Chapter 7

(Authors note: this chapter seems kind of forced, but it was much harder to think of an ending than I thought. Also, short chapter is short just to get to the final section of this fic.)

Affection was rushing through Gabby. She couldn't talk, or breathe, or think, or move. All she could do was look at Colin. His presence brought her a comfort she'd never known. He didn't do it. Not only that, he shared her feelings. Such irony that this same guy held the face that she never wanted to see again after he locked her up.

Gabby held an unreadable expression. Colin's head was pounding with thoughts but also completely still. He really tried to end his life just now. He still felt an urge to pick up the sword and finish himself, but the request of Gabby was too powerful over his brain.

They were never getting out of here. How could they? They were both weakened from being forced into this dream. If one of them had enough power, maybe they could force Colin out of the dream realm, but how would Gabby escape?

"When you put me in here, did you give yourself the option of taking me out?" Gabby broke the silence. After what they had both just gone through, it was probably not the best thing to say.

Colin's mind couldn't comprehend anything. He forgot how to speak for a second. Did he? It wouldn't make sense if he did, he wanted nothing to do with her back then, but he could barely remember. "I um… don't… know… maybe…?" He quickly glanced up at Gabby. She seemed a bit annoyed by the lack of knowledge he possessed.

Gabby's mind wandered back to her past. The fight they had, how he trapped her in this realm. How unfair she used to think it was that he could just waltz into Hallownest and overtake her reign. She thought of the moths. Her moths. She would never forgive them for turning their backs on her, but at the same time, she felt she deserved it. Colin was heaps better of a ruler than she ever was.

The seer could sense an alternate presence in the realm that contained her former ruler. Who was it? Who would accompany her creator in that endless stasis? She remembered the one she gifted the dream nail to. They used it? They sure seemed powerful enough to lock someone up in the dream realm. The feeling of another being was very overpowering. She could stand the Radiance alone, she was very weak so it was bearable, but this new presence was much stronger.

For the first time ever, the seer decided that she would try and check on who was there. She had never done it before, but she must know.

What she saw startled her. The king! Her king! Sitting next to her creator! Why was he there? Why was he banished to suffer this same fate? It must mean that he wasn't king anymore. The seer couldn't stand to see him so powerless. She had to release them. But that would require the one thing she didn't have: The dream nail.

(Author's note: The dream is complicated. I do not think the seer is the host for the radiances dream, but she can basically sense her dream, so she knows that Colin is in there. Headcanon, but yeah. This also takes place after a headcanon that the seer gave thk the dream nail.)