment, then drops the pretense and takes a slinking, stalking step forward. "Yell," he hisses. "Yell for the damn halfblood thing. I can see he's been teaching you the noble arts, little monster, but that won't keep you." He brings his knife up, letting it glitter in the sunlight.

"DAD!" Anen yells again. The study is halfway around the house. He's not sure he can yell loud enough, and this nightmare of a man is too close for him to get into the air cleanly. He takes another step backwards, trying to drop into the trancelike state he's learning from the morning exercises, where he'll see and hear clearly and be well balanced. It's hard. His heart is pounding, his head buzzing slightly with fear.

A pair of small eyes glitters from a bush nearby.

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d'Tignon stalks forward, his knife weaving back and forth in the air hypnotically. He mutters words under his breath, strange and sliding syllables that make Anen's head hurt. A faint, nasty glow springs up on the edges of the crooked blade. Magic. It reminds Anen of wild nightmares, and he shudders.

The tall man darts forward suddenly, bringing the knife up in a smooth arc then down in one fluid motion, slicing toward Anen, the blade humming through the air. Anen pivots on the ball of his foot, brings the staff up to meet the blade. Time seems to slow. For the briefest moment, he sees strings tangling the blade and staff to one another, tangling him to this living boogeyman. Then it speeds again, and the blade bites deep into the wood at the center of the staff.

d'Tignon curses, struggles to pull the blade free, yanks it out of the wood. Anen jumps backwards, panting, feeling a sting of intense fear. His walking stick is halfway sliced through. He can feel how close it is to breaking. "DAD!" he yells again, an edge of panic in his voice.

The sound he was hoping desperately to hear comes suddenly; the back door has just slid open, and he can hear his father talking to someone, in the tone of voice he reserves for talking to his pets. "Yes, yes, what's so important in the garden, Mocha?"

Anen eyes d'Tignon, trying to gauge the distance. Can he get past him? The tall, pale man has his head turned to listen to the approaching voice and footsteps. His face is twisted in a snarl of pure, dark hate. Anen tenses himself, hesitates, then dashes towards the house. He feels the jagged knife swish past inches from his wing, hears the man's wordless hiss of frustration. He runs. "DAD! HE'S COMING!"

Prox steps in front of Anen as the spider child skids back behind him, placing himself between the Duke and his child. He stretches out his right hand. The bladed staff materializes there as he curls his fingers around it. "Who the hell are you and why are you threatening my son?" It's a coldly furious voice that Anen has never heard before. The words almost seem to make the air ripple around them.

Anen slowly backs up onto the bridge. He jumps and almost shrieks as a small weight lands on his shoulder. It's his father's Dragonfly, the kitten-sized cream-and-brown dragon. She sits up and chatters furiously at d'Tignon. She's brought her human to defend his hatchling, and she'll help.
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