{-Sharena-}

Her morning started normally. She woke up, almost reluctantly left the warmth of her blankets, went downstairs to eat breakfast, joined in a conversation with some of the Heroes about their dreams last night (though did not share her own, feeling as it definitely wasn't something they needed to know), and eventually helped out the same Heroes until later in the day.

Fauna walked up to them and handed each of them a cookie. This was already suspicious. "Have any of you seen Natheniel today?"

Sharena shook her head, taking a bite out of the cookie before asking, "Why?"

"No one seems to have seen him all day," Fauna answered. "I think Anna's about ready to cuss someone out, too. Actually she might be doing that now…"

"He said he was leaving soon, anyway," Sharena pointed out casually. She waved off the Heroes to let them continue working. "So he leaves without telling anyone—"

"One, the gates lock at nine and I definitely would've woken up if he tried to leave. Two, he wasn't the only thing that disappeared." She gestured for Sharena to follow her. "Come on; I'll show you."

Fauna led her back into the castle, through enough hallways that Sharena began recognizing where they were going. Anna had put the crystal around here—Sharena only really knew that since the voices were louder here. But there wasn't any voices now, and she didn't need to see the empty room to know what Natheniel had taken with him.

"Anna noticed he was gone pretty early," Fauna explained as she fumbled with the lock, "But the crystal wasn't there when she checked." She opened the door and nodded for Sharena to look. "He even did the should-be-smart-but-Anna-is-too-ticked-off-to-care thing and left a note."

Sharena finished her cookie before walking to the note placed in the center of the room. Beside it was Natheniel's feather necklace, emitting a quiet, pained moaning sound. She tried her best to ignore it, turning her attention to the note.

'All of you are going to kill me for this, but so be it. This is how things have to go.

I'm leaving this world as soon as possible. As means of kind of tracking me, I left my feather necklace here. Being obtained in the world of nightmares, it holds a certain amount of power that the real version possessed but it is completely tied to me. When it disappears, you'll know I'm gone for good. I hope it would be because I ended it, but there's a chance it would simply be because I left the world. Maybe it won't be too hard for you guys; just remember what I told you earlier and everything should turn out alright. Anything that isn't you can certainly blame on me, if it makes anyone feel better.

Goodbyes are a bit bittersweet, aren't they? For me, at least.

-Natheniel'

She stood there and tried to wrap her head around what Natheniel had written. Should she be happy that he's gone now? Annoyed by the way he went about doing it and what he took with him? She felt like the feather necklace wasn't the only thing he left behind, whether he was aware of it or not. Something that knew he was gone.

"You're right… It was me he'd forgotten. Though maybe that's not so much of a bad thing…"

That was the same voice that she heard yesterday—and standing on the other side of the note was the source, which she'd seen by Natheniel a while on the same day.

It smiled at her again. "Won't be too long, now. Soon we'll be introduced and we can get to the real show. Simply exciting, isn't it?"

"Sharena?"

"I'm…I'm fine," she replied quickly without thinking of a proper answer. Sharena watched the figure disappear before turning towards Fauna and leaving the room.

Fauna frowned. "I think our definitions of 'fine' are very different from each other. Mine is generally 'alive, healthy, and happy' whereas yours…really just seems to be 'alive.'"

Sharena shrugged. "Someone doesn't need to be happy to be fine." Fauna probably wasn't aware of the amount of faking she'd had to do when she was younger or the personal experience behind her words.

"Care to help me check supplies? It's around that time of month again and it would be one less thing of Anna's to-do list."

She was a bit surprised at the offer. "I thought you were avoiding me, though."

"You're my friend, and I mean it when I say I can't really imagine a life here without you, but… Sometimes you can be a little hard to handle." What could have been taken as in insult given anything it could be implying wasn't that harsh at all when Fauna said it. "With everything about the nightmares happening, I decided to give us both some time to ourselves. No one particularly seems all that excited about letting me know exactly what's going on, anyway."

"I can tell you," Sharena suggested off-handedly. They started walking to the supply room. "Oh! How about we go back to that village tomorrow, where we met Natheniel?"

"Only as long as Anna agrees to it. She has a right to know where we'd be going."

"That sounds doable. I'll ask and, if all goes well, we can meet up by the gates. Maybe if we're lucky I can get her to give us some snack money."

(A/N: aaah, foreshadowing for the next story...)