It had been the same day after day, night after night. Set herself up in one of the beds at the Tavern and try and find Rhodes.

He had to be out there, there had to be someone or something keeping him from coming home. Keeping him from reaching out to her. There was no other acceptable explanation. None.

And so, all other aspects of her life had been ignored and put on the back burner. Eating, drinking, everything. And it was exhausting, mentally taxing, but she would not stop. Couldn’t stop.

It begins, and she wanders from Dream to Dream, looking for him. Looking for any signs of him. She even rebuilt the castle he took her to the first time. Everything from memory, right down to the bed and the sheets. But nothing was there.

The Dream was ripped apart as she moved on. Next was the beach, one of the last times they had just spent time together away from everything. And again…nothing.

Night after night, the same path was taken. The same Dreams visited, leaving her own trail as she went, a cherry blossom here, a scale there, hoping it would lead him back home.

This night though, it already felt…different.

Everything was off. The colors, the air, just the very feeling. Unless one spent numerous hours in Dreams, it wasn’t something others would catch. As one skilled not only in Dream Combat, but also a very skilled Oneirophysic, she knew it instinctively. Something was off.

She stops dead in her tracks, sapphires looking around, not seeing anything to cause this feeling.

Suddenly, she feels like she had been punched in the gut, her hands grab her stomach and she cries out. The vicious pain gnawing at her, her body tensing as her blood runs cold, dropping to her knees.

Before she knows what is happening, she was hurling through the Dreamscape at an unbelievable speed. Her arms reach out desperately to grab on to something, anything, to stop the fall. But before she could, she slams into ground, her body feeling like it has shattered into a million pieces and she startles awake, shaking. Sitting straight up, she quickly looks around the room, expecting there to be danger. But the room was empty, as she had left it, the fireflies still glowing softly in the window.

The feeling returns, a sinking, wretched fear in her stomach, and instinctively, she goes to touch her wedding ring, seeking the comfort it had brought her over the years. Only for her fingers to touch…nothing.

Her hand was raised, shaking, and eyes widen as she sees her wedding ring was gone. Frantic eyes scan the bed, the ring, that once bloomed with the flowers that adorned Rhodes, was broken. The flower no longer red, but black and dead. The ring itself sat in two pieces, just as her heart now did.

A guttural cry of pain and anguish escaped her before she even knew it.