{-Sharena-}

She was told a little later that Triandra and Peony, as álfar now, could tell if she was there or not. It had something to do with knowing when kids were asleep; she figured it didn't matter to her, so she didn't pay that much attention to it.

So it didn't surprise her when something related to that became a topic of conversation.

"What were you doing a couple of nights ago?" Peony asked, tilting her head curiously. "It was like you were there, but… not. For two days."

"I told you, it's probably none of our business…" Triandra mumbled. "What she decides to do with her time is up to her."

"So… what if I said that I don't even know what I did?" Sharena, for all her thinking, couldn't remember what happened before she woke up with Henriette hovering over her. At first, she shrugged it off as a dream and continued on with her life; then conversations like this popped up, and she realized it was a little longer than that.

And at their confused looks, that's exactly what she told them now. It didn't make it any less confusing for them—likely in some part due to how she didn't even know what happened—but it proved as enough of an explanation that they were able to move on to another, more interesting subject.

Sharena must have wandered for a couple of minutes before she finally found him. He wasn't actually in the throne room, but instead the garden, mumbling things to himself. It didn't take long for her to realize that he was more worried than he normally was—a fair bit of it was expected, but definitely not this much. Something happened, and she wasn't sure if she wanted to know what it was.

He noticed her before she even said anything, forcing a smile. "You like sneaking up on people, don't you?"

"I know a fake smile when I see one, Freyr," the six-year-old remarked bluntly. "Mother does it all the time. You two would get along pretty well if you could."

Now this sparked more of a genuine smile, and she took pride in the fact of being able to help lift his mood a little. "Well, we've both got kids to look over. Nothing makes us happier than knowing that those kids have a safe environment to grow in. That's what álfar are for…"

She didn't try to pry in order to get the information out of him, instead just wandering over to stand beside him. She'd grown used to needing to find alternate ways to get people to talk to her if they wouldn't say it outright, and she knew what worked with him.

Freyr sighed. "Their forms as álfar are faltering. Usually when someone becomes álfar, there's no problems transitioning. It might have something to do with how we didn't clear their memories; they're still attached to the mortal realm that way, as the only thing that would keep them from forgetting each other and you. Or… it has to do with her. Either way, in order to fix it, we'll need a strong dream energy and that's not just something we can come up with that quickly."

"Can I help?" Sharena, honestly, wasn't expecting to be told that she could. It simply made her feel better knowing that she at least offered to help her friends, even if the adults were completely against it.

"Freyja suggested it," he admitted. "But it isn't possible. You're a special kind of kid, and you have the ability to do something, it's just impossible to do without altering something important. The quickest and easiest way to handle this problem would be making you álfar as well, but I can't go through with that. So we need an alternative… and soon, before they might as well had never become álfar at all."

She was playing by herself when Mirabilis came to get her. Then, she continued to getting lost trying to follow the explanation Freyr and Freyja were giving her about why she was here. All she understood was that they found a way for her to help without doing any of the things Freyr was afraid of doing. She didn't see any problems with it (even asking several dumb questions in order to make sure she knew exactly what was going on), so she agreed.

And now she was drinking the nectar, split between Freyr's and Freyja's, which were both used to give birth to álfar. She wasn't becoming álfar; that would mean that she wouldn't be able to go back home. Freyja called it a "dream," though she didn't understand a lot of the details. As far as she was concerned, she didn't need to.

Everything was better now. Neither of them faltered anymore, even if Triandra got quieter as time went on. There were some days when she wouldn't say a word, others where she didn't show up at all. Peony tried to explain that she was probably just busy helping Freyja, but admitted a little bit ago that she actually had no idea what went on in Dökkalfheimer as a ljósálfar.

Today was pretty much the opposite of that. Sharena was honestly surprised to see that Triandra was the first one here.

"Peony's gonna be here in a little while," Triandra explained, hardly any emotion in her tone at all. "Freyr wanted to talk to her about something."

"Oh, okay. How long do you think it's gonna take her?" Sharena didn't want to seem like she was thrown off by Triandra's lack of emotion, but she was pretty sure it was obvious. Sure, it wasn't exactly a new thing anymore, though that didn't make it any less unsettling.

The dökkálfar gave a half-hearted shrug. "Whenever they finish, I guess." After a couple minutes of silence, she sighed. "You never question it, do you? I wish you'd just leave already. We have to remember everything so then we can still remember you. While everyone else gets to life unaware of what their past was like, we still have to bear it… because you're still here."

"There you two are! Come on, we don't have forever, Sharena's gonna have to go home eventually!" Peony kept the conversation from going any further, continuing to prove she had no situational awareness whatsoever.

It was forgotten entirely after a little while, as they spent the precious time they had playing games and telling stories.

"Wh-what's all this about..?"

"I'm sorry…" Peony didn't look at her, just the flower in her hand, before shakily offering it to Sharena. She'd been crying since she came here, and showed little sign of stopping. "He t-told me to… to give you this. It— you're going to f-forget us. H-he's going to m-make you forget us. He said y-you're not—that you w-wouldn't on your… your own so I-I thought… maybe you wouldn't h-have to stop coming but… but he said i-it wasn't safe. For a-any of us. I know he's j-just trying to look out f-for us, but… I'm going to miss you! E-every moment of every day u-until I see you again! Please… please promise me you'll do the same, even if you don't know m-my name or my face or e-even how we met…"

It didn't feel real, but somehow, it made sense. Kids weren't supposed to stay this long—they weren't even supposed to remember their dreams when they woke up, but she broke both of those rules. She was thirteen and could recall what she did here vividly enough to write it down days after she dreamed it. She understood what it meant for her to continue being like this.

"I promise… I won't forget any of you."

"Why, simply by being here you've accepted your fate. The wheels are turning towards a brighter future thanks to you… no one could be a better fitting role for the nightmares' little dreamer, don't you think? Together you can achieve what even the gods can't… so of course we can't let that precious light fall into the wrong hands…"

((A/N: Note how I never actually had a story bit for when they went to that cave. That's because those kinds of memories weren't unlocked, just like how the last memory here doesn't really have any information at all. I also want to point out that Sharena relived more than what's shown—literally those entire ten-ish years—this was just all the important stuff.

Back to the real world!))