Dream or Nightmare?

Darkness. As far as the eye could see, there was Darkness.

"… Where the hell am I?" Alicia says, looking around hastily in search of, well, anything.

Just as she was beginning to panic, a spotlight seems to turn on and shine where she is. She looks up trying to see where the bright light is coming from, but as it was shining down on her so strongly she could not see the source.

As she walked, the light seemed to follow her as well, but she could not see past the boundary of the light. The area around the light remained in pitch darkness.

"Grrrr… How do I get out of here!" Alicia shouted in frustration, she had now been wandering around this place for what felt life hours. She felt no closer to getting of this place she had found herself in. Then…

*Click*

"Huh?" Alicia turns round as she hears a click that sounded familiar to the sound of her spotlight turning on.

When she looks around, she finds her assumption is true. A distance away from Alicia and her spotlight, is another spotlight shining down in the darkness. Alicia squints her eyes and spots what she hoped she would, another person.

A huge smile erupts on Alicia's face as she giggles to herself with excitement at the fact she had finally found another living person. As she gets closer though, she realises this person looks familiar to her.

Alicia approaches, to get a better look. This person is just a fuzzy silhouette because of how far away they are, which makes Alicia it is strange that they seem familiar to her.

"Helloooooooo! Are you lost as well!?" Alicia shouts to the person before she gets to close, to avoid startling them too much. But the person stays still, facing away from Alicia.

Alicia finds this strange but continues to approach anyway, she's desperate for any sort of company right now.

"Helloooooo! I'm a bit lost right now and I-…" As she begins to get closer, Alicia realises who this person reminds her of.

The long black hair that reaches down to her hips, tied neatly back with a blue ribbon into a single ponytail. Long legs and an athletic build, covered by a pant suit with a white shirt, an unbuttoned overcoat, no tie, skinny black trousers and flat black shoes.

The resemblance from behind is to much Alicia, she freezes in place and stares in disbelief. A name leaks out from her small ruby red lips…

"Maya…"

The figure turns around as the name is spoke. She faces Alicia, two sharp grey eyes stare into hers. She was gorgeous, and yet her disinterested and intimidating resting expression made her seem unapproachable. Maya.

Alicia stood shocked, though quickly snapped out of it as Maya just stood and stared back at her without making a sound or movement.

"Hehe… No way! Maya!" Alicia breaks out into a laugh and runs towards Maya, hugging her waist as the top of Alicia's head only reached Maya's breasts.

Alicia looks up from between her breasts with a delighted smile on her face, expecting to hear her former sister say how much she had missed her.

"… And who are you?" Maya says, staring blankly down at Alicia.

"Huh? What are you talking about Maya? It's me! Alicia!" She shouts with a grin on her face, expecting Maya to come around and remember her.

"Hmm? I don't know any one by that name." Maya says, as she separates herself from Alicia and begins to walk away from her.

"Wh-What! Maya! It's me! Wait!" Alicia tries to chase after her but finds her legs will not move forward.

She struggles and struggles, and yet her legs feel like they are stuck to the floor. She watched as Maya gets further and further away and as she does so, the spotlight on Alicia begins to get darker and darker.

"Wait! Maya!" Alicia continues to plead, until finally Maya disappears out of sight.

Alicia returns to being in complete darkness. Tears begin to leak from her eyes as she remains shackled to the floor…

"Al…ia…" (???)

[What… What's that noise] Alicia thinks to herself as a voice starts to echo through the dark.

"Ali…cia…Aliciaaaa!"

"La…Lady A… Lady Aliciaa!"

"Bi…is… Big sis!"

"AH! It's you guys!" Alicia shouts, realising that it is the voices of Ignis, Vera and Osha.

Alicia hears the voices, that seem to be coming from behind her, and realises she can move her legs again. She picks herself up and begins to run in the direction of the voices.

Alicia cannot see where she is running, but keeps running towards the voices without fear of what could be in front of her. For being in this darkness alone is an even bigger fear.

"Aliciaaaaa!"

"Lady Aliciaaaa!"

"Big Sis!"

The voices grow louder yet and she notices a door, the voices are coming from there.

Alicia runs towards it and as she does, it opens. Letting a light that was so bright, it stopped her from seeing the other side of the doorway.

But that does not stop Alicia, as she charges full speed at the doorway…

"HYAAAAAAH!" And dives straight through it…

---

"AHHHHH!" Alicia's eyes flew open and she flings herself up…

Only to realise there is a set of round curious and worried looking eyes looking down into her eyes…

But she could not stop herself from sitting up now…

*THUD*

"OWWWWWW!" (Osha and Alicia)

… Both heads collide with massive thud, leaving both of them rolling around in pain.

"Are you okay my Lady!?" Vera shouts as she crouches over next to Alicia, concern radiating from her voice.

"Owie… yeah I'll be okay Vera, thanks." Alicia says, rubbing the spot where she connected with Osha's head.

"She'll be fine Vera, I've seen her get up like its nothing from much worse." Ignis chimes in, dismissing Vera's worry.

"HEY! What about me?!" Osha shouts, with tears in her eyes, over at Vera.

"Hmph! Lady Alicia is my top priority, apologies Osha." Vera says, clearly not holding back her attitude towards Osha.

"Meanie!" Osha shouts, then jumps on Vera's back though Vera just ignores her.

"Haaaah… All that aside, we were a bit worried about you Alicia. You were shouting in your sleep, but nothing you said helped us know what was going on…" Ignis says.

"Hmmmm… You know what, I can't actually remember what I was dreaming about." Alicia says, while stroking her chin imitating a thinking person's pose.

The three of them, including Osha who was now perched on top of Vera's head and trying to gnaw on her, looked at Alicia with concern.

"Hehe, come on guys. I'm fine!" Alicia seeing this, gives them a big smile that they had grown so accustomed to, which calms their worries a bit.

"If you say so. Anyway, Kaal said that he has all of his people ready to move out again and to just give him the word when we are ready to go." Ignis informs Alicia, to which she nods in affirmation and jumps up onto her feet.

"Right then let's-" (Alicia) "RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" (???)

Suddenly, a massive roar breaks out from the tree's over where the Lizard people tribe were camped. The four of them quickly turn towards the noises and begin to hear screaming.

"Everyone, we're going!" Alicia shouts and hastily begins to run over to the noise, quickly followed by her knights and Osha.

---

At the same time, Valen Castle.

Four people sit on a balcony overlooking the courtyard of the castle, while one more person stands near the doors guarding them. Sounds of the royal guard training below, in said courtyard, echo up to them as they sip their drinks…

"Ahhhhhhhh… It's so nice to just be able to relax once in a while. Right Terre?" Says a relaxed Petra, leaning back in her chair as she enjoys her drink, a juice drink made from local fruits, and the snacks that had been sent for them to try.

"Ara, ara… I believe you do this a lot more often then most of us Lady Petra, I did not think you would enjoy it as much…" Terre says politely, though with slight sly smirk appearing on her glistening lips as she does so.

"Uuuuu! You are so mean Terre! I work hard to you know!" Says Petra, her personality betraying the elegant image her appearance would give before she opened her mouth.

"Hmmm… Really? I admit that you have done a great job training the royal guards, Haila attested to this of course…" Terre says, looking over at Haila who is standing by the doors to the balcony.

"Yes. Lady Petra is an excellent teacher. I feel like my strength has made great strides thanks to her guidance." Haila says in serious tone, causing Petra to stick out her chest and point her nose up with pride.

"See Terre!" Petra says, stick her tongue out at Terre mockingly.

"… But of course, you only do that during the morning… Then Haila takes over for the last few hours of training…" Terre continues, looking suspiciously over at the now slightly sweating Petra.

"… I-I go and train by myself of course! Need to keep myself in top form if I am to keep being the top general after all! Hahahaaa…" Petra says and laughs nervously, still trying to keep up her confident appearance.

"I see… so you do not go down to the tailors and say… put in requests for cute clothes for Lady Alicia to wear when she comes back?" (Terre)

The words make Petra freeze, everyone knew that Terre had indeed got it spot on.

"H-How do you know!" Petra shouts at Terre, thinking that she was being very sneaky when going to the tailors.

"Haaah… You know surveillance is one of my specialties. And lets face it Lady Petra, you are not the stealthiest of people…" Terre with a reply that looked like it had astonished Petra, though everyone else was just shocked she did not know she was not very sneaky.

"Hmph! You're just jealous that you didn't get to come and pick clothes for Alicia with me. Kukuku… Jealousy is not a good look on you Terre!" Petra says with smug smirk, though none of the others actually thought that was true until…

"Th-That's not true!" Terre shouted in uncharacteristically discomposed manner, making everyone but the still smug faced Petra, who sat nodding with her eyes closed and arms crossed, stare in shock. Her reaction giving away the that she was in fact jealous…

"Kukuku…" (Petra)

"Grrrr…" (Terre)

"Alright, alright. Shall we move onto a different topic now." Says another of the participants of this small tea party, though without the tea, Aura.

Seeing that this was probably going to be a never-ending argument/discussion, Aura decided to try and interject and change the subject.

"How do you think our little Queen and her knights are doing?" Aura asks, clapping her hands together and showing a happy smile.

"I-I'm a bit w-worried about my sis…" Says the final participant in gathering, Noa.

He nervously sat in his seat, constantly fidgeting which showed his discomfort.

"Hehe you don't need to be so nervous Noa. We will be doing this quite often after all, now that we have rather important positions in our kingdom." Aura says with a comforting smile, the aura of an ideal mother radiating from her making Noa calm down a little bit.

"But indeed, I am rather worried about them. It is there first trip away from us after all…" Aura says, some slight concern showing on her face.

"I don't know how you two have been staying so calm to be honest, with how you clearly both love her." Aura says, looking up at Terre and Petra with a curious gaze.

Petra and Terre both just looked at each other, then smiled…

"Hehe it's not that we are not worried. As a mother I am super worried…" Petra says with a mature smile.

"Oh? You both hide it so well…" Aura says with a slightly shocked expression on her face, knowing that these two who had been acting so normally were in fact as concerned as she was.

"Hehe…That's because Alicia is my daughter! Valensca's are the most fearsome Dragon family to have existed!" Petra yells, her smug and proudness returning for a moment… Before she quickly becomes serious with the gentle mature smile returning to her face…

"… And of course, she promised me…" (Petra)