Red Rivers and Nightmares

22. Not So Logical

I groan as my eyes open slowly, my eyelids feeling both glued together and dragged down. With what feels like weighted arms I rub at my eyes with closed fists. I feel crusted bits break free from my eyelids so I gratefully let my arms fall beside me as I try to blink myself to wakefulness. I am so worn out that the attempt is actually painful. I grimace, not looking forward to today. That is when my tired brain tells my eyes that what I am looking at is the inside of the tent.

My breathing halts. My thoughts go over and over trying to remember how I got here as my breathing restarts, staggeringly. No memory of me walking back in. I start to question if I had just dreamed the whole interaction last night. My fists close on the blanket that is wrapped around my upper body and I bring it even closer to me. I inhale deeply, trying to just think. When my lungs feel full to bursting I register that under the ashy oak I smell there is a whiff of cedarwood and tansy, Rion's scent.

My bouncing thoughts slow down and then, settle. Yesterday was real. I breathe as slowly as I can and straighten my posture. In trying to center my mind I close my eyes so that I am not staring at the walls of the tent that had featured so prominently in my nightmares yesterday.

It is only now that I remember us talking into the night after Eta's response. Rion mostly spent the time sharing about Lunete but he also told me small stories about his family, strongly featuring his parents. He told me how his parents had settled especially young for his kind and how there was laughter everyday, even the days he lost little siblings to accidents or illness. They were the ones that taught all of them that laughter is the best medicine and every time he laughed in the stories he would start crying. During those times I would hug him and rub his back because I had no more words for him.

As I ruminate over my memories I feel my body falling into a familiar breathing pattern that I had used to do so often when I would begin my exercises. With each story and physical action that surfaces from my sleep-fogged brain I find myself feeling more normal, put together. My desperate inhaling of the blanket and Rion's scent has ended as I find myself nuzzling it and the safety it brings me.

I am fortunate that the last thing I can remember of last night was not him breaking down under the weight of his grief but the beginning of another story about Lunete's life. As short as her life was, I am glad that the two managed to have plenty of happy memories between themselves. I should be nicer to Akun so we can have no shortage of our own happy memories.

In my attempt to not think about a certain other person's memories who are residing in my mind, I take another deep inhale of Rion's blanket. His scent has me desperately hoping that he does not appear in my dreams so that he remains a person that is only comforting. I do not know how I could handle it if he showed up too.

Iien comes in then. He pauses, halfway into the tent, and just stares at me. I release the blanket and smooth my hair, trying to ignore his raised eyebrow. Entirely because there is no type of question that could be attached to his pause that would have me more at ease. I can only hope that he does not now question me on what he had just seen. At his prolonged peering I get the distinct impression that he wants to question me about something. His mouth opens a little but with a little shake of his head he remains silent.

I try to dissuade him more by looking away but I find my attention rooted to the shadowed corner that is by him. In my peripherals I see some movement from him but I am too busy looking that corner over to allow my attention to divert. I thought I saw something. But as nothing changes I try to tell myself that it must have been purely my imagination. I am only vaguely aware of my hand reaching to the side where my sword always lays.

Iien coughs, finally drawing my attention to what my body is doing and then my gaze skitters to him. I let my hand fall onto my lap quickly, as if I was not about to reach for my sword because of measly shadows.