Chapter 1:
Niko's Visions
Halftrot Inn was never truly still no matter what time it was. Granted, three o’clock in the morning was far quieter than three in the afternoon but there was always someone at the front desk doing something and at least two other staff members working somewhere on the property.
Niko loved those early morning hours. Not because of the quiet - oh Gods, no; she lived for the noise and bustle of the day and the secrets and information that slipped through it - but because of the occasional body that wasn’t supposed to be up at those hours. It wasn’t very often someone bustled in from outside too early in the morning to be considered normal - or unconcerning - and it was even less common for someone to leave, but it happened. It always happened.
The clock had just chimed the quarter hour past four when the front door opened. She stilled her hand, pen lifted from the page to not blot the ledger. Two individuals entered before the door was shut with some care, soft chatter drifting between them. Niko placed the pen off to the side and offered the pair a welcoming smile. “Welcome to the Halftron Inn. What can I do for you?”
The shorter of the two stepped forward, lowering their hood with a smile. White fur dominated the stranger’s features, though red tabby fur covered the top of the head and feline ears. The tabby patch created a sharp white point between the ears high on the stranger’s head and cut crisply down to the temples only to become a soft curve towards the back. The fur around the throat starting under the chin and continuing down into the collar of the stranger’s attire was semi-long and spilled out around the stranger’s neck like a fluffy scarf. “Good morning. Do you happen to have any rooms available that can fit three?”
Niko fished out another book. Something seemed oddly familiar about the feline stranger. Most of her attention was on gleaning as much detail of the pair as she could while she went through the motions of checking the strangers in, rattling off the current options and answering their assortment of questions. The taller of the pair never pushed back their hood so if there had been any hints to why the feline was familiar, it wasn’t going to be found with the hooded one.
No, her clue came when Tavey Folt, the Halftrot Inn’s resident dragonborn came around the corner from the stables and staff quarters corridor with arms laden with a few saddle bags and escorting an aviary. More specifically a kenku - named Kenku, apparently, if she hadn’t misinterpreted the hooded figure’s wording - and the realization dawned on her. Her gaze returned to the feline as she kept the realization to herself.
Without seeing what lay hidden beneath clothing, the feline looked exactly like the cat from her dreams; specifically, the less than normal dreams she had been having for the past few weeks.
She refused to entertain the idea that those specific dreams were visions. Stuff like that was made up hogwash to scam people with. She had seen it plenty of times on the streets of people pawned out of coin by a fake fortune or vision of the future. Intuition and instinct were only marginally believable. Niko wasn’t unfamiliar with instinct; it drove even the kindest of souls to kill when cornered just as it drove breath into lungs without thought. Intuition was something else. Intuition was being able to tell when a trap was more than a harmless joke, or when there were no obvious reason to actually distrust the shopkeep yet the drive to leave without looking back can’t be ignored. Intuition was narrowly avoiding getting picked up by people looking to earn a good bit of cash in the Underground Market because a different path home was taken on a whim. Niko was familiar with those things but even then she was certain it was more coincidence than actual forces at work.
And yet she was hesitant to simply label the dreams as nothing more than weird, repeating dreams. Whether that was because of something like instinct urging her not to or if it was some sort of logical conclusion she had unconsciously come to, Niko simply knew when to pay attention and when to brush a dream off.
If the not-dreams had been actual visions of the future, of possibilities, maybe it would have been easier for her to accept something like Futuresight being the cause and a legitimate thing. But no. The not-dreams were cryptic imagery that never really made sense until some missing bit of information was brought to her attention, oftentimes in the form of whoever was involved. On top of that, they were usually far and few between; the last one had been a single not-dream with no repeats two years prior and it had ended a three year streak of no not-dreams.
Her dreams - regardless if they were normal or not - were always complex with a touch of bizarre but they never left her feeling off kilter and never grew more vivid if they did repeat on the rare occasion; and no repeat was ever a true reiteration of the original. The not-dreams never changed no matter how many times they repeated. They would start out fuzzy and hard to remember but with each repeat, the not-dreams became clearer and clearer as if the images were imprinting themselves into her memory. Each time she woke from one, she was left feeling out of place for a long while and it only got worse as the not-dreams grew clearer.
Even now as she exchanged a room key for the hooded figure’s coin, the not-dream was filling her head so clearly, it almost obscured her sight.
The not-dream had been simple enough: a white cat with red tabby markings on its head and down part of its back was carrying a little black bird by the scruff of the neck as if it was a kitten. The red furred, long-haired tail was held straight and high as the cat trotted on three legs along the sandy shores of some body of water; the cat’s right leg was missing at the knee yet it walked as if it still existed. The little black bird was curled as a kitten would have been but instead of simply hanging from the cat’s mouth, the little black bird was curled around a tiny humanoid figure and seemed quite content with doing so. The tiny humanoid was chest to chest with the little black bird and hung limp so that lanky limbs dangled past the little black bird’s body and swayed with the motions of the cat’s walk.
Where the cat and little black bird looked forward and quite content, the humanoid looked back, chin resting on what counted as the little black bird’s shoulder with a tired gaze locked onto the mass of shadows that kept pace not far behind the cat. A thin strip of shadow stretched from the mass along the ground at the cat’s feet only to behave in a way that she had never seen shadow behave.
Near the cat’s front paws, the strip of shadow stretched up from the sand and was firmly wrapped around the humanoid’s right wrist. She could never figure out if the shadow held on like a hand or a manacle but the hold always looked unbreakable.
When she first had the not-dream, there had been the vague impression of a cat carrying something that wasn’t a kitten around like a kitten and it had bugged her for a good hour or two. She didn’t even notice the humanoid until about the time both cat and little black bird had become distinct against the sandy beach. It wasn’t until the most recent repeat that she had been able to see the mass of shadows. It had taken that same repeat for her to notice that the cat was well aware of something following it.
As the trio left, she wondered after the hooded figure. Were they the humanoid from the not-dream? She was rather tempted to assume they were but she knew things weren’t always as clear cut as she first assumed.
Not that the current not-dream on her mind was a good example of it. It seemed pretty straight forward to her. The humanoid was being followed, and knew it, but was doing nothing to keep the little black bird and the cat out of it. Though that probably wasn’t from a lack of trying; the little black bird had been wrapped around the humanoid and the cat had been carrying them both. But the fact that the cat was the only other one to be blatantly aware of what haunted the humanoid’s trail seemed weird. Surely the little black bird knew what was after them.
Or was it being sheltered from it?
The only answer Niko got in the days that followed was that, yes, the hooded figure had indeed been the humanoid in the not-dream. The trio had booked their room for a week and on their first day of stay, quickly showed their worth by entertaining the dining room for a good many hours. The feline - a tabaxi named Talley Oaken - was no bard but played the hurdy-gurdy as well as any bard Niko had met, though the instrument itself was new to Niko. The music ranged from energetic and uplifting to morrose and drawn out but it was all greeted with applause from those in the dining room.
Kenku was something different entirely. Niko had heard rumors that kenku only spoke in mimicry but she had never met one before to learn if that was true or not. It had sounded as if it would be a very limiting thing. Oh, how Kenku proved her wrong.
Kenku and the hooded figure - a moon elf that went by Ravin that refused to give his full name after Talley had confirmed ‘Ravin’ was only a nickname - had joined Talley on the little stage in the corner of the dining room that first performance. Ravin had looked rather uncomfortable up there and had merely patted out a beat on the inn’s spare drum. It was clear he had never learned to properly play but he was good enough to keep a steady beat. Kenku, as a stark contrast, seemed quite content being up on stage with Talley and happily stood at her side as she settled center stage. The first song started with Talley’s first few notes and then Kenku opened its beak.
The entire place was shocked when the notes of a church organ became accompaniment to the hurdy-gurdy, the consistent beat of a drum tolling just underneath. Neither Talley nor Ravin reacted to the sound so it was apparent the trio had done this before but to have someone vocalize the exact sounds of a church organ - including multiple notes overlapping - was disarming. Her Pa informed her the second night that the sounds of the organ weren’t exactly perfect seeing as he himself could tell it was only mimicry long before he had entered the room but Kenku was good enough to fool the masses and even some of those who had better ears than most.
Niko was not surprised to find her Gramp and Gran speaking with Talley and Ravin the third day of the trio’s stay as she arrived at the front desk for her shift. Of the words she caught, her Gramp and Gran were finalizing a short term contract with the trio that included a discount to room and food if they continued to entertain as well as pay. It was the standard stuff; she had walked bards through the same exact contract when they inquired about work for room and board. They even catered a similar contract to those looking for other work; extra hands in the stables, kitchen, and housekeeping were always welcomed.
On the fifth day of the trio’s stay, the front doors swung open to familiar faces. With only a few hours before midnight, she and her Gramp were going over the books for the shift exchange. Her Gramp looked up and immediately greeted the familiar faces by name as he made his way out from behind the front desk. “Terrel Lambrax! Good to see you, old friend! Good to see you in good health, Emrynth.”
“Kole, my friend!” Terrel called out, grinning broadly. “It has been too long!” The pair hugged, a mildly amusing sight seeing as her dwarven Gramp was almost half the height of the human he was hugging. Neither seemed to notice or care about the height difference as they roughly hugged each other before her Gramp turned to Emrynth.
Emrynth gave her Gramp a genial smile as their hug was much more sedated. “How are June and the twins?”
“June’s still the same spitfire I fell in love with all those years ago,” her Gramp assured. “Brax and Kelsca are taking care of their families as Stormshields do. Brax is still looking to taking over once me and Junebug retire.”
“That’s good to hear!” Terrel said. “Brax around now? I have some goods he might be interested in.”
“He should be in the kitchen.”
Terrel nodded and left for the kitchen through the dining room. Her Gramp turned to Emrynth and returned to business, asking, “How many rooms are you looking to use and for how long?” The front door opened again. “Is it just the two with you this time?”
At least two other bodies entered behind the small cluster at the door but Emrynth and the two others standing with her blocked Niko’s view.
Emrynth glanced back in surprise before smiling. “Not quite. We have two others as part of our company but they went with your stable staff to help with the carts and animals.” Emrynth turned to properly look at one of the new arrivals. “Are you still looking to continue on with us?”
“It will solely depend on how long your business takes and the weather fairs,” someone said. The voice was kind, cordial, but there was a crispness to them that edged the words in contempt.
Someone else added with a grin on their words, “We can manage our own rooms, though. No need to include us in your plans.”
Her Gramp cut in before Emrynth could comment. “Let’s get started with checking you all in. There will be plenty of time to debate who is paying for who and for how long as we wait for your other two.” Her Gramp returned to the front desk, focusing on her for a moment. “I’ve got this one, Niko, if you want to go check in with your father and Terrel.”
Niko shook her head. “I’ll stay in case we have any other guests come in.”
She didn’t realize she had erred until she caught how his lips pressed thin for the briefest of moments. He had been dismissing her but, for whatever reason, he wasn’t going to force her. She wasn’t sure why he wanted her to leave but she knew better than to look as if she was trying to eavesdrop.
She grabbed the bank ledger with the intent of doing work she would have normally saved for later in her shift but when she glanced over the group one last time, it was immediately apparent she would not be able to focus on anything, let alone the conversation.
Two tieflings, one mere inches taller than the other, stepped around Emrynth’s two companions. The taller came into view first, blue skin the same dark, rich color of the blue velvet she had seen in the very expensive clothing shop in town. The taller’s horns reminded her of cow horns with their smooth texture and how they came to a sharp point but that was the extent of the resemblance. The horns came from the back of the tiefling’s head and curled forward, mimicking the curve of the back of the skull until straightening out at the top of the head and ending at the front of the face. The points were situated directly above the point of the tiefling’s eyebrow.
In contrast, the shorter tiefling had skin a pink Niko couldn’t exactly describe. It was as if someone had blended the purest pink with a pink a shade or two redder and the pigments only increased the pinkness of the color rather than the purest pink taking on the redder shade. It was startlingly bright without being the same startlingly bright as pale skin could be. On top of that, the shorter had two sets of horns compared to the taller’s single set. The larger of the sets started at either side of the shorter’s head and went back to corkscrew downwards twice. The set was ridged in a way that spoke of the same rings she had seen on the horns of rams. The smaller of the sets sat at the top of the shorter tiefling’s forehead probably at the hairline directly above the center of the eyes.
Beyond those two major differences, the two could have easily passed as siblings. They both had the same thick, curly black hair that filled the space between skull and horns like clouds being lazily contained. Their eyes were similar in shape and black sclera but the shades of their irises were a touch different; the taller had irises that could have easily been a combination of blue, green, and gray where the shorter had irises of a more silver blue. Still, close enough to pass as siblings.
As soon as the shorter tiefling had stepped into view after the taller, a not-dream rushed her. Strangely enough, it was the only one that had never really given her any details.
The figure in the not-dream never became more than a form made of shadow but she was always left with the impression that the shadow figure was rather dapper. The not-dream always started with the dapper shadow figure finishing crafting what looked to be an oddly rounded glowing cup with a jewel or precious stone set into one of the faces. The dapper shadow figure would admire the handiwork, turning it this way and that and viewing it from different angles only to be startled upon finding a red string tied to the glowing cup. The red string was striking in the dark environment and against the dapper shadow figure’s form but that never seemed to be what the dapper shadow figure cared about. No, the dapper shadow figure would always tug on the string as if the string would come free with a good yank but it never did. When it became clear it was not coming off, the dapper shadow figure would start to follow the red string, protectively cradling the cup close to the chest. The cup, ever glowing and now floating, would hover just above the dapper shadow figure’s palm as the dapper shadow figure’s curled fingers kept the glowing cup from floating away.
The red string always led to a very detailed pile of random things, from a fishing rod, a half finished shirt, and well worn shoes to a pile of candies and rocks, a feather, poppy flower, and the massive shell of some sort of turtle. To her, it looked like a pile of odds and ends with no real purpose - a pile of knick knacks at best, rubbish at most - but the red string led into the pile and the dapper shadow figure would move things out of the way to follow it deep into the pile. The red string always led to a band of metal that could have been a ring or a bracelet. In one of the faces was the same stone as the glowing cup had embedded in one face. Unlike the glowing cup, the band of metal wasn’t glowing.
The not-dream always ended as the dapper shadow figure picked the band of metal up. There was no expression for her to see but she was left with the impression that the dapper shadow figure didn’t quite know what to do with the new discovery. Beyond that, she had never really understood the significance around the two objects and the red string connecting them. Even now as she came face to face with the two tieflings for a brief moment she wasn’t sure she understood it any better but she had learned something upon seeing them.
For whatever reason, those objects represented the two before her and somehow they were connected.
Or had been connected.
A second not-dream waited until her thoughts slowed their tumbling over the first not-dream but the time between the two was far less than she cared for.
All she had done was habitually glance over the gathered persons at the front desk. The two tieflings and Emrynth were right at the edge, both tieflings leaning against it while Emrynth remained standing tall. The two that had entered with Emrynth were still near the door as if to give those at the front desk some space. A third person, though, was standing within reaching distance of the two tieflings like a shadow. She had seen the person trail behind the tieflings as they had first approached the front desk but what she had missed was the small shield on the person’s left forearm that was now predominantly on display at the person’s chest where their arms were crossed.
It had never dawned on her to connect two not-dreams until she had seen the person’s shield. The second not-dream had been of an indistinct figure steadily trudging through a thigh high substance; the only discernible detail had been the shield on the left forearm. As the figure trudged on, each hand held onto a rope that led to a gem larger than the shield floating along behind the figure. The gem at the end of the rope in the figure’s right hand was softly glowing while the gem at the end of the rope in the figure’s left wasn’t. Beyond that, the gems looked identical in cut and color as if made from the same material. There was nothing to say why only one glowed and the other didn’t.
With the two not-dreams now very vivid in her mind, she now understood what that second not-dream had been implying. The person behind the two tieflings was the only reason those two tieflings were even interacting. She still didn’t understand the significance of the cup and band of metal but she knew that the tieflings had been represented not by the objects but by the stones embedded in them. And, for whatever reason, the person standing behind them was willing to keep them together even through whatever it was the person was trudging through.
Though not knowing why one stone was glowing and one was not made her nervous.
The person behind the tieflings met her gaze a moment before her Gramp placed a hand on her shoulder, startling her. His touch pulled her gaze from the person and she was left to suppress a shudder. She felt oddly cold. “Niko? Are you feeling ok, sweetheart?”
She nodded; the motion brought her attention to the headache blooming at the center of her skull. “Yeah, I’m ok, Gramp. Must have let my thoughts wander too far.”
Again she caught the thinning of his lips. He was letting it be as she said despite not believing her and it left her almost as uncomfortable as when he had been disappointed that she hadn’t recognized the dismissal for what it had been. Still, he surprised her with a gentle, “Alright, then. I’ll be here for another hour yet so don’t feel like you’re stuck here.”
She knew it wasn’t what he had wanted to say - his eyebrows hadn’t let up their furrow - but it seemed enough to soothe some of the worry out of the lines on his aged face and he turned back to his discussion with Emrynth and the two tieflings. The conversation was coming to a close as Emrynth and the taller tiefling were taking their respective keys from her Gramp when chatter drifted from the staff corridor that led to the stables. Niko immediately recognized one of the voices and straightened, the barely touched bank ledger abandoned and forgotten.
Her Pa stepped around the corner accompanied by Tavey and two strangers. Tavey was bringing up the rear carrying quite a few bags. Her Pa was carrying a similar amount while the remaining strangers had a bag each.
Niko was not prepared for the third not-dream to overtake her. Whether it was from the force of the third not-dream shoving itself at her or from it being the third consecutive not-dream in less than an hour, Niko faltered under the onslaught and was swallowed by the sharp details of the most potent of the not-dreams she had been having once again.
A storm raged against the town yet neither the Halftrot Inn nor the buildings of the town shuddered under its force. Niko stood in the middle of the abandoned round where the main east-west road terminated at the middle of the main north-south road being battered relentlessly by the storm. She couldn’t fill her lungs with enough air. The rain was coming down so hard, every inhale was watery, yet every exhale seemed to only give the wind more opportunity to pull even more air from her lungs. She tried to move towards the safety of the Halftrot Inn but when she turned towards home, she found herself down some alleyway she knew she should have recognized. Yet when she turned to try and walk it, she was back at the center of the round with her back to City Hall facing the east-west road cutting through the town ahead of her.
Each time she tried to go home, she found herself someplace in town that should have been familiar but wasn’t. Over and over she tried until she couldn’t even remember where home was. Was it to the right, or the left?
Or was it dead ahead?
The first step forward didn’t throw her into some random part of town and she felt like weeping. She moved to sprint down the road before her eager to be out of the storm but something slammed into the back of her neck and cut into the tops of her shoulders, snapping her face down towards the mud.
Her face hit wood instead and her blood ran cold as it felt like every hair on her body stood on end. She shoved herself upright but there seemed to be no strength in her arms and it took far too much effort to even manage to get to her knees and elbows.
A massive chain was haphazardly draped beneath her hanging from something around her neck. Her arm took her full weight with ease, though she couldn’t remember getting from her elbows to her hands, and she tugged at a thick, heavy metal collar that was too tight around her neck. She made to scream but she couldn’t get her voice to work.
She stumbled upright suddenly finding strength back in her limps and she tried to get away from the length of chain. It snapped taut when she stood straight.
There was nowhere for her to go.
She tried screaming again. Her voice was there - she could feel it - but the wind and rain was in her face again stealing her breath and her scream. It wasn’t fair. In a fit of anger, she grabbed at the chain and started yanking against it with all her might. She would get free even if she had to do it on her own.
She didn’t realize the storm had stopped until something fluttered past the left side of her vision. She whipped her head around, gripping at the chain as if it would protect her.
A bird of a beautiful blue with wings and long, deeply forked tail edged in a faded black was laid out on its stomach far beyond her limited reach. It was impossible to tell if the bird was injured or not but a part of her was saying it didn’t matter. What mattered was the danger they were both in and she had to get to it before something else did. She tried reaching for it anyway, struggling against the chain that bound her in place. A startled scream escaped her as the chain yanked her towards the ground seeming to shrink of its own accord. Stuck now on her knees, she looked back towards the bird.
Every hair on her body stood on end as it felt like tiny pinpricks raced across her spine and the back of her skull. Two humanoids with weapons in hand were approaching the bird. They reached down and grabbed the bird by a wing and pulled it up; the bird was easily half as tall as either humanoid. The two humanoids turned and started to drag the bird away. She screamed after them to let the bird go but she couldn’t get her throat to work. No matter how hard she tried to scream it was like she had no voice.
It wasn’t sound and it wasn’t movement that drew her gaze from the bird being taken away; it was the absence absence.
The storm was gone. The town was gone. She existed in an emptiness that was completely dark save for the ground she knelt on and the chain she still gripped tightly. The ground she was on was illuminated as if it had some sort of internal light source that was muted in a way that reminded her of sunlight through a bed sheet. The patch of illuminated ground was a rather good sized circle much like the round before City Hall.
A path of the same illuminated ground stretched towards where the bird was being dragged away but the path had faded out of existence barely paces from the circle she was at the center of. Three other illuminated paths came into existence, one at each remaining cardinal direction. The one opposite of the faded path now behind her ended at a point a good distance from the edge of the circle and a pale humanoid with shadows clinging to its body stood at the center of the path, a cat missing part of its back right leg standing on the humanoid’s shoulders.
At the center of the path to her right stood a figure with a rope in each hand that was as short as the chain Niko was still clinging to. At the end of each rope was a gem of identical cut and color with the bottom most edge dragging in the dirt. Only the gem hanging from the figure’s right hand glowed. A shield on the figure’s left forearm reflected the glow of the path beneath the figure’s feet.
At the center of the path to her left stood a creature that looked like a deer but was not any kind of deer she had ever seen. For one, the creature was much larger and for another, the antlers didn’t look right. There was a bend to them that curved the overall shape inward more than what she was used to seeing. Caught in the center of the antlers floating about the creature’s head was a ball of fire, flames flickering off the top of it as if someone had put a campfire in a high rimmed bowl and made the bowl invisible. The fire spluttered as the creature lowered its head as if to bow to her.
The humanoid before her stepped forward first but the creature to her left and the figure to her right matched it pase for pase before all of them came to a stop at the boundary of the circle she was in. The humanoid raised its right hand, the figure its left, and both presented her with a familiar looking blue feather. The fire in the creature’s antlers sparked and popped before spitting a feather skyward undamaged from being within the flames. Somehow the feather stayed aloft over the flickering flames.
She didn’t remember getting to her feet, let alone having any slack, so when she turned to look towards where the bird had been, when she took a step with that motion, the jerk of the chain shrinking startled her. She immediately turned back around and gripped at the chain with both hands but it didn’t shrink anymore. There was no slack now but she wasn’t being forced to her knees.
The feathers had yet to be lowered.
Her hands tightened on the chain. If she told them, there was the chance the chain would yank her to her knees. But she couldn’t go after the bird; that was certain to pin her to the ground with no chain to even sit up with. She didn’t want to be chained down like that; she feared what would happen if she ever was.
Turning her body so that it faced the figure with the gems, she pointed towards where the bird’s path had been as she painfully gripped the chain with her other hand. The chain started to shrink but her gesture seemed to break whatever spell had kept the others out of the circle. In an instant the circle was invaded and the chain was shattered by one of them - the flurry of movement around her made it impossible for her to track who it had been - before they all took off down the path that was no longer illuminated.
The weight of the collar was still heavy around her neck.
“Niko.” It was her Pa’s voice, low and gentle as it always was, but she could hear the note of worry in it. His massive hand stroked the side of her head and she wondered if that was the first time he had done it or the fifth. “Come on, little one. Back awake. You can do it.”
It took a good few seconds for her to get her eyes open and a good few more for her brain to make sense of what she was seeing. As soon as the amorphous blobs of color and light became shapes and people, she immediately knew where she was and what had happened.
The splitting headache was downright excessive.
“Pa,” she said. Or tried to say, as the simple word caught in her throat as a croak and she made a face at its lack of form. She swallowed and tried again. “I’m ok, Pa.” Her voice wavered but the words were actual words and not just half formed sounds. “I’m alright now.”
Relief quickly filled her Pa’s face and it pulled a gentle smile to his ever gentle expression. “As you say, but I think it best if you are in bed for the night.”
“I can work around a headache, Pa,” she tried to reason but he was already scooping her into his massive arms. She didn’t fight him as the motion exasperated her headache.
“You can,” he agreed, “but there is no need for you to. One night resting will not cause harm to the inn.”
“You say that,” a very familiar voice said, drawing both her and her Pa’s attention towards the dining room. Her Da was jogging over already nearly to their sides when he spoke again. “And yet you’ve seen what she’s capable of when left to her own devices at the hand of boredom.”
Her Pa chuckled, a rolling rumble she felt in her bones tucked against his chest as she was. “I will take blame should she do such things. More, though, is my faith that sleep is much more desired. Headache tonics are best when they bring sleep with the relief.”
Her Da met her gaze immediately. “You have a headache?” His hands - smaller than her Pa’s but still large in their own right and still properly bigger than her own - cupped her face before slipping into her hair carefully searching for tenderness. “Are you hurt? Did you hit your head?”
“If she is hurt somewhere, it won’t be on her head.” The taller tiefling offered a half smile as everyone’s attention fell onto them. “I managed to at least catch her head before it hit the floor but I can’t say the same thing for the rest of her. I figured a bruised wrist would have been preferred over a head injury.”
Her Da nodded. “Thank you.”
It was a complete statement but the tiefling still grinned and happily offered, “Swift.”
To Niko, it seemed like an odd sort of response, but her Da understood and gave a nod. “Thank you, Swift. You have our gratitude.” Her Da’s hands left her head and she fought down the urge to grab after them, to keep them close. Her Da turned his attention to her Pa. “Get her to bed; I’ll help make sure things get squared away as you do.”
Her Pa bent down and pressed a kiss into her Da’s head, muttering something in Orcish that was too garbled for her to understand. Her Da responded in kind; despite his words being a touch clearer, it still sounded like garbled Orcish to her ears.
Her Pa was quiet as he carried her down the staff corridor. Before she knew it she was being placed on her bed and tucked in tight. Her Pa stroked her hair as he said, “I will retrieve the tonic and return. Remain resting until then.”
“I will, Pa. Promise.”
He kissed her forehead, one that lingered for a good moment before he stepped out and closed her door behind him.
Despite past habits, she had no desire to move from under the covers. The headache had been agitated by every small movement her Pa and Da had made with her and not moving brought blessed relief she knew would only be aided by the tonic her Pa was fetching.
On top of that, her mind immediately returned to the not-dream she had just relived. She shuddered at having to relive it after the last time it had happened. It had wrecked her for an entire week and there was no telling how long it would haunt her now. She hadn’t needed to be told what it had meant in the end. It had been very clear with its message the first time the not-dream had invaded her sleep.
If she tried to go after the one captured, she would suffer the same fate, if not worse. Even pointing others in the right direction wouldn’t completely erase that possibility.
She shuddered again. The fact that it was an aarakocra at the center of it all was unsurprising. She knew too well that anything counted as exotic would gain a pretty coin in the Black Market and an aarakocra that wasn’t the standard variations of the region definitely counted as exotic.
So did kenku, now that she thought about it. There had never been a kenku in town and that in turn would mean that Kenku was just as likely to get snatched if not more so since people had actually seen Kenku performing on stage. It would only be a matter of when before someone made the first attempt. Hopefully the trio never truly separated and it would keep any attempts from succeeding.
She couldn’t remember where the little black bird that had represented Kenku had been in the not-dream. She was certain it hadn’t been with the humanoid and cat but that only left far too few other options.
Her Pa knocked gently on the door before entering, disrupting her thoughts for a moment. He smiled gently as he returned to her side. “I will assist in your taking of the tonic so be patient and do not rush movement.”
“Ok,” she said simply.
The headache had become a manageable thrum in her temples during her Pa’s absence but it flared anew when his hand slipped under her back and slowly propped her upright. The tonic was bitter on her tongue and tasted equally horrible. She grimaced at the taste. Her Pa exchanged the tonic vial for the glass of water on the bedside table. She greedily drank down the cool water to wash the aftertaste away.
“May you have good rest,” her Pa said softly once she was tucked back into bed. He kissed her forehead again. “Sleep well, little one.”
“Good night, Pa. Love you.”
“I love you as well.”
The door clicked shut behind him and she sank into the darkness of her room. For a brief moment she wondered after why she had collapsed. Whether it had been a toll on the body, the mind, or some outside factor she would probably never know but she knew one thing.
There was one last not-dream unexplained which meant there was one last person to meet before she was left with simply point the direction.
That person arrived two days later.
Well, two days wasn’t completely accurate. Though it was technically the second day, it was barely an hour into it when the front doors opened and two strangers entered the inn. Niko, back at the front desk as if nothing had happened, looked up from the papers she had been sorting. Both figures were heavily cloaked against the raging storm beyond the inn’s walls but still looked completely drenched. She smiled and welcomed the two warmly. “Welcome to the Halftron Inn. What can I do for you?”
The shorter of the two by almost a head stepped up to the front desk first, lowering the sodden hood with some care. “Do you have any rooms available? Two beds would be preferred but we can make do with whatever is available.”
“Sure, let me check. Would you prefer the first floor or second?”
“Depends,” the taller said, coming to stand behind the shorter’s left shoulder. “What do you have available?”
She had just flipped the ledger to the right page when the taller figure pushed a surprisingly less sodden hood back.
The last not-dream finally made sense.
It was a good thing she was quite used to going through the motions without needing all of her attention on what she was saying or doing because her thoughts were very much not on what she was doing. Her heart was thudding against her chest as she rolled the sudden information around in her head. The fact that the strange deer creature with the fire between its antlers had represented not one but two people she could get over but the onslaught of everything else was taking a hot second longer for her to accept.
The not-dream had been the simplest, most cryptic not-dream out of all of them; even the figure trudging through the thigh high substance had a clear message without the specifics.
The odd deer with the fire among the points of its antlers never moved in the not-dream. It stood stock still in the middle of a snowy forest whose canopy was ablaze. That was it. That was the not-dream; and until two days ago, she hadn’t really accounted for it being more than a really weird dream, it being a not-dream notwithstanding. When it became clear it was a not-dream, she had assumed it was about one person, that the weird fire deer would make sense once she met that strange someone. But no, the deer and the fire were completely different and the fact that the snow on the forest floor appeared unaffected by the fire raging in the canopy had indeed been significant.
Whoever these two were, one of them was set to burn everything in their path for a single goal, including burning themself out in the process. The one represented by the odd deer was untroubled by the other’s fervent nature. They stood steadfast under the flame and was the reason the flame was still managing to only burn what they intended to burn. She had no idea if the fire was literal or not but it made sense thinking back on it now that she knew the fire and the odd deer were two different people.
She waved after the pair as they started for the stairs towards the second floor. They fell into Dwarvish as they walked away but they kept their voices down so she couldn’t hear any of their words.
It seemed only time would tell which was which and just how literal that fire was.
Niko loved those early morning hours. Not because of the quiet - oh Gods, no; she lived for the noise and bustle of the day and the secrets and information that slipped through it - but because of the occasional body that wasn’t supposed to be up at those hours. It wasn’t very often someone bustled in from outside too early in the morning to be considered normal - or unconcerning - and it was even less common for someone to leave, but it happened. It always happened.
The clock had just chimed the quarter hour past four when the front door opened. She stilled her hand, pen lifted from the page to not blot the ledger. Two individuals entered before the door was shut with some care, soft chatter drifting between them. Niko placed the pen off to the side and offered the pair a welcoming smile. “Welcome to the Halftron Inn. What can I do for you?”
The shorter of the two stepped forward, lowering their hood with a smile. White fur dominated the stranger’s features, though red tabby fur covered the top of the head and feline ears. The tabby patch created a sharp white point between the ears high on the stranger’s head and cut crisply down to the temples only to become a soft curve towards the back. The fur around the throat starting under the chin and continuing down into the collar of the stranger’s attire was semi-long and spilled out around the stranger’s neck like a fluffy scarf. “Good morning. Do you happen to have any rooms available that can fit three?”
Niko fished out another book. Something seemed oddly familiar about the feline stranger. Most of her attention was on gleaning as much detail of the pair as she could while she went through the motions of checking the strangers in, rattling off the current options and answering their assortment of questions. The taller of the pair never pushed back their hood so if there had been any hints to why the feline was familiar, it wasn’t going to be found with the hooded one.
No, her clue came when Tavey Folt, the Halftrot Inn’s resident dragonborn came around the corner from the stables and staff quarters corridor with arms laden with a few saddle bags and escorting an aviary. More specifically a kenku - named Kenku, apparently, if she hadn’t misinterpreted the hooded figure’s wording - and the realization dawned on her. Her gaze returned to the feline as she kept the realization to herself.
Without seeing what lay hidden beneath clothing, the feline looked exactly like the cat from her dreams; specifically, the less than normal dreams she had been having for the past few weeks.
She refused to entertain the idea that those specific dreams were visions. Stuff like that was made up hogwash to scam people with. She had seen it plenty of times on the streets of people pawned out of coin by a fake fortune or vision of the future. Intuition and instinct were only marginally believable. Niko wasn’t unfamiliar with instinct; it drove even the kindest of souls to kill when cornered just as it drove breath into lungs without thought. Intuition was something else. Intuition was being able to tell when a trap was more than a harmless joke, or when there were no obvious reason to actually distrust the shopkeep yet the drive to leave without looking back can’t be ignored. Intuition was narrowly avoiding getting picked up by people looking to earn a good bit of cash in the Underground Market because a different path home was taken on a whim. Niko was familiar with those things but even then she was certain it was more coincidence than actual forces at work.
And yet she was hesitant to simply label the dreams as nothing more than weird, repeating dreams. Whether that was because of something like instinct urging her not to or if it was some sort of logical conclusion she had unconsciously come to, Niko simply knew when to pay attention and when to brush a dream off.
If the not-dreams had been actual visions of the future, of possibilities, maybe it would have been easier for her to accept something like Futuresight being the cause and a legitimate thing. But no. The not-dreams were cryptic imagery that never really made sense until some missing bit of information was brought to her attention, oftentimes in the form of whoever was involved. On top of that, they were usually far and few between; the last one had been a single not-dream with no repeats two years prior and it had ended a three year streak of no not-dreams.
Her dreams - regardless if they were normal or not - were always complex with a touch of bizarre but they never left her feeling off kilter and never grew more vivid if they did repeat on the rare occasion; and no repeat was ever a true reiteration of the original. The not-dreams never changed no matter how many times they repeated. They would start out fuzzy and hard to remember but with each repeat, the not-dreams became clearer and clearer as if the images were imprinting themselves into her memory. Each time she woke from one, she was left feeling out of place for a long while and it only got worse as the not-dreams grew clearer.
Even now as she exchanged a room key for the hooded figure’s coin, the not-dream was filling her head so clearly, it almost obscured her sight.
The not-dream had been simple enough: a white cat with red tabby markings on its head and down part of its back was carrying a little black bird by the scruff of the neck as if it was a kitten. The red furred, long-haired tail was held straight and high as the cat trotted on three legs along the sandy shores of some body of water; the cat’s right leg was missing at the knee yet it walked as if it still existed. The little black bird was curled as a kitten would have been but instead of simply hanging from the cat’s mouth, the little black bird was curled around a tiny humanoid figure and seemed quite content with doing so. The tiny humanoid was chest to chest with the little black bird and hung limp so that lanky limbs dangled past the little black bird’s body and swayed with the motions of the cat’s walk.
Where the cat and little black bird looked forward and quite content, the humanoid looked back, chin resting on what counted as the little black bird’s shoulder with a tired gaze locked onto the mass of shadows that kept pace not far behind the cat. A thin strip of shadow stretched from the mass along the ground at the cat’s feet only to behave in a way that she had never seen shadow behave.
Near the cat’s front paws, the strip of shadow stretched up from the sand and was firmly wrapped around the humanoid’s right wrist. She could never figure out if the shadow held on like a hand or a manacle but the hold always looked unbreakable.
When she first had the not-dream, there had been the vague impression of a cat carrying something that wasn’t a kitten around like a kitten and it had bugged her for a good hour or two. She didn’t even notice the humanoid until about the time both cat and little black bird had become distinct against the sandy beach. It wasn’t until the most recent repeat that she had been able to see the mass of shadows. It had taken that same repeat for her to notice that the cat was well aware of something following it.
As the trio left, she wondered after the hooded figure. Were they the humanoid from the not-dream? She was rather tempted to assume they were but she knew things weren’t always as clear cut as she first assumed.
Not that the current not-dream on her mind was a good example of it. It seemed pretty straight forward to her. The humanoid was being followed, and knew it, but was doing nothing to keep the little black bird and the cat out of it. Though that probably wasn’t from a lack of trying; the little black bird had been wrapped around the humanoid and the cat had been carrying them both. But the fact that the cat was the only other one to be blatantly aware of what haunted the humanoid’s trail seemed weird. Surely the little black bird knew what was after them.
Or was it being sheltered from it?
The only answer Niko got in the days that followed was that, yes, the hooded figure had indeed been the humanoid in the not-dream. The trio had booked their room for a week and on their first day of stay, quickly showed their worth by entertaining the dining room for a good many hours. The feline - a tabaxi named Talley Oaken - was no bard but played the hurdy-gurdy as well as any bard Niko had met, though the instrument itself was new to Niko. The music ranged from energetic and uplifting to morrose and drawn out but it was all greeted with applause from those in the dining room.
Kenku was something different entirely. Niko had heard rumors that kenku only spoke in mimicry but she had never met one before to learn if that was true or not. It had sounded as if it would be a very limiting thing. Oh, how Kenku proved her wrong.
Kenku and the hooded figure - a moon elf that went by Ravin that refused to give his full name after Talley had confirmed ‘Ravin’ was only a nickname - had joined Talley on the little stage in the corner of the dining room that first performance. Ravin had looked rather uncomfortable up there and had merely patted out a beat on the inn’s spare drum. It was clear he had never learned to properly play but he was good enough to keep a steady beat. Kenku, as a stark contrast, seemed quite content being up on stage with Talley and happily stood at her side as she settled center stage. The first song started with Talley’s first few notes and then Kenku opened its beak.
The entire place was shocked when the notes of a church organ became accompaniment to the hurdy-gurdy, the consistent beat of a drum tolling just underneath. Neither Talley nor Ravin reacted to the sound so it was apparent the trio had done this before but to have someone vocalize the exact sounds of a church organ - including multiple notes overlapping - was disarming. Her Pa informed her the second night that the sounds of the organ weren’t exactly perfect seeing as he himself could tell it was only mimicry long before he had entered the room but Kenku was good enough to fool the masses and even some of those who had better ears than most.
Niko was not surprised to find her Gramp and Gran speaking with Talley and Ravin the third day of the trio’s stay as she arrived at the front desk for her shift. Of the words she caught, her Gramp and Gran were finalizing a short term contract with the trio that included a discount to room and food if they continued to entertain as well as pay. It was the standard stuff; she had walked bards through the same exact contract when they inquired about work for room and board. They even catered a similar contract to those looking for other work; extra hands in the stables, kitchen, and housekeeping were always welcomed.
On the fifth day of the trio’s stay, the front doors swung open to familiar faces. With only a few hours before midnight, she and her Gramp were going over the books for the shift exchange. Her Gramp looked up and immediately greeted the familiar faces by name as he made his way out from behind the front desk. “Terrel Lambrax! Good to see you, old friend! Good to see you in good health, Emrynth.”
“Kole, my friend!” Terrel called out, grinning broadly. “It has been too long!” The pair hugged, a mildly amusing sight seeing as her dwarven Gramp was almost half the height of the human he was hugging. Neither seemed to notice or care about the height difference as they roughly hugged each other before her Gramp turned to Emrynth.
Emrynth gave her Gramp a genial smile as their hug was much more sedated. “How are June and the twins?”
“June’s still the same spitfire I fell in love with all those years ago,” her Gramp assured. “Brax and Kelsca are taking care of their families as Stormshields do. Brax is still looking to taking over once me and Junebug retire.”
“That’s good to hear!” Terrel said. “Brax around now? I have some goods he might be interested in.”
“He should be in the kitchen.”
Terrel nodded and left for the kitchen through the dining room. Her Gramp turned to Emrynth and returned to business, asking, “How many rooms are you looking to use and for how long?” The front door opened again. “Is it just the two with you this time?”
At least two other bodies entered behind the small cluster at the door but Emrynth and the two others standing with her blocked Niko’s view.
Emrynth glanced back in surprise before smiling. “Not quite. We have two others as part of our company but they went with your stable staff to help with the carts and animals.” Emrynth turned to properly look at one of the new arrivals. “Are you still looking to continue on with us?”
“It will solely depend on how long your business takes and the weather fairs,” someone said. The voice was kind, cordial, but there was a crispness to them that edged the words in contempt.
Someone else added with a grin on their words, “We can manage our own rooms, though. No need to include us in your plans.”
Her Gramp cut in before Emrynth could comment. “Let’s get started with checking you all in. There will be plenty of time to debate who is paying for who and for how long as we wait for your other two.” Her Gramp returned to the front desk, focusing on her for a moment. “I’ve got this one, Niko, if you want to go check in with your father and Terrel.”
Niko shook her head. “I’ll stay in case we have any other guests come in.”
She didn’t realize she had erred until she caught how his lips pressed thin for the briefest of moments. He had been dismissing her but, for whatever reason, he wasn’t going to force her. She wasn’t sure why he wanted her to leave but she knew better than to look as if she was trying to eavesdrop.
She grabbed the bank ledger with the intent of doing work she would have normally saved for later in her shift but when she glanced over the group one last time, it was immediately apparent she would not be able to focus on anything, let alone the conversation.
Two tieflings, one mere inches taller than the other, stepped around Emrynth’s two companions. The taller came into view first, blue skin the same dark, rich color of the blue velvet she had seen in the very expensive clothing shop in town. The taller’s horns reminded her of cow horns with their smooth texture and how they came to a sharp point but that was the extent of the resemblance. The horns came from the back of the tiefling’s head and curled forward, mimicking the curve of the back of the skull until straightening out at the top of the head and ending at the front of the face. The points were situated directly above the point of the tiefling’s eyebrow.
In contrast, the shorter tiefling had skin a pink Niko couldn’t exactly describe. It was as if someone had blended the purest pink with a pink a shade or two redder and the pigments only increased the pinkness of the color rather than the purest pink taking on the redder shade. It was startlingly bright without being the same startlingly bright as pale skin could be. On top of that, the shorter had two sets of horns compared to the taller’s single set. The larger of the sets started at either side of the shorter’s head and went back to corkscrew downwards twice. The set was ridged in a way that spoke of the same rings she had seen on the horns of rams. The smaller of the sets sat at the top of the shorter tiefling’s forehead probably at the hairline directly above the center of the eyes.
Beyond those two major differences, the two could have easily passed as siblings. They both had the same thick, curly black hair that filled the space between skull and horns like clouds being lazily contained. Their eyes were similar in shape and black sclera but the shades of their irises were a touch different; the taller had irises that could have easily been a combination of blue, green, and gray where the shorter had irises of a more silver blue. Still, close enough to pass as siblings.
As soon as the shorter tiefling had stepped into view after the taller, a not-dream rushed her. Strangely enough, it was the only one that had never really given her any details.
The figure in the not-dream never became more than a form made of shadow but she was always left with the impression that the shadow figure was rather dapper. The not-dream always started with the dapper shadow figure finishing crafting what looked to be an oddly rounded glowing cup with a jewel or precious stone set into one of the faces. The dapper shadow figure would admire the handiwork, turning it this way and that and viewing it from different angles only to be startled upon finding a red string tied to the glowing cup. The red string was striking in the dark environment and against the dapper shadow figure’s form but that never seemed to be what the dapper shadow figure cared about. No, the dapper shadow figure would always tug on the string as if the string would come free with a good yank but it never did. When it became clear it was not coming off, the dapper shadow figure would start to follow the red string, protectively cradling the cup close to the chest. The cup, ever glowing and now floating, would hover just above the dapper shadow figure’s palm as the dapper shadow figure’s curled fingers kept the glowing cup from floating away.
The red string always led to a very detailed pile of random things, from a fishing rod, a half finished shirt, and well worn shoes to a pile of candies and rocks, a feather, poppy flower, and the massive shell of some sort of turtle. To her, it looked like a pile of odds and ends with no real purpose - a pile of knick knacks at best, rubbish at most - but the red string led into the pile and the dapper shadow figure would move things out of the way to follow it deep into the pile. The red string always led to a band of metal that could have been a ring or a bracelet. In one of the faces was the same stone as the glowing cup had embedded in one face. Unlike the glowing cup, the band of metal wasn’t glowing.
The not-dream always ended as the dapper shadow figure picked the band of metal up. There was no expression for her to see but she was left with the impression that the dapper shadow figure didn’t quite know what to do with the new discovery. Beyond that, she had never really understood the significance around the two objects and the red string connecting them. Even now as she came face to face with the two tieflings for a brief moment she wasn’t sure she understood it any better but she had learned something upon seeing them.
For whatever reason, those objects represented the two before her and somehow they were connected.
Or had been connected.
A second not-dream waited until her thoughts slowed their tumbling over the first not-dream but the time between the two was far less than she cared for.
All she had done was habitually glance over the gathered persons at the front desk. The two tieflings and Emrynth were right at the edge, both tieflings leaning against it while Emrynth remained standing tall. The two that had entered with Emrynth were still near the door as if to give those at the front desk some space. A third person, though, was standing within reaching distance of the two tieflings like a shadow. She had seen the person trail behind the tieflings as they had first approached the front desk but what she had missed was the small shield on the person’s left forearm that was now predominantly on display at the person’s chest where their arms were crossed.
It had never dawned on her to connect two not-dreams until she had seen the person’s shield. The second not-dream had been of an indistinct figure steadily trudging through a thigh high substance; the only discernible detail had been the shield on the left forearm. As the figure trudged on, each hand held onto a rope that led to a gem larger than the shield floating along behind the figure. The gem at the end of the rope in the figure’s right hand was softly glowing while the gem at the end of the rope in the figure’s left wasn’t. Beyond that, the gems looked identical in cut and color as if made from the same material. There was nothing to say why only one glowed and the other didn’t.
With the two not-dreams now very vivid in her mind, she now understood what that second not-dream had been implying. The person behind the two tieflings was the only reason those two tieflings were even interacting. She still didn’t understand the significance of the cup and band of metal but she knew that the tieflings had been represented not by the objects but by the stones embedded in them. And, for whatever reason, the person standing behind them was willing to keep them together even through whatever it was the person was trudging through.
Though not knowing why one stone was glowing and one was not made her nervous.
The person behind the tieflings met her gaze a moment before her Gramp placed a hand on her shoulder, startling her. His touch pulled her gaze from the person and she was left to suppress a shudder. She felt oddly cold. “Niko? Are you feeling ok, sweetheart?”
She nodded; the motion brought her attention to the headache blooming at the center of her skull. “Yeah, I’m ok, Gramp. Must have let my thoughts wander too far.”
Again she caught the thinning of his lips. He was letting it be as she said despite not believing her and it left her almost as uncomfortable as when he had been disappointed that she hadn’t recognized the dismissal for what it had been. Still, he surprised her with a gentle, “Alright, then. I’ll be here for another hour yet so don’t feel like you’re stuck here.”
She knew it wasn’t what he had wanted to say - his eyebrows hadn’t let up their furrow - but it seemed enough to soothe some of the worry out of the lines on his aged face and he turned back to his discussion with Emrynth and the two tieflings. The conversation was coming to a close as Emrynth and the taller tiefling were taking their respective keys from her Gramp when chatter drifted from the staff corridor that led to the stables. Niko immediately recognized one of the voices and straightened, the barely touched bank ledger abandoned and forgotten.
Her Pa stepped around the corner accompanied by Tavey and two strangers. Tavey was bringing up the rear carrying quite a few bags. Her Pa was carrying a similar amount while the remaining strangers had a bag each.
Niko was not prepared for the third not-dream to overtake her. Whether it was from the force of the third not-dream shoving itself at her or from it being the third consecutive not-dream in less than an hour, Niko faltered under the onslaught and was swallowed by the sharp details of the most potent of the not-dreams she had been having once again.
A storm raged against the town yet neither the Halftrot Inn nor the buildings of the town shuddered under its force. Niko stood in the middle of the abandoned round where the main east-west road terminated at the middle of the main north-south road being battered relentlessly by the storm. She couldn’t fill her lungs with enough air. The rain was coming down so hard, every inhale was watery, yet every exhale seemed to only give the wind more opportunity to pull even more air from her lungs. She tried to move towards the safety of the Halftrot Inn but when she turned towards home, she found herself down some alleyway she knew she should have recognized. Yet when she turned to try and walk it, she was back at the center of the round with her back to City Hall facing the east-west road cutting through the town ahead of her.
Each time she tried to go home, she found herself someplace in town that should have been familiar but wasn’t. Over and over she tried until she couldn’t even remember where home was. Was it to the right, or the left?
Or was it dead ahead?
The first step forward didn’t throw her into some random part of town and she felt like weeping. She moved to sprint down the road before her eager to be out of the storm but something slammed into the back of her neck and cut into the tops of her shoulders, snapping her face down towards the mud.
Her face hit wood instead and her blood ran cold as it felt like every hair on her body stood on end. She shoved herself upright but there seemed to be no strength in her arms and it took far too much effort to even manage to get to her knees and elbows.
A massive chain was haphazardly draped beneath her hanging from something around her neck. Her arm took her full weight with ease, though she couldn’t remember getting from her elbows to her hands, and she tugged at a thick, heavy metal collar that was too tight around her neck. She made to scream but she couldn’t get her voice to work.
She stumbled upright suddenly finding strength back in her limps and she tried to get away from the length of chain. It snapped taut when she stood straight.
There was nowhere for her to go.
She tried screaming again. Her voice was there - she could feel it - but the wind and rain was in her face again stealing her breath and her scream. It wasn’t fair. In a fit of anger, she grabbed at the chain and started yanking against it with all her might. She would get free even if she had to do it on her own.
She didn’t realize the storm had stopped until something fluttered past the left side of her vision. She whipped her head around, gripping at the chain as if it would protect her.
A bird of a beautiful blue with wings and long, deeply forked tail edged in a faded black was laid out on its stomach far beyond her limited reach. It was impossible to tell if the bird was injured or not but a part of her was saying it didn’t matter. What mattered was the danger they were both in and she had to get to it before something else did. She tried reaching for it anyway, struggling against the chain that bound her in place. A startled scream escaped her as the chain yanked her towards the ground seeming to shrink of its own accord. Stuck now on her knees, she looked back towards the bird.
Every hair on her body stood on end as it felt like tiny pinpricks raced across her spine and the back of her skull. Two humanoids with weapons in hand were approaching the bird. They reached down and grabbed the bird by a wing and pulled it up; the bird was easily half as tall as either humanoid. The two humanoids turned and started to drag the bird away. She screamed after them to let the bird go but she couldn’t get her throat to work. No matter how hard she tried to scream it was like she had no voice.
It wasn’t sound and it wasn’t movement that drew her gaze from the bird being taken away; it was the absence absence.
The storm was gone. The town was gone. She existed in an emptiness that was completely dark save for the ground she knelt on and the chain she still gripped tightly. The ground she was on was illuminated as if it had some sort of internal light source that was muted in a way that reminded her of sunlight through a bed sheet. The patch of illuminated ground was a rather good sized circle much like the round before City Hall.
A path of the same illuminated ground stretched towards where the bird was being dragged away but the path had faded out of existence barely paces from the circle she was at the center of. Three other illuminated paths came into existence, one at each remaining cardinal direction. The one opposite of the faded path now behind her ended at a point a good distance from the edge of the circle and a pale humanoid with shadows clinging to its body stood at the center of the path, a cat missing part of its back right leg standing on the humanoid’s shoulders.
At the center of the path to her right stood a figure with a rope in each hand that was as short as the chain Niko was still clinging to. At the end of each rope was a gem of identical cut and color with the bottom most edge dragging in the dirt. Only the gem hanging from the figure’s right hand glowed. A shield on the figure’s left forearm reflected the glow of the path beneath the figure’s feet.
At the center of the path to her left stood a creature that looked like a deer but was not any kind of deer she had ever seen. For one, the creature was much larger and for another, the antlers didn’t look right. There was a bend to them that curved the overall shape inward more than what she was used to seeing. Caught in the center of the antlers floating about the creature’s head was a ball of fire, flames flickering off the top of it as if someone had put a campfire in a high rimmed bowl and made the bowl invisible. The fire spluttered as the creature lowered its head as if to bow to her.
The humanoid before her stepped forward first but the creature to her left and the figure to her right matched it pase for pase before all of them came to a stop at the boundary of the circle she was in. The humanoid raised its right hand, the figure its left, and both presented her with a familiar looking blue feather. The fire in the creature’s antlers sparked and popped before spitting a feather skyward undamaged from being within the flames. Somehow the feather stayed aloft over the flickering flames.
She didn’t remember getting to her feet, let alone having any slack, so when she turned to look towards where the bird had been, when she took a step with that motion, the jerk of the chain shrinking startled her. She immediately turned back around and gripped at the chain with both hands but it didn’t shrink anymore. There was no slack now but she wasn’t being forced to her knees.
The feathers had yet to be lowered.
Her hands tightened on the chain. If she told them, there was the chance the chain would yank her to her knees. But she couldn’t go after the bird; that was certain to pin her to the ground with no chain to even sit up with. She didn’t want to be chained down like that; she feared what would happen if she ever was.
Turning her body so that it faced the figure with the gems, she pointed towards where the bird’s path had been as she painfully gripped the chain with her other hand. The chain started to shrink but her gesture seemed to break whatever spell had kept the others out of the circle. In an instant the circle was invaded and the chain was shattered by one of them - the flurry of movement around her made it impossible for her to track who it had been - before they all took off down the path that was no longer illuminated.
The weight of the collar was still heavy around her neck.
“Niko.” It was her Pa’s voice, low and gentle as it always was, but she could hear the note of worry in it. His massive hand stroked the side of her head and she wondered if that was the first time he had done it or the fifth. “Come on, little one. Back awake. You can do it.”
It took a good few seconds for her to get her eyes open and a good few more for her brain to make sense of what she was seeing. As soon as the amorphous blobs of color and light became shapes and people, she immediately knew where she was and what had happened.
The splitting headache was downright excessive.
“Pa,” she said. Or tried to say, as the simple word caught in her throat as a croak and she made a face at its lack of form. She swallowed and tried again. “I’m ok, Pa.” Her voice wavered but the words were actual words and not just half formed sounds. “I’m alright now.”
Relief quickly filled her Pa’s face and it pulled a gentle smile to his ever gentle expression. “As you say, but I think it best if you are in bed for the night.”
“I can work around a headache, Pa,” she tried to reason but he was already scooping her into his massive arms. She didn’t fight him as the motion exasperated her headache.
“You can,” he agreed, “but there is no need for you to. One night resting will not cause harm to the inn.”
“You say that,” a very familiar voice said, drawing both her and her Pa’s attention towards the dining room. Her Da was jogging over already nearly to their sides when he spoke again. “And yet you’ve seen what she’s capable of when left to her own devices at the hand of boredom.”
Her Pa chuckled, a rolling rumble she felt in her bones tucked against his chest as she was. “I will take blame should she do such things. More, though, is my faith that sleep is much more desired. Headache tonics are best when they bring sleep with the relief.”
Her Da met her gaze immediately. “You have a headache?” His hands - smaller than her Pa’s but still large in their own right and still properly bigger than her own - cupped her face before slipping into her hair carefully searching for tenderness. “Are you hurt? Did you hit your head?”
“If she is hurt somewhere, it won’t be on her head.” The taller tiefling offered a half smile as everyone’s attention fell onto them. “I managed to at least catch her head before it hit the floor but I can’t say the same thing for the rest of her. I figured a bruised wrist would have been preferred over a head injury.”
Her Da nodded. “Thank you.”
It was a complete statement but the tiefling still grinned and happily offered, “Swift.”
To Niko, it seemed like an odd sort of response, but her Da understood and gave a nod. “Thank you, Swift. You have our gratitude.” Her Da’s hands left her head and she fought down the urge to grab after them, to keep them close. Her Da turned his attention to her Pa. “Get her to bed; I’ll help make sure things get squared away as you do.”
Her Pa bent down and pressed a kiss into her Da’s head, muttering something in Orcish that was too garbled for her to understand. Her Da responded in kind; despite his words being a touch clearer, it still sounded like garbled Orcish to her ears.
Her Pa was quiet as he carried her down the staff corridor. Before she knew it she was being placed on her bed and tucked in tight. Her Pa stroked her hair as he said, “I will retrieve the tonic and return. Remain resting until then.”
“I will, Pa. Promise.”
He kissed her forehead, one that lingered for a good moment before he stepped out and closed her door behind him.
Despite past habits, she had no desire to move from under the covers. The headache had been agitated by every small movement her Pa and Da had made with her and not moving brought blessed relief she knew would only be aided by the tonic her Pa was fetching.
On top of that, her mind immediately returned to the not-dream she had just relived. She shuddered at having to relive it after the last time it had happened. It had wrecked her for an entire week and there was no telling how long it would haunt her now. She hadn’t needed to be told what it had meant in the end. It had been very clear with its message the first time the not-dream had invaded her sleep.
If she tried to go after the one captured, she would suffer the same fate, if not worse. Even pointing others in the right direction wouldn’t completely erase that possibility.
She shuddered again. The fact that it was an aarakocra at the center of it all was unsurprising. She knew too well that anything counted as exotic would gain a pretty coin in the Black Market and an aarakocra that wasn’t the standard variations of the region definitely counted as exotic.
So did kenku, now that she thought about it. There had never been a kenku in town and that in turn would mean that Kenku was just as likely to get snatched if not more so since people had actually seen Kenku performing on stage. It would only be a matter of when before someone made the first attempt. Hopefully the trio never truly separated and it would keep any attempts from succeeding.
She couldn’t remember where the little black bird that had represented Kenku had been in the not-dream. She was certain it hadn’t been with the humanoid and cat but that only left far too few other options.
Her Pa knocked gently on the door before entering, disrupting her thoughts for a moment. He smiled gently as he returned to her side. “I will assist in your taking of the tonic so be patient and do not rush movement.”
“Ok,” she said simply.
The headache had become a manageable thrum in her temples during her Pa’s absence but it flared anew when his hand slipped under her back and slowly propped her upright. The tonic was bitter on her tongue and tasted equally horrible. She grimaced at the taste. Her Pa exchanged the tonic vial for the glass of water on the bedside table. She greedily drank down the cool water to wash the aftertaste away.
“May you have good rest,” her Pa said softly once she was tucked back into bed. He kissed her forehead again. “Sleep well, little one.”
“Good night, Pa. Love you.”
“I love you as well.”
The door clicked shut behind him and she sank into the darkness of her room. For a brief moment she wondered after why she had collapsed. Whether it had been a toll on the body, the mind, or some outside factor she would probably never know but she knew one thing.
There was one last not-dream unexplained which meant there was one last person to meet before she was left with simply point the direction.
That person arrived two days later.
Well, two days wasn’t completely accurate. Though it was technically the second day, it was barely an hour into it when the front doors opened and two strangers entered the inn. Niko, back at the front desk as if nothing had happened, looked up from the papers she had been sorting. Both figures were heavily cloaked against the raging storm beyond the inn’s walls but still looked completely drenched. She smiled and welcomed the two warmly. “Welcome to the Halftron Inn. What can I do for you?”
The shorter of the two by almost a head stepped up to the front desk first, lowering the sodden hood with some care. “Do you have any rooms available? Two beds would be preferred but we can make do with whatever is available.”
“Sure, let me check. Would you prefer the first floor or second?”
“Depends,” the taller said, coming to stand behind the shorter’s left shoulder. “What do you have available?”
She had just flipped the ledger to the right page when the taller figure pushed a surprisingly less sodden hood back.
The last not-dream finally made sense.
It was a good thing she was quite used to going through the motions without needing all of her attention on what she was saying or doing because her thoughts were very much not on what she was doing. Her heart was thudding against her chest as she rolled the sudden information around in her head. The fact that the strange deer creature with the fire between its antlers had represented not one but two people she could get over but the onslaught of everything else was taking a hot second longer for her to accept.
The not-dream had been the simplest, most cryptic not-dream out of all of them; even the figure trudging through the thigh high substance had a clear message without the specifics.
The odd deer with the fire among the points of its antlers never moved in the not-dream. It stood stock still in the middle of a snowy forest whose canopy was ablaze. That was it. That was the not-dream; and until two days ago, she hadn’t really accounted for it being more than a really weird dream, it being a not-dream notwithstanding. When it became clear it was a not-dream, she had assumed it was about one person, that the weird fire deer would make sense once she met that strange someone. But no, the deer and the fire were completely different and the fact that the snow on the forest floor appeared unaffected by the fire raging in the canopy had indeed been significant.
Whoever these two were, one of them was set to burn everything in their path for a single goal, including burning themself out in the process. The one represented by the odd deer was untroubled by the other’s fervent nature. They stood steadfast under the flame and was the reason the flame was still managing to only burn what they intended to burn. She had no idea if the fire was literal or not but it made sense thinking back on it now that she knew the fire and the odd deer were two different people.
She waved after the pair as they started for the stairs towards the second floor. They fell into Dwarvish as they walked away but they kept their voices down so she couldn’t hear any of their words.
It seemed only time would tell which was which and just how literal that fire was.