~\*\~ Winter Dreams ~\*\~

You ran through the large open white field and made a sharp turn to the right, opening your book with a quick movement. The words on the page you had just opened started lightening up and you called out your Wind spell towards your enemy. It hit right away, causing the enemy to call out in pain and lose his balance. He regained his balance rather easily though and tightened the grip on his sword. A battle cry echoed through the silence of the night and the Begnion soldier ran towards you with his sword. You waited patiently and cautiously for him to close the space between you before he jumped aside and kicked him. The soldier fell on the with snow covered ground, cursed with words little kids should definitely never hear in their life and tried to get up again.

You quickly began to run away from him again, ignoring all the large snowflakes that came from the sky. He was not going to be able to stand for a while now due to the damage you had caused his body with your Wind magic, and the others needed your help more than ever now that Begnion Senate had planned a surprise attack on the Greil Mercenaries and the Laguz that traveled with them. You had to tell Ike and the others.

Once you finally got to the camp, you saw that many tents were on fire and everyone in the camp was fighting their best to stay alive and fight those soldiers off. You arrived just in time to help them.

You saw Janaff and Ulki transforming into a Hawk and attacking a few of the soldiers. It surprised you the snow didn't bother them at all. But not so far away from them was an Sniper who seemed to be very keen on having them as his next prey. You frowned. There was no way anyone could beat up your friends.

This time you took a stronger spell book – Elwind – to fight off the enemy. You opened the book on a random page and the words lit up again as you called out the spell you needed, sending the Wind magic towards the Begnion soldier, hitting him with the powerful spell right before he could fire off the arrow. You smiled to yourself and decided that you should join them so you'd be stronger and a little protected.

"Ianthina, Glad you could make it!" You turned around, smiling at another one of your friends, Lethe. But right before you could say something back, she got stabbed by a soldier that neither of them had seen. The man took his sword – that was completely made of steel – from Lethe's body, letting her fall on the cold ground.

"Lethe!" You called out. A tear rolled down your cheek and fell on the ground. "Get up, Lethe!" But it was useless. Her purple eyes had already lost any sign of life. She didn't move, the only thing that moved was the blood that poured from her deep wound.

The soldier chuckled before raising his sword once more to cut you into pieces. He ran towards you with great speed. The blood from your dead friend dripped from his sword as he came towards you, leaving a small trace of red. You began running away again, this time towards Janaff and Ulki, like you wanted to do from the start. The man followed you and you made another sharp turn, facing him right away. You opened your spell book again and casted yet another Elwind spell. But it missed.

While you were cursing, you didn't notice that the soldier had found a different victim. Mist. It took you a few seconds to place who's screaming it was that echoed through your mind. Not long after you reached her body, you saw Ike running towards you. He seemed angry and shocked, sad and confused. All of these mixed emotions caused him to let down his guard which made it easy for the enemy to grab him and kill him. And so they did.

Ike's body fell in slowmotion as the cold ground claimed it as its own. The life inside him disappeared within a second. What was happening?

In the distance you heard more of your friends scream and fall. You got surrounded by death, the death of those you loved. You looked up in the sky, praying to God that He had to do something about this. That's when you saw your two closest friends, Janaff and Ulki, fighting their hardest to survive and protect those they cared for. They were still alive.

Or so you thought.

Another Sniper hid himself between some trees. He had his bow steady and his arrow ready to fire off. You screamed out to your friends that they had to get away from them, but no sound came from your mouth.

The sniper shot the arrow, high up in the air. With great speed the arrow hit its target, piercing the person's heart, Janaff's heart. His screams of pain echoed through the whiteness of the open field.

You were too late.

You woke up, sweating a little and breathing hard. Losing all the people you loved… You had never had a nightmare like this, and never thought it was even possible to react to one the way you did now. You put your hand on your chest, trying to calm yourself down. What the hell were you thinking, reacting like this? It was just a dream! A scary one, yes, but you had nothing to worry about. Nightmares don't come true.

You shifted in your bed and closed your eyes again. It'd be great if you could still get some sleep. But you never earned that sleep and rest for someone barged into your tent and started yelling your name.

"Ianthina, get up you lazy ass!" It was Lethe. "The sun is up and we have to hurry if we want to stay ahead of Begnion's army!" You opened your eyes again and tried to sit up straight in your bed, but instead you fell on the floor.

"Crap…" You groaned, rubbing your eyes. "What do you want?"

"We need to head out." You groaned again, getting up.

"Fine, fine." You followed you friend outside and saw that most of the others were already standing in a perfect line, waiting for orders. You got in line as well and smiled at Ulki, who stood next to you. In front of you was Tibarn, the Hawk King of Phoenicis. He was rambling on about a spy that warned them about a secret attack from the Begnion Senate. Your eyes widened. You had dreamed about the secret attack by the Senate.

"I want to send out some people to search for the Begnion army!" Tibarn continued his story loudly, waking you up from your thoughts about your dream. "It's just a tip but who knows… that Begnion scum could actually be out there, ready to kill us. Just search, if you can't find it's fine."

Ike, Skrimir, Caineghis and Micaiah stepped forward as well.

"Shinon," Ike started. "I want you to take Rolf to the South. You have half a day, then you shall report the news to us. If there is no attack, we don't have to worry." The two snipers nodded and made their way to the South.

Micaiah smiled. "I think it's best if Edward and Leonardo go together. Please search the South East for us." Tibarn checked his own men.

"I want Ulki, Janaff and Ianthina to go by the beach, see what's going on there." You and your two best friends nodded and you got on Janaff's back, like you always did. After all, you weren't able to fly.

You reached the beach rather easily. Al three of you had been paying full attention to your surroundings, but there had been no soldiers waiting for you. That was a good sign. No soldiers coming from the beach gave you a great advantage too. Because that was the way you had to go.

"I will follow the beach and see if there's someone waiting to sneak up on us from there." Ulki said, flying away from you and Janaff. "I will see you back here in fifteen minutes." You and Janaff agreed, nodding.

"Then we will check the forest out a little. See if they're planning to attack us from there." He flew you to the forest and landed somewhere near an open spot. The open spot from your dream. It was white from the snow, just like in your dream. But unlike in your dream, there were no soldiers. Not a single one.

You looked around carefully, feeling the shivers run down your spine. It scared you how everything looked so much alike. It wasn't possible to dream something so realistic but so bad that it would actually come true, right? Especially dreams like the one you had last night, just couldn't come true. They couldn't. You'd lose all the ones you love so dearly, and maybe even your own life.

"Are you okay?" Janaff asked. You could clearly see the worry in his eyes. "You look like you're sick or something. Is it the weather? Snow is holding everyone back and it's cold too!" You laughed a little.

"No, it's nothing. I just had a bad dream last night."

"Bad dreams ain't good dreams." You mentally smacked yourself. Everyone knew that.

"No shit." You sighed. "But it was nothing…"

"You seem scared though."

"I'm not scared!"

"Just like you're not 20." Your eyes widened.

"Don't you talk about my age you idiot!" You smacked him up the head, which made him laugh instead of causing the reaction you had hoped for. Fear, anger, or at least pain!

"Well, if you don't want me to talk about how old you are, then tell me about your nightmare." You sighed again. You weren't going to win this. Either you tell him about your nightmare now or else he would never stop talking about your age and trying to guess it. And with never we truly mean NEVER. And since you hated that subject like you hated the Begnion Senate that tried to kill you guys all the time, you decided that it was smarter to just give in and tell him what you had dreamt about.

"Fine." You took a deep breath. "I dreamt about that I had to search for Begnion soldiers, like we're doing now. Only I wasn't with you and Ulki, I was alone. I fought off some of them, right here at this open space. It was white, covered with snow like it is now. Anyways, after I fought off a soldier I ran back to the camp to tell Ike and everyone else that there was indeed a surprise attack from the Senate. I got there in time – or so I thought – and helped everyone fight. But a few minutes later I saw everyone I cared for just getting killed. All of them. One by one…" You stopped for a second before whispering: "You died too."

"That's not so good." Was all that he said. It made you look up, eye twitching.

"You think I'm joking? I was so scared when I saw this place. I keep thinking it can happen for real and you just joke about it?" The sandy haired Hawk shook his head.

"No, I just said that nightmares aren't good. And losing me…That's a disaster!" That's when he started laughing. "I mean just look at me." You punched his arm gently, also laughing. But your face did become red when he said that. secretly, you agreed to his words. You did not ever want to lose him. "But seriously, I think the reason that you're so upset about this dream is because you're afraid that you'll lose us in this war. But that's not going to happen! You've got me! And I'm not going anywhere! I won't leave my l-" He paused a second but then quickly added: "loud friend that hates to talk about her age."

"What was that?" You asked.

"What was what?" Janaff repeated.

"You wanted to say something different, didn't you?"

"No, I wasn't!" You smirked and poked his cheek with your finger.

"Yes. You. Were." This time Janaff smirked.

"Oh, really? Well then, Ianthina. If you know me so well, you might as well tell me what I was going to say." You thought for a while, much to Janaff's amusement.

"You were going to say…. How much you looooooove me." It started snowing hard. You saw the surprised look on Janaff's face and it confused you. Why was he so surprised? It had only been a joke.

"How did you know?" the Sandy haired Hawk asked after a small silence. What did he just say? "Oh, you were joking." Janaff said, trying to laugh it off. He had been caught. But so had you.

You were blushing like mad, your face hot and red. That was something you hadn't expected him to admit. Ever! But it was something you had hoped that he would tell you one day, and you had wished to hear those words ever since you can remember. "Forget I said that." His voice suddenly awoke you from your thoughts. He didn't mean that did he? He did love you right?

There was only one way to find out whether he was playing the same game as you were before or if he was speaking the truth.

You wrapped your arms around his neck tightly and pressed your lips against his. It didn't take him long to respond to your kiss as he kissed back almost right away, wrapping his arms around your waist in process.

After a while the two of you broke apart. Shivers ran down your spine again from both the kiss and the cold of the snow and the wind touching your skin.

"So, you meant it?" You said.

"Apparently he did." The lower voice of Ulki spoke from behind you. Both of you turned around, blushing. "I can see the two of you have been doing more search for each other than for Begnion soldiers. Luckily for you," the dark haired Hawk flew back up in the sky. "There were none. Now let's go, we have to report this to our King."