Troubled Dreams

-Border Forest, Near Jocelynn's Brothel. 0 DSTR, mid-morning-

Simon noticed Celestia moving away from him as his rage fueled words spilled out, but he could not stop himself from speaking. Katya had done enough to reveal their identity with her quick reaction to the possibility that Celestia was involved with magic, so he felt no need to hamper his words. Seeing Katya's jaw drop slightly as he spoke, he narrowed his eyes and felt his lip snarl up. The audacity she was showing by judging him as if she had not done the same thing with her earlier statements. Shaking his head, he looked over at Celestia and felt his gaze soften before furrowing his brows and turning away from her. Moving to the tent, he took his axe from his belt and kept it beside him as he laid down on his side on the bedroll.

Groaning as his body eased down onto the padding, he brought his left arm up under his head and closed his eyes. Feeling a deep slumber clawing at his attention span, he breathed out deeply and opened his eyes. Listening to the words outside of the tent, he shook his head as he heard the two of them verbally sparring with each other. Closing his eyes tighter, he wrapped his hand around the handle of his axe and brought the blade up to the side of his head. Laying the cool steel against his cheek, he felt his lips curl up into a smile as his sleep began to take over. His horses were safe with his gear, and they would warn him if the two women started becoming violent with each other.

With the increasing darkness of his vision, the blackness turned into a light red that steadily grew deeper into a dark crimson. Out of the crimson loomed a man with dark brown hair pulled forward in a curtain over his face. The hard began to drip drip water before it slowly turned red and began sheeting from the man's hair. His head moved to look straight towards where Simon would be and his hair began to split naturally, revealing a sun-tanned face that was adorned with brown eyes to match. The man had a small scar above his right eyebrow and he was donned in plate armor with Dalen standards draped over it.

Taking a step towards the figure, Simon could feel the weight of his own plate armor distributed across his frame and the handle of his mace in his right hand. He tried to move his left hand, but he could feel that it was motionless. When he looked down, he saw the plate armor of his upper arm buckled inwards and a sheet of blood running over the steel. His hand hung uselessly by his side with his shield still strapped around his wrist where it had fallen from his hand at the center grip. With his eyes cast downward, he recognized the field where he was standing and the memories began flooding back to him. It was a surprise skirmish with the Dalen forces, an ambush officially where he and his troop had been escorting a Verden general on a tour of border facilities when they were attacked by a Dalen force that outnumbered them nearly three-to-one.

His men had fought bravely, holding off much of the enemy in a defensive retreat, keeping up a rearguard as he and the general's personal guard helped the man get away from the action. It was then that the enemy's vanguard burst forth and attacked, led by the man before him. A man by the name of Kline Lowson. The knight engaged with the general's guard, drawing them towards him and his closest knights as he drove towards the general himself. Left with but a few men-at-arms to ward off the remainder of the break through, Simon did so valiantly, but not without suffering crippling wounds to his arm and losing most of his impromptu force.

Wheeling around after the break through had been snuffed out and his troop was turning the tide of the ambush, he saw Kline and his forces closing in on the general and his surviving guardsman. Pushing into the Dalen flank, he felled several of the attackers before they noticed his assault, but he did not make it in time to stop the rest from killing the guard and Kline from slaying the general. It was here, this failure, that drove him to this dream nearly every night. Every night, he squared off against the Dalen knight for a fight that he was denied. In reality, the ambush was called off and the Dalen forces fled, victory in their grasp in the form of the general's head within Kline's grasp. But in his dreams, Simon was always able to intercept the man before he could flee with the prize. It always ended one way, Kline and Simon evenly matched until a blow from behind struck him in the helmet and knocked him out. The blow always coincided with the end of his sleep cycle, causing him to wake up with a momentary headache.

But, this dream felt different. As he looked at Kline across from him, he felt a hand, or more so the weight of a hand placed on his injured arm. Looking down, he saw Celestia's face and a small smile on her lips before she moved both of her hands to the point of impact on his arm. Seeing a golden light emitted from her hands, he felt his arm healing rapidly, the bone setting itself and the armor reshaping to its proper place. Taking a better hold of his shield, he smiled back down at her before pulling the visor of his helmet down over his face and advancing on the Dalen soldier across from him. Tonight, in this dream, the outcome would be different. There was no doubting that fact as he picked up speed and sprinted towards his opponent.

-Tag Katya or Celestia waking him up, otherwise I'm just going to wait until it is his time to wake up or if I feel something would wake him up lol-

OOC- Ren, I hope you are okay with my dream idea. It just popped in my head and I didn't want to lose my idea in order to email you. If you take issue, just let me know and I can change the name of the Dalen knight.