The Foolhardies 109 Requiem For A Dream

"So… basically what you're saying is you've got a secret base now?" Ty confirmed.

He'd scratched his nose with a hand caked in glitter and accidentally swiped his face with a spattering of gold dust.

Arah and I laughed heartily.

We were in my dad's study which in the recent months had become my study and something of a secret base for me, Ty, and Arah mostly because aunt Lena still didn't like coming in here.

The open window behind dad's desk brought in that cold October breeze that felt cool on the skin. That cold seeped into the tiled floor and made it a comfortable spot for us to sit in and laid out our materials.

The three of us were currently in the midst of finis.h.i.+ng our Halloween costumes so they'd be ready in two weeks for that most favorable of holidays. This time, we'd decided to go as the big three of the DC. Ty was going as Superman because he was like Luca in his sense of justice. Arah would be Asian Wonder Woman right down to that skimpy skirt from the movies. Me, well, I was already a dark knight in the Fayne. Might as well be Batman in Mudgard too.

After I'd finished laughing at Ty and he'd cleaned his face a bit, I answered his question with, "Yeah, and it's right beside a nice lake too. Although we'll need to make a lot of repairs to really make it work."

"Sounds like quite the task," Arah said distractedly as she was busy pinning glittery, paper-mâché stars to the short blue skirt in her hands. "I imagine thinking about the upkeep and managing your resources is just as challenging."

'Which is why I didn't want it at first after Kallista dropped the bomb on me… I had enough problems to deal with, you know?"  I complained. "But the idea eventually grew on me. I mean, our growing unit does need a base of operations to work from in the Westmarch."

I was gluing bits of foam muscles onto my Batsuit when I looked up and noticed Arah's narrowed eyes staring back at me.

"What?" I asked.

"This Kallista, she's that busty fire fairy you told us about, right?" Arah confirmed.

I nodded. "Yup, and they're called salamanders... so what?"

Arah sighed. "Nothing."

Then she went back to her work and ignored me for a whole five minutes. Eventually, though, she looked up from her costume and c.o.c.ked her to the side, and said, "You know, my mom's an architect and my dad's an engineer…"

"So?" I asked warily. I didn't like where this conversation was headed. I can already see it as if I could see into the cogs moving around inside Arah's brain.

"Maybe…" she paused, breathing deeply before continuing to ask the question I already knew was coming, "Maybe this would be the perfect time for Ty and me to join you in the Fayne. We could help with renovations for starters?"

"Um, no," I said, stomping my foot playfully onto the tiled floor, an incredibly difficult feat as I was sitting in the lotus position with my Batsuit laid over my legs. "We talked about this, it's—"

"—too dangerous, I know, I know," Arah said, rolling her eyes. "But if you can do it, Dean, and you're not exactly the most athletic guy out there—"

"—Oi!—"

"—I'm just saying," Arah raised her hands up in surrender, "that if you can hack it, who's to say we can't too? Right, Ty?"

Ty hadn't answered so both Arah and I turned toward him and found him lost in thought. His eyes looked glazed over.

"Tyberius!" Arah snapped.

Still, Ty hadn't responded, and it wasn't until I grabbed his shoulder and shook him that he began to stir.

"Wh-what?" Ty blinked. Then he ma.s.saged his brow like he'd just had a huge migraine. "S-sorry. I was—"

"—s.p.a.cing out?" Arah finished. "Yeah, we know."

I looked at my friend with concern. 'You okay, dude?"

Ty dropped his hand and nodded. "Y-yeah… just tired, I guess. Not sleeping so well recently."

"Why?" I asked, offering him another can of Diet c.o.ke.

Ty looked down at the can in my hand and shook his head. "Dude… you're the only one who drinks that. Regular c.o.ke is fine…"

Arah laughed at me before tossing Ty a regular c.o.ke can.

He popped it open without bothering to let the air out slowly, causing it to fizz up and drench his hand in soda.

Ty spent the next ten seconds lapping it up with his mouth while Arah and I laughed heartily once more.

Eventually, after things had calmed down, I returned to the topic of Ty not getting much sleep and asked him what it was about, and he responded surprisingly with, "Hey, Dean… do you ever get nightmares? About the Fayne?"

My brow furrowed. "Um… I already live in that nightmare. I don't think I'd want to dream about it too."

"Not that you dream at all these days," Arah added. "Do you even get any sleep done between here and the Fayne, Dean?"

I wracked my brain and thought about it. Seconds later, I enumerated, "Mostly in school. Half an hour in English Literature before Mrs. Garcia notices me drooling, an hour during Free Period, an hour during lunch, and another half hour in Physics because Ms. Ramirez is nice enough to let me—"

"—that woman dotes on you," Arah rolled her eyes again.

"That she does," I answered happily. "But that's because I ace all her exams even without needing to study too hard."

"Show off," Arah smirked.

"Don't hate the player, hate the game." I laughed.

"You only get three hours of sleep a day?" Ty asked uncomfortably.

I nodded. "But enough about my poor sleep routine. Why were you asking me about dreams and the Fayne?"

Ty lowered his head and didn't speak, prompting me to throw one of my paper-mâché Batterangs at him.

"Speak, Superman!" I ordered in a low, growling voice that emulated how I thought Batman spoke.

Ty scratched his head. He scratched his head some more. And after seconds of the obvious back and forth going on inside his mind, he finally said, "I've been having these nightmares… I think they're about the Fayne because a lot of the stuff you talk about… well, it's like I can see them in my dreams."

Both Arah and I looked at each other. Then our eyes darted back to Ty.

"What do you mean, Tiberius?" Arah asked in a serious tone.

"Um, maybe it's because Dean describes them really well, but sometimes, in my dreams, well… my nightmares, really…" Ty looked sheepishly back at us. "I can actually see fairies vividly in my dreams. I think. I think I've seen that dwarf Varda and your pixie friend, Qwipps… and they're exactly how you describe them… except…"

"Except?" I asked, my anxiety slowly building in my gut.

"Th-they were covered in blood…" he finished. "Like they'd lost a fight and were dying… or close to it."

But Ty wasn't done. He told us more of the things he'd seen in his nightmares like he couldn't stop now that he'd begun.

"I saw Aura too." And after saying this, Ty sent me a wan smile. "But not like when she's here. More war-like." Ty frowned.

Then he went on to describe Aura's mask in perfect detail as if he'd actually seen her wearing it, something I'd never discussed with either of them.

"Ty's eyes looked hard into mine. "Dean… there was blood on her robes, and she was holding onto someone and crying. Tears streamed down her face and onto a shock of red hair. I couldn't see his face, but I think it was you…"

There was an awfully long silence while Arah and I absorbed Ty's words which were only broken after Arah finally snapped.

"Geez, Tiberius," Arah said. "Morbid, much?"

"Um, Ty," I added. "Maybe I should stop talking about my time in the Fayne. Seems like that stuff really gets to you, dude."

For some reason, Ty's dream worried me, which made no sense to me at all. Dreams meant nothing. Especially dreams from someone whose only connection to the Fayne was me.

"I saw a white tower behind Aura… It was half-carved out of white rock and designed like those Christian temples that were co-opted by the Muslims after Constantinople was sacked," Ty explained. He was a history buff. "It was set against a stormy sky. Its battlements were torn apart like something had ripped half of it up into the air…"

Ty sighed.

"I think I'm going crazy," he finished, glancing between me and Arah afterward.

My heart was pounding like a jackhammer. How the h.e.l.l did Ty know what my new tower looked like when I hadn't told him anything about its design apart from the fact that it was a tower.

My mind reeled, and I was in no condition to tell my friend he was just having bad dreams. Thankfully, Arah managed to save the afternoon by informing Ty that he was wuss and that his dreams were just that, dreams. In fact, she was so confident about this that I started to believe her words too. It couldn't be possible, after all, Ty dreaming about the Fayne when he'd never been there. And yet…

Hours later, just before sunset, I waved goodbye to Ty and Arah as they drove as in his car, wondering just what the h.e.l.l Ty was on about. Maybe he'd started smoking pot and this hallucination was the end result. I'd have to ask Arah just to be sure. Still, it didn't make sense that he knew and described things he'd never seen before.

That thought gave me gooseb.u.mps, and I s.h.i.+vered uncontrollably while I stared up at the Fall sunset. It was almost time to return to the Fayne.

"Maybe I'll ask Aura about humans dreaming of the Fayne," I whispered to myself.

I was about to head back into the house when I noticed something odd in the neighbor's yard on the opposite side of the street.

A man stood there. He was dressed all in black with a deep hood covering his face, but it was his ears that caught my attention. Even from where I stood, I could tell they were long and pointy.

At first, I thought he was looking right at me, but based on the way his hood was turned, he might have been looking at Ty's Camaro instead.

A gust of wind sent dust floating up to my gla.s.ses and into my eye, causing me to take the gla.s.ses off and rub furiously at my eyes. And by the time my vision cleared and I'd put my gla.s.ses back on, the strange hooded figure was gone.