How long had it been exactly?

Hours?

Days?

Months?

Or had it even been years?

Whatever it had been Holly felt tired even in her dream realm. Her dreams revolved around Naota and sometimes what the Oracles fed into her mind. This time it was snow. It was deep but the cold was not effecting her. After all this was a dream and she could do whatever she pleased. It was more like an ocean of white as she waded through the light snow. Her long brown curls were hanging down coiling up on the surface. The ceremonial white gown clung to her body. The cold weather turned parts of her body red even though she could not feel it.

Finally she made it to the ice castle. She saw her breath leave her lips. The dream was becoming more real as she felt the cold nipping at her. Her bare feet felt the cold hard ground for the first time since arriving on Horae Island. This was a gift from the Oracles but she had no idea why she was even here. She knew not of Timedeath being solved but all she knew was that she was alone. 

There was a disturbance in the dream as the sky above rippled like water. It was almost like someone was passing through a portal. Who? Why?

How long had she been asleep?

The air around him grew extremely cold despite the warm room he had paid for that night. The further he drifted into slumber, the more biting that cold became. When he opened his eyes it was to stark whiteness. Where was he? Was he only asleep? There was no way he could have been taken to a place like this without him realizing. So what exactly was going on…? As he tilted his head he realized that he wasn't aloft in nothingness but was in fact falling. And falling fast.
 

His breath caught in his chest as he tried to right himself, but none of the skills he was trained in were working. If it weren't for the burn of the cold wind against his face he'd have thought t his was simply a dream, but no…it felt all to real. And aside from the fact that he had fallen from seemingly nowhere out of the sky, things were too normal. He was too aware. Dreams often left you feeling foggy.


Just before reaching the ground he managed to twist his body so that his shoulder could connect with the blanket of snow. From the height he had fallen from alone he sunk half a foot into the soft powder and let out a low wince. What caught his attention the most though was the silence: not a word from his daemon. He couldn't even feel his presence. It had to be a dream then, life never would have made it that easy for him. Unless there was an unseen price.


That absent feeling made him feel more vulnerable than he ever would have expected but when he lifted his head up his heart felt like ice at who he saw. It had been so long since he'd seen her, yet she looked exactly the same to him. Perhaps it was that comatose like state she had put herself in. He, however, had changed. His height was more advanced, his muscle tone more so, and while he had frozen in age at twenty three -a good four years after having last seen her- he was now well into his thirties. Yet the vial still hung around his neck, hidden underneath his upper layer of clothing; a constant reminder of what was there.


All he could do was stare at her, though his fingers slowly rose up, feeling for the antidote and growing even more confused when he felt that it was still there. He hadn't awoken her, so how was she here? His jaw locked, remembering what she was and pushing away the very small feeling of hope he still had for her. It remained, but had not been fostered.


His eyes slowly shifted to red and each muscle in his body yearned to reach for a weapon, or even advance on her with his bare hands, but he restrained himself. Though he did rise up onto his feet, ignoring the cold snow against his skin as he did so, and kept himself a good ten feet away from her, his tone was soft but accusatory,


"Are you the one that brought me here?"

Silver eyes connected with those angered red orbs. In comparison her eyes were much more sad and there wasn't an ounce of content about what she had done to herself. The air was thick, so thick it hurt to breath and she thought she felt her chest tighten with each rise and fall of it. Her feet numb to the cold took steps back. She found herself on the ledge of a steep cliff. She looked over her shoulder. There was contemplation.

There was hurt.

"No." The word left her lips as a whisper as her foot felt the edge of the cliff. She had done something stupid once for him she would do it again. For her time was still in that moment. The moment her heart had been shattered. "I wouldn't." Her eyes gazed behind her again. This was some cruel joke surely by one of the oracles trying to raise her out of her slumber.

"You've changed." the words were slow but she said them as she eased herself around the ledge. Re-balancing herself as pieces of the cliff fell off. The splash from below echoed in the dreadful silence of the Venti night.  "Changed and yet the same."

There was more pain in her eyes as she shamefully looked away from him. There were tears but she thought they were hollow. "I wouldn't call you here. Not after that. No amount of words can change how you feel or I would have tried."

His eyes flickered down to her feet as she drew closer to the cliff's edge, but replaced themselves on her face almost instantly. No matter what she was he highly doubted any actual harm would befall her here. It might be painful, but she would survive. Probably. He was still wrestling with himself on whether this place was real or not. The only thing that grounded him to that possibility was the silence in his head.


Before he'd known what she was he would have gone to her at that drop of her eyes, or at the very least would have instinctively reached for her for being so dangerously close to a cliff's edge that was already beginning to crumble. But now, no…He watched, taking an almost pleasure in seeing that upset. She'd tricked him, that hadn't been his fault, her guilt was her own and he wasn't about to appease it. Still, if this place could do more harm than he thought, he didn't want the wrath of her mother on him for having done nothing. And while his respect for her had lessened over time, he still knew power when he saw it and had enough common sense not to test it.


"Step away from the edge before you do something that'll get us both into a mess…"


His fingers lifted again, touching the chain around his neck and pulling it up until the vial was able to be seen. Despite his demeanor he held it gently between his fingers, yet firmly enough to not have it taken from his grasp, "This is still just as full as it was the day it was given to me. How are you here? How am I here?"


Presently they were the only two in the area, and for all he knew the only two at all in this place. He still had no idea where they were; nothing here resembled anything he had seen on either continent. Not that he had travelled every square foot, but a vast expanse of ice and snow didn't exactly go unnoticed. Neither did a castle.


His eyes narrowed, contemplating his actions before moving the vial back under his clothing and turning away from her. His feet crunched softly against the snow as he walked away from her, hoping he'd either wake up or run into someone else that would have more information regarding where he'd been forced to.

There was doubt in her eyes immediately as he spoke to her. It was so harsh that she stumbled on the edge a bit. "Why? You won't be the one getting punished. You don't think I didn't write a letter that this is my fault? That this was my decision? I am living with this not you. You could smash that bottle today and forget I exist." He hated her that much. He loathed her. "My mother can't lift a finger against the words I've written because of who I delivered it to." She had gone an extra step to ensure her mother's rage was contained.

"You are in my hell. I don't know who let you in here but they need to take you out." She eyed the vial for a moment before shaking her head. She didn't want to think it was possible. She felt a bit more of herself breaking as he turned and walked away from her. The web that had been spun so tightly around them for this dream began to make the dream crumble as pieces of the sky fell down. The ground rumbled near her as silent tears rolled down her face.

"I love you. I love you so much I went into a depression. I had this song that I heard inside of me since I was young and it inspired me so much. The moment I met you it became so beautiful like a blooming flower. The day you started to hate me was when it died and left a dead silence in not only my mind but my heart. You hate me for something I have no control over."

Her lips quivered as the shaking stopped and she turned away from him and looked below. "I stood outside of the den. Days after it happened. Thinking if I just let them tear me to pieces I could finally live with myself. I got scared. I knew about Eshari from my childhood. Witnessed a woman commit it. It's even worse than if I was dead. Every day thinking about how much you hate me and not hearing that song. Being fed bullshit dreamworlds that feels so incomplete. I've forgotten how long I've been here."

She crouched at the edge and looked up. "I've forgotten what the sun feels like. What the rest grass feels like. How nice a hot bath is after a long trip. I've forgotten what food tastes like. Everyday though I remember your lips and I have to sit through remembering that those same lips loathe me now. I didn't hide it from you. It just never came up. It's not something I actively think about it. I'm Holly. I'm not a vampire loving bitch that lies to the person she loves. I'm just me who happens to have a little bit of vampire blood in me."

She wasn't even sure if he was listening. She fell silent and grasped the edge with her hands. The sharp ice cutting as she gripped tightly. It stung but she just reminded herself it was a punishment and it was suppose to hurt.