Section Author: 'Peredhil'

Yui dived under the covers and snuggled next to Aegon. As always he slept on his back. Burrowing under his arm, she nestled her head against his chest and let the calm rhythms of his breathing and heart lull her fears.

Aegon's calm presence was the sun from whose shadows she walked and returned. Until now.
We are One
A chill frission wracked her frame and she snuggled even closer to her Love, pulling the comforter higher over her head.

Waking suddenly, she felt smothered by her coverings. Clawing her way from under the twisted blankets, she broke air like a dolphin emerging from warm waters.
The shadows danced eerily in the flickering flames of the chamber's many candles. As her heart subsided to a slower rhythm she chided herself for being caught like a child in fribbling thoughts.
The shadows reached for her contrary to the their natural movements.
Looming high over the bed, shrinking to naught, they approached steadily, slipping like an odor through the wards.
Yui faced them with a certain confidence - Shadows she walked, Shadows she traveled, Shadows she controlled.
Sitting up, heedless of the blanket slipping down to pool at her waist, Yui lunged forward and caught one of the approaching shades. Flipping its extremity around her hand rapidly, she sent a surge of power that blasted its Essence.
A narrowing of eyes and a moment's concentration and she held a shadow Whip. Snapping it with lightning flicks she began to drive the other Shadows back from the bed.
Play with the Huntress?
Her teeth gleamed like pearls as she bared them in a snarl.
Flick.
Flick.
As her Whip struck the Shadows, holes began to tear and run with in them.
Advancing from the bed, she herded them toward the center of the Chamber.
Whirling the Whip around rapidly, she infused it with power until its core was Stygian blackness, an aching hunger, and then lashed it forward to encircle the night marauders.
With a pop, they imploded.
Someone will pay for this!
Turning back to the bed, the light in her green-grey eyes went out.
Aegon lay lifeless, a cloying black veil resting over his nose and mouth.

With a scream, Yui awoke.
The shadows danced eerily in the flickering flames of the chamber's many candles.
Rumbling in the recesses of her mind, a Cheshire Smile and a voice.
We are One...

She spent the rest of the sleepless night watching Aegon peacefully sleep.

* * * * *

With a hoarse chuckle, the mage jerkily heaved himself erect. The sparks in the crystal had begun to die; the brazier's flames had sunk to reddened coals.
As he moved to shovel more fires into the gold-washed basin, his black robe was revealed to be closer to the color of a buboe's dark clots of blood, a sickening blackish-red hue.

Moving back to the floating ball, he allowed his shadow to play across it.

Lightning thundered in response as his anguished scream fought through the curtained walls to fuel with the raging storm.
We are ONE!

* * * * *

The child sat at the Dream Weaver's feet, lolling as bonelessly as a sleeping puppy. His large dark eyes watched the bottom of her embroidery, the flickering needle and stitches. From his position, the fabric is a tangled weave of threads, dangling blacks and browns, knotted yellows and blues, broken greens and whites.
"Why do you stitch such an ugly thing when the finished ones are so pretty?”
The Dream Weaver smiled down and nudged him with a slippered foot.
Graeson, you see only the back, not the face shown to the world.
Stirring and stretching, the youth complained sleepily.
I think it's ugly. And why do you always call me by Father's name. I know I'm his son. Who am I?
The needle hovered and stopped, trembling.
Dearest child, if I called you by your true Name, you would awaken to your self leave me.
I'd never leave you! the young man protested, eyes flashing.
Turning the embroidery, the Dream Weaver showed the man the other side.
Golden flowers carpeted a grassy glen, framed by hoary trees in which nightingales sang.
Not all threads' Weave
Are as they first perceive
The tangled paths of Dreams
Contain more than it seems...

With a start, the Dream Weaver jerked awake.
Rapidly her fingers sorted the thousand threads that had spun into being, her shuttle flashing in and out of the Warp and Weave, the threads passing on and out of sight as she wondered what Hand had laid such a memory on her.
With a frown she noted that while she'd nodded, the jet black thread had strengthened. The golden thread had been caught in others, several threads so braided and wound together that the individuals could hardly be distinguished. All together they spun around the black thread as ivy around a Doric column.
Her frown was tinged with fear, for sometimes the Loom weaved the Weaver...