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Notes: I just realized the summary is a little misleading in terms of the timeline... OH WELL. :D (ALSO, STILL ON HIATUS)

Chapter One: Dreamflower

"Don't die," he said. The rain poured down, unheeding, streaking across his face.

"Don't die."

Thunder rumbled in the distance. He shook his head, as if in that simple act he could somehow deny the coming storm.

"Don't die," he said, clutching her body so tightly to himself that he might have been shocked at the impropriety of the situation, some other time, some other place.

He ran.

o-o-o

Autumn. A red flower unfurling.

A long, dark tunnel. Water, dank and musty, pooled beneath his feet. The silence seeped through his bones; he could hear nothing but his own breathing and echoing footfalls in the emptiness.

"I am dreaming," he said, just to hear the sound of his own voice, but there was no reply.

He felt naked in the darkness, unarmed, armorless, wearing nothing but the dirty rags of a beggar. A faint light glimmered at the edge of his vision, and the path stretched on and on before him.

For a brief moment Death whispered in his ear; it was not the first time, nor would it be the last. He did not hope: he knew.

So he walked.

o-o-o

"The grass is singing," she said, delight etched upon her face. He did not understand, but was content in her joy.

He watched her run. The sunlight washed out all the color in the world, save for the sky, bluer than blue. There was no one but the two of them and the wind. She paused suddenly, bending over a pale blossom. She asked him its name, but he did not know it. He did not know anything anymore.

He had been naive, perhaps. Always thinking himself the practical one, the responsible one, when in reality he had been utterly blind to what lay right before his eyes. He had been foolish to dream.

Even so, he could cherish these moments. These precious, rare moments. Freedom. Joy.

He watched her run, farther and farther away. The silence between them stretched until even her laughter faded into the wind.

Now, he thought.

But he could not.

So he stayed, standing there in the middle of the meadow like some forgotten scarecrow.

o-o-o

He sat huddled in the rundown shack, listening to the rain. He had never felt so alone. Not even in the middle of battle, soldiers dying all around him, blood and sweat staining his hands and face. All the failures, all the deaths from his twenty-odd years seemed to sum up to this single moment.

In his arms, she stirred, murmuring words he could not understand. Her clothes were plastered to her skin, skin that burned to the touch. He did not like to think of how much time had passed. Instead, he laid her gently onto the creaking pallet in the corner and went back outside.

He went down on his hands and knees, crawled through the mud, groping blindly for the key he had hidden nearby.

When he finally found it, he realized he was shaking.

o-o-o

The day they returned to Caelin, the three of them -- just Lyndis, Sain, and Kent himself now, after Mark and Rath had disappeared without warning, and Florina had departed with the Ostian entourage, and Wil with the Pheraens, and Raven and Lucius to who-knows-where -- were caught in a sudden summer shower.

Lyndis was taken by surprise. Kent could see the sheer wonder dancing in her eyes even as she leaped off her horse and stuck out her tongue, catching droplets of water in her mouth. The previous year had seen them riding under the banners of Lords Hector and Eliwood, and the year before had been an unusually dry one after the annual spring torrents, and so it was the first time she had experienced the notorious capriciousness of Lycian weather. Sain laughed at her antics and spouted some ridiculous compliment about her tongue, of all things. She reached out to smack him before hesitating, apparently remembering that such an action was unbefitting of a young noblewoman. Then Sain extended the compliment to her lips, and she smacked him anyway.

In Sacae, she told them, laughing, the summer months were the dry months, months of travel and movement as the clans followed their herds on established routes to fresher pastures and stabler water sources. Kent wondered, idly, perhaps habitually, of what dangers that yearly journey must pose. Wolves and other predators must be a risk year-round. But if a spring should suddenly dry out one year, or a river divert its course, would the tribes come into conflict? Or would they negotiate with each other, search for some compromise that benefited both parties?

He was suddenly aware of Lyndis standing before him, peering up at his face with a mischievous expression. She leaned forward and brushed aside the hair plastered on his forehead. Kent could hear, above the pounding of his heart, Sain whistling some obnoxious tune somewhere behind them (and if he remembered the lyrics to that tune correctly, he was really going to have to throttle the older man after this).

But then she rocked back onto her heels, cocking her head to the side in the way she did when she wanted to know what he was thinking, and wouldn't take no for an answer.

So he told her. He regretted his words and his honesty as soon as he spoke, but after a brief, unreadable flash of emotion, her eyes brightened, and she began happily chattering away.

"Of course it depends on the tribes..." she said, and launched into a long and convoluted story-explanation of various inter-tribal relationships, the history of warfare on the plains, and elaborate ancient ceremonies of exchange and hospitality.

o-o-o

The first few weeks were a trying time for both Lady Lyndis and her new retainers. Kent and Sain and the others who had traveled with her and fought alongside her on their journey to Caelin had had time to grow used to her habits and personality, and some of her more unusual ways -- Kent, in fact, though he dared not admit it, found her quirks rather endearing. She startled and intrigued him, though her decisions often challenged all of his rationalizations, all of his deepest beliefs, everything he had been taught all his life. Still, she was a lady now, and heir presumptive to Lord Hausen, and the others, like Chancellor Reissmann, would not look so fondly upon her idiosyncrasies. They had given her some leeway at first, in recognition of her unique circumstances, but that would not last long. There were standards of comportment that must be adhered to now, which might not have mattered so much when she was traveling with her comrades -- her personal "legion", as Wil had put it and the rest of them had eventually accepted with varying degrees of reluctance and amusement.

Kent felt responsible. Sain, of course, would argue that Kent always felt responsible, indeed took too much responsibility upon his shoulders, especially with all the extra duties thrust on him now that he had been named Knight Commander, but in this matter Kent refused to budge. Much as he felt a personal responsibility in tutoring Wil in the ways of court, so too did he feel a certain duty and obligation to aid Lady Lyndis in her difficult transition to an unfamiliar role. He would not admit that he felt, also, some guilt on his part: had he been more vigilant about explaining the expectations she would have to face, more active in teaching her about the facets of Lycian culture he had always taken for granted, perhaps her current troubles could have been eased, however slightly.

So he watched over her, when he could. He corrected her gently when she misspoke, or misstepped. He recognized the growing frustration in her eyes as the days passed, but also the growing stubbornness. She was determined to learn, to change -- for whose sake, he could not say -- and quiet pride mingled with uncertainty swept over him with the realization.

"Why?" she asked him once, anger and misery coiled about her in a thick, impenetrable fog. And he had hesitated, for he did not know.

So he told her, instead, a familiar old children's tale, about a great and fearsome dragon, and the hero who set off to defeat it, and his faithful, clever lover, who waited many long years for his return, and how she fought off her many suitors in his absence: with a word, with a gesture, with a glance.

He was overseeing the training of a handful of new recruits the next day when Lady Lyndis came to watch them, as she often did. He did not pay much mind to her arrival at first. But then, a sudden flicker of movement caught his eye, and he tensed and looked over as she approached. There was something wrong, he thought, though on closer inspection he could not see a thing out of place.

It was another moment before he realized what was wrong, or perhaps was not wrong after all: she walked with the reserved, demure step of a young, unmarried lady.

When their gazes met, she smiled -- a slight, studied curve of the mouth, and not the open, natural expression he had grown used to -- and inclined her head gracefully. He found that he could not look on.

As he turned back to his recruits, he wondered, for the first time since he had brought her back to Caelin, if he had not made a great and terrible mistake.

It was a thought he swiftly quashed. It brought up too many complications. Complications, he realized uneasily, that he was not yet ready to face.