They found Kalthor easily, sprawled on his face in the thick grass that had yet to try and grow over him and consume him in the physical world as his dreams threatened to do so on the mental realm. Bringing him from the depths of his nightmares was easier than it should have been, and no one knew if it was simply because he refused to believe what he saw, or wanted to believe Nireesa's gentle and firm promises that wound around his mind deep within his dreams.

Only Triadae felt slighted when her friend came out of it. Kalthor refused to meet her eyes, refused to take her hand to help him stand, and every bit of him gave off the feeling that he truly didn't want her present. It stung her, twisted an invisible dagger deeper into her healing heart, but she gave him the space that he seemed to want and spoke nothing to him.

Finding Brinella was something else entirely, and even the Dragonsworn had a difficult time of it. The area was warping, throwing those who lingered into disarray, much to the amusement of those who were now flocking the trees and adding their chitters and laughter to the frustrated grunts of the hunter and his companions. More than once they were forced to pause and clear their minds of the lies that had started to take root there. Only Nireesa remained immune to the effects that their adversaries were determined to throw at them, and it was she who had the most difficulty of all.

It was Triadae who found the worgen woman, suspended from the branches in a cradle of vines bearing lethal looking thorns. Only luck had guided her eyes, exasperated as Kalthor and Lydros began arguing yet again, and her gaze had rolled upwards to the tangle of growth that seemed oddly shaped for the area. Not wanting to speak, knowing quite well that there would be little use with the men all but yelling now, she dared to touch the arm of the Kaldorei woman, pointing upwards.

They might have disregarded the shape as one of many who had long since perished in the corrupted glen, if it were not for the soft whimpers that fed themselves out from the constricting vines. Blood could be seen on the flora, leaking from between the netting that cradled the worgen, and the vines themselves pulsed as if beating with hearts of their own. The more pained their victim sounded, the deeper they drank. Triadae swallowed back bile and the urge to flee, her hand gripping the hilt of her gilded blade.

The slide of the sword out from the sheath that held it caught the attention of both men, and they both paused in their argument as if they would turn their words on her for being so foolish. Instead, they watched as the slight warrior braced the hilt of her weapon against her wrist, enabling her enough force to hack at one of the vines that seemed to be holding the entire thing aloft.

It burst like a ripe fruit, spewing ooze and writhing away from its fellows. Again she hacked at the net, and was forced to stop as another load of the pungent liquid fell upon her and, with a cracking snap, let free the worgen to collapse to the ground where she remained lifeless, save for the wolf-whimpers that left her muzzle. Having never seen a worgen herself, Triadae wasn't sure if this was another enemy or something to be pitied. The ooze that stained her clothes and skin itched, and she bit back a scream when she looked and found tiny spiderlings crawling along her body.

"Illusion. Just an illusion." Nireesa's calming voice rang in her mind, and hers alone. Her frightened breaths would not die, but the soothing mental touch that the Dragonsworn had wrapped around their minds to guard them from the worst of what they would discover slowly tightened, and gave her the strength to look again. Sap. It was only sap, colored dark with blood. It stuck to her, rolling into the joints of her armor like a dirty honey, but it was only sap. She managed a whispered thanks, her fel-green eyes falling away in shame.

"This child is tangled deeply," her voice echoed in their minds, carrying a sadness with it that one might reserve for a dying friend. "It may be too late for her, I cannot tell."

"Try." Lydros' voice was thick with something, his eyes going from the barely breathing woman to the Dragonsworn. "Even if it is too late, don't let a moment go by where we cannot say we didn't try."

Nireesa held his gaze with her ever-closed eyes, then nodded once. The sound of her gown trailing in the grass died as she knelt next to Brinella, her fingers hovering over bloodied fur. A soft glow, silver and emerald, touched on Brinella's cuts and punctures, the marks where the grove had already begun to feast on her, content that she was subdued. They sealed, and Lydros turned away.

He didn't want to watch if Nireesa should fail.

Brinella had long since left the site where she had mourned the man she loved. The corpse had faded from her mind as soon as she had seen the great shape of her beloved stalking the shadows outside her sight. Joy had suffused her, casting aside the head that never touched the ground as she ran after the figure. White amongst the dark, he had come into her sight and then turned from her to run, always staying out of her reach. Twice she fell, and he did not turn back to wait for her as he had in Gilneas.

She followed, feeling the pricks of doubt in her mind that washed away once more when he'd glance behind him to view her, and all of her hope would come rushing back again. Not once did she notice the darkness fade to familiar surroundings, not until she had fallen once more and realized that it was a child she had stumbled over. A bright-eyed boy, with hair the color of chocolate and eyes of a summer sky. Her surprise was compounded as the toddler launched himself at her, laughing as he wrapped arms around her and rested against her lightly rounded stomach.

"I foun' ya, Momma!"

Momma? The word rang in her mind, and she formed the question in her mind only to have it dashed away as strong arms wrapped beneath her, lifting her to her feet. Out of habit, her arms wrapped around the boy as her head tilted back to meet the ice-blue of the one who watched her.

"You look like you've seen a ghost, love." His head lowered, brushing his cheek against hers in warm welcome, breath hot on her neck. "Have you been dreaming again?" A hand reached further, tousling the dark locks of the boy who clung to her. "Come, Gregory. Your mother needs her rest. Why don't you go play with your cousins?"

Gregory released Brinella, and she let him slide down her chest and then let go as his feet touched the ground. Like the wind itself, he sprinted off, laughing happily as other children appeared to rough house with him. Her brows lifted in surprise as something moved within her, and she dropped her gaze to her stomach. Cor seemed to take her surprise in stride, his hands resting over her own wandering ones and gently pressing them between his palms and her stomach.

"Is the wonder so much, even now? You bore Gregory with little trouble. Yet you act like you've never had a child before..." His voice was low against her ear, pressing his chest against her back as his hands left her stomach and wrapped strong arms around her chest. "Always such a dreamer, my little swallow. What were you dreaming of this time, I wonder?"

"I dreamed..." Her words caught in her throat, uncertainty blooming inside of her and twisting like a trapped serpent. Wasn't this a dream? Or had everything else been an awful nightmare? "That we were attacked, and I was left alone. You became a giant white cat who guided me from a sinking home..."

He laughed, nuzzling against her cheek and placing a kiss there before he drew away, his fingers wound in her own. "A cat? The wall is sturdy and safe, and the harbor clear. We've never been attacked, not since our civil war. Crowley and his men are still locked away, and we know peace under Greymane. Sometimes I wonder if you live in a different world, 'ella." He tugged her hand, breaking her from her reverie and turning her attention instead to the town they walked through.

As they walked, she thought hard about changing. Nothing happened, her human form not sprouting fur or fangs, no trace of nature ringing in her ears. Her mind flew out, calling for the names of those whose faces lingered in her memories, but they were little more than a dream, and quickly slipping away. Cor's hand was warm, the press of him against her so vivid in her mind, the tumble of a new life growing within her so oddly calming, that those faces she couldn't put names to seemed the dream.

Her pulse quickened as he guided her to their home, a farmstead that had been built with such care that it was clear there was nothing but love between those who lived there. A garden offered roses that twined up and over the door, a large tree gave of apples that fairly glowed with their help, and all of these things seemed to calm her racing heart. Home. This was all home, and all that she had ever wanted. All that Cor had ever promised her...

"Gilneas fell, Brinella."

"What?" She paused, her fingers flexing in his grip. "I thought that..." Her voice died when she realized he hadn't spoken, that his husky tone could never be the soothing voice that she had heard speak in her mind. Cor was many things, but not a woman. When he turned to regard her with a questioning glance, she simply shook her head and smiled.

… and so the months passed. Time lost all meaning for her, lost as she was in the dream that she clung to as reality. Moments that passed outside her mind meant nothing, never realizing that the more she accepted Cor's arms around her, the more tangled in the corruption she began. His kiss masked the prick of thorns burying into her skin, his touch enflamed her past recognizing pain. Day by day she fell to her dream, doing more damage to her body than time could ever hope to.

The mysterious voice called to her in that rapid time, trying sense and then pleas when she refused to listen. A whisper in her mind while she plucked herbs for dinner, a cry in the night as she lay entwined with the man she loved. Always, she remembered the touch of her love on her skin, and secured the dream as her place. No matter what she was hearing, this was the truth. Gilneas had never fallen. Her father had never died. Adeline visited daily with her daughter, and there was laughter and joy.

All that was peace to her, she clung to. All that had happened, what she couldn't clearly remember at all? It was nothing more than a bad dream, washed away time and time again. She could think on it, and it would run from her like water through a sieve. So she let it go, pushed the silly voice away, and settled in her life.

Until the voice refused to be rejected any longer. Brinella felt winter coming, and with it began the illusions of something at the corner of her vision. It never appeared when she looked for long periods of time, and Cor questioned more than once why she was staring into the hearth, or off at the ceiling. Never could she explain what she saw or felt, only that it was the voice he refused to believe was real. No longer could she move easily; she was sure it was two she carried in her womb, and the thought calmed her and much as it frightened her.

They had begun to move more often, barely resting before assaulting her again and making her wary of moving at all. Gregory found the actions funny, happy to rest his hands on her swollen belly and feel the tiny feet within kick at him. Even Cor watched her with naught but love and pride, kissing her temple with hands folded over her stomach. Their love made her content, but the ever watching presence she couldn't pin put her on edge.

It was dawn on the morning of the first frost when she saw it completely, out the window. The scene seemed to ripple and warp, pucker and then give birth to something that stood as if feeling the ground beneath its feet. It happened so quickly that she was sure that it was only a figment of her imagination, but the result of it was still right there in front of her eyes. She had seen such things in books, heard of them from the mouths of storytellers, but never had she seen something so beautiful and so deadly all at once.

At first glance, it was a serpent twice her length. Half of it coiled, the rest stretched upwards. The head of it was not snake-like as she knew it to be, however. Reptilian, perhaps... but it drew to mind the structure of a turtle instead of a snake. A fan of feathers adorned the head where ears might have been, and a crest lay flat against the skull of it. Brinella set aside the bread she had been kneading, slipping to the window to see it more clearly.

It was an ethereal thing in beauty. The savage look of it was tempered by the fact it looked almost perfectly carved from green glass. Sunlight rippled over emerald scales, and caught in the hazy, barely present wings that stretched from its back. While she watched it, entranced by the way it swayed in the light, she realized it watched her with eyes that remained closed. A chill ran up her spine again as the voice entered her mind, pushing as a snake might against the door to her innermost self. It called to her, by name and by blood, and then the beast and voice pushed away from her, into the sky.

Brinella looked to the stairs, knowing that Cor and her son would be awake in moments, but she could no longer hold back her desire to keep the voice at bay. The creature had struck her with its beauty, and there was something in the way it looked at her that made her feel remorse, pity, and contempt for the world she lived in. It knew something she did not, and she couldn't tolerate it any longer.

She grabbed her cloak from beside the door and slipped out, shivering in the cold even beneath the thick fabric. Walking was a pain, and it took her a few moments to find the figure, but find it she did. It curled and coiled in the air, dipping into dazzling displays while waiting for her. So she followed, laboring after it with her breath hitching and causing her pain in her side. Yet still she walked, out of the city and up into the hills that the winged serpent guided her to.

The sun was above the trees by the time the beast fluttered back to land, stirring through the undergrowth that Brinella herself had to pull herself through step by agonizing step. The hills offered her the sight of her town, and something sparked in the back of her mind, something familiar that choked her and brought terror forward.

"Gilneas has fallen, Brinella."

The serpent curled around the nearby rocks, watching her with eyes that were closed. She longed to step closer, to touch the skin that seemed to glisten with thousands of tiny gems, the wings made of smoke and glass, but her feet were glued to the spot as the children she carried within her kicked again. This time it hurt, an uncomfortable jab to her already sore being. "No... they said..."

And then the world heaved beneath her, a crack echoing through the day and sending her sprawling. It had come as soon as the doubt clawed back at her, as soon as something had felt so very wrong once more, and Cor had not been present to wash it away again. "No..."

"This is all a lie, child. Open your eyes."

"Let it not be a lie! For me, keep this as my reality!" She realized the moment she screamed the words how they echoed the truth she had been shoving aside. Her eyes looked up from the grass, and she moaned in agony when she felt something seep between her legs. So far from home, her time had come, and the children were eager to get out. "Please!"

"Is this so precious to you, that you would give up everything to keep it as your own? It is a lie, Brinella! See it for what it is, and do not die here!"

Die? The word stuck in her mind, and she reached for the serpent, wanting to touch it just once. It bent near, touching the tip of its strange nose to the flesh of her fingers, and her eyes widened as fur began to sprout along her skin again. Pain engulfed her, and she retracted her hand to hold her stomach, flipping to her back. Her eyes, wide with fright and pain, centered on her stomach and she screamed.

They were trying to get out, trying to tear their way through her body. The gentle, promising kicks that had heralded active life were now something malicious and cruel, and her scream was one of terror as she realized just what was happening. Desperately, her mind reached for anything that might have helped her. Cor, his face flooding into her mind, but he was walking away from her. He and their son had turned from her, were walking towards another who welcomed them with open arms and shared an embrace with her husband.

The pain her body felt now extended to her heart and mind, searing her with the power she had given the reality she had accepted. Her eyes closed against the pain, closed against the visions of betrayal and loneliness, closed against it all and wanted nothing more to do with it, but still the agony of it all came crashing down on her. Again and again, the twins she carried struck against the flesh inside of her, and her screams reached a fever pitch as one succeeded, a furred claw rising from the remains of her stomach, and yet she was still awake, her screams caught in horror as the fingers flexed and twisted, and another appeared.

"Illusion, child! They are not there. Hear me, see me, open your eyes to the truth! Wake up!"

Brinella's back arched, so much that she was nearly supporting herself on her head, and her eyes opened and caught sight of what the serpent had now wound itself around. The rocks were gone, the sun did not shine, it was only a lonely moon limning the crimson roses that decorated a headstone. "Adeline..."

"That's right. Remember. The pain of it, the hurt. Hold on to those things that made your reality a nightmare. Your friend loved you, and others do as well... the pain you feel now is nothing. Negate it. Ignore it. Do not let it rule you!"

She tried. The soothing voice coaxed her, attempted to convince her even as she felt the pain tearing her apart that it was all a lie within her mind, and she found herself crying. Monsters. She was birthing monsters, and they were tearing her to pieces from the inside. There'd be no happiness for her, no joy. She would be an outcast, a leper, a hated being of nightmare.

"Yes. You will be, only if you let it happen."

Fingers stroked her sweaty face, brushing her hair back, and she reached to cling to the slender wrists that were there. More and more, the being that had guided her hear was acting as her guardian, pushing back the pain and making reality stand stark and clear. Her home was gone, her love had left her, her friends were dead...

"Not all of them, sweet child. Not all of them, I promise you."

"Promise..." Her voice was pitiful, but she felt as though the world no longer mattered if she only held the gaze of the woman that now lingered over her. White hair fell around her face, tickled at her tear-stained cheeks, and the light around them was fading. The harder Brinella gripped the mysterious woman, the more she felt as if she could stand it all. The tighter her grip on the woman, the tighter her grip on sanity.

"I swear it, child."

Brinella let a moan of longing pass her lips, glancing down at her stomach to find it whole and untouched, free from any mark that she had ever carried. "Only a dream..."

"Yes. For some, the dreams can be more desirable than the reality, and it is in those that nightmares can form and be used against you. Life is harsh and cruel, child. Never forget that, no matter how much you might want to. It is the beauty that we find outside that makes it all worth it. No dream can ever hope to be as fulfilling as life truly can be, and no nightmare can ever truly hurt you the way we often must let the waking world do so.

But you are stronger for walking the realm of the wakeful, Brinella. You will learn much, and see far more than you could ever do so here. Some day, when you are prepared, you will take your place among others who walk the Dream... and we will guide you away from the Nightmare that has touched you. Until then, remember... it gains only as much power as you let it."

"Is there truth in dreams, nightmare or not?" Brinella prayed the answer would not be what she knew it would, saw the sadness in the woman's closed eyes in a way she'd never see it in another's.

"Sometimes. I cannot answer all of your questions, sweet child. I could never hope to answer all of my own. You must simply walk the paths set forth, and trust that you can handle what comes forward."

Brinella nodded, sadly. She could still recall the way Cor looked as he embraced another, and the thorn of doubt was still deeply embedded on her heart. It had been weeks with no sign, and her heart felt empty. All she wanted to know was the truth, all she wanted to accept was lie.

"Open your eyes, child. It is time to wake, and put your worries aside."

"I don't want to."

"I know."

The world exploded into light and life.