Chapter 2

"Nesta? Nesta, are you okay?"

Her dream man looked extremely worried, even distressed, as he touched Nesta's face and then placed his hand on her head, palpating it with surprising care for hands like those. He hissed immediately when the brute touched a still painful bump on her head.

"Hands off, that hurts!"

She pushed him away roughly, placing her own hands on her head.

"Of course I'm not okay. My rear end even hurts, kid. Even arthritis doesn't hurt me as much as my body does right now. I thought dying peacefully would be less... painful than this; anyone would say a truck ran over me before my death," she sighed.

"I'll go get Madja," her dream man stood up, almost worried. "The healer will help you." He looked so lost, so distressed, that she really just wanted to calm him down when she reached out and touched his arm, holding him back.

"Why would someone need a healer when they're already dead?" she joked to lighten the mood. But the distressed groan of the man upon hearing her startled her.

"Nesta, Nesta, you're not dead. I'm sorry, I'm sorry for what I said. It's not true. We don't hate you, not everyone hates you. You're here because we care about you. Don't say that, you're not dead," the man's voice was devastated, almost pleading.

"Cassian," she called him by the name her imagination had given him many years ago. "I lived a good life; death isn't a bad thing. We all die one day. Why are you more distressed than I am about the fact that I'm dead? You shouldn't be like this," she said, patting his cheek gently.

The man stepped back and left in a hurry. Nesta let him go. Maybe this wasn't death; she might still be alive and having some kind of strange dream, still sitting on the garden swing surrounded by her family. If that were the case, she would wake up soon. One of her nieces would probably come to lift her and help her get to her bed. Nesta made herself comfortable in bed and closed her eyes just to rest a bit. At some point, she fell asleep. She felt hands on her body and smiled in her dreams; those hands were big and strong. Then, one of her nephews came to take her to bed. She didn't bother to get up; her nephews were strong. Nesta kept sleeping.

-o-o-o-

The problem was that Nesta didn't wake up back in her room. No, Nesta was still in her same fantasy world when she opened her eyes to the morning sun.

Oh, this was very strange, this imaginary world she had created when she was a pre-teen. Even... even this world was still at the same point she vaguely remembered when she stopped dreaming about it, when the man she loved told her that no one loved her. That was a cruel thing to say. The person she imagined herself to be in this world was someone who was devastated, someone collapsing like an animal too wounded to recognize any kind of help and attacking anyone who came near because she was suffering. Yes, it seemed like she was re-imagining this world from that point. How strange to continue a dream so precisely after so many years. Nesta looked at herself in the mirror as she got out of bed.

Well, she was disastrously skinny, almost as much as some of her anorexic patients, but otherwise, she was young and beautiful, more so than she had actually been in her youth, and Nesta had been quite beautiful even if she didn't want to boast. She stretched this body and smiled, yes, she could see why she once imagined herself this way, like a fairy with lethal superpowers. She was beautiful, beautiful and powerful. Every girl secretly dreamed of being like that, her doctor, her psychologist when she was young, had explained it to her many times.

Her doctors had said her disorder was like someone with post-traumatic stress disorder, but Nesta had never lived through anything that would justify such a disorder. She was a beloved girl in a suburban home in a lovely family. Horrible things only happened in her imagination, in this fantasy world she had created. In the end, she was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder and received treatment and even medication to lead a better life. The therapies had helped: dance, yoga, everything had helped her manage her anger, to develop a discipline that helped her, and she had succeeded. Nesta had become a successful professional, a functional and happy adult even if she never married.

All of that worked much better than creating fantasy worlds like this one. That's why, since she was 11, she had never dreamed of this world she created again. She wished to wake up, but at the same time, she wasn't in a hurry. She was 85 years old, an old woman; waking back to her old body or to death wasn't something she was eager to do. Maybe she could stay in this fantasy world a little longer and fix it. If it was her fantasy world, she could make it a good one this time. Then, if she woke up, she would tell her sisters about Prythian and Cassian, especially about Cassian.

Determined and much less sore than the night before, she walked to the kitchen, instinctively knowing where it was; she had created this world herself, after all. Ah, the fairy superpowers were wonderful, healing so quickly. Too bad it wasn't real. While working at the hospital and seeing many patients suffering one after another, some too young, she would have wished for something like this to be possible in reality. She arrived at the empty dining table and sat down.

She smiled when the bowl of oatmeal appeared magically in front of her.

"Thank you," she said to the magical house. "Also, give me some milk and some nuts." The house provided them, and Nesta felt affection. She really had a great imagination as a child, and apparently, in her old age, she had regained that imagination. Well... old people always became like children again. —"A plate of fresh fruit to complement would be appreciated."

"It's good to see you eating."

Nesta didn't need to turn around to know it was Cassian who was speaking. Her perfect dream man, well, he wasn't a Prince Charming riding a white steed into the sunrise, but Nesta had always been a fan of Dark Romance, not pink romances, and Cassian was the perfect protagonist for one of her dark and dirty romance novels.

"Yes, this body needs some extra calories... well, a lot," she admitted, mixing the milk and nuts with her oatmeal. She preferred it this way; she had never liked oatmeal on its own, so her mother used to mix it with nuts and milk to make her eat it. She liked it better this way and never stopped eating oatmeal like that.

She ate with enthusiasm, although this body was so malnourished that she stopped eating when she began to feel too full. Oh, she had seen this many times with malnourished patients: overeating with a stomach that had shrunk to survive wouldn't be good, it would only make her vomit later. A little unhappy, she nibbled on one more piece of fruit before leaning back. Cassian's eyes looked at her with a slight touch of sadness when Nesta didn't finish all her food.

"When someone is malnourished, overeating will only make them sick, they need to eat little by little," she explained, justifying why she didn't finish her meal. Cassian looked at her amazed, as if Nesta never explained things... well, to be fair, the Nesta of 11 who created her alter ego never explained things.

-o-o-o-

Nesta followed Cassian out of the house after they finished breakfast. They went to the training field at the top of the House of Wind.

"I thought we trained at the Windhaven," she vaguely remembered. Well, she never actually trained there; she refused to train in that place, but that's where they went when they put her under house arrest, like only a rebellious teenager would be. Another sign that this world was created by the vivid imagination of her teenage self.

"Change of plans. Mor has gone back to Vallahan, and Rhys and Feyre are busy. So there's no one to transport us to the Windhaven. We're going to train here today. Just you and me, Nes."

"Oh," she whispered. Well, she was starting to improve her imagined world, she knew she could. "That's wise, I never liked the Windhaven. Who came up with the brilliant idea that I, Miss Proud 3000, would train in such a place?" She laughed vivaciously. "We're talking about me; according to my sisters, when I was young, I'd rather die than make a fool of myself or admit I was wrong about something." She reminisced fondly. "Well, in my defense, I'm almost never wrong." She winked at Cassian.

-o-o-o-

Nesta, all happy enjoying her dream in the beyond in an imaginary world with a hot guy, and Cassian all distressed because the bump made her collapse XD

I read the novels in Spanish and English is not my first language, so please excuse any discrepancies with any names. For example, "Windhaven" was translated into Spanish as 'El Refugio del Viento,' which literally translates to 'The Wind Shelter/ Wind Refuge.' XD But since it's the name of a place, the translation is not always literal. So if you see any small mistakes like that, just let me know.