Dreamcatcher

Raum is in a white brick room. He lays in a neat bed, and though it feels like he’s been dreaming, with memories of strange and horrific things wisping away into his unconscious, it doesn’t feel like he’s been asleep. He’s not tired or hungry. The bed is soft. The pillow is fluffy. Warm spring light spills in through a pair of grand arched windows. They feel somehow familiar. He senses he’s been here a while.

He doesn’t feel in any kind of danger. A detached sense of peaceful zen rises in him, and though he could sit here longer, vague curiosities about where he is or how he got here spur him to get up and explore.

“You shouldn’t do that."

When he tries to heave himself out of the bed, incredible pain sears across his shoulders. Taken off-guard, he collapses back down, vents an anguished moan into the pillow, and, hugging it, proceeds to whimper and sniffle. Aggravated, more wounds across his body throb with pain, impressed into his awareness and refusing to leave.

“And that’s why. Take a moment. There’s plenty of time."

He takes a recount of his injuries. Cuts on his hands, his arm, burns across his back… his ears pulse and his palms are grossly blistered and tender. Some of these wounds he recognises and dully accepts; others — burns, cuts, bruises, unknown to him until this moment — force him to marvel. He is far more injured than he remembers, though nothing seems fresher than anything else. He had simply been too preoccupied to notice when he got them.

That said, everything he can find looks to be clean and well-bandaged.

“Most of those will heal within a few days, but the worst will need a few weeks. It’s important you focus on recuperating. Take it easy," says this calm, soothing voice.

Raum finally peers over to see who’s addressing him. It’s Aquila, sitting on the windowsill, languidly haloed in light.

Relaxing, Raum flops back into the bed, letting his forearm cover his brow. He sighs. Everything still stings, but the effort of forcing that pain out of his mind is helping him shake off the last of his sopor.

With the whisper of Aquila’s feathers in the background, Raum thinks back on what he can remember. Considering all the chaos that happened, it’s amazing to think the events following his arrival to Joliet transpired over only one day. There was his unknown uncle, Morgan, then a near-brush with death at the gallows, the fires, the hostages, the boat, the bridge, Toreas… Aquila, and then — Reyl.

Fear and panic shudder up from his core like vomit. Reyl! Where is she!? Already he can feel his throat tightening, breath quickening. All pain vanishes from his perception as he moves to bolt up from the bed.

Aquila, now at his bedside, sets his hand on Raum’s chest and eases him back down. Raum cannot help the twinge of hurt and betrayal as he glares impotently, pleadingly, up at Aquila. But as his eyes well with tears, he concedes, that’s the end of this little argument. He draws his clenched fists to his face and screams, gruesomely, rocking, struggling to think of anything but the bereaved agony that has pitted itself deep in his chest.

Even with Aquila stroking his head and whispering comforts, Raum can’t stop the flood. Whenever it verges on subsiding, and he feels himself recapturing a fragment of composure, his emotions defiantly rebound to that hysterical fever pitch of: where’s Reyl? Where’s Reyl? Where’s Reyl?

Aquila has climbed onto the bed. His hand traces down to Raum’s jaw. “Look at me."

Through a blurred screen of tears, Aquila beams in perfect focus. His glittering red eyes are warm as a hearth, and his dove-white face is set like an angel’s.

Aquila tilts up Raum’s chin. Leans in.

Raum relaxes into the kiss. Of all the many kisses in his life, this one is the most tender.

Tension drains out of him as Aquila leans away. He sighs as he again falls back into the bed, hiccupping still, but mind relaxingly blank.

“Don’t think for now. Just rest."

How can’t he think? He wants to pout. He has things to do. But as he sheepishly traces his finger over his lips, he sees only benefits in being obedient. A warm haze falls over his mind as he rolls over to admiringly stare up at Aquila. The sweep of his chin. The bow of his neck. God, if only to feel Aquila’s fingers tousle through his hair… that’s probably why Raum was born. Seconds tick on like hours, sublimely.

Eventually, the doorknob judders. And into the room, shattering this reverie to dust, walks Aquila.

Raum double-takes from the doorway to his bedside. The Aquila he has been ogling for the past half-hour or more has disappeared into nothing.

He’s been hallucinating. The sudden fear that he is losing touch with reality jolts him back to his senses immediately. Alongside that prescience comes deep mortification, that that soppy mess is how his brain’s decided to comfort itself.

At the very least, it did work to vent his emotions. He feels together enough not to just scream now, thankfully.

After collecting himself, Raum asks Aquila for deets on everything. Several days have passed since Raum’s arrival in Joliet, most of which he has spent in an alternating hysterical or catatonic state, and most of that he’s again been spending in this private hospital. He is still in Joliet, though the city is calm enough now that Aquila can only excuse a couple more weeks before he ought to return to the capital, Ferendaux. Raum should be in a well enough physical condition to travel by then, and Aquila expects his company on the journey.

Raum is completely ok with this.

...Which is to say nothing of his mental condition, Aquila continues, frowning lightly. Once it became clear that neither himself or his sister were going to compromise, Aquila did expect the separation to be painful. He did not expect it to be so genuinely traumatic that it would land Raum crawling on the floor mewling Aquila’s name for about four days straight.

Raum covers his face in further mortification. Holy shit. …He’d already worried about his sanity on the bridge, but was he actually, genuinely, going…?

It’s something to keep an eye on, Aquila says. But with luck, it’s just acute stress. Though if it’s not, he jokes, you might have prospects as a pontiff up north.

Heh, Raum laughs, not getting it.

Aquila shrugs and notes that he’s going to have some rough adjustments, but that’s a topic for later. Fundamentally, though, Aquila expects the mental distress to go away on its own, provided Raum keeps himself reasonably cozy.

That’s reassuring to hear. Raum is further reassured by the fact that, despite his hesitation, he does not dissolve into psychotic mush when he finally does ask: Where’s Reyl?

Truthfully I’m near there point where I’d like to ask you where she’d go. She’s very good at escaping, Aquila replies, then tilts his head with slight awkwardness. I’m pursuing signs of her activity for my own self-interest, but knowing the delicate state you’re in now makes me hesitant to start a true hunt. I don’t especially want the anxiety of consecutive days with no results plaguing your mind while you’re still recovering. Rather, for the present, it’s preferable not to focus on her at all…

…the flipside of this approach is that it makes her harder to track down later, as it gives her more opportunity to go further and secure herself more deeply in any community where she might find refuge. That in itself is cause for overwhelming anxiety, and though Raum figures Aquila’s probably right, it sounds somewhat counterproductive.

Aquila responds that, in his experience, the most reliable way to acquire what you want, is by positioning yourself within its path and keeping your options open. Any act you take will shutter more and more options that bring you to the goal, until you are limited to only one course. This course, once known, can be predicted and counteracted. Aquila then pauses, and does that helpless shrug of his. —I’m beginning to overstep, here. Simply know that time is not an enemy in pinpointing where she’s gone.

Raum’s disappointment is incredible. Wait for her to expose herself, essentially.

Not quite, Aquila assures. It’s more in the vein of loosing an arrow just as the rabbit jumps into its path. Timing. Consider it like this: as her brother, your sound mind is the greatest asset against her. So once you’re in good mind, she’s essentially found.

It makes sense, and though he could jab at Aquila’s confidence in him, the truth is he’s confident too. An overlap secures itself between his imaginary Aquila and the real thing, both entrusting him with the mission to relax. Raum’s face flushes. Aquila hms? quizzically, but Raum ignores it and shakes the thought away.

What would Reyl want, Raum thinks, and simultaneously remembers their last conversation, and simultaneously feels a surge of overwhelming sadness, panic, and fear rip itself straight from his chest to his hot, heavy, blurry eyes.

Aquila advises him again to avoid thinking about Reyl. The air about him shifts slightly, and it seems there is something he is contemplating whether or not to say. Though Raum catches it, he is too busy calming himself again to prompt Aquila on it, and the moment passes. Damn, Raum thinks.

So, Aquila says, clapping his hands to wrap up the topic (it makes no sound — plainly, reflex), is there anything Aquila can provide to make Raum’s stay at the hospital more hospitable? Books? Music?

Raum requests headphones, a radio, and to be moved into a ward with more people. Aquila advises him that he has been credited with saving the city from Toreas, and should expect some renown for that, but that his connection to the Whitewoods is not public knowledge yet, and should be kept obscure for the moment. Raum accepts this without argument.

Aquila turns to leave. Raum, spurred by some odd impulse, asks if he’ll be alright.

Aquila breezily answers in the affirmative and thanks Raum for asking, in the subtle manner of a politician.

As the door closes, Raum feels himself sober into something not bitter, but somehow, underwhelmed.