The Trial of Dreams and Memories (TMM 2)

Would you like to...

Morai watched as Ingo and the still unnamed doctor left the room, making way for a face she hadn't seen in a while. Morai had forgotten what Sheridan looked like, as what happened if she didn't see someone or something for more than a couple of days. By now, the detailed faces of her parents had been long forgotten, but she would recognize them if she saw them...probably. 

"Hello, Morai," Sheridan said. She was dressed in her usual olive green suit again, but it looked as though it had been altered to fit her now smaller frame. The woman looked as if she had endured an attack from an Ursaring rather than a human. 

"Mrs. Sheridan," Morai returned, giving a nod and greeting her with the proper title. Sheridan slowly walked up to her bedside, picking her mask up and regarding it in the dim light.

"It's...terrifying. It matches your personality," she said with a joking smile. Morai looked at her, confused. 

"Why are you here?" she asked. 

"I came here to apologize," Sheridan responded. Morai shook her head, wondering if she was perhaps stuck in some sort of weird dream. 

"Why would you—"

"I told you that you were broken beyond repair, a statement that you have since proven wrong and one that wasn't true in the first place. Everything else I said still stands, but my final claim was untrue."

Morai looked up at Sheridan, eyes narrowed as she saw her scars and the extent of the damage she had taken. 

"What? No, say something else! Take some form of retribution!" she said. "What kind of response is that to someone who did what I did to you?"

"If I were to respond to your cruelty with the same in return, I'd have no right to be the leader of those trying to correct it. I would be a hypocrite, one unfit to guide you in a different direction than the one you're going, for I'd be walking down that path with you."

"You remind me of someone I know," Morai said with a sigh. "Too bad she's gone."

"I would've liked to meet her," Sheridan said. 

"It was my attack on you that sent her away."

Sheridan furrowed her eyebrows. 

"You're talking about your Dream Realm, yes?" she asked.

"Yes. I'm sure it sounds insane to everyone who hears it, but that world is as real as this one."

"You're a bit of an anomaly yourself," Sheridan replied. "The idea of dreams influenced by your psychic power doesn't seem too farfetched. Anyway, we're going out of order here, but I think you should spend some time with Ingo while he's here."

Morai went to protest, but Sheridan held up a finger. 

"There are consequences to face for what you've done, and this is one of them. It's not like we can send you to prison. This is supposed to be helpful to you, if only you'd let it be."

Morai leaned back and sighed, seemingly acquiescing to her fate. 

"All because of what someone else did in the past," she said. "A dead hero who no one can forget, apparently."

"Precisely," Sheridan said. "You still have the marks of a hero, Morai."

The woman turned around to leave, but before crossing the threshold, she turned back. 

"Even if you burn everything you touch, please try to keep what little friendliness you have with Maria from going up in flames. I think you'll come to value it more than you realize now."

"Now you sound like someone else in my dreams," Morai said. Sheridan didn't say anything else as she left. A guard entered and began to loosen the straps around Morai's wrists and ankles, only to put her in handcuffs and tie a blindfold around her head.