𝐈𝐧 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐖𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐃𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐬 (English)

Chapter 28

He was in a dark forest, and that put Jaune on edge. Forests in dreams always reminded him of Amber and made him think he might be closing in on her killer. The problem was that forests were also stereotypically scary because of the idea that anything could live within them, so as far as nightmares went, they weren't uncommon.

That and schools, for reasons he felt involved childhood trauma or embarrassment.

A forest in a dream also meant there was a high chance of Grimm, monsters of wildlife. It was a pattern he'd seen repeating. School meant high chances of a dream about embarrassment or humiliation; dark basement-like structures with loads of shadows meant killers; forests meant monsters. It wasn't a definite theme, but after being in so many nightmares – and reading up on dreams with Doctor Oobleck – he'd started to notice the themes, and the logic behind them.

If a person dreamed of intense shadows and dark, then it was to create an atmosphere conducive to jump-scares. If a person dreamed of large crowds of people, then it was more likely around them being stuck in front of an audience. If they dreamed of their family home, it was often about childhood trauma. There was logic to dreams if you looked deep enough.

And it was that logic which had Jaune wrapping himself thick in aura and summoning Crocea Mors to his hand. A nightmare in a forest could be of the "I'm lost in the woods" variety, but when most of the forests on Remnant were filled with Grimm, he was willing to bet more money on this being about them.

The ironic thing is that a dream-Grimm could be more dangerous than a real one, Jaune thought, stepping carefully into the forest in search of the dreamer. Their strength is going to be dictated by the imagination of the person having the nightmare, so a Beowolf could be stronger and more vicious here than in the real world. I need to be careful.

It was tempting to expend aura and change the dream to make that easier – either to turn night to day or force half the trees to not exist so the forest would become thinner and easier to look through. That would be expensive with aura, though. And the nightmare might fight back. It was better to try and find the dreamer first, so he trudged through the woods with a more localised approach.

Every few steps, he would stop and pulse out a little aura to clear the mist and reveal everything. Such a technique – aura pulsing – didn't actually exist in the normal world. You could pulse your aura by raising it and dropping it, but it wasn't much use other than as a training exercise Ren had taught him. A way to practice how quick you could grab your aura, and a trick used in combat pre-schools to help children practice it while a teacher would try and distract them.

But here, in a dream, he could make it do whatever he wanted. The normal rules didn't apply. So, when he imagined aura pulsing making a ring of light fan out and dispel the mist, that was what it did. Shadows were illuminated and trees cast long shadows as Jaune turned into a blinking night-light, the kind which would have drawn every moth and insect within a hundred miles if this were real life. And it was still easier on his aura than forcefully transforming this forest into an open meadow so he could see more easily.

"I should mention that to Oobleck," he murmured. "It feels a lot less taxing to change things about myself then it does about the nightmare. I guess that's because I'm not fighting it for control since it isn't the one imagining me in here."

The logic made sense in his head.

Moving on through the trees, it wasn't long before he started noticing signs of movement with each of his "aura pulses". Creatures, ranging from wolves to bears but also birds – a lot of specific detail for someone having a nightmare. Most people didn't bother to imagine the "noise" from what he'd seen. If someone dreamed of an outdoor scene, it'd usually be unnaturally silent, inhabited only by them and whatever nightmarish creatures they'd dreamt up.