{-Sharena-}

Her first mission was, of course, locating her mother. It wasn't hard—she was in the garden just as Sharena had predicted.

Henriette smiled when she realized they were there. "Sharena, Iztali. Is there something you need?"

"An explanation and a request." Sharena didn't bother keeping Iztali beside her; there wasn't any reason for him to be, since he couldn't run off here. She gestured Peony to come out and began to retell the day's events.

She ended it off simply with mentioning how they needed a babysitter for Iztali, and how he might end up getting sick when they got too far.

"I'm sure I'll manage," Henriette replied with a nod. "At most, you'll only be gone for a day or two—assuming Peony's friend is somewhere nearby. I can't imagine Iztali getting sick any longer than a couple of minutes, if he does at all. Since you'll be in the dream realm it might not bother him as much."

Sharena wandered over to where Henriette was sitting, well aware of how Peony had gotten sidetracked playing with Iztali (the two seemed to be getting along pretty well, so she didn't bother worrying about it). "Can I ask you something about the nightmares?"

"You know I'll always have time for you," Henriette answered, motioning to the spot beside her. "Sit down and tell me what's on your mind."

"Well, I guess technically it's not really about the nightmares in specific…" Still, she sat beside her mother and made sure the other two wouldn't be paying attention. "In one of the memories Lekra showed me, I heard you mentioning how I used to play with butterflies and call them ljósálfar… that I mentioned Peony and Triandra. How much do you know about all of that..?"

"I can't say there's a lot to tell, honestly. Just that you randomly started talking about them one day. You were five, maybe six, at the time so I tried not to worry about it; I'll admit, you must've been pretty lonely most of the time, and you were around that age to have imaginary friends. You mostly stopped talking about them by the time you two met Zacharias, but there was a mention every now and again. I remember that we went on a little trip together and, out of curiosity, I asked you about them. You just stared at me and said you didn't know what I was talking about—like that part of those six or seven years never happened at all." Henriette thought for a moment. "That was the only time you mentioned any álfar in specific, at least. You've been talking about them for almost as long as you knew how, even before anyone told you about them…"

"So they've pretty much always been there…" Sharena sighed, though she didn't really expect much different. "Already I'm hoping we can get this over with as soon as possible."

Henriette smiled a bit. "Well, I think it's rather selfless of you to be doing this. I mean, you just got them back after wanting them for a while… I never really imagined that it would hurt you, let alone cause as much damage as what you described."

Sharena glanced at Lekra, who hadn't talked at all since they left the Order's castle. "I don't think any of us did," she remarked quietly. She knew they were taking the situation more personally than she was; before they'd talked about how if they hadn't helped her remember than she wouldn't have gotten sick, this just seemed to further prove their point.

"You should already know what I'm going to tell you," Henriette began as she got up. "Stay safe and look out for each other while you're gone, and I'll be here if you have any more questions. I've got to go make sure Alfonse doesn't need anything right now, though." Definitely more to herself, she mumbled, "Assuming he accepts my help…"

Then she left, and Sharena turned her attention to Peony and Iztali. They looked happy together; it had taken Iztali a while to really warm up to the others, but he seemed to have no problem with Peony at all. With little else planned to do, Sharena wandered over to join them.

She'd given Henriette a more detailed instructions about what to do with Iztali after dinner, then started showing Peony to one of the guest rooms.

"My room's right over there if you need anything," Sharena explained when they got there. "I don't think Alfonse wants you wandering around a lot on your own, though, so if I'm not there just wait in your room and I'll stop by when I come back. I'm not even sure if álfar normally sleep or not…"

Peony shrugged. "It's kind of like a pastime for us, once we finish everything we needed to do. But we don't really get tired unless we're in the waking realm—the more we travel between the two realms, the more mixed up our minds get about if we're supposed to be awake or sleeping. Some álfar that do it a lot without much rest between them can 'lag' and end up sleeping for years because their bodies didn't know what else to do. At least that's what Mirabilis told me…" She casually walked into the room, if not just so then she wasn't as easy to notice.

"So it's like when we go to different worlds?" They were already having a conversation now; there wasn't any reason to separate for the night when neither of them needed to. Sharena still didn't understand (or, possibly the better term for it, remember) a lot about their past friendship, after all, and maybe talking to each other would help. No one shouldn't even be walking in this direction until Alfonse was heading to bed. "We don't really feel it, but pretty much everything's put on hold; we don't grow or age at all, and it kinda messes with us after a while. The plus side to all of that is that it's practically impossible to die as a Hero besides getting fatally wounded or a few rare illnesses."

Alfonse and Anna would be so happy to know that she actually sort of payed attention to that lecture. It didn't matter that she'd been bribed into listening and it took her several times to actually absorb all of that information, right?

"Yeah! You're so smart now. But I guess that's what happens when you actually get some kind of schooling, huh?" Peony gave a thoughtful little hum. "Most of what I know comes from Mirabilis—you've probably guessed that already because of how much I talk about her. I doubt she'd know as much about other worlds as you do, though. Me and Triandra came from this world, but I don't think Mirabilis came from a World of Zenith at all. At least, when I asked her about it, she kinda just stared at me even though she's got a good understanding of the differences between the dreaming and waking realms which this conversation is pretty much proving is practically the same thing. I had to ask Freyr my questions and geez was he not happy! He's always so stuffy and boring. Every time he looked at either of us it was like—"

"Like he was wondering 'what trouble are they getting into now?'" Sharena finished, understanding what she was going to say. "Something that's a mix between genuine concern for our well-beings and just wanting to have one shenanigan-free day for once…"

"That's exactly what I was going to say! Did you remember that part, or was it just a random and super accurate guess?" Peony tilted her head, smiling a little wider now too. Maybe it made her feel a bit closer to her home and what she lost, given what she was talking about and who she was talking to.

"A bit of both? I've been seeing more glimpses of what you were doing before you came here than remembering the past, but that's what I gathered from what I saw. Plus I've regained a couple of vague memories of someone doing that who wasn't Alfonse or Anna." Sharena shrugged to show she didn't find it that important.

"I knew you'd remember at least a bit about Freyr," Peony remarked happily. "I mean, besides being the dream-king, he was pretty important to us. He's the reason we met, after all! And how we grew so close to each other. Technically I guess he's also the reason you had to go away, but it's not like that was his fault… that wasn't something he could've been expecting, and it was still a tough choice that I'm sure he didn't want to have to make…" She shook her head to get rid of whatever dark thoughts she was having. "Anyways, it's getting late, isn't it? Go get some sleep—mortals kind of need a lot of it. I'll be here to help if you can't, though; I'll give you a nice little dream just for you! Bet your little nightmare friend can't do that."

((A/N: More mentions on how worlds work! I want to clarify that by "a few rare illnesses," Sharena is mainly referring to unavoidable stuff like Veronica and Bruno's demon dragon blood or the Rite of Frost, not things like heart attacks and the like. I still haven't decided whether stuff like what's up with Lysithea or not, since I'm not quite sure about the exact details despite playing the Golden Deer route.))