Fjord opens his eyes to a dark, cobblestoned street. It is familiar in the formulaic way most cities are, and there is no defining feature to tell him where he is. The buildings that line the street appear normal, at first glance, but they stretch and curve above him when he looks up. The two moons are full and bright in the star-speckled sky, painting the entire scene in darkened silver.
He starts to walk. The silent darkness is almost suffocating; his feet make no sound when his boots brush the cobblestone. Uneasiness prickles across his bare arms.
A streetlamp flickers to life a few yards away, blinding and golden. Fjord winces, shielding away on instinct. He walks towards it and stops at the faded outline of the yellow-orange halo, far enough away that only the edges of his body are bathed in the light.
Technicolor flashes behind him, at the corner of his vision. He spins, reaching for a sword that isn’t there.
Nothing. He turns back around, towards the light.
Mollymauk stands before him, lounging against the lamp post with that achingly familiar grin etched upon his face. Around his head, the light seems to shimmer between colors like some sort of illusionary crown. Fjord blinks; the light returns to simple gold.
“Molly?”
The whisper cuts through the night, slithering in the darkness and between the cobblestone cracks. It is his true voice, and Fjord is surprised in a vague, abstract sort of way.
Molly’s smile widens. “Who else would I be?”
He does not lower his voice. It echoes around them strangely, like the sound is somehow confined to this single splash of lamplight. Fjord steps closer.
The words stick in his throat, but he manages to choke out, “We miss you.” It feels like too much and not enough all at once. “I miss you.”
“I know,” Molly says. His teeth glint in the lantern light when he speaks. “To be honest, I’m a bit surprised you did the whole martyr bit. I’m not sure if I should be honored or offended that you all thought so highly of me.”
Fjord snorts. No other words come to him, suddenly, as though his mind has been emptied of the ability to speak. Molly doesn’t seem to mind; he just shrugs and pats Fjord on the shoulder as he steps past, into the dark street.
“You’ve done good. Keep it up, handsome,” he calls.
His tail curls briefly around Fjord’s calf before he fades into the silvery, moonlit shadows. Fjord watches him go, then continues down the street. The lamplight flickers out behind him.
He is not sure how long he walks.
Vandren nods to him from a street corner. Behind him, Sabian’s smile splits the darkness like a knife. Fjord’s footsteps falter and nearly stop, but he tears his eyes away and keeps going.
Twenty paces beyond that, on the opposite side of the street, Jester and Nott watch him from the front stoop of one of the cut-and-paste buildings. Jester grins and wiggles her fingers at him when he makes eye contact. He tries to smile back, but his mouth is frozen. When he turns away, he knows with startling certainty that she and Nott start giggling about something, but the sound doesn’t carry.
He keeps walking.
There is a flash of white at the edge of his vision that could be Yasha. He turns to look; all he sees is the faint shine of a sword disappearing into an alley. Thunder rumbles, distant, but the sky is clear. He shakes his head and continues on.
He finds Caduceus waiting in the middle of the road; somehow, Fjord does not see him until they’re nearly face-to-face. His fading pink hair is nearly silver in the moonlight. Something in Fjord’s chest aches at the sight, though he doesn’t know why. Caduceus sips a yellow, softly-glowing liquid from a chipped teacup and tilts his head.
“What do you dream about, when your dreams are your own?” He asks, though his lips do not move.
Serene familiarity rings through the question, though Fjord is certain that he’s never been asked that before. He opens his mouth to reply and nothing comes out; his lungs feel hollow with words he doesn’t have. Caduceus smiles, like he wasn’t expecting an answer, and steps aside.
“That’s alright. You’ll figure it out,” he promises. His hand is warm on Fjord’s shoulder.
The words come rushing back.
“I’m not sure if my dreams are ever my own,” Fjord starts to say, turning, but Caduceus is already gone.
The words die on his lips, coating his tongue with their blood. He sighs and continues walking down the never-ending street.
Time continues in a blur of vaguely familiar glimpses and faces that never resolve into anything, until they do. Beau and Caleb emerge from the shadows; they are facing each other, talking - or perhaps arguing - though their voices do not carry. They stop and turn as Fjord passes them by.
Beau does nothing, simply crosses her arms and watches. Caleb tilts his head, analyzing, and Fjord breaks eye contact as the scar on his palm tingles. Caleb’s gaze is heavy on his back, cold and burning.
Hours or minutes or seconds later, the buildings split and the road spills into a shadowed, empty square. A dead, marble fountain towers in the center. Cracks skitter up its sides like cobwebs.
Fjord blinks.
Avantika stands in front of him, her blood-red hair tumbling over her shoulders and down her back. The teal of her jacket glows sea-green in the moonlight. Her lips are curled into a soft, fond smile, but her eyes are empty. She raises her hand to Fjord’s face like a caress; the scar on her palm is gone, replaced by the golden eye.
Fjord looks down and swallows. There is an eye, yellow and burning, in her chest where the tattoo had been. It blinks, and the eye in her palm blinks with it.
Avantika grins, a knife-slash smile.
Fjord cannot move, cannot speak, cannot—
He shoots up in bed with a gasp, hands scrabbling at his throat even when no saltwater or brine comes bubbling from his lungs. It is not until Caleb grunts beside him, half-asleep and startled, that he remembers where he is.
“Another dream?” Caleb asks, his accent heavy with sleep.
Fjord opens his mouth to answer. Instead of words, a harsh mix between a gasp and a whine slips out. Caleb pushes himself up onto his elbows, eyebrows knitting in concern.
“Fjord?” He asks, tentative, squinting in the darkness. “Are you alright?”
The words come back to Fjord in a suffocating rush.
“Yes, I’m fine,” he assures Caleb, the words too shaky to ring true. Somehow, he isn’t startled by the fact that it is his own voice that leaves his mouth, not Vandren’s.
Caleb tilts his head, though the scrutinizing weight of his gaze is lessened by the fact that he’s squinting through the darkness. Fjord can see everything in perfect, if colorless, clarity, and he’s not sure if it’s a relief or curse that he can’t see the clear, piercing blue of Caleb’s eyes.
A small frown curls Caleb’s lips.
“If you say so,” he says finally, slow like he’s only begrudgingly letting the lie pass. Then, “I am not...the best, at this, but if you would like to talk to me about it, I will listen.”
Fjord nods even though Caleb can’t see it. “Right, yeah,” he agrees, slipping behind Vandren’s voice like a shield. “Thank— thank you, for the offer, but. I don’t think I’m going to take you up on that, at least not tonight.”
He falls back onto his pillow, turning so that he doesn’t have to face Caleb. The bed shifts; Caleb’s arm brushes Fjord as he lies down. There is a soft, barely-audible sigh.
“Good night, Fjord.”