Liam was having a restless night.

But unlike most nights that saw him wandering Sacramento, this night found the Giant resting in his Hollow. Something in his Ogreish brain had called him into his hammock, where outside his secure treehouse the Hedge had graciously mimicked the calm, warm ambience of a summer night. Looking up into the hollowed interior of the tree trunk, Liam slowly drifts into slumber. His barkskin eyelids flutter briefly, and he eventually drifts into slumber...
Hungry....

The Spring Tavern is on fire; the Wyrdstone cracks like glass under Liam's fingers as he reaches out to it. The ceiling collapses as support beams give way to inexorable heat.

Hungry...

A blue-skinned Changeling sits cradled in Liam's arms while his trusty elemental companion whirls at the Giant's side. He looks down to tell the boy that he's going to be okay, only to find him alight and screaming. The wind dog howls in agony as it explodes, as hands stretch out of the underground walls either to smother the flames or escape them.

Hungry...

Liam is standing over the ziggurat in River Walk Park, just as he'd imagined it. He looks over the length and breadth of Sacramento from a height unimaginable by any living thing and sees the city ablaze. Every skyscraper; every lamppost; every street corner is burning. But the crackling of this massive blaze is muffled under the sound of screams. Screams of pain and fear. Screams of voices he recognizes but beyond sight. Sera? Rhodes? Lovers torn apart. Sonnie? Worm? Friends and valiant fighters obliterated slowly but painfully Ram? Cass? Circe? More and more familiar voices pierce the night sky. There are no discernible words, but Liam can feel a single phrase scalding his consciousness...

Why didn't you save us?

Liam bursts into wakefulness, his massive lungs gasping for air as he comes to the realization that he is now merely 7 feet tall and about double that height above the ground in his hammock.

You exist to feed me. By your service I am satiated. Never forget that...

The Ogre twists around, desperately trying to confirm his wakefulness. He looks down to the treehouse floor and sees Diana, the living Archive at rest with closed eyes and a contended smile on her face. Liam lurches back up, his heartbeat slowing and his breathing returning to some normalcy. He'd had dreams like that before, but the voices had been so distant, and they weren't people he knew. He looks back down at the sleeping dryad; he'd never heard her voice yet in those dreams. ​And that's a good thing. Nothing is going to happen to her while I can help it.

Time passes, and Liam watches Diana continue to drift in slumber. Her innocent disregard for the horrors of his Arcadian memory cooling his own mood until he slowly begins to fall back asleep himself.

The days of fire and screams were long past him. He was home now, home to stay. And he would find joy in every moment and every person he could find here in Sacramento. He would bring healing and security, not pain. It was his penance; his purpose...

Never again would the Shepherd lead his flock to slaughter.