Aramora

Chapter 27: Restoring Honor

Jerair smiles. "Well, whatever the case, I'm grateful for the help," he says.

Nisha nods and they sit in silence for a moment while they wait. But as Nisha starts to look around in idle boredom, her gaze finds itself cast onto Naomi. She is sitting against a rock with her head down, staring at her hands as she taps her fingers in her lap. Downcast isn't the word Nisha would use to describe the look on her face. Maybe inquisitive with a hint of frustration, if she's reading her right.

Curious and bored, Nisha gets up and walks over, sitting atop the rock Naomi is leaning back against. Naomi didn't seem to notice her, so Nisha leans forward so her head is hovering directly above her, and the shadow catches Naomi's attention and she looks up to see Nisha's face fill her view.

"Somethin' up?" Nisha asks and tilts her head.

Naomi sighs and shakes her head. "Nah, not really. Just... thinking," she says and looks forward again.

Nisha sits straight with her legs crossed and narrows her eyes at her. "About what?"

Naomi shrugs and shifts to turn towards the rock to look up at her. Again, there's really nothing wrong. But that doesn't mean that everything's fine. Something isn't right. Maybe. It's hard to place, but maybe Nisha will be able to provide some insight that might help her.

"The past two nights, I've had these... weird dreams," she starts.

"Were you naked and being carried by a giant seagull?" Nisha asks with a tilt of her head.

Naomi was going to comment on the specificity of her example, but she decides to leave it at that. Pirate dreams are fucking weird.

"No... Not that kind of weird. Weird as in, like, vivid. Where I'm fully aware that it's a dream, but I have no control... Like watching a movie. You know you're watching it and that it's not real, but it feels like you're really there, but you can't do anything," she explains.

"What's a 'movie'?" Nisha asks.

Naomi sighs and pats Nisha's leg. "Oh you poor thing..." she closes her eyes and shakes her head. "A movie is a sequence of moving pictures that show a story. That's what these dreams have felt like. Images in my mind that are showing me a story, but they don't seem to be the same story. Or maybe they are? I really can't tell," she says and looks down as she tries to think about it some more.

"What do you see?" Nisha asks and slowly slides down the rock to sit next to her on the stone ground.

Naomi doesn't even need to stop and think about it. It's still so vivid in her mind. "In the first one, I was surrounded by darkness and I could see fires burning all around me, but I couldn't tell where I was or where the fire was coming from. Then, everything went dark and I saw the rift to Eutria glowing, but before I could reach it, there was a white flash," she recalls easily.

Nisha hears her words and tries to envision what she's describing in her head. She can kinda see it, but it's not giving her that same dreadful feeling that Naomi had. Maybe that's what made it so memorable. The feeling.

"What was the second one?" Nisha asks as she returns her focus to the present.

Naomi closes her eyes as the images come back to her. "I was in a house made of wood. There were more fires both inside and outside the house. I was a child in a bedroom, hiding under a desk while hearing fighting coming from outside. Swords and shouting. Then a person came into the room, and then the white flash happened again and I woke up," she explains.

"Did you see what the person looked like?" Nisha asks. Naomi sees something in her eyes change, but she can't tell what it is.

Naomi shakes her head. "No. I could hear that they were wearing heavy armor by the sound of their footsteps, but after they saw me under the desk, they lowered down to look at me, but before I could see who it was—"