A dream can reveal many things about a person…or to a person. It is in the night our minds take all the subterfuge of our lives and spill it forth for us to examine and try to make sense of. At times it is silly rubbish which means nothing. Other times it reveals our heart’s truest desires. For some people, some very few people dreams are not dreams but Dreams. They tell tales of things happening elsewhere or things yet to come. The person who has these Dreams…this Dreamer, when she knows what it means…when she tells you, take heed. Without a doubt, those Dreams will reveal truth.

It had been several years since Lydia Al’Neary had started paying attention to her dreams and found out that at times they were Dreams and at times even more than that. She remembered the day it had changed for her. It was emblazoned in her memory like the white-hot fire that had burned her. It had been a terrifying realization the first time she had woken up with burns and lacerations inflicted by the man who once loved her more than life itself. Now years and miles and new love later, those horrid nights were returning. The Andoran Yellow had been very careful to avoid Whitebridge in the Dream World since her injury in Fal Dara, but it seemed the man in flames, Maven, was now seeking her out. If she spent more than a few moments in Tel’aran’rhiod, the terrifying circle of fire sought her out. The young woman knew what needed to be done. She had to return home; to the city and people she had not seen since she had left all those years ago. She had to face the man she left heartbroken and unintentionally compelled to never leave the city they had grown up together in.

The plans were being laid for a trip to Andor presently. Young Braden wanted to go home and introduce his betrothed to his family, and she would bring Krion to meet her own father and help keep them all safe. She had explained to her love how her burned arm had come to be and the situation she had left the man in and he amazingly understood her need to make things right. Lydia was still unsure if Maven had any idea where he was and that he was actually hurting her in the World of Dreams, but Krion was not about to let her go into an unsure situation alone and so they would all make this trip together.

Lydia lay awake in bed staring at her ceiling thinking about the impending journey. She was in no way looking forward to it, save the fact she would once again get to see her father. The image of the robust Donovan Al’Neary made her smile and somehow chased her fears away. She missed the man terribly. His last letter had said things were well enough. The money she had sent him allowed him to redecorate the rooms and enlarge the stables of his inn, The Golden Wolf. She was happy to be able to help him. The young Andoran fluffed her pillow and buried her head in it to try once again to find the sleep that had decided to be so elusive this evening. She sighed at the empty spot next to her, wishing Krion were there with her. She reached out running a hand across the soft ivory satin material and snatched the pillow close to her chest, cuddling it as if it were the man himself. His scent lingered on it and she inhaled deeply, closing her eyes and relaxing with the comfort even just his scent gave. He was sleeping in the barracks this evening as Lydia had been away until late into the evening. She had been tasked with going to the Black Tower to aid in Healing some serious injuries.

Feeling as if Krion and her father, the two men who kept her safest in the world, were somehow protecting her even though they were not there, the young Aes Sedai finally drifted off to sleep.

Lydia stood on the gleaming bridge that led into the bustling city of her home. She stood alone, a strong wind pushing her towards the city. A feeling of foreboding told her not to go, but she felt compelled to keep walking. Nearing the square in front of her father’s inn, she wanted to run…forward…backward…both. There it stood a bastion of comfort in the fear that was beginning to consume her.

As the chestnut-curled young woman stepped slowly closer to her place of safety, a hot wind blew. She stood before the steps and a deep black charred circle appeared around the building. “No!” Her shout was voiceless, carried away on the wind now almost hot enough to burn her skin. She stepped back an instant before the wall of flame erupted from the charred circle. Tears streamed down her face. A tall dark figure loomed in the doorway. It reached out to her…for her. “Lydia…” The figure’s whisper danced across her skin.

The young Aes Sedai’s hair whipped about her. She struggled against it. She turned from the inn facing back towards the square. In the place of the fountain she remembered stood Krion. She did not know what he was doing there but knew she needed him desperately. His eyes looked at the wall of flame and the figure that was beginning to loom close to Lydia. The Shienaran, as light as the other figure was dark reached for the woman. She looked back towards the flames. The dark figure was close. She could see now it was Maven. His face was twisted in anger. “It is your turn.” His dark words made her shudder. She looked back to Krion, her amber eyes pleading. He moved closer. She could feel a cool breeze blowing, easing the heat at her back. Two hands reached for her. Hot and cold, light and dark battled each other to get to her first. Lydia’s heart pounded. She could not move. She closed her eyes. He had her…

Lydia gasped as her amber eyes shot open and she sat up quickly reaching for Krion, even knowing he was not there. Her heart still pounded. The dream had shaken her to the core. She took a deep calming breath trying to steady her nerves and ran her hands over her face and through her hair. The tears were still damp on her cheeks. She knew. She knew what it meant. She did not always. Sometimes the true dreams did not reveal themselves for what they were until it was too late to do anything about it. Not this time. This time she knew.

The sweet-faced Andoran quickly rose from her bed and dressed, slipping the same pair of royal blue britches and wrinkled loose powder-blue blouse she had worn most of the day back on, along with the soft leather boots which had been abandoned by her bed. Her hair hung loose and wild and she did not care one bit about her appearance. She opened her wardrobe and found the locked wooden box that held only one thing. It was something she had worked on for hours daily since her return from Fal Dara. She tucked the box and its key in a canvas bag and slung it over her shoulder. Lydia hurried from her rooms, a single destination in mind. She paid no notice to the servants or curtseying novices who barely contained their surprise at the normally perfectly quaffed Aes Sedai rushing dishevelled from the Tower. The raised eyebrows of other Sisters and disapproving stares did cause her to slow her steps enough to at least appear the graceful and unaffected creature she was supposed to be.

Exiting the Tower, Lydia turned quickly towards the barracks where she knew she would find Krion. She hoped the rest of the ashandarei were in bed fast asleep. She did not want what she was doing to cause both of them too much scandal, but she could not wait any longer. He had promised to allow her to bond him. It had taken much cajoling and convincing but he had finally agreed and she intended to hold him to it. Now more than ever, after the dream she had just had. The Dreamer knew without doubt that if they went to Andor unbonded and she faced Maven, Krion and Maven would battle over her and Maven would win. She did not know how or what would become of her but she knew he would win. If Krion were her Gaidin, then it would be he who would be the victor. These were things she knew for fact.

In minutes the Aes Sedai found herself looking at the door of the barracks. There was blessedly no one up and about. She peeked her head in the door, saw no one moving about inside either and breathed a sigh of relief. She glided silently to the bed she knew held the man who had been holding her heart for well over a year now. His platinum hair shone in the moonlight. Lydia knelt by his side. Leaning in she stroked his hair gently coaxing him awake. When it seemed he was awake enough to understand her words she whispered softly “Krion, love, I need you to wake up. Please tell me you are ready. It is time.”

Krion’s dreams that night had been generally unpleasant, starting from the awful sound of Kristal weeping for her dead Warder, and ending in the horrible feeling of something approaching him at speed, something he couldn’t see but was terrified of and was entirely powerless to stop. Somehow he knew that the moment this invisible beast touched him, he would fall lifeless to the ground, and that knowledge filled him with a chill worse than anything the coldest of Shienaran winters could send against him. Despite all his struggling, it just came closer and closer and he couldn’t move so much as a finger. He could do nothing but wait for the inevitable. His limbs weren’t working, his muscles felt like water, and that thing was coming closer and closer, taking its time, enjoying his obvious fear and feeding on it as much as it was going to feed on him…

Something did touch him. Krion could feel something brush his face lightly as a feather and wanted to yell and push it away, but he still couldn’t move. The feeling of being paralysed sent a surge of panic through him, a rush so strong that the dream gave a lurch and broke into a hundred little pieces. With a small strangled gasp, Krion surfaced from the land of uneasy dreams he so often inhabited at night, and found himself staring straight at a pair of amber eyes.

Lydia. The slender archer just stared at her, not having the faintest idea what was happening. He blinked a few times and shook his head to clear it without much success. Peace. Those dreams always made him feel as if his head had been stuffed with wool or worse. Lydia was saying something about time, all but pleading for him to tell her that he was ready. “Ready for what? What’s the matter?” he managed after a moment in a voice that sounded weak and strained even to him. Someone muttered something in his sleep and then started snoring loudly deeper in the barracks, and the familiar sound brought Krion to his senses enough to make him sit up with a faint groan and reach for his shirt. “Don’t explain here, the others will wake up”, he suppressed a yawn. “I’ll put on some clothes, let’s go outside.”

By the time Krion was decently dressed in a slightly rumpled white shirt, a pair of dark brown breeches and knee-length leather boots, the last fragments of the dream were gone from his head and he felt moderately alert and awake. Unfortunately, as the dream left him, other thoughts replaced his night-time visions, and the fair Shienaran found himself thinking that this situation was oddly familiar. Eerie, he might almost have called it. Was it not only a few short years before that a woman had sneaked into the barracks and shaken him awake in the middle of the night because the issue was too important to wait until dawn? And nothing good had come of that. More than a little worried now, Krion hurried outside after Lydia.

“Now please explain. What’s wrong?” he spoke in hushed tones and put his arm around Lydia’s shoulder for mutual comfort. He couldn’t help but be worried. Ever since the two of them had been brought together by chance and some unwanted help from Braden, who had spontaneously decided that his two friends would make a fine couple, Krion had considered Lydia to be quite level-headed and not prone to blowing things out of proportion, something the Shienaran was himself guilty of every now and then. Being dead serious was not at all like Lydia, and the only conclusion to be reached was that she had something weighing on her so heavily that waiting a moment more before coming to him had been impossible. Krion’s instinctive first assessment proved to be much more accurate than he would have liked, and his own brow creased with concern as Lydia did as he had asked and described to him the reason she had dashed out of bed and straight to the barracks. Described well, and in worrying detail. Krion swallowed and ran a hand through his platinum hair nervously when she told him that she knew for certain what her dream meant. The graceful archer had learned to trust Lydia’s hunches and instincts a long time ago when it came down to interpreting dreams, and if she said that she had no doubts whatsoever about this one…

Peace, but was this Maven of Whitebridge ever going to leave them alone? Krion knew the answer to that before even asking the question, though, and it was a clear and definite no. Lydia had wronged the fellow when she had been a young and foolish girl, and now the man was looking for revenge, hunting her in the World of Dreams with obscure intentions that Krion doubted were in any way friendly. From the moment Lydia had first told him about her former suitor in Fal Dara, Krion had known that Maven would have to be dealt with, one way or another. They had been planning to travel to Andor, to face him and make him leave Lydia alone. The dream she had had, however, placed the entire plan into a whole new perspective. “So it means that if we go to Whitebridge the way we are now, Maven will kill me, and probably you as well. And that’s only if you are lucky”, the lithe Shienaran spoke his gloomy thoughts aloud.

He couldn’t have that. Strange as it seemed to the independent young Shienaran who had firmly decided to steer clear of such commitments after seeing what the loss of a Warder could do to a Sister who had loved him, the one feeling that had came to dominate Krion’s relationship with Lydia was a fierce desire to keep her safe from harm. He still had no idea what exactly had inspired Braden to set them up on a dinner date, but for once his friend had seen something Krion himself hadn’t. Just weeks after that day, a point of no return had been reached when Lydia had been sucked into Krion’s nightmare and learned in a matter of moments a great many things about him, things that no one else knew or could even suspect. After that night, after learning that Lydia did not hate him for the things he had been forced to do, Krion had belonged to her, heart and soul and everything. He loved her and wanted to share himself with her on all levels imaginable, but above all, he wanted to protect her from those who might try to hurt her. This Maven certainly qualified as one such, and the risk he presented to Krion’s lovely young Yellow was unacceptable.

“In that case, I see only one option,” he tightened his grip on Lydia slightly. “I gave you my word, and I don’t intend to break it. What do I have to do?”

Hearing Krion say out loud what she knew to be truth, Lydia felt sick. She truly hated pushing him this way, but she felt as if there were no choice. He was right, though. There would be tragedy if they went as things stood now. If he says no… Her thought was cut off mid-stream as his arm tightened around her and the words he had just said registered in her mind. Her amber eyes widened in surprise. She opened her mouth to ask him if he was sure, but there was a look in his deep pools of brown. It was a look of resolution…of certainty. The small woman smiled softly up at him and brushed his soft cheek with her fingertips. “Just keep me safe, my love.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. She then took his hands in hers and kneeled pulling her down to kneel with her. She knew the feeling they were about to experience could be disorienting.

Lydia opened herself up to the True Source and embraced allowing the sweetness of saidar to fill her. She was suddenly aware of the light breeze teasing her tousled curls and the soft sound of Krion’s breath. She met his eyes looking for uncertainty. She still did not see it. She knew that he might still have reservations but he was blessedly not letting her see them. She would know them soon enough if they were there. The weave of Spirit was a familiar one for the Yellow and she wove it deftly. Reaching out to her ashandarei she tremulously placed her hands on his temples. Biting her full bottom lip unconsciously and holding her breath she directed the bonding weave into him. As it settled she became aware of him and could see on his face his sudden awareness of her. Fear, doubt, happiness, wonder…all these emotions mixed together. It was hard to discern which of them carried which emotion.

Lydia wanted Krion to feel her strongest emotion for him most, to hopefully chase away the negative ones. With her hands still on his face, she leaned into him and kissed him fully allowing the fullness of her love for him to fill her. Pulling away breathlessly, she looked around her for the forgotten bag. She found it quickly and pulled out both the box and its key. She placed the box before him and handed him the key. She felt a sudden confusion through the new bond and laughed softly. “Just open it.”

Krion’s initial flash of panic, triggered by the startling feeling of an unfamiliar bundle of emotions suddenly taking shape inside his head, was crushed under the onslaught of affection that started to flow into him through the bond. The strength of it, and the startling sensation of actually being able to feel it, were disorienting in the extreme, and had he not been kneeling already, he thought he might have fallen on his face out of sheer shock. Lydia really did love him; no one in the entire world could have doubted that, and he certainly didn’t. Receiving that kind of an ultimate confirmation about her feelings for him filled Krion with warmth from head to toes, and some of it must have been reflected back to her through the bond as he didn’t think she had ever clung to him as fiercely as she did now while kissing him.

So focused was he on the bizarre knot of emotions that was Lydia that when his lovely Yellow pulled back, placed a wooden box on the ground in front of him and handed him a key, the slender archer just stared at it, having no clue what was in it or why Lydia was giving him a present. Only when he felt a stab of amusement that wasn’t his own inside his head did Krion blink and find enough presence of mind to turn the key in the lock and open the box. His confusion only grew when his fingers touched something smooth and silky, but one glimpse of the fabric was more than enough to remind the Shienaran of something he had completely forgotten.

“I didn’t even remember that I’m entitled to one of these”, Krion said with awe and undeniable pleasure in his soft voice and lifted the colour-shifting fancloth cloak from the box with something not too far from reverence. The feeling of throwing it on was strangely similar to the heady exhilaration of finding a particularly good batch of bow staves just waiting for him to turn them into perfect weapons. The cloak was light but felt warm, and of course the eye-wrenching camouflage effect the fabric created was in a league of its own. Everyone envied the Warders their cloaks, and with good reason! “You did promise to get me a nifty cloak, and this is definitely that”, he arched an eyebrow at her, and this time the amusement was all his own.

“So... Now what?” Krion asked after a long moment of looking at Lydia in the eyes. He still wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about all this, but so far the bond hadn’t felt unpleasant. Strange perhaps, and slightly distracting like an itch he could not quite place, but not unpleasant, and the Warders had told him more than once that the sensation of not being alone in your head was something you gradually got accustomed to. Everyone he had ever spoken to about the issue of bonding had said that it took a while, but eventually that extra bundle of emotions would be as much a part of him as his own two hands and feet.

Lydia’s heart pounded as Krion opened the box. Her head was near spinning from the array of emotions the man had. She was more than relieved when the brief flicker of panic he had felt got overwhelmed and she felt his love for her returned in the passion of their kiss.

When her Gaidin finally managed to open the wooden box the Yellow beamed feeling the sense of wonder flowing through the bond as he realized exactly what it contained. She blinked back tears as the cloak settled around his shoulders creating its startling effect. If it had been closed he would have seemed no more than a platinum blonde head floating there. It suited him wonderfully and she delighted in seeing him in it. Lydia could not help but feel he had been meant to wear it, no matter what protests he might have had. It was a nifty cloak indeed. A flurry of giggles escaped her as his amusement mixed with her own.

She knew it would not be a smooth road for the two of them simply because they were now Aes Sedai and Warder. They were going to face many struggles, but Lydia truly believed they would somehow be all right. Meeting her fair Shienaran’s eyes, her joviality faded as they each tried to make sense of the new tangle of emotion they felt. She knew they would grow accustomed to it, though it would take some time. It seemed they sat that way for hours though it was only moments when Krion broke the silence. “So... Now what?”

The Andoran Yellow took his hands in hers and stood, pulling him to his feet. “That is a very good question, Krion Gaidin.” She smiled up at him, calling him that for the first time. “What say you we go back to bed?” A mischievous twinkle lit her amber eyes as she collected the box and key and placed them back in the bag handing it to him. She then took his hand once again and led him back towards the Tower, trying not to get dizzied by the sight of him in his new fancloth cloak.