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indent He dreamt, as he always did. The dreams were not always the same; sometimes he walked alone, through empty woods and dark skies. Sometimes others were there; Anya, now grown, who embraced him and then stabbed him in the back, smiling. His father, a dark wraith with fire-red eyes burning, fought him like the devil. Perhaps his mother, who sang sweetly or turned on him, screaming holy words and claiming he was marked for damnation and deserved to die. A madman, grinning at him, whose grin remained as Ahren ripped his face off. A stranger, a shadow, who was beaten in an alley, cut down without reason. He never dreamt of better times.
indent The dream tonight was one he had before. In it, he stood watching a building burn. It was his father who came in this dream, his father as Ahren remembered him. He had never seen what the cancer had done. There were few words spoken, translated into violence. Each time he was struck he bled, and each time he felt like this was doing nothing. Damian kept laughing, kept screaming, kept hitting him. It was his father who slaughtered him in this dream, and it was his laughter Ahren heard when he woke with a start.
indent Darkness, sweet, silent, still. It was snowing again. The makeshift hut he and Misery lived in only did so much. He couldn’t stand her smell at that moment—it was his smell on her, because she kept him alive. She still talked to him. Sometimes Ahren wished she had died when Damian had. Pushing off the fur blanket he had tanned not two weeks ago, the young man (who was not half so young anymore) climbed from the elevated cot and made his way outside. There was no moon and there was no sound. Just the snow, falling quietly, reminding him of the gentle indifference of the world.
indent It comforted him. Striking a match, Ahren lit a cigarette and moved away from the building, eyes glowing faintly in the half-light of nightfall.
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Melisande could shift. She'd figured it out quite a while ago, as a young wolfess helping some stoned guy get some water. She remembered scars, or maybe tatoos, and telling him he shouldn't swear so much. But that was a long time ago, and the person she saw up ahead wasn't him, she was pretty sure. She could shift, but she never did anymore, unless she absolutely needed to. She might as well have been a pure coyote, simple as that.
The white wolfess approached the shifted creature now, wondering what he was doing. Smoking something, she saw, as she got closer, although it didn't smell like weed. Probably just tobacco. He was standing outside of a makeshift hut, so she assumed that he must live here, and therefore was a member of the pack. She cursed herself, momentarily, for having been gone so long that she didn't even know her own packmembers, then decided to fix the problem. She approached, and gave a little nod of her head as a friendly greeting. "Good morning, sir." She said.
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indent Since he had been a boy, Ahren had tapped into his genetic makeup and used the mutation to his advantage. He climbed trees, gone on adventures like the men in stories he had been told did, and worked his hands raw. In time, he found that two legs served him better then four. Shifting his feet and flicking ash from his cigarette, he turned to the approaching female. “Won’t be morning for a few more hours,” he said, casting a momentary glance up to the dark sky above. “What are you doing out so late?”
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There were those who were under the impression that Melisande didn't sleep. This assumption would have been false - of course she slept, she just did so irradically. A nap here, a nap there, whenever she had free time, and often it ended up that she slept just as much in the daytime as she did at night. She rarely slept during the twilight hours, as they could be better put to use for hunting, but otherwise you never really knew. So, for Melisande, 'what are you doing up so late," was a funny question to ask.
"Late, early, it makes no difference." She sat down nearby, and looked out at the lands. He was right, though. The world hadn't quite begun to stir yet. Everything was still resting, and soon the night creatures would be retreating, and the day creatures would be waking up. Then she had a thought. "What about you? What are you doing out so late."
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indent Ahren’s sleep varied with great discrepancy—some nights he remained up until dawn, others he was asleep as soon as it was dark. His pattern was a curious one, and that was why he never thought of it. He slept when he was tired. Mostly, though, he had found himself becoming more and more nocturnal. The dreams didn’t come with such authority during the day. “Bad dreams,” he offered, explaining no more. Another drag on the cigarette, another breath of smoke to the wind.
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Melisande listened. Bad dreams. She thought at first that it was an excuse, and really he was up for some reason he didn't want anyone else to know. But then, he didn't seem like he was lying. Melisande's sleep hadn't been that disturbed by bad dreams since she was just a pup. She could remember a few of the ones that repeated, but found that she couldn't recall the rest at all.
"When I was little I used to think that dreams could tell the future." She looked off into the distance. She knew now that this wasn't true. "Now my theory is that you dream of things that you can't decide if you want or fear." She wasn't sure if that made sense, but it was the best she had thought of yet.
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indent Unless he had reason to lie, which he did not currently, Ahren was generally honest. There was little to gain from dancing around the truth; some feelings might be saved, but that was all. Her reasoning made a grin break over his face, amused at how even in this barbaric country, someone would prove him wrong and tap into the psycho-analytic cusp. “Dreams are said to be wish fulfillments,” he said, looking at her. “Though the same people also say our archetypes become manifested as well—that all the monsters we fear are just symbolism for a part of our own being.”
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She thought about this. At first it was rather the same as what she had been saying, but then he added something else. Monsters. Had she ever really had dreams of monsters? No, she thought, not really, but in a way, yes. If an elk could be seen as a monster, she'd had many of those dreams. Her grandmother being ripped to shreds before her eyes. The blood, the snow. Melisande decided not to think about it too hard now. The images were too vivid, she was afraid she would not be able to handle them now, in her wakeful state.
"Do you think we are afraid of ourselves?" she asked, curiously. Then she rethought the queston. Maybe she should have asked him if he was afraid of himself, but then, that would probably be something like prying. Melisande had learned that it was dangerous to pry too far into the minds of others. Mostly, if someone wanted you to know something, they would tell you outright, sooner or later.
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indent The mind replayed images, being a thing that learned to mimic what it is told it sees. From there, it fills in blanks—often creating images from things imprinted. So his father became a monster, drawn up from the memory of their fight (the last time Ahren had seen the man) and the fights that had occurred in the times since that day. “Maybe,” he responded, shrugging lightly. “I think we’re afraid of what we could or have done. The darker park of ourselves, if you split yourself like that.”
indent His tongue moved behind his teeth and he found himself biting lightly on the barbell again. As he opened his mouth to speak again, the tongue ring flashed in the light. “Fear is an instinct though. The brain doesn’t want the body to get hurt.” That was how most fears evolved, at least how Ahren reasoned it.
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indent Melisande nodded, thinking about this. She considered the dreams she'd had, and decided that they were very true. Maybe that was why people thought they could tell the future... because they dreampt of what they might do, and then they did it, even though they were afriad of it. It made sense.
indent "Hmm. So essentially, dreams are our minds attempting to protect us from ourselves." She nodded, pleased with this assessment. Of course, this couldn't be the case all the time, with every dream. She remembered happy dreams, after all, and even pointless ones. But most of the memorable ones seemed to fit this description quite well.
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indent A faint and honest smile again crossed his face. This woman was charming in her own way; she might have been a psychologist or a philosopher if this back-water land ever caught up to the rest of the world. Still, the placid speed of this place was all right. It suited them and their pathetic, short little lives. “In theory, yes,” he said, pausing to take another drag on the tobacco. He exhaled before he began speaking again. “The same applies to phobias, if you give it that ground.”
indent Another moment to fill his lungs with smoke. “What’s your name?” He asked suddenly, as if just now realizing the two had not properly introduced themselves.
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indent She smiled, proud, for some stupid reason, that they'd come up with a really good theory. Or maybe he came up with it. She wasn't sure, and didn't care. Melisande liked this fellow. She wasn't generally fond of smoking, but this was one person who was proof that you couldn't judge a book by its cover. He was intelligent and intruiging.
indent "Oh." Melisande said, when he asked her what her name was. They hadn't even bothered to learn each other's names. "Melisande Sadira. And yourself?" She asked the question simply, but wondered much more about him. Where was he from - she was pretty sure he hadn't been here when she'd left, but it was very possible that she just hadn't met him yet. Now she was aware that although she'd been born on these lands, others mostly came from elsewhere to live with the pack. The male before her was interesting. She wanted to know.
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indent “Ahren de le Poer,” he offered, smiling still. She reminded him, in some small way, of his daughter. Intelligent, curious, proud of her accomplishments. Of course, the mention of the Sadria name had darkened his eyes slightly. His eldest daughter had been born out of Sadria blood—from Aiji, whom he cursed and hoped was now dead. What would matter now, though, would be her reaction to his name. If she had spoken to Aiji, things could take a very interesting turn. Not that he would blame her if she hated him automatically. Chimera had.
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indent De le Poer was a name she had heard before, but also one that didn't have much meaning in the mind of Melisande. The only names she felt she really knew were Sadira and Soul. Otherwise, families were families. She gave a nod. "Well, its nice to meet you." She said simply.
indent She wasn't sure what she was supposed to do now, so she simply looked out at the starlight, feeling like she was lost somewhere in space and time, but just for a moment. Thoughts of dreams and new beginnings swum in her head, and she turned back to the male beside her, eventually. She almost giggled as she spoke now, realizing how simply pleasant their conversation had been. "You know, its really nice to talk to someone so intelligent."
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Seems like a good place to end? We must thread again! 
indent The lack of reaction let him know she was ignorant of his previous actions. Part of him wondered if things might be different otherwise, but there was no sense in debating what had been or could be. History wasn’t everything. He wasn’t who he was then. It had taken two breakdowns and massive reconstruction, but it had to happen. Without those events, he would still be struggling to hold himself together. He knew he wasn’t complete now, but he was happy with who he was.
indent “I agree,” he offered, sparing her a glance before looking out to the dark, clear sky. A thousand worlds were out there, spinning in space, offering silent gazes on their quiet lives. Perhaps there were other things out there, other living beings who led their lives and contemplated the same things, wondering if they were alone in the universe. Tonight, though, Ahren and Melisande had found each others company and the world didn’t seem quite so empty.
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