Nightmare
– Sometimes, in the dead of night, she wakes up screaming his name.
It's late one night when she wakes up screaming. She isn't aware of this however, nor is she aware of the tears smearing her cheeks. She barely hears thundering footsteps out in the hall or the moment they barge into her room.
All she sees is a corpse on the ground and all she hears is the cries of grief and torment.
Voices call to her, familiar, hushed, urgent, and reassuring. Hesitantly, she opens her eyes.
Her room is dark but she doesn't see it. Her room is full of faces but she sees only one person.
Minori latches onto Rudy's neck for dear life.
The boy gives a startled yelp, stumbling backwards but did not fall. "Minori?" Toya whisperes, concerned. Minori is too busy sobbing to answer. Toya frowns in worry, coming to stand next to his friend and tries to relive the blond of his hysterical sister.
Her reaction was to scream and tighten her hold on Rudy, adamantly refusing to let go.
They stay like that for a while, Minori holding on to Rudy and the blond trying to reassure her that whatever the cause of her distress was it had been just a dream. The other Guild-members keep their distance, they'd learned from Toya's example what would happen if they try to separate them forcefully.
When Minori had finally cried herself to sleep, Rudy lays her down on the bed and tuckes her in gently. The blush never leaves his face as he does so.
Log Horizon had breathed a collective sigh of relief after that, and with the promise to discuss this little outburst (fourth night in a row) they head off to their own respective rooms.
However, that did not stop Toya from giving Rudy his stink eye for an entire week after that particular incident.
A knocking sound had woken him up about 1:00 AM in the morning. He'd groaned, rolled over and begrudgingly headed for the door. He hadn't been all that surprised to find Minori standing on the other side.
"Why don't you tell me what's wrong?" he asks, stepping aside to let her in his room. She bites her lip, but says nothing. With a yawn, he closes the door behind her.
"I... I just wanted..." she starts, faltering "I just... wanted to make sure... you were still there." she grinds out forcefully, and tears are already gathering in her chestnut eyes.
He suppresses the urge sigh, because he's used to this by now. It's Minori's way of coping with everything that had happened just days before.
He knows because Minori has done this before, or because Isuzu had taken to hugging him at random times in the day, or Toya kept a better eye on Rudy's own fights than his own when they were out Adventuring, or how Serara would start healing him when he hadn't even lost one tenth of his HP.
It was annoying sometimes, but endlessly endearing as well. So he doesn't mind it terribly when Minori comes in the middle of the night for comfort anymore.
He just hugs her, and it reminds him distantly of comforting his own little sister back when she was still alive, and tells her everything is alright. He isn't going anywhere. He's okay. She's okay. Everything is fine. He repeats those words until Minori begins to actually believe him.
He doesn't tell her he has nightmares as well. That he dreams of dying and then coming back as a ghost, watching them as they fall apart in grief or worse, scorn in disdain and leave him as if he were trash. Rudy doesn't tell her he dreams of a million different scenarios where he is too weak to do anything or save anyone and they all end up dying because of him.
He doesn't tell her this, because he's caused her – them – too much grief already.
But even if he isn't worth their tears, they still care and that's all he could ever ask for.
AN: I've gotten a few requests for this. Two for a People of the Land's POV and one for Nyanta. I'll work on them and add them as bonus chapters after I update all of my original table of content. Does anyone want to make a request as well? Drop me a word if you do!
