He just gazed at her, his hands still pressed firm over her ears. The noise of the realm around them was blotted out. He didn't speak but leaned in and pressed his forehead to hers his eyes closing as he did so. 

This thing feeds off your fear, Holly. It feeds off your shame, off of your self-doubt and loathing…

The whispers were soft, as though coming from within her, cancelling out the noise around her. 

You need to starve it, Holly. Stand up, and face it. 

He pulled his hands away from her ears, the noise still cancelled, and grabbed her arms. His eyes were still closed, as though concentrating. He pulled her into a standing position and turned her to face the thing in front of them. 

What makes you happy, Holly? What brings you joy, what brings you courage? Use that against it.

In the silence, music began again. Not the discordant near screaming of before, but a steady rousing beat of drums. 

Holly shivered as he put his forehead against hers. It was comforting. It wasn’t like the dream world where she couldn’t feel the people who had visited her. Justice was warm and she could almost hear the blood pulsing in his veins. His words entered her mind and she felt the entire world fall away until she only heard what he wanted her to.

She stood with him and turned around to face the creature in front of them. For a minute she panicked but she was quick to realize that this thing was something that they had been warned about. The tricksters of this world that she would need to watch out for. She whimpered for a solid moment before she took a deep breath.

With his final words, something came into his mind. It was one of the most courageous voices she had.  You make me happy and give me courage. She found herself angrier than anything now that this thing had fed off her fear. She had a clear conscious for the first time in forever. Her eyes watched as she saw Justice in the distance attacking the creature with his rapier. It took her a moment to realize that this was what her mind was creating. That Justice was the person who gave her the strength to do this. Her hands reached up and she put them over his.

The dream world that she so hated collapsed and the garden of souls were around them again. The creature was more like a mass cut in two. It looked odd but slowly it was starting to decay. As soon as they were out she exhaustively fell back into Justice’s arms and looked up at him. “Maybe we should stop and rest.”

As Holly's own words entered his mind, his eyes opened as he stood behind her, and there was a bright gleaming, the blue becoming a bright radiant glowing silver. She was finally taking control. He could feel her mind strengthening in resolve. He decided to give her one more tiny edge. The projection of himself that she conjured, its blade shone radiantly, becoming almost substantial as it slashed and pierced the wraith-like entity, moving with the skill and speed of a practiced blade wizard. As the blade drove home, the nightmarish world crumbled around them, almost like a mirror breaking until piece by piece it dissolved, leaving nothing but the hazy wispy mass on the ground which too quickly decayed and faded away. 

He caught her as she fell back against him, his eyes closed tightly for a moment and he nodded soundlessly in agreement about her suggestion of a rest. His mind was empty and blank now, and he felt as though he could sleep for years. It took all his strength not to collapse there beside Holly and just pass out there on the river bank. Slowly he opened his eyes again, the usual vibrancy of the blue orbs replaced with the dull of fatigue, and distant, as though he was not all there. He looked almost aged now, his face a sickly grey. 

That had taken a lot more out of him than he remembered in the past…

Holly watched as he looked different now. He was overly tired and that frightened her to see how sick he was. He wanted to rest and she could not deny him that. She nodded to him and her magic sparked. A soft blanket big enough for the two of them appeared. She was too tired to suggest they sleep apart and he was warm to her. The warmness from his forehead was still fresh on hers as they laid down. She curled up near him and put her head into the nook she lazily found between his shoulder and neck. It felt nice.

“Rest, I’m sure now we’ll be fine that it saw we can defend ourselves.” Holly felt her mind started to become wary again but she knew that he had helped her a lot more than what she needed. He gave her what she needed. Holly held onto one of his hands merely for comfort so she knew that he wasn’t going to leave her there. It was the last thing she wanted in the whole world. She was scared of being abandoned. When she closed her silver eyes her dreams were quite pleasant.

They were pleasant either because Justice had given her the courage to understand that they were just dreams or because his spell hadn’t completely worn off just yet. 

His mind had already shut down. He was pretty much sleep walking by the time Holly told him to lay down and rest. He collapsed onto his back, his body sinking into the deep clutches of sleep before Holly had even curled up beside him, possibly attributing to the ease of Holly cuddling up close to him. Even in his sleep though, he turned his face towards hers as she rested her head in the crook between his neck and shoulder. He felt her gripping his hand and his hand closed around hers gently, reassuringly. 

The magic he had worked was something that he wasn't even fully aware he had done. The Eshari had caused a sort of mind rot in Holly. All he had done, was begin to restore the rot and fortify Holly's mind with a tower of protection. It would not fade away for some time, and even when it did, what he had managed to restore in her would stay as such. He had only used it once, to help erase nightmares for Rizka many years ago. 

At some point during their rest, Justice rolled over and draped an arm protectively around Holly, curling up around her, similar to how a cat might curl up around the contours of its owners body. 

Holly was comforted by Justice, it wasn’t anything new. From the first moment, they had met there was a comfort feeling that she got from him. It wasn’t that he was nice looking or that he had an air of mystery to him that she couldn’t figure out. It was just that he was. He showed in the way he spoke to her and Rizka. The passage of time for Holly had been a lot faster than for other people. The years had blurred for her and all she could remember was the nightmare that Justice had helped her beat. No one had been there before to stop it. Aside from the concoctions that the Oracles would give her to try and keep them away, nothing had really helped ease that pain.

She was relatively very small compared to Justice. Her body echoed what daintiness was in a woman. She was petite and very light. It was almost unnaturally light like those of her angelic cousins. She couldn’t explain it but she had a feeling it had to do with whoever had been her father. She hadn’t thought about it much in recent years but when she was younger she would daydream about the person her father had been. She wasn’t a halfling so she knew that he fell into two categories. He was either a vampire or a human. She had never asked her mother who he was or what he was like, Holly had thought maybe Angela would have told her. The goddess never did and for some very odd reason despite her curiosity, it didn’t bother her. That’s just the way it was.

She slept well as she stretched and pushed her head up under his chin. Her face practically squished into his upper chest and neck. It had been some of the best sleep she had since she woke up from the Eshari. The difference he had made on her mind was already showing as she felt the confidence trickling in, where before it had dried up. When she woke up she was startled at how close he was. Actually, she thought she had gotten way too close to him but his arms were around her and she couldn’t seem to free herself. She was way too light. The Rosenite didn’t overly struggle past realizing how stuck she was. She didn’t want to wake him. He had looked terrible when they had laid down.

She tilted her head and closed her silver eyes again as she wrapped herself around him. She might as well enjoy it. She hadn’t been this close to a person in what seemed like forever. It seemed like another life. When he started to show life she pulled back just a bit so she could see his face. She was oddly silent as the blush came across her face. It was almost as red as her mother’s hair.

“Do you feel better? You didn’t look so good when we laid down…” Her voice was concerned as her hand balled up a bit of the fabric of his shirt on his back. She was afraid for him, she felt like she had caused him to get hurt. If her voice was concerned then her eyes spoke it a thousand times more as she looked him over without moving herself even an inch. It felt too nice that it almost scared her to pull away anymore.

Justice stirred after several hours, the ashen hue leaving his face and he looked more normal. His eyes slowly opened, the soft blue tired but at the same time revitalized from the rest. He smiled sleepily at Holly and how she had turned almost as red as her mother's hair. It was adorable, and then he realized that he had his arm draped around her and wondered if maybe that was the reason she had turned so red. 

"Yeah… lots," he said as he nodded and lifted his arm from around her to let her free of his grasp. "I… I haven't done something like that in… well, seven years," he said as he slowly pushed himself into a sitting position. "I don't know if it was easier then or not… I was just a kid then, and Rizka's nightmares were less… corporeal," he said as he looked at Holly. She looked better too. He had never made a point to pay a whole lot of attention to Holly's flaws, though he had noticed the dark circles under her eyes and the premature worry lines she had been trying to hide underneath her makeup. 

"You look a lot better too. Did you sleep well?" he asked softly as he reached up and tucked a lock of her long dark hair behind her ear. 

As he answered her she pulled her arm from him as well. She propped herself up on her elbow as she watched him with interest. “I didn’t even know you could do something like that.” She was amazed by Justice. It wasn’t often she came across bards who were talented in other things such as what Justice had done for her. Well them. “You are a good big brother to help her out like that.” She offered a smile to him as she realized just how lucky Rizka was to have someone like her brother looking out for her. 

The blush worsened a bit more as she smiled a bit more genuinely. “I feel so much better… Better than I have since I woke up from Eshari.” Her silver eyes were almost mesmerized by him as he pushed the lock of hair behind her ear. “I was more worried about you since you looked really bad after you used that magic.” She frowned now as she reached up with her free hand and felt his face. It was warm now, much more so than before when he had looked so pale.

“Guess we should have listened well when Mother said this place had tricksters.” She doubted that the creature knew the damage it would have caused Holly to see that nightmare. “It’s a very good thing I had you with me otherwise I don’t know what I would have done.” 

Justice chuckled softly. "When you don't use talents like that very often, you sometimes forget you have them. Honestly, I wasn't even sure I could do it again," he admitted. "It just took a lot more out of me than I expected," he said softly. "Last time, I slept immediately afterward, so it might have affected me as poorly, but I fell straight to sleep without noticing," he explained. He blushed softly when she said he was a good brother. 

"Well, it was either that or not sleep for days," he chuckled softly. "I think it was more out of self-preservation," he said with a smile. "I'm just glad that I was able to help you," he said as he lightly brushed her cheek with a knuckle. He stood up and offered her a hand to get to her feet before he brushed himself off and looked around. 

"Yeah, but tricksters aren't by nature malicious bastards who feed on a people's insecurities," he commented. "I think there might be more than just tricksters here. It stands to reason if Kira has been corrupted then there are things here that could be just as malicious as her," he said as he put his hands on his hips and looked around. He realized his hair had fallen from its ponytail and he quickly swept it back up into place. 

"I think we may be expecting more things like that to possibly show up," he said grimly.