𝐈𝐧 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐖𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐃𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐬 (English)

Chapter 75

The Beast was catching up with them.

That was the only name Jaune could think to give it. The thing was a presence in the back of Salem's mind, always there, always hovering. It didn't matter how much distance he dreamed between them and it. He constructed an elaborate week of travel with the sun and moon flying by overhead, and yet it dogged their every step.

Even Salem was shocked.

"How is it still following us? We've been travelling for over a week!"

It had been minutes in truth, but she'd still been tricked into dreaming up hundreds of miles of travel, so whatever it was should have been left behind. Were it just a nightmare, she should have dreamed something new up – something that made sense given the distance from the tower. It could have been bandits on the road or monsters or even a dragon, not this thing pursuing them.

Pursuing but never quite catching. It always hovered just out of sight, roaring and screaming and filling the air with a sense of dreadful tension. If he had his aura full, and wasn't so aware it had torn a chunk from it before, Jaune might have headed towards it to investigate.

Ozpin pulled him aside. "How close are we to Vale?"

"Not at all."

"What? But you could cross the distance for us."

"And bring this with us," Jaune pointed out, with a nervous look backwards. "I'm not sure if my Semblance could recreate damage it causes to the city, but I'm not sure it couldn't either. Are we willing to take that risk?"

Ozpin cursed, visibly frustrated. Their plan had worked so easily – they were in Salem's dream, they'd tricked her, and it should have been painfully simple to use her to find where she was hiding in or outside the city. Instead, they had this Beast in her head refusing to leave them be.

"We can't ignore this," Ozpin said. "What if we killed the nightmare?"

"You think that's what it is?"

"It must be." Ozpin nodded, certain. "It's a figment of her imagination, perhaps some lingering sense of unease or fear relating to the tower she spent most of her mortal life trapped within. A persistent fear that won't let her go, which follows her even in her dreams."

It sounded plausible. Oobleck would have had more to say, but the idea of Salem subconsciously feeling trapped inside the tower and the dream reflecting that with an unease that refused to let them escape made some amount of sense. Enough for Jaune to agree.

"Fine. But what about Salem?"

"We can leave her at a camp. In this time, she was but a trapped maiden and I – we, here – knights. She would accept being told to stay safe while we deal with the threat."

"This is her dream, though," Jaune pointed out. "And if she gets so much as nervous on her own, she'll start manifesting other things."

"No better than if she sees this monster and imagines it too powerful for us to fight. If she imagines it stronger, it'll become stronger. No?"

"It would." Jaune grimaced. "Fine. You convince her to stay – but do something with your magic. This isn't real, so all you need to do is convince her she's safe and as long as she doesn't let doubt or fear creep in, she will be safe. But if she panics, a dreamed-up monster will find her no matter how well she hides or how well she's protected."

Ozpin nodded. "I'll convince her. Salem is – or was – innocent at this time. Trusting. If I tell her a simple cup is a magical artefact capable of keeping all monsters at bay, she will believe it. Give me something ostentatious."