Chapter 26.- The Dream Moves on

The curtains drew shut—
A soft shuffle of fabric.
The performance was over.

The five barefoot ladies bowed with grace and gentle laughter, the scent of dry petals and amber oils still clinging to the air where they once danced. The audience clapped and whistled. It was warm. Welcoming. A celebration.

But not for him.

From behind the haybale chairs lining the half-circle of the audience ring, Ydoc stood still, arms crossed tightly over his chest.

He didn’t move with the music.

He didn’t feel the applause.

Instead—he watched.

He scanned the forest edge. The shadows between lantern poles. The dark stage corners.

The memory of the voice, the burning silhouette, echoed again and again.
"Fifty-eighth…"
"Victim…"

He shivered—when the rest of the world smiled.

Behind the stage, a final giggle broke the rhythm:
Wildflower, the fifth performer, peeked back out between the curtains, blowing one last kiss to the crowd. Her grin was too big, her wave too eager—
Until another girl yanked her back in, laughing as she did.

The curtain closed.
The dream returned to its rhythm.

But Ydoc stayed frozen.

Ruby's hand gripped his wrist again—firmer this time.

“Ydoc,” she said, voice soft but urgent. “Are you alright?”

He turned, breath shallow. “There was something. A wolf. A monster—standing right in the tree line. Watching me. It spoke, Ruby. It spoke.”

But as soon as the word left his lips—wolf—he saw it:

Ruby’s eyes flickered.
Just a flicker.
Like he’d just said something vulgar.

“…Wolf?” she repeated, her smile staying calm, but now paper-thin. “That’s… not what he is.”

Ydoc blinked. “He—what?”

She looked past him, toward the forest. Her voice stayed light, warm even, but her expression betrayed something unspoken—something personal.

“The Hound isn’t your enemy,” she said, almost like a mother correcting a child’s fear of shadows.
“Not truly.”

She glanced at Ydoc’s pale face, and her expression softened again. A breeze caught her hair and tail, swaying with the music that now trickled back in behind them.

“He’s… older than most things,” she added, as if that explained it. “But he’s not hunting you.”

Not you… yet?

Behind them, life moved on.

The curtains opened again, but not for mystery. Not for myth.

A small, third-rate band now stumbled onto the stage—a young halfling boy tuning a dented lute, a human girl adjusting her too-loose shoulder straps, a gnome smiling wide as he beat gently on a drum no larger than a pie tin.

The music they played was unpracticed, but sweet.
Simple songs of the old roads and hearthfire love.

The crowd accepted them gladly.

A few couples stood and began to dance, spinning barefoot on the patchwork rugs and old wooden floor of the stage ring.

Laughter swelled.
Cider spilled.
Children returned with candied apples and flower-crowns too big for their heads.

The dream was still going.

The moment Ydoc had lived—the terror—was already vanishing beneath music and light.

He was still breathing like the monster stood beside him.

He was still marked by the number whispered in rot.

And yet—

Ruby smiled, tilted her head.

“You hungry?” she asked.
-----
[To feel alone, in a Crowd of people]

The fiddle cried.

Long, drawn strokes poured from the strings, echoing like a haunted joy across the makeshift stage. Someone was singing a verse about a lost horse and a mountain of berries, but the words slipped behind the rhythm and footfalls of dancing bodies.

Ydoc stepped into the crowd.

Not into the center—never there.
He wove along the edges, shoulder brushing hay, boots scraping forgotten pebbles and ribbons.

The floor felt wrong.
The laughter too loud.

Hands clasped.
Bodies twirled.
The center of the dance ring glowed with warmth and motion, the kind of motion that made memories—but outside the ring, where the light didn’t reach, a cold breeze crept in, soft and wet like snowmelt fingers.

Ydoc shivered. Not just from the chill.

Ruby stayed beside him, trying her best.

“That storm coming tomorrow’s gonna be awful,” she said, hands behind her back. “Bet it’s gonna turn the pond all silver—like last year. Remember that?”

Ydoc gave a small nod.

He didn’t remember.

His arm itched.

The bruises—old ones—throbbed quietly under his coat sleeve. They hadn’t healed right. They never did. And now they buzzed with the same dreadful murmur that the forest had whispered:
"You are… my—"
"—fifty-eighth…"

He swallowed.

Ruby chuckled beside him, trying another thread of conversation. “Hey—did you see Wildflower sneaking back out for kisses? That girl’s got no shame. Haha! Always the one to get the last cheer—”

He didn’t laugh.
He wanted to. He wanted to feel the joy of this place. But his mouth stayed closed, and his chest stayed heavy.

Something inside him pulled.

A hunger—not for food, not for people.
A deep yearning to retreat.

To go home.

To vanish beneath the trees, to be wrapped in the hush of falling pine needles and the protective quiet of the Divide.

He didn’t belong here.

Not with the cider drinkers.
Not with the candlelit dancers.
Not even with Ruby.

He belonged in the shadows—

Back where strange creatures waited.
Back where spirits whispered songs without words.
Back where the pain felt real—and not hidden behind masks of joy and fiddle songs.

Ruby finally sighed and fell silent, glancing at him with a mix of worry and soft surrender. She didn’t press.

She knew this version of Ydoc.
The one that faded during parties.
The one that stood in crowds and wanted nothing more than to vanish.

She adjusted her scarf and gave him space.

Somewhere nearby, the fiddle hit a brighter note—
A new couple joined the dance.
The girl spun and laughed into her partner’s arms, kissing him on the cheek before pressing her forehead to his.

Ydoc turned away.
-------
[Where the Apples Grow Sweet] 

Ruby tried.

She really tried.

She was the kind of girl who could light up a field just by stepping into it—
the type who made broken people laugh,
who wore her heart in her scarf and her loyalty in her boots.

And she wanted Ydoc to be her friend.

Not just in passing.
Not just when the songs played.
She wanted to be the one he turned to before the storms came.

But here he stood, heavy and unsure, eyes distant and voice trembling as he asked:

“What… happened to Edwards?
He was supposed to take me home after the music…”

Her breath caught.

A silence pressed around them, filled with too many truths—sharp, ugly ones—and none of them fit to place into his gentle hands.

So she lied.

“Oh, Ed—Eddy,” she said with a brightened laugh. “That boy had way too much cider. You know how he gets. He wandered off to sleep it off, I think.”

Ydoc blinked.
The lie sank, slow and obvious, like a stone into still water.
He didn’t challenge her.

Didn’t need to.
He just knew.

But he said nothing. Just lowered his head and nodded with a small, resigned murmur.

She hated how that looked on him.

That folding.
That slow, silent breaking down.

So she moved quickly.
Words stumbling out like a dancer missing the beat.

“You could stay with me—me and Leon, I mean. Our vardo’s got room and you don’t need to be alone tonight—”

Ydoc looked up at her.
Just slightly.
But it was enough.

A soft, instinctual no was already written in his eyes.

Leon wouldn’t allow it.
No matter how soft Ruby made it sound.
And Ruby… she knew that too.

She bit the inside of her cheek and let out a long, bridle sigh. A winded sort of exhale—one that pulled her whole frame downward just for a moment.

But then—

She remembered something better.

“Wait—wait right here!” she blurted out suddenly, eyes sparkling again.
“I know exactly what’ll help.”

Ydoc tilted his head.

Ruby leaned close, brushing some of the cold from his sleeve like it was dust.

“There’s candied apples down by the eastern stall—you remember the ones, right? The red ones, rolled in sugar glass and cinnamon crust?”

His eyes lit. Just a little.
His stomach let out a quiet, forgotten rumble.
Candy. Yes. Candy meant comfort.

She grinned.

“I’ll grab you one. Or two. Maybe three. But only the sweetest ones. It’s a secret, okay?” she whispered with a conspiratorial smirk.

Ydoc gave a slow nod.
The kind a child gives before trusting the grown-up to come back with treasure.

She turned to go, tossing a wink over her shoulder—one that still held all the brightness of before.
Her skirt swaddled and twirled in the breeze as she vanished into the murmuring crowd.

Leaving Ydoc, for a moment, beneath the lanterns and falling fiddle-song—

Alone,
but not abandoned.

Not yet.