{-Sharena-}

The first thing she did in the morning was check on Peony; by that time, the ljósálfar looked like she was sleeping peacefully so Sharena didn't bother waking her up just yet. After breakfast and a short talk with Alfonse (who informed her that the scouts saw someone fitting the description of another álfar nearby, and that he'll be waiting at the Order's castle for the two when they were ready), though, there was nothing peaceful about it.

Peony seemed distressed now, curled up into a ball and mumbling in her sleep. "Can't you see that you're… you're hurting her… I'm who you're mad at… right? So why..? She doesn't deserve this… please, stop… Dad…"

"I might be wrong," Lekra began dully, "But I'm quite certain that's a nightmare. More for me, I suppose. That piece of the nightmare's heart isn't keeping all this hunger at bay…" They darted over to Peony, twisting in front of her before disappearing. In a couple of seconds, they reappeared with a rather satisfied expression—Sharena couldn't help but wonder what, exactly, nightmares would taste like and if they even tasted anything when they technically absorbed it.

Sharena then did her part, walking over to Peony and gently nudging her awake. "We've got to leave now. If we're quick we should be able to find Mirabilis by noon."

"I'm up, I'm up…" Given a moment of thought, however, and Peony declared without even moving from her spot, "Three more minutes."

Lekra was oddly seemed to be the one that wanted to get through things quickly the most. "I've got several ideas for a couple of nightmares, if you're willing to test out just how much fear I can squeeze out of you." It honestly wasn't hard to tell that they wouldn't actually do it, at least not to Sharena.

"Oh, that wasn't a nightmare," Peony remarked casually as she sat up. "Not in the sense mortals know about them as, anyways. Álfar don't dream like that—we're not really supposed to dream at all, but we do. It's just our memories, usually from when we were mortal; only a few of us remember even the slightest bits about that time, though, and me and Triandra are the only ones that remember everything. The only reason why Freyr and Freyja both agreed to that was because of you, actually. So basically, I was just having a bad memory. A completely normal álfar thing."

That smile was the smile of someone that was trying really hard not to make someone worry (or possibly ask further questions), but only succeeded in being incredibly easy to read. Sharena didn't mention it, deciding it better if she just played along like she hadn't noticed, and only lead the way when Peony decided she was ready for the day.

Everyone else was waiting for them, and they did a double-check of their supplies and went over their plan one more time. Peony was clearly relieved to hear how close Mirabilis was and confirmed that was probably who was seen.

Of course, Peony was the most energetic out of all of them. Alfonse looked like he'd hardly gotten any sleep at all last night, Anna just seemed to want to get this over with (with a weird nervousness, too), Fauna was definitely waiting for something bad to happen, and Sharena—personally—didn't see too much need to rush. Not to mention Lekra had apparently realized something and was beginning to get incredibly anxious, in turn making her feel uneasy.

"Then there was that one time waaay back when I was a little álfar and she was telling me stuff about Ljósálfheimer, and she kept falling asleep. Every time I woke her up, she continued a little further ahead in her story than she'd left off at, so she ended up leaving out a lot of important details by accident, and I was so confused." If anyone else but Peony was saying it, it likely would've been brushed off as nervous rambling. But she sounded as happy as could be, and Sharena had the feeling she was just… talking. And had a tendency to say a lot more than she thought she was, if the fact she still seemed unaware that some people would rather prefer the silence meant anything.

What kept her from continuing was the shouting. It couldn't have been far away—and it couldn't have been anything friendly, either. Both Alfonse and Anna (the only two who'd brought them, since Peony had insisted they weren't necessary and Sharena didn't want to make her feel uncomfortable by having hers around) pulled out their weapons even before it was clear that someone was in trouble.

"Jeez, get off of me! Ever heard of personal space?"

Peony bristled. "That's Mirabilis!"

Sharena quickly stepped in her way before she was able to run off. "Alfonse and Anna can take care of it. They handled this kind of stuff before—"

"Light's out!"

There was a thump followed by that, and Sharena could tell she wasn't the only one to feel something in that moment too. In her daze, she let Peony slip past her; the others were quick to follow her.

A couple of bandits were lying on the ground (truthfully, Sharena almost stepped on one of them without looking), definitely just asleep. Anna gave them a disgusted look when she passed them.

"Bandits. Of course," she mumbled. "Shame the king won't take care of it."

"It's not as simple as you might think it is, you know," Alfonse retorted. "I can't just send out soldiers whenever I damn well please. And that's if I can get past the part where they listen to me and stop chugging down beer long enough to follow orders!"

Fauna cut between them and frowned. "Guys, can we really not fight here? I get it, you're both grumpy, but I think it can wait until later." To think she was the youngest out of all of them nearly seemed impossible with the kind of disappointed tone she was talking to them in.

If one thing was certain, though, it was that Peony completely disregarded all of them. She just went straight to hug person in the center—another young woman that looked a lot like her, and the only one still standing. "Mirabilis! Are you okay? Those guys didn't hurt you, right? You look a little beaten up. Why'd we get separated, anyway? Did you fall asleep? Oh jeez, I was worried you got hurt somewhere and it would've been—"

"Peony," the other ljósálfar began in a sleepy voice. It took Sharena a minute to realize that the reason she recognized it was because the same person appeared in a couple of her dreams; the one person she could never fit a name to. "One question at a time. And stop hugging me… you pretty much put all your weight into the person you're hugging and, as someone who's shorter than you, you're going to end up knocking me over…"

Peony dutifully stepped back. "Then just answer them one at a time!"

"Hmmm… fine. I'm alright; got a little shaken up on my way here, but nothing to go home to Freyr about… I don't really know why we went to different places… something just feels off about it. Like someone was doing it"—she let out a long yawn—"intentionally."

No one seemed to take that well. There was only a handful of options to have for a possible cause, and none of them were pleasant ones.

She continued by giving each of them a small nod. "But on another note… I'm Mirabilis, the daydream. Peony's probably talked a… a lot about… me…" Then it looked like she fell asleep.

If any of them had little patience for it, they didn't say it—this was something that they needed to do. Not to mention Sharena had the feeling it would be more tolerable (to Anna, at least, who was the only one that had a problem about it) than having Veronica as a traveling companion.

With a kind of expression that showed her doing it many times before, Peony gently nudged Mirabilis. "You've got to remember the mission, then you can nap. All you have to do is bring us to Freyr."

"I think you fail to realize that all of that takes a lot of energy…" came the tired reply. Whether she was talking in her sleep or was actually awake now was up for debate, though. "But just give me a couple of minutes… everyone needs to relax first…"

((A/N: Lekra was being dramatic when they "ate" Peony's nightmare; there's literally nothing to what they do, but made it fancy likely just because Sharena was watching. The nightmares of álfar, who technically aren't really supposed to dream at all despite Peony's explanation, give more energy from absorbing than average human dreams do. They probably just came across their most fulfilling meal in their life.

Ah, Alfonse straight up admitting that no one listens to him and has absolutely zero control over the army. Luckily there's Henriette, who I've decided the army fears with their lives. She's gained their respect and has threatened using them as target practice enough that they know she's not to be messed with.))