A sky, filled with purples and blues, alighting everything in the captivating sight of countless dots of light, the moon, nearing waning crescent, gave the illusion of a smile, one cast down to the earth like it knew a secret and wouldn't tell a soul.
The field of containing a ruined home had long since been abandoned once again, to tracks of human footprints, and one of a sled marked the snow filled ground, heading back towards the small town.
The steps stopped at a larger, albeit mostly still wooden house, at the edge of town, this would be Allen Vale's home.
The bear sled had all of its contents taken inside as it rested to the side of the door, on the small porch, the interconnected web of arrays that gave it its speed, weakened from the stress of the amount of mana that had passed through weary bone.
But this is not where we are stopping tonight.
For you see, this would be the last night the two Magic Knights, Sertentio, and Alronde, would be staying in Illshard.
They were to stay one last day in the hospital for safe keeping, then would be left to go back to the capital to make their reports.
But for now, they were both fast asleep.
Perhaps not the best idea for a magic knight to let down their guard.
Lit only by the waning light of the moon, from the healed scars where the monster had attacked them, a familiar black ichor, began to well up, and coagulate.
Neither stirred, their scars lost the slightly darker complexion they had before, and the floating clot, about the size of a navel orange, passed silently though the room, and seeped through a crack in the windowsill.
In the night, it was nearly impossible to see, without eyes or form, the clot moved doubtlessly towards a comparatively smaller wooden house, at the edge of town.
It slipped in through the small, metal chimney that was clearly still actively housing a fire, and into the house.
- - - -
I remember, me and the old man had talked, I retrieved the bone sled, he wanted to question it, but decided to wait till we got to his house.
I remember the quiet walk back, I remember feeling a bit of dread at how quiet it was, not even the voices in my head had come to fill the silence.
I chalked it up to a tired mind, and left it at that.
I remember the looks of shock on the gate guards faces when I showed up with Allen.
I remember seeing walls and how a few scratches had been added to it, and I even remember the mutterings from the townies as I walked to the oldman's house.
I remember unpacking all of my stuff leaving my new sled on his porch, and entering the house, he wasn't lying, he had scavenged what he could from the wreckage, though still it wasn't much.
my tanning supplies, also a few of my ceramic pots, a spare set of hunting clothes I had been keeping in the main outpost in case I got too much blood and on the clothes I came in with to be tolerable.
Also my original sled, and the extra carcass carving knife I always kept in it in case my first one breaks.
It's not just that I saw ahead, but that I had experienced needing a change of clothes, or needing a new knife too many times not to keep extra.
A few coils of metal wire, rusty, but usable, had survived the fire, it seemed that the bracelet identifying me as a hunter apprentice, and scout, had survived too, but it looked too new to be the one I had before, so Allen probably just made a new one, that and the Illshardian Oddjob License slate had luckily been in the local bank with the small bit of spending Yul I kept there.
Besides that, only one thing had survived that I didn't expect, honestly I had forgotten about it, the sledge hammer I had used to break the stone for the foundation of my house, I had lent it to Resnor, a builder, who was in need of one, it seemed he had brought it back.
I remember thanking Allen for gathering what he could, and noting how late it was getting, I headed to his entrance room, and unfolded the hide I had been using for sleeping and got comfortable for a night of rest.
So then, where, the hell am I?
Well, I know where I am, I'm in my head.
Meaning I'm dreaming, but seriously, what kind of dream is this?
To reaffirm my incredulity, I looked around yup, still soft, yellow sands, same slightly lumpy desert, same huge sand storm wall spinning around the huge desert I was still in.
At my feet, was a sun bleached concrete side walk, partially covered in sand, to my right, more side walk stretched into the distance and directly into the sand hurricane.
To my left, the side walks began to separate from each other, moreover, they also began to show more signs of wear and tear, cracks and tears and the like, though the also spread into the hurricane.
The night sky sparkled above, as beautiful as I could imagine.
Slowly, multiple things began happening at once.
The sand began to glow with the warmth of sunlight, as past the storm, upon the false horizon, the sun began to rise.
As the sun rose, so too, slowly, did everything to the left of me.
As taking up most of the space within that yellow sun, was a massive blot of black, a hole in reality, that the sand and side walk began to fall upwards in slow motion into.
Of course, since this was clearly not enough to tip me off, the tiles of broken sidewalk 'just so happened' to fall upward into a slowly rising path, directly into the black hole…
Did make it any less impressive to see, just, pretty obviously my mind playing tricks again.
The sky hadn't turned a blue hue, even though the sun was up, meaning, No atmosphere in this mental picture it would seem.
The 'I' that I was referring to was of course a mental avatar, the perspective was my 'inner eye' looking from the third perspective into my own mind with the avatar as an anchor.
But that doesn't mean that the avatar isn't also me.
It's a bit complicated, but all that needs saying is done, and all that's left is to find out where everyone is.
Unlike usual, my pinging didn't bring me to them like it would usually, what's more, White wasn't here to act as my normal avatar, and with how much that guy loves to be of use, it was a bit disorienting to actually have to try for once.
Not to say it was an unwelcome change, when was the last time I tried to make something without some part of myself interfering?
I really wish therapy in this world was more than 'that sucks lol, you should get stronger to compensate'.
It was a bit odd, to be the one narrating myself, and hearing it too.
What's stranger still, is that this iteration of the mind space wasn't changing.
It tends to do that whenever I even start to think too hard, but it's remaining stubborn in the here and now.
That being said, every one of the pings, from Red, to Magenta, to even black, all had me- my third POV self and my avatar, staring directly at the black hole… sun.
'Won't you come, won't you come...' couldn't help myself with that one it would seem…
The seeping dread that I would have to go in there and face even more trials and tribulations was softened somewhat from the reminiscence of the past.
All that changed in the next moment, as my mind began to feel, for all intents and purposes, more wet than average.
And before I knew it, from past the sandstorm enclosure, two dark, liquid tentacles ascended towards the sun.
And right at the moment they began to connect with the black hole in that sun, I woke up.
…
I don't- haven't-.
Within the past, four years, I have not remembered a single dream I've had.
In the mornings, I remember being shaken from something that happened in one, but -much like the loss of a limb- all of the sensation came from the parts of the mind around the absence -of where once was- a memory or something to that effect.
Simply put, by the time I'm awake -if it weren't for the indistinct feelings of dread and fear that linger far past my waking, but have not point of origin- I would be confident in saying I hadn't dreamt once in my time in the world of Black Clover.
Which is why I can say with certainty, that this was the first dream I had remembered since coming into possession of this body.
And the fact that I woke up feeling like I was drowning, with that all too familiar tinge of dead blood and something else on my tongue, and the fact that my mental space was completely unavailable, had me out of all kinds of sorts.
I didn't manage to get any more sleep for the rest of that night.
- - - -
That's all for this chapter, thanks for reading and pretty please comment!