Tracey dreamed that night, only she shouldn't have been dreaming since she was supposed to be on watch and she didn't recall falling asleep at all. But it had to be a dream, she was surrounded by glittering fireflies and the moon rose full and cold over the mountain, she could smell moon flowers on the air. Her hazel eyes darted around at the flowers, the mountains and the moon, her eyes almost transfixed on the moon and its brilliant light. Its rays shone down on the moon flowers and illuminated them beautifully. Tracey looked down at herself, hoping that if this was in fact a dream that she would at least be back in clothes she recognized, but was sorely disappointed. She had hoped that since she was in a wide field of moon flowers, the last flowers she had seen when she was in Lothlorien, that her clothes would reflect those of the She-Elves too. Tracey's cloak hung about her bandaged body and she sighed, poking her feet gently at a cluster of moon flowers at her feet.
"Why am I still tortured by my dreams?" She wondered aloud, not knowing if she would ever be enlightened. "At least this one is somewhat comforting."
"You miss it so terribly. It is a weight that drags you ever down." She heard a soft feminine voice muse from a few feet away.
When she looked she saw a tall female figure swathed in a dark cloak, hood pulled up high around her face but a pair of green-gold eyes glittered from the dark interior. "How can you stand it, it drains you day after day sapping your spirit."
Turning on her feet to face the newcomer fully, Tracey eyed the woman from head to toe, tilting her head to the side in silent judgment before answering her question slowly and carefully. She didn't know who this woman was and she didn't like how she just appeared without any noise to announce her presence.
"There are days it gets to me, but on other days where it's not so bad." She said, her hand resting on the sheathed dagger at her thigh to make sure it was still there. "Before we continue to converse I want to know who you are and what you're doing here in what I suppose could be a dream."
"Perhaps not a dream… I don't walk in dreams but you seemed in need of comfort. Some sense of familiarity, I found this at the fore of your mind." The woman leaned down and plucked a flower and Tracey watched it disappear as if it had never been. "Such a fragile thing."
"There are many things that I think about and many things that are fragile, but you still haven't answered my question... who are you?" Tracey said, her fingers encompassing the hilt of her dagger now, slightly hesitant to use it.
"I'm less a Who and more a What." The woman replied tucking her hands inside her sleeves. "I am Doubt, I am Consideration, I am the Second Thought that plagues you at night. I am many things and nothing. Don't overthink it, you'll give yourself a headache."
Tracey's lips quirked into a smirk and she shook her head, letting her hand drop from the hilt of her dagger. She crossed her arms under her chest and shifted her weight to her left side.
"I stopped trying to over-think things since I first started dealing with the Gods in Ancient Greece on my first visit." Tracey replied before a thought flitted through her thoughts. "Do you make anything appear or just what you think would comfort me?"
"Just the surroundings." The woman replied and took a few steps closer though it didn't make her face any easier to see.
Uncrossing her arms from her chest again, Tracey replaced her hand on the hilt of her dagger, slightly tensed at her slow approach. Though the woman didn't seem to pose as a threat, she would be damned if would let anyone jump her again. After what happened in London and the kidnappings in Ancient Greece and in Middle Earth, Tracey wouldn't be caught unawares this time.
"Are you my Doubt?" She asked slowly, narrowing her eyes at the woman a few paces in front of her.
"Perhaps. Do you have many doubts?"
"We all have doubts whether we realize it or not." Tracey replied vaguely. "Even I."
"Indeed, mayhap we will visit them another time." The woman's form began to waver along with the moonflowers and the luminous moon leaving Tracey alone by the fire in the still night.
"Oh I have no doubt about that." Tracey mused softly to herself, a smile on her lips as she blinked at the flames of the fire. "No doubt about that at all."
She laughed softly to herself, finding the irony in her words and guessing she would meet the strange woman again, perhaps in whichever temple she was to enter. It wasn't something she would worry about right now and absently Tracey gazed around at the other sleeping forms around the fire then to the horses on their picket lines. She drew her cloak closer to her body and sighed heavily, the wind rustling her hair. Sniffing the air lightly, she surmised that dawn wasn't too far off.
Autolycus woke and took his shift on watch, she curled herself close to Artemis who seemed dead to the world, when the camp started waking for the day Tracey considered telling Artemis about her visitor. Mopping her face with a cool, damp rag and running a brush through her hair quickly before typing it back again, Tracey started to secure her satchel while she spoke.
"I had a visitor last night... nothing to really worry about though I think." She said quietly, looping the strap over her head and settling it diagonally across her back and chest comfortably.
Artemis glanced over at her, her hands going still on the straps of her basket; she nodded once. "This mountain… it gets into our heads. I'm not really surprised you were visited."
"Am I right when I assume that you've been visited too Artemis?" Tracey asked, looking into her soft brown eyes. "It could be a hint to what our task may hold for us but I could be wrong... like you said, this mountain is getting to us."
Artemis shook her head and looked up the mountain where soft mist was still gathered low to the ground, the sun hadn't quite burned it away yet. "No… The Gods are as silent here as they have been in almost every other world. This Mountain is a Test, to see who is worth to speak to the Gods, so far it doesn't look like I am."
"Amphiaraus then perhaps? He seems to interpret their will well enough." Tracey stated quietly with a shrug of her shoulders. "If not him or you then I would think Hercules since he is the son of Zeus.
Everyone was packing up their things at a steady pace so there wasn't much else for her to do help with other than to shuffle dirt over their smoldering embers until they went out.
"I guess we'll find out soon enough."
