She couldn't breathe, she couldn't move.

But she could scream.

And scream she did, a muffled scream, legs kicking out blindly. She screamed and screamed, even as she realized it wasn't the hand of death clapped over her mouth, but a heavy, mortal hand with rings on each finger and a bracelet tickling her chin. Screamed as she found her legs not ensnared by fear or demonic hands, but by her own bedclothes even as she kicked and fought against assailants that didn't exist. Screamed, even as the hiss in her ear wasn't the Black King's rattle, but a familiar, whispered voice too close to her ear.

"Hey, Slow-minu, shut up, will you? Do you want the enemy to find us?" The hand over her mouth shook, jilting her head from side to side. "Wake up!" She took in a much-needed breath through her nose, which wrinkled with the scent of black powder, roast meat, and musty sweat. It wasn't a pleasant odor, but it calmed her all the same as it meant the hand, and the man it belonged to, were very much alive and well. That it had been a nightmare: a terrible, terrible nightmare.

Her mind clicked into 'waking' mode and she pushed away his hand, gulping cool breaths of the night air and still feeling the heat of phantom flames on her face. She sat up, running her hands over her forehead and feeling the sweat coating her skin with a shiver. It had all felt so real… was it a premonition? She hadn't had premonitions since her earliest years, before she learned to focus her magic. Was the stress of the recent months taking its toll?

No, it couldn't have been. I refuse to believe it. She took another grounding breath and shook her head slightly. Premonitions are the stuff of children. Not full-fledged Octobrists. It's not even worth worrying the Grand Master over. Her eyes began to adjust to the darkness and she turned to see him sitting on his haunches next to her, his form barely blurred by the absence of her glasses and thrown into better focus by the formless gray of the stone wall behind him, the tapestries a vague mess of color. As she watched, he rested his arms on his knees and tilted his head curiously.

"So, nightmare?" he said knowingly, with his usual hint of condescension. The skeletal visage of the Black King was still in her mind's eye, as gaunt and terrifying as the villain of the tale Count Saint-Germi had been frightening the Elves with earlier in the evening. Her heart pounded heavily at her ribs. She caught him staring and for the briefest moment, wondered if he could somehow hear the muscle pumping blood and adrenaline through her system. Then she remembered her state of undress and yanked the bedclothes up to her neck.

"Stop staring!" she demanded in a sharp whisper, feeling a blush run across her cheeks. It was true that she was still in her shift and rather modestly dressed compared to the way other women her age slept, but anything with bared skin was more than she was comfortable with around a wily letch like him. "Pervert!"

"Hmm?" he grinned, as nonchalant as ever. "Wha-at?" She was more surprised that he hadn't tried to grab his usual handful yet. It was terrible enough that she was staring to think of it as a commonplace action. "Got your mind off your troubles, didn't it? Don't complain so much, Bad-Dream."

"It's Olmi—" she cut herself off, tossing her head. What was the point? He knew very well what her name was. He even used it properly on occasion. And besides, the image of his dead face was still floating in her head, and the fact that he—that all of them—were alive and well made it hard to be properly angry.

"Anyway, you need to be a light sleeper. We could all hear you, but since I actually fell asleep with my clothes on I was the one sent to make sure you were okay." He scratched the inside of his ear with a finger. "You were shouting and thrashing about like a madman. Learn to sleep lighter, and you'll wake yourself up. You're a liability otherwise."

"You can't just learn to be a—wait, you fell asleep with your clothes on?" She squinted at him.

"You think it's comfortable to wear all this?" he asked, motioning to the jewelry. "You thought O-Toyo sleeps in all that armor? Even you take off the ribbons and stripes when its time to bed down." His grin widened. "And if you didn't scream like a banshee, no one would have been any the wiser."

"I didn't need to know that," she huffed. "Whatever; I'm fine now, anyway."

"We can teach you, you know. I'll let Yoichi shoot arrows through the archway until you're such a light sleeper that a mouse will wake you. How does that sound, eh?"

"That's a terrible idea! I want to sleep in peace, not in mortal fear!" She bit her tongue, not wanting to launch into a rant that might wake the next room. Toyohisa was still bandaged heavily and hard to keep down if awake.

"Then the Elves can. They're not as good a shot, so you'll have more time to get away."

"Ugh." She turned over and lay on her stomach, pressing her cheek down into the pillow away from him. Maybe he'd get the hint and go back to bed. It had to be early in the morning, with the dwarves already down for the night; she could hear nothing but the chirrup of crickets, which meant the last of their rowdy antics had stopped some time ago. The weight of her chest crushed up into her spine uncomfortably. "It was just a dream. It won't happen again."

There was silence, long enough for her to check to make sure he'd slunk away properly. He was still there, in the same position, watching her. She couldn't discern his expression properly without her glasses, but he looked almost pensive.

She stared up at him, leaning on her elbow. A part of her felt that she ought to be a squeaking mess, but… it was hard to be embarrassed around him. He had gotten so good at riling her anger; even when she wasn't mad at him, she wasn't as awkward as she'd been the night they'd caught and tied her up. That, and she'd gotten used to his ways, what he meant and didn't mean, what was mockery and what was compliment hidden beneath pretense, what was real emotion and what was a clever ruse meant to confuse and distract.

I do have to hand it to him: he's enough of an idiot that he makes it hard to be bashful.

"Aren't you going—you can go back to bed. I'm fine. I mean it." He nodded, but then reached out. She winced, not sure what he was going to do, but then jumped slightly as he tugged on a strand of hair.

"You look different with your hair out of those silly ribbons," he said thoughtfully. "Less childish, I suppose."

"What?" She looked at her long hair, spread evenly across the bedclothes.

"Of course, no one would mistake you for a child. Not with boobs like that."

"Go to bed!"

His palm tapped lightly between her shoulder blades, a gesture at once as comforting and dismissive as the one Toyohisa had given after thanking her for saving him from the fiery End. He stood, looking down at her once more before turning and leaving without another word. Just beyond the stone wall she heard Yoichi's voice, heavy with sleep, and his answering rumble before a solid thud against a pile of cloth.

"Huh." She folded her arms under her head, resting her cheek on them as a small smile crept across her face. "I guess he means well." She turned on her side, relieving some of the pressure in her back, and buried her face in the pillow.

The nightmare had been unsettling. Too unsettling. She hadn't been able to protect the Drifters, or herself. Her stone charms had been forgotten in her panic. She knew a part of it was just her internal fear that when the time came, she'd be of no help to anyone. That she'd be too weak to save them. But she could only claim self-doubts so far. There's got to be more that I can do to prepare myself for the inevitable. Her fingers clenched handfuls of the bedclothes. And I can't rely on magic alone, either. What if my charms run out, or I can't get to them before the enemy strikes? I have to have another plan of action. Surely the Grand Master wouldn't mind me having a non-magic backup plan, right?

The answer came to her as she drifted back to sleep, borne on the grating snores of the men one room over.

The next morning, she was nothing but a loud, yawning mess. After falling back asleep, she had thankfully dreamed of nothing. But the few hours' repose hadn't been enough to save the energy lost from her nightmare, and as she splashed water onto her face in the cold morning air, she felt just as tired as if she hadn't slept at all.

"Yoo-hoo." A finger poked her back and she turned to see Yoichi, holding two bowls of porridge. "Rough night last night?" he asked knowingly. She was about to craft some sort of face-saving excuse when he added, "Nobunaga told us that you'd been frightened out of your sleep by a spider." A spider? She paused, amazed that he'd lied. Why hadn't he just said that she'd had a nightmare? Was it even more of an embarrassment in the world of the Drifters than it was to her?

"I… I felt something on my face and it startled me into waking," she said honestly. He doesn't have to know it was Nobunaga's hand. Yoichi nodded.

"That happened to me once as well, although it turned out to be my own hair," he chuckled. "In any case, as long as you're safe, I suppose that's what matters." He looked down at the bowls. "I don't suppose you'd like to take Toyohisa his bowl for me," he mused sadly.

"Uhm… I think you're better in the caretaking department than I am," she laughed loudly, inching away. They were all having a hard time keeping the samurai in bed and on a proper meal schedule; ever since meeting with the dwarves, he had adopted their insane eating habits. However, because of his wounds Yoichi had put him on a semi-liquid diet to keep his digestion healthy and aid healing, much to his chagrin. "A-anyway, good luck with that and—"

"Hungry! Food!" The call echoed down the corridor and Yoichi sighed, but obediently moved towards the man's sick chamber. She waited until he'd turned the corner before hurrying down in search of Nobunaga. She had been going to wait until later to pose her question to him, but now she also wanted to interrogate him on his lie. It was hard enough keeping him in one spot to answer even half a question, so if she could catch him before Count Saint-Germi got to him with the day's activities, then that would be her best—no, her only—option.

She passed out of the hall and into the sunlight, looking around the camp. The men had opted to stay inside the city walls, but with nearly a third of the city burnt away there wasn't room for them in any of the structures. They'd went back to the tent and fire method that had served them well in the Elf territory without much of a fuss, though she gladly slept in the lower part of the small meetinghouse they used for storage. The Drifter trio slept in the main foyer next door; Yoichi claimed that it was to protect their goods, though she often wondered if she were counted in along with the important papers and weapons.

Her eyes passed over the tall, fair-haired Elves and the small, stocky Dwarves as she walked slowly through the maze of tents that made up the camp, surrounding the Count's carriages. He was usually squatted down by a fire or hunkered over a weapon, so it did no good to rely on his height and build to pick him out of the crowd. Now where could he—there!

"Nobunaga!" Throwing back her shoulders, she took a breath and strode boldly through the barrel-chested Thebans that surrounded him. He stood at her call, looking with only slight puzzlement.

"Hmm? What is it?"

"I have… to ask you something… well, two things, really." She looked pointedly at the men. "A private conversation."

"Huh? Oh, fine." He waved at the men. "Go on and fill your stomachs. I'll call for you later. Now," he crossed his arms as they trickled through the tents, hand in hand, "what is it, Boob-Dream?"

"Why did you lie to Yoichi?" His brows rose. "You… you didn't tell them it was a nightmare. Why did you do that?"

"Reveal my falsehood if you want to. I just thought it'd be easier to explain away that way. Your problems are yours alone. You shouldn't have to share them if you don't' want to."

"Oh." She faltered, caught between exasperation and gratitude. The latter won. "Well, thank you."

"Don't mention it." His hand groped at her chest. "Unless you want to let me have a little squeeze as a reward, that is."

"Would you get off?!" She caught his wrist and threw it away. "I'll crush you with a stone wall if you keep trying that, do you hear me!?" He rubbed his wrist and frowned.

"Cruelty is unbecoming in a woman. However…." He looked back up at her, a twinkle in his eye. "I think it makes an exception for you."

"Oh, get lost! Forget I ever asked anything." She turned and prepared to stomp away, angrier at herself for letting him get to her than for his actions. His hand caught one of her hair ribbons and she was forced to turn back.

"You said you had two things to ask me. What was the other?" She rubbed her head and scowled at him.

"I just wanted you to teach me how to fire a weapon." She tightened the ribbon around her pigtail. "But I'll get Toyohisa to do it once he's healed up. You'll just take too many opportunities."

"Only if they present themselves." He tilted his head at her the same way he had the night before, and with her glasses she could see the calculations going on behind his eyes. "Why do you want to learn about firearms for?" He showed his teeth. "Preparing to murder us?"

"No! I just want to…" She looked away. "I just want to be able to protect myself, without relying solely on magic."

"What do you need to do that for? You've got all of us." He waved his hand at the camp.

"But what if we get separated, or worse?" The dream played out again in her head. "If I run out of charms, or I can't find an ally on the battlefield, I need a second option." She looked down at her hands. "I need to be able to fight. And a musket could… I think I could…."

"You'd look a man in the eye and fire with the aim to kill?" he asked, voice soft. Their eyes locked and she met his stare as bravely as was possible.

"I don't know what I'd do. But I'm an Octobrist. It's my job to protect Drifters. But to do that, I've got to protect myself first."

"Hmph." He rubbed his chin before grabbing one of the Thebans abandoned muskets, slipping it into the folds of his sleeve. "Well, come on then. If you want to be trained, I'll train you myself."

"Come on? Where are we going?" She followed, jogging to reach his side before falling into place.

"The forest. The last thing you want is to shoot a bystander with those bad eyes of yours, right?"