They lapsed into silence for a time while Gideon cooked the meat that the merchant had provided and passed it around to all who were camping with them. After a while, the fire was dying down to just embers as the other members of the caravan were settling in for the night. Gideon poked at the fire with a stick as Rynn draped one of the borrowed blanket about her shoulders and sat down near him and the fire.

"Hmm?" he asked in response to her asking his name, and he quit poking the fire when she asked if he was going to want to stay with her and Jace. It sounded like when they found Jace, Rynn wasn't likely to leave him or the area he was in. "I didn't have any plans to leave," Gideon answered, more confused at the question than anything else. When she said never mind, he was even more perplexed but he didn't want to push the issue. 

Truth was, he hadn't thought about it. He didn't want to think about it, really. He had been under the assumption that he would continue to travel with Rynn even after they found Jace. But the question rattled him. What if she didn't want him to travel with her anymore? 

"Yeah. maybe we should…" he agreed softly. He smiled at her, but his mind was suddenly a tumbling jumble of thoughts, concerns and doubts. It left him sleepless for most of the night. He was awake and watching the sky when the sudden shift in the heavens occurred. He stood up, slowly and surveyed the skies that had gone from the velvet of night to the indecision of twilight. 

"What in the world…" he asked softly. He moved into the tent and gently shook Rynn awake. 
"You got to come see this…" he insisted and tugged on her sleepy form to come and look.

Rynn herself, had been struggling to stay asleep, lost in her own world of thoughts and worries, but as Gideon called for her to awaken, she sat up almost immediately.  "What is it, Gideon?" she asked yawning.  As she wiped the sleep from her eyes, though, she answered her own question.  The sky above had changed, and drastically so.  What was once a peaceful night was now a strange mix of night and day, as if the two had decided to fight for supremacy.  Rynn stood up, letting the blanket she had snuggled with fall to the ground.

"It's…almost beautiful," she said.  But there was a twinge of something that she felt deep inside of her.  This is just like…  Dread filled her heart as she looked to Gideon, her eyes quivering.  "I'm scared."  

The night overcame the day in the bleak twilight, forcing the world into something that felt darker than black itself.  Rynn immediately moved closer to Gideon, her fear escalating quickly as she tried to scramble for the grip on her blade.  "W-what's going on!?" she said, forcing herself against Gideon's back, almost knocking him over in the process.  There was a near deafening silence that came across them.  The caravan was no longer in sight, and Rynn wasn't even sure they were in the Bohar Plains anymore.  

"Gideon…" she whispered.  "What's happening.  This reminds me…reminds too much of…"  She couldn't even finish her sentence.  Fear gripped her heart like it did back then, when they had lost so many to the encroaching darkness.  

It was something close to her own personal nightmare.

He didn't have to answer her question. The sky did that itself. The place where night and day collided in the twilight was a violent wash of purples, pinks, navy and orange blasted with twinkling starlight. 

"Yeah, it is," Gideon agreed softly, his eyes stuck on the sky above them. It was hard to tell how long they stood there watching. It could have been hours, but eventually the battle between light and darkness was won and the darkness spread across the sky in fashion that made Gideon think of waves crashing mercilessly upon the beach. The speed in which it swallowed up the light sent both him and Rynn into a bit of a panic as even the light of the campfire embers were swallowed by the endless night. Her panicked voice cut through the overwhelming silence, and he felt panic grip him as he tried to keep from falling over as she crashed into him. He grabbed her hand to steady her, and himself. 

"I don't know," he said forcing himself to remain calm. He looked around and pulled his rapier from its scabbard. His eyes were slowly adapting to the dim, as if it were the darkest of nights. 

He knew what she was going to say. "Don't say that," he said sharply. "Don't… just don't…" he insisted. Her words had brought a rising level of panic to him and he was fighting hard to resist the need to vomit. "Feel the energy. It isn't the same as then. This is something different," he said. This brought some reassurance, but there was still a level of animosity in the atmosphere. 

"I… I think the gods are doing something…"

It was definitely reassuring to hear Gideon assessing the situation with calm.  Despite being the tactician, that didn't excuse her from her emotional responses that plagued even the best of warriors.   Still, secretly it annoyed her that he always seemed so well adjusted to anything and everything.  "Okay," she said calmly.  "We've got this.  The Gods are doing something.  That's great.  But now we've got to deal with it, and-"

There was a flash of something in the corner of her eye, and he looked.  "Aeolus?"  Her heart fluttered.  "Gideon!  I…was that Aeolus!?  Look!  Over there!"  She pointed into the dark, but nothing was there.  Another flash of silver to her right, and she reacted.  "No…over there."  She paused.  But Aeolus is dead.  It's our fault he's dead.  There's no way he….  She took a hesitant step forward into the darkness. 

"Wait…"  She looked into the dark, and shook her head.  "No…that can't be.  It's….the Academy."  As if forgetting that Gideon existed, she walked forward to the great doors that were begging to be opened.  As she neared the structure, she could hear the familiar sounds of the students relaxing outdoors.  This isn't so bad…  As she reached the doors, she tentatively reached out, her hand touching the metal handles.

"It feels real enough…"  Gripping the handle tightly, she pulled open the door, and walked into the Academy.  Immediately as she stepped in, though, the door slammed shut behind her.  But Rynn didn't notice.  She was back home.  Everything was fine. 

"Jace…Aeolus!  Where are you?" she called out.  Whatever games the Gods were playing, this..this couldn't have been all bad.