Yuna held a slight smile on her face, watching the newly bandaged boy yawn, muttering under her breath.
"This could work."
"What could work?"
She stared at him blankly.
"...Oh right. You can hear."
Naren stuck a pinky in his ear, scratching it. Well now that he was this deep into it. He might as well trudge along.
"So what's the plan princess?"
They walked out of the house they occupied. The streets still as empty as Naren had seen before. A tinge of sadness gripping his heart, but he quickly waived it off.
Yuna walked a few steps ahead, clutching a cloth scabbard in her hands.
"We're all living in the dream of a dream-eater. An endless dream."
'Ah so that's what this is...just a dream.'
Thinking that made him feel a little better, if not more sluggish. If this was all a dream, then he could just sleep it off. How nice.
Putting up two fingers, Yuna turned back.
"There are two things about this dream. An anchor and a clutch. While the anchor dictates when the loop resets, the clutch determines when it'll end...For the anchor. That's me..."
Naren tilted his head.
"You're the anchor? How come I'm always waking up after I die then?"
"Well that's because...I've killed myself every time."
Silence lingered for a second as their footsteps continued.
"Isn't that nice of you princess."
Yuna let out a slight laugh.
"Feel free to keep praising me."
"...Sorry nothing's coming to mind."
She shot him a glance before continuing.
"...As for the clutch. It's the one thing that isn't effected by the loop...Something that's there no matter how often the dream resets...That's where you come in."
Naren pointed a finger at himself.
"Me?"
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Yuna explained as they walked. Just how terrifying a dream-eater truly was. A creature that Ashwin had seeded in Lastlight in it's infancy that continued to feed off the residents until it eventually swallowed the whole in it's own dream.
Each iteration was another dream the creature had. Each death just another cycle in it's mind. That's all they were to it. Food.
She even erased the idea of sleeping it off from Naren.
"Your mind is constantly in a cycle inside this world...It's like a witch's creed a bit. So what do you think is happening to your real body? Is there someone to sustain it?"
But the parasitic creature also basked in it's own dream. The one thing that wouldn't change no matter what...is the dream-eater itself. Swiveled into some creature in this dream that stayed the same.
In other words...there was no plan. They still had to figure out what was keeping the loop in check...And that part was up to Naren, since apparently he was the only one who remembered the loops.
So much for being smart. What a good for nothing princess.
Unconsciously his face began contorting into a scowl as he grumbled.
"Just let me take that cage back down."
"Your brain will implode. Without killing the dream-eater it won't be able to handle all the sensory details hitting it at once."
Yuna looked back, her pitch-black eyes filled with resolute and certainty. Every word she said carrying the weight of the sky. Though even if Naren didn't know of her spite he couldn't help but believe her.
After all he saw it himself.
The image of the girl on the ground floor that died in his arms. The blood that trickled through her eyes and mouth. The last words she said:
'Don't Dream.'
"Thanks for the warning."
At this rate it would be better if they just stayed in the dream. At least then they wouldn't have to worry about their real bodies.
"Ah what a hassle...So now you want me to figure out who the clutch is...How am I supposed to do that."
"Oh you're not. I already know what it is."
"Huh?"
"That boy you always brought up from the dungeon."
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In the damp darkness of a dungeon, a particular cell laid in the best condition. A silver bell hidden in the darkness, along with a boy that shook in rage at it's sight. Mumbling through gritted teeth.
"Those...devils..."
The boy had held his grudge through as long as he could remember. The last sight of his sister rushing out of Lastlight. The last sight of the outside world.
He cried as they shut him away. So much so that he didn't know if he could create any more tears. And after some time, those cries turned from grief to anguish...until it eventually twisted itself into a knot of malice.
His eyes burned the images of the woman who locked him down here along with the devils. Her hood she only let down for a second. The dark hair that almost looked black. The obsidian-black eyes...
The flower of death on her ears.
His fist tightened as blood began trickling down his palm.
"...I'll kill them..."
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"Quiet."
Naren bit his own tongue as soon as she spoke, mid word. Holding his mouth, he mumbled.
"Wha aa hehh."
She turned getting close to him, covering his mouth.
"If you say his name the dream-eater slithers to a new host. So never say that he is the dream-eater."
Naren tried biting Yuna's hand but she pulled it away at the last moment, letting him clamp his teeth against each other.
Holding his jaw, he grumbled.
"How do you even know it's him"
Yuna pointed at her eyes. Somehow, they had just the tiniest glimmer to them now.
"You told me...in another dream that is."
Naren squinted looking into the obsidian-darkness of her eyes.
"How the hell you not leave yet then?"
"We're here."
Naren looked around to see them both at the town square once more. His eyes already fixated on the statue that he had been so infatuated with before...Hold up the sky.
He looked up at the glistening ocean that stretched out where the sky should've been. The rays of sun poking through, seeping into the entire world casting a twilight haze across the land.
If only he could see the sky.
At that moment. The rays vanished. As if a candle was blown out.
The bioluminescent lanterns took over, glowing one by one, a bluish tinge filling the empty streets of Lastlight.
"The lights...where?"
As he turned his gaze back down, hoping to get an answer out of the princess, he was instead met with another figure prostrating before them.
An old lady had her forehead touching the stone streets, tears streaming out of her face.
"Shaman please...We need this loop to survive..."
So that's how it is. No way these people were capable of fighting the beasts down there. They relied on the loop to live. They revered it. Praised it...Not a bad idea.
Naren yawned, putting on a front.
"Ma'am you're right. I'm completely on your side..."
At that moment a deep guttural snarl enveloped Naren's ears.
The only woman before them. She was gone.
Swallowed up whole by the fragmenting ground.
Naren's golden eyes twitched as he watched a coagulation of bare muscles the size of tree trunks reach from where the grandma once was. They bulged, rhythmically as if pumping blood even in their exposed state.
His expression tensed as the muscles twisted into an arm sending a spiral of dirt and debris into the air...patches of sickly fur sprouting from them. The type that reminded him of stray mutts he'd often find.
Two beading yellow eyes pressed through the dusty haze.
A low growl Naren felt in his bones overriding all other senses. It rung. Once. Twice. The guttural nature of it seeping deep into Naren's body.
A noise he knew all too well.
Naren stood there. His golden eyes steady on the abomination. So that's why she couldn't made it out of the loop yet.
"Okay number two...end the loop."