"I'm sorry...I'm sorry...p-please...d-don't!"

In the depths of his dreams, Elias could faintly make out the sobs of a girl. He couldn't recall what he'd been doing in the middle of a forest covered in blankets of snow. He must've been wandering around aimlessly until the sounds of cries caught his attention. His figure started to wander deeper past the bare trees. He was watching with hazy, red orbs in search for the source of the noise. Everything felt so real to him - from the bark of the trees underneath his bare hands to the coldness of the snow he beneath his heels.

"I-I just...w-wanted...be...take..."

The words were becoming incomprehensible. The voice now hiccuped in between words. He felt something twinge from underneath his feathers. His searching became frantic. The familiarity of the voice...it hit close to his heart. He normally cared little for the weeping souls he'd encounter every now and then. But this one sounded so heartbroken. So desperate. So lost. And he felt connected with it. That, somehow, he was responsible for the weeping.

As he clawed at the night sky, he heard a scream.

"NO!"

Almost instantly was he awoken from his dream. Elias shot up in the bed, clutching hard at the sheets below his figure. For a few moments his mind tried to process what was real and what wasn't. His eyes flickered as they traveled around in the darkness. He found nothing out of the usual from his room. The window was still shut, and things were silent outside. Just as his body went to settle against the bed, he heard the sobbing again. Except it was much closer this time...as if he could feel the voice. As if it were coming from beside-

His chest tightened as he felt someone pull against his arm. He flipped his skull in the direction, and found two small hands clutching at his pajamas. The grip was unusually hard. Almost as if they were clinging onto him for dear life. He went forward and reached out, grabbing at the sides of the figure beside him and shaking very gently.

"Chise?" He asked. "Chise, is that you?"

Her hands let go of him as he shook her, and they fell to her sides weakly. He heard her scream again, which was now accompanied by several sniffles. He sat up in the bed and grabbed at her sides. He shook just a tad rougher this time and found her green eyes open in the darkness. They were moist and teary. He saw a wet trail forming from the ends of her eyes down to her jaw. A few more tears escaped from them. Everything in him instantly become cold.

"Elias..." She breathed, then hiccuped again.

"Were you crying?" He asked.

He wiped one of the tears with his thumb. It felt cold and wet, and held just a faint sent of salt. She opened her mouth to reply before falling forward. She wrapped her arms around him and clung harder than she had before. Her whole body was practically against his - fingernails digging into the folds of his pajamas as her legs wrapped around his hips securely. She put him in a position where he could no longer move. She was much weaker than him, true, but she certainly knew how to hold him down when she really wanted to. He hadn't any plans on leaving, anyway.

"Don't go..." She whined.

"I don't think there's anywhere for me to go." He started peeling the blankets off from them. "Are you alright, my precious robin?"

Her grip faltered the moment those words left his tongue. But then it tightened again, and her look hardened. Tears were still escaping her green eyes and falling from her chin. She was still trembling as she clutched onto his arms, sniffling more as her eyes locked on something from across the room. He tried to follow what she was looking at, but she was just staring into darkness. Her once-loud sobs became a murmur, and things turned silent in the room as she regained her breath. The color started to return to her face, contrasted to the pale, desperate look he had seen on her only a few minutes ago.

"I had a nightmare," She admitted quietly.

"A nightmare?" He repeated. "What about?"

Her eyes glanced over at him before looking away again. She held onto his arm as she stared to rock herself gently back and forth. Elias reached for her and carefully motioned her in his lap. He spared her the effort and started to rock her himself, hands lightly placed on both of her thighs. Her fingers dug into his arms as he rubbed her skin. A few more sniffles sound from her face. The silence answered his question. The nightmare must've been more serious than the ones she had before. She was a lot more open telling him about her common night terrors prior to tonight.

She leaned into him as he continued to rock her. She closed her eyes and started to hum to herself. A very sweet melody he heard her sing in the shower sometimes. His grip on her thighs tightened. She got the message and went quiet, looking back at him uncertainly. He returned the look as he began to rub the top of her knees. She bit her lip and bashfully looked away, going to wipe a few tears from her eyes.

"S-Sorry. I forget h-how that puts you to sl-sleep."

"Chise, you're stuttering."

"I-I am?"

He leaned down so he could rest his skull on her shoulder. Had he been in his human form, she would've caught the apprehension in his stare. But she didn't. He heard her breath hitch in her throat as their eyes locked with one another. He gazed at her thoughtfully and tried to piece things together. It actually wasn't rare to find Chise stuttering. She did it when she was nervous or didn't know what to say. It was a quirk he noticed the longer they'd been together. But what was truly infrequent was her stuttering now - her words getting mixed out of fear and not uncertainty.

His orbs became transfixed on her as his arms trailed upwards on the sides of her body. He started to gently rub her back, quietly hoping that his scales wouldn't rub too hard against her skin. She closed her eyes and moaned slightly, lifting her head as his hands found his way to her neck. He rubbed his thumb in circles and applied pressure to certain points she was stressed in. He felt her body relax the longer he massaged her, and the cries that once sounded from her were now gone.

"Was I in your nightmare?" He asked. He felt her shiver as his breath went against her skin, and his fingers trailed over the goosebumps that started to grow along her body.

"Y-Yes..." She answered.

He massaged some more on her shoulders. She let out an involuntary sigh - slouching over as his fingers did miracles to her. In honesty, he had only been massaging her to get rid of the stuttering. It bothered him to hear her be so afraid around him - or uncomfortable. It was one thing to feel her shake in his arms, but it was another to hear it actually coming from her. So he prolonged this massage, drowning in the sounds of her moans and noises. He only stopped once he was positive that she was relaxed.

She looked back at him with gleaming, moistened eyes. He noticed how cold his hands were ever since they left her skin. "Why'd you stop?"

"There." He sounded pleased. "You were just a little unsettled."

A noise escaped from her throat as she looked away from him and held her hands to her chest. He continued to rock her and held his breath to listen for her cries. She was mostly silent now, save for the slight whine that was sounding from her. He rubbed his hands along her sides and squeezed her very gently. He wanted her to at least know he was there.

"It was about my family," She confessed. Elias hummed, pleased at her response yet very curious at the same time.

"Was it about your mother?"

She shook her head. "Not just her. My father and my brother were there, too..." Her grip on him tightened. "Th-They were being taken away..."

"By who?"

He lifted his hand to grasp hers. She grabbed it and started squeezing desperately. Her words came out in short breaths, visibly fighting back tears as she rested her head on him. He could feel her grinding her teeth together.

"I was just spending time w-with them, a-at this park, I think." She started shaking. "It going really well, I th-think my mom was really happy. But then these f-figures came. Completely black. A-And they started to drag them away, t-to this cliff..."

"Chise, you're tense again. Please, rela-"

"They threw them off." Her voice went low. "They looked me, straight in the eye, and threw them off." She looked up at Elias. Her expression looked grave. "They screamed my name, a-and they fell."

Elias went quiet as Chise stopped talking. The memories of her nightmare came back to her, and tears started to stream out from her eyes. The magus wrapped his arms around her and rocked her again. She moved with him and rested in his grasp, sighing as his warmth encased her. He went forward to wipe a tear from her eye.

"You said I was in your nightmare," He brought up.

"You were." She turned to him slowly. "W-When I went to my family, I wanted to jump o-off the cliff to get them...you came and held me back. You wouldn't let go. I-I kept screaming, but you still wouldn't let go."

He stiffened. "Did I say anything to you?"

"You told me it wasn't worth it." She started shaking her head. Her voice became susceptible to the cries escaping her throat. "Y-You just kept telling me it wasn't worth it. And I didn't believe you."

She broke down weeping again, turning so she could cry into his chest. He held his hand on her back as he sat there in surprise. He was taken aback at this revelation - because he recalled telling her something similar before. For what, he couldn't remember. He regained his senses the moment Chise removed herself from him, and she tried to wipe her tears with her hands. They became moist from the tears and she was practically smearing them all over her face.

"Did anything else happen?" He asked. She stopped crying and looked up at him, eyes reddened from the tears.

"I broke free," She looked away from him. "And then I jumped off the cliff. Y-You were crying out for me."

The room became silent as this lingered in the cold air around them. They both listened to the crickets for awhile. Elias was too busy trying to piece his thoughts together - to try and comprehend what that nightmare could've meant. He had plenty of assumptions, but he wasn't sure which of them was correct. She didn't speak of her family frequently to him. He could only remember very vague details about them.

"What I don't get-" Her voice came to a whisper. "-Is why you were there. I was alone with my family, but the moment they were taken, you came. But I don't understand why...you would come just to hold me back like that."

"Perhaps it was because I knew you'd risk your life?"

She looked at him, eyes widening as she became breathless. She hadn't even pondered that at all. She just assumed, in the dream, he was holding her back from her family. But his words now just sounded so sensible - she felt ridiculous for even assuming he'd do something like that. Elias' orbs studied her features intently, and she grew a little warm under his stare.

"Chise, dreams...from my understanding...aren't necessarily practical all the time." He leaned down so his skull was beside her. "They can be about anything - whether it makes sense or not. They can convey your desires, but they can also be the manifestation of your fears."

"What do you mean?" She squeaked.

"What I'm saying is that your nightmare may have been because you miss your family." He noticed her wincing. "You rarely talk about them. It seems as if you're bubbling up these fears about them - and the only way they can escape is through terrorizing you at night."

She bit her lip. "Since when did you become so eloquent, Elias?"

"I've been studying my own dreams." He explained. "Just tonight, I had one where I was lost in this forest. I wasn't sure where I was at or where I had been going. But I felt as if I was searching for something. And the moment I heard your voice, I felt like I found what I had been searching for all along."

Her mouth went agape. She absorbed this information and blushed very slightly at the revelation. "Are you saying...I'm your purpose?"

"If my dream had any meaning at all, that is what it might've been." He leaned forward. "And what I can gather from your nightmare, Chise, is that you are afraid of rejoicing with your family, only to lose them like you had before."

She blinked rapidly, as if those thoughts hadn't occurred to her. Then she knotted her eyebrows together and started whispering things to herself. He made sense of what she was saying - she was just repeating his words over and over again. As if she was trying to convince herself that he was right. He looked away from her and placed a hand to the bottom of his jaw.

"I suppose then, by the same logic, you feel as if I'm a barrier to you. I'm keeping you from seeing your family again."

"What? N-No!" She went forward and grabbed at his shoulder. "That can't be it."

"I was holding you back," He pointed out.

"From danger." She replied firmly. "From - from jumping off that cliff and killing myself. You...You saved my life again. And - and not just physically like you have before. You were that reasonable side of me that I sometimes forget about. The part of me that's kept me alive so far."

His stare physically looked blank, but she noticed the thoughtfulness in his eyes. He looked touched by what she said, and there was a multitude of emotions lingering beyond that. She let go of him and slowly sat back, rubbing her arm to try and rid the coldness inside her body. She still felt a little shaken from the nightmare, but now that she knew what it was about, she was starting to become a little less scared.

"A-And those fears you mentioned, Elias..." She sighed. "You were right. I am scared of going through that again. I don't know if I'll ever see them again. My baby brother or - or my dad. And I'm scared to think about what will happen if I do find them."

"Perhaps it won't be as bad as you think." He reached for her hand and started to stroke the side of her face. "Maybe speaking about them more will diminish those insecurities you have."

She winced. "But, if I ever see them again-"

"You won't be alone." He assured. "I'll always be beside you, so long as you desire me to be there." He rubbed this thumb along her wedding ring. "That fear should be the least of your worries."

A smile finally grew on her face. He'd been yearning to see it so badly. And the moment he saw it, Elias felt his chest warm. He relaxed and leaned forward to nuzzle his skull against her cheek. She kissed his snout as he pulled back, and then leaned forward to nestle in his arms. She rested her head beside his skull and sighed longingly, bringing a hand to his other side.

"I'll talk about them more." She assured. "I promise. And maybe then I'll be a little less scared."

He held her close and started rubbing her head. "I wonder what they would think of me?"

She relaxed and closed her eyes, the smile widening on her soft lips. She couldn't help but giggle at the thought. "Yeah...me, too."