It was a little sound.  A small cry that had escaped her but she suppose lifetimes in a violent world had attuned the old Landian to any change in noise.  Quartes stirred, sat up and Keto watched as his pale eyes scanned over their camp.  It was when his scan was complete, when his hand released his grip on the hilt of his sword, that he turned towards her.

“Are you ok?”  He asked after a moment.

Keto took her own moment to think, looking at where they had banked their campfire the night before.  “Do you have nightmares?” She settled on as she looked back towards the Landian.

“I do,” he answered as he shifted into a sitting positioning and surprised as he continued.  “To my understanding they’re different than you would have.  It’s an undesired remembering for me.  I’m told your dreams can be something entirely new.”

Keto nodded and forced a smile, still trying to fend off the lingering emotions from the dream.  The panic, the fear.  The sorrow.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Quartes offered.

Keto gave a laugh, more of a croak in her dry throat.  Quartes shifted again, grabbing his pack, as Keto continued.  “I don’t really remember most of it,” her voice a hoarse whisper, “I remember a few images, companions of mine, a cave…or maybe a ruin.  I know I must’ve watched them die from how I feel.”  Quartes handed her the waterskin he had retrieved and she gratefully took a sip.

“The lingering emotions I can understand, but to not have a link to them must be,” he paused looking for a word, looking for his own understanding, “distressing.”

Keto couldn’t help to the smile at his attempt.  She stoppered the waterskin but continued to hold it in his hands.  Despite her coming more awake the feelings were settling heavier on her now as she tried to think through of them.  “It makes them hard to dispel when you can’t find he source.”  She looked about them.  The moons above gave them enough to see each by but the darkness about, the openness, seemed unsettling now.

“Unfounded thoughts are a common home for Fey,” Quartes offered and Keto looked to him wondering how much of her thoughts he had guessed.  She could see his point though, her fear of the dark could make something in the dark to fear.  Which meant lingering was no good.

“Could we relight the fire?” Keto asked and Quartes nodded.  He grabbed some of their leftover wood and used it to turn over the ashes of their fire, revealing the soft glow of the still hot embers beneath.  A few minutes of work, a few more sips from the waterskin as she watched, and the Landian had a small set of flames dancing before them again.

Keto moved her bedroll closer to the renewed fire.  The warmth played across her skin and she rolled over to let it warm her back.  That faced her to the open darkness again.  Quartes though was moving, pulling his own bedroll around and setting it down between her and the dark.  To her questioned gaze he shrugged.

“I’ll stay up for a bit, be right if you need anything.”  Quartes offered nothing else and Keto smiled.  The warmth soaking into her back, Keto felt her shoulders relax.  Shutting her eyes she saw an image of her dream, her eyes flashing back open but her gaze caught Quartes.  The Landian had produced his bracers from his pack, was working oil from a rag into them.  He caught her stare and gave a smile and a small wave.

The absurdity of the Last Landian and such a gesture gave Keto her own smile and that was enough to see her back to sleep.