“Aeron!”
The sound of his name on his sisters' lips made him smile. He missed them a great deal despite their annoyances. They were not as small as the girls in the dream, but then, neither was he. He looked at himself, younger, shorter, thinner. His clothes were of a fine cut but covered in sand and water and his hair not nearly as long as it was now. He smiled again at his sisters and ran to them, splashing in the rolling waves.
“Aeron!” his sisters called again, though this time it was not jovial. It was terrified, a warning that made him frown. The brightness on the horizon dimmed until it was nearly as dark as the sand around him. He turned, kicking up sand in his wake to see an olven boy with a white staff and felt the blood drain from his face.
“Found you,” the boy said. He had clawed hands and the tiniest of fangs that showed through a wicked smile. The boy from the catacombs. “Did you really think you could hide forever?”
“Who are you?” Aeron demanded, now back to the form he was familiar with. He felt his own Power burning in his veins, ready to defend himself, but the boy only smirked and shook his head.
“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,” he said. “Yira doesn’t take kindly to use of Power in Her realm.”
“…sen!”
The echo resonated across the beach, making Aeron bring his hands to his pointed ears. It hurt to hear, the entire dream vibrating like a bell. Even the olven boy winced a little, then snorted softly, glancing up to the dim sky.
“Saved by the bell, little worm,” he said. “Don’t worry, we’ll see each other soon. I know what you smell like now.”
With that, the boy vanished, rocking Aeron from his dream. He sat up, gasping and ready to fight. Nadya grabbed him by the shoulders, speaking to him but his ears continued to ring with the sound of the echo that resonated in his dream.
“What happened?” Nadya demanded, bringing Aeron around to her face. The others watched him with the same amount of concern, even fear. His arm burned, the whole of it as red as if he’d stuck it in a fire. Power melted away, his skin tender to the touch as he flexed each finger one by one. Beneath his hand was a scorch mark on the wood floor of the room they slept in.
“We need to leave. Now.”
***
It never ceased to amaze Kaleo how dark the Poppy Fields were when Jaysen walked them compared to when the avian walked them. Even in the dark, however, the vibrant colors were seen, as was the doorway to the Sea of Stars. Kaleo frowned stepping forward toward the opening.
“Jaysen!” he called into the Sea, hearing his voice vanish into the ether the further out it went. He let the darkness around him linger before banishing it away. He was about to step into the Sea itself when he finally saw his friend and stepped back waiting for the olven boy to exit the Sea of Stars into the Poppy Fields.
“I thought you said it was dangerous to go into the Sea,” he said. Jaysen looked up with a scowl on his face, the doorway closing with a rush of air that set the poppies around them dancing.
“What are you doing here?” the other boy said. “I told you not to come back.”
“I told you I don’t listen very well,” Kaleo countered, moving toward Jaysen. Jaysen stepped back. He did that more often of late, making Kaleo frown. “Why do you do that? I’m not going to do anything to you.”
“You shouldn’t be here,” Jaysen continued, ignoring the question. Tanis was not with him again though he held on to the staff. Not in a way that made Kaleo think the olven boy was ill, but it was not a normal feature in the dream world.
“Neither should you,” Kaleo said, moving forward. “You tell me to stay away, to not come back, but you’re still here. You won’t tell me anything at all. Why isn’t it safe? Why do you keep coming back? You’ve helped me, let me help you in return.”
“What? No,” Jaysen scoffed shaking his head. He sighed then and focused on Kaleo. “I don’t need help.”
“What happened to us, Jaysen?” Kaleo said. “We used to be friends. We used to talk and laugh and… and we don’t do any of that anymore. All we do is argue. When did that change?”
“When we grew up,” Jaysen answered. Now it was Kaleo’s turn to scoff.
“Oh, get off it,” he said. “We’re not grown. We try to act like it but we’re still just children playing a game. Yeah, alright, I get it, I’m spoiled and things are probably not the same for you and we’ve never met outside of this field but you are still my friend.”
“I don’t have friends,” Jaysen muttered. Kaleo merely shook his head. This was not how things were supposed to be. One part of his life was coming together while another was falling apart. He didn’t want that, didn’t want to lose his closest friend.
“That’s a shame,” he said, turning away from Jaysen. “For whatever it’s worth, I found what I was looking for.”
“Your father? He’s alive?” Jaysen asked. There was a note of surprise, maybe even excitement in his voice that made Kaleo hesitate in his answer. Jaysen had shown doubt, even tried to dissuade him from looking for his father at one point. Excitement was not exactly part of the olven boy’s repertoire, either. What was he hiding? Why were things so different now? Eventually, Kaleo simply shook his head.
“No,” the young avian said. “He’s gone.”
“Oh… sorry,” Jaysen said actually meaning
