Children of the Mirror

...25th Part: Dark...

I woke to find his cheek, warm and soft, against my shoulder. His fingers were still entangled with mine and his each breath was long and deep and soundless. He looked like he hadn't moved a muscle since falling asleep last night.

I touched his face lightly, stroking the smooth skin.

Krad's eyes blinked open slowly to look at me with still-sleepy eyes. "Dark," he mumbled, yawning and shifting a bit, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

"That's me," I said cheerily, earning an amused smile from him.

"Time to look for the whatever-it-is," he told me, curling against my side in opposition to what he suggested.

I laughed, kissing the top of his head – I admit, kissing him proved to be an enjoyable thing. "Now get off of me, Lazy," I said, pushing him away so I could get up.

"Maybe you were right," he thought aloud, yawning again and holding his hand out to me. I pulled him up. "We could just leave it be. Who are we to disturb it?"

"Would you make up your mind, already!?" I shook my head at him, going around to his back and pushing him out into the hall. "You know, if we don't look for it now, you're going to get those weird feelings of yours again and we're going to have it look for it later."

"I'm not the only one who gets 'weird feelings'," he huffed.

"We may not even find it today," I added, ignoring his last comment. "If it is in this building, like we think it is –"

"It is," he interrupted.

"– we still have a lot of rooms to go through. It could take us all week!" I looked back at him over my shoulder, distracting myself from the vast hallway I'd been staring down, and waited for a response.

"Well, if most of this building is empty," he considered, "it might not take as long as you might guess."

"But we still don't know what we're looking for!" I pointed out.

Krad's shoulders drooped a bit. "I think it's something substantial," he said. "Dark, what kinds of things do you dream of frequently?"

I pondered this for a moment. "Uhm... art?"

He nodded, trying to build some kind of conclusion in his head. "What kind of art?"

I shrugged. "All kinds!" What did I know about art? As the question crossed my mind, I had the thought that it sounded a little off. "Paintings," I offered something more specific. "And there was a sword – thanks a lot – and... and I don't know! Other random stuff."

"Hmm..." Krad didn't look to be figuring much out.

"What do you dream about?" I wondered.

"Less than you do," he said, sighing. He tossed his hands up briefly. "This building, for one." He went on, "I dream about you."

I snorted. "You dream about me, huh?"

"Killing you."

I nodded. "See, that's what I thought."

A long silence passed, where not even the littlest things shifted. It was practically deafening.

Finally, I grabbed his arm and pulled him down the hall. "Well? We gonna look for this thing or not?"

"Still optimistic?" he asked demurely.

"Oh, lighten up," I scolded him. "If we really are marching off to our doom – which I doubt, for the most part – we might as well live it up while we can! There's no use being depressed over the inevitable."

Krad shook his head at me, but I caught the smile that lit his face. "You confuse me, Mousy."