The bad news was that now he had its total and complete attention.
He’d thought he was burning up before. That pain was nothing - nothing - before the inferno that tore through his veins. He didn’t have the time to scream before the storm coursed into him.
Owl’s vision went white, reducing the dreamer to a blur. He couldn’t hear, couldn’t think. Even if he’d wanted to pull away, he couldn’t - somewhere along the line, their roles had reversed. Its fingers clamped about the sleeves of his jacket, holding him fast.
Through the fog of the light and pain, he could see the heat rippling off its hands. He watched, pinioned, as his coat ripped, shredded in an instant by the sheer magical force of it. The scraps of leather and cloth dissolved to dust, incinerated before it could even float away.
Something struck him. Struck his knees. The ground. Right. His legs must’ve given way, leaving him kneeling in the water with his arms clutched by the dreamer. It was still looking, he realized. Its whispers still poured into his mind, searching for whatever anchor it so desperately needed. The fires lacing his body put their meaning hopelessly out of reach.
The heat intensified across his chest. Owl flinched, his back arching as he shied away. His jacket was- it was gone. Seared away to nothing. Not much protection at all, was it?
The dreamer was holding him up, by then. The hold it had on his arms was all that was keeping him upright. Was it enough? Had he bought enough time?
His breath seeped out, ragged and tight. He’d done his best. That was all he could do.
It was up to Alexandria from here.
The world...wasn’t quite so white anymore. It was fading to grey again, as though the very Library itself was disappearing from around him. And here, with the light out of his eyes, it almost seemed like the dreamer was fainter, too. He couldn’t quite make it out. Everything was blurry, and his head pounded every time he tried to focus. But here...
Owl could almost see a figure under the glowing skin of the dreamer. An older man, perhaps. It was right there in front of him, if only- if only he could muster the will to look.
He couldn’t. Owl sagged, still twitching as the dreamer’s storm burned away his senses one inch at a time.
He hoped it was enough.
The dreamer’s head snapped up. Owl flinched, his limbs tensing as the fires surged, and-
It stopped.
The magical storm, the groaning of the wood, the shrieking whispers in his ears and the endless, hoarse sound of his cries, it all stopped.
Everything.
In the calm of that moment, with the whole world holding its breath, he heard it. He felt it. Someone was moving. Walking. The gentle splashing of their footsteps rose against the deafening silence.
He heard them draw close, near enough to reach out and touch. Summoning up every last ounce of strength he had left, Owl opened his eyes. Just a hair, no more.
A woman stepped up alongside him.
He...couldn’t see her. Not really. He could see her shape, yes, but little more. The pale glow shining off her form warmed the suddenly-dark space around them, blurring any details and distorting the space around her. Where the dreamer’s light had turned incandescent and searing-hot, toward the end, this felt...comfortable. It warmed his skin wherever it touched, quieting the hurts that lingered still.
There were a few things he could tell, of course. She was naked. He was fairly sure of that much, even if his eyes slid off her form and refused to focus each time he looked her way. She was naked, with pale, sun-starved skin and untamed masses of brown hair falling to her waist.
The corners of his lips curled up ever so slightly. She was as beautiful as her statue.
She reached out, and he shivered at the warmth of her touch. She laid a hand onto his wrist, where the dreamer clutched him.
“Is that necessary?” Alexandria said. Her voice was like nothing he’d heard before - completely foreign to him, and yet intrinsically familiar. There was a rough edge to it, but, well. When you spoke as rarely as her, that was probably to be expected.
The dreamer looked up, at last. It stared at her, and with her hand against its, the last of its fierce light faded to reveal the man Owl had seen before.
“You,” the man whispered. His eyes glistened. “You.”
Owl couldn’t see her face any more than the rest of her, but somehow, he thought that she smiled. “Me,” she said. He felt her fingers tighten against him. “Have you calmed down a little?”
“You promised,” the man whispered. “I-I waited. I waited so long, in the dark. I...I couldn’t-”
“I’m sorry,” Owl heard her say, the words quiet and heavy. “My servant was a little tardy. But...” She paused, and that feeling washed over him again - the sensation of being inspected, even when the world around him was still a hazy, foggy mess of nothingness. “I think he’s learned his lesson, don’t you?”
“I waited,” the dreamer said. His voice was still low and hushed, but Owl could hear the intensity beginning to leave it. “For you. Like you said. A-And you-”
“I’m here now,” Alexandria said, stepping forward again. The soft, indistinct blur of her filled what little vision Owl had left, all but blocking the dreamer from sight. “There’s still time.”
“B-But-”
“Please don’t break my things.” This time, he was sure he heard the low rumble of laughter accompanying her words.
The death-grip around his wrists loosened - and started to slacken entirely. Through the slits of his vision, he saw the dreamer release him, turning to face the woman.
It was hard to be sure, with only a scrap of vision, but the dreamer was starting to look almost translucent. “So...you’ll...”
“I remember,” Alexandria said, more softly. The glow of her skin brightened, never losing its warmth. Against the unflinching light of her, the dreamer’s form continued to fade. “I didn’t
