{-Sharena-}

She was admittedly surprised when Anna walked off to talk to some Heroes instead of questioning her. Sharena figured she'd have to explain eventually, though, but didn't really see a point in worrying about it at the moment.

Soon the three of them were alone and Natheniel began yet another explanation.

"There's…one more thing about the nightmares you should know about. I don't know how particularly relevant this is anymore, but it might be helpful to know in case it is. This is probably going to sound really obvious. The nightmares…they take easy prey on those who are alone. What people say about them being able to smell fear is actually false—they actually can't smell at all but that's beside the point—though they do something close to feed off of it. Everything makes them stronger, even simply going to sleep. And it tends to leave the person they're taking it from weaker; I would assume you're familiar with the general idea what that does to said person." He was talking to Sharena when he said that. She knew it from the way he looked at her, if not just for a moment, before he continued.

"You had two fine examples of what the nightmares are capable of doing. Together it basically sums up everything they can do. Sharena generally just seems to be their favorite, given the things she has the ability to do, but believe it or not that wasn't actually as bad as it might seem compared to the other half. Some people gain their interests more than others, and that normally leans towards people that aren't really stable in one way or another. Now, remember Veronica when you kind of worked together in the world of nightmares. She didn't like or even really knew any of you, and the feeling was neutral. We wouldn't know for sure unless we asked her, but it's pretty safe to assume she wasn't happy or felt comfortable—if I had to guess she was actually pretty alone despite the four other people there. The nightmares took advantage of that. They can't do anything to anyone without their victim being alone, and they took that small moment of opportunity to take a good bit of strength. Wounds dealt by one of them heal slower than normal; as long as it bleeds they gain strength by it. After that happened to her, the world kind of began becoming irrelevant as the nightmares tried as hard as they could to grow on as much of her fears as possible. And, suffice to say, she didn't see the same ink blot you guys did because of it. They can do those kinds of things to anyone. It doesn't matter how they go about doing it or what form they choose to take on while they're doing it. All it matters is how they get inside you and mess with you. Veronica let her guard down long enough for that to happen to her. I'd…really prefer if it didn't have to happen to anyone else."

He still didn't seem to be done, only stopping for a minute. "That crystal you got from the world of nightmares is both revered and hated by them. It has the ability to control them to every degree they can be controlled, though it can't contain them all. My feather necklace—which my guardians gave to me when I was younger, before I knew what it did—is practically made out of the only part of it my guardians had, resulting in its general stiffness, and helped contain the power I have as a technical form of nightmare. Of course the nightmare of a nightmare is powerful, though, and they grew a bit stronger with each day spent contained. I'd eventually lost the necklace a few months before I left. While I'm aware that I'm partially to blame, I can't help the feeling that it played part in what happened to Philyra. So besides the crystal's ability to contain, it had the ability to reflect the deeds of the nightmares. Every one of their victims has a voice within it. They stay there as a warning to whoever's close enough to hear…though those warnings are pretty useless as considerably few people can hear their cries. I can't; I don't think anyone from my world could, or at least not anyone I knew. No one really knew what causes someone to have that ability, either—it could be generational or random or someone 'chosen' for it. Though even it has a way of messing with people."

"Sharena, can you go see what Fauna's doing?" Anna's expression was completely unreadable. That normally was not a good thing.

"I'm not leaving," Sharena answered with blunt defiance. Natheniel seemed to shrink a little. "If you've got something you want to say to him you can deal with me being in earshot."

Anna sighed. "Please don't make this complicated. Look, just go, see if Fauna needs help baking or stress cleaning or whatever the hell she's doing—"

"Can't. She's denying any help I try to give her."

"Well then tell her I ordered you to."

"Still not going."

"Just cooperate with me here for five freaking minutes."

Sharena still just stood there. They held eye contact for a minute longer until she gave up. "Fine, you win." There likely wasn't much she could've done to avoid it, anyway.

Just about as soon as she left the room and closed the door again, Natheniel spoke. "You know she's going to be right outside the door, right?" Sharena didn't know if she wanted to be impressed or annoyed at how accurate that was.

"At least I can pretend she's not here," Anna sighed. "It's not exactly easy to talk about someone when they're standing right next to you." She said more in a hushed tone—just quiet enough that Sharena couldn't hear it.

Natheniel's response wasn't any louder. The only words she could hear was "Nothing that I can think of." and, after a moment of pause, "Sorry."

Guessing that they weren't planning on letting her hear them, Sharena decided to actually see what Fauna was doing.

(A/N: It's a bit sad when a good deal of explaining is done in the semi-sequel instead of the actual story, huh..? Most of this wasn't even thought of at the time.)