The sun was setting straight ahead of us, sending a mosaic of reds, crimsons, and oranges splaying across the forest ahead, like a girl, bouncing and running as far as she could, and trying to reach her arms all the way across the sky in the last twenty minutes of the day. We watched as the red and orange beams faded away, and darker blue and black ones took their places. We watched the stars peek out from the curtain of black hung against the sky, and watched them get brighter as the city’s lights went out, and when a sliver of a moon that may once have been full lazily showed itself, we went to bed.
I awoke in the middle of the night after a puzzling dream. I had been on a boat with Snail, sailing over a cold, black ocean. He turned to me, and he had grown and melded into a huge, blue dragon with black eyes. He grabbed me, and snarled in my face, “Do not go! Do not go! Turn back or lose your former life and love! Do not go...”
What was that about? I thought after I was fully awake. Go where? Ilthen?