Chapter Thirty-One

A gentle breeze rustled the leaves around them, while Nora, Lonnie, and Hans stood in silence, absorbing what Cierra had said.

It was Nora who broke the silence.

"We've always known we would need to learn how to fight instead of simply relying on our powers," She looked over each of them, "This is a good example of how we need to be careful and train more in the future."

"Cierra," Nora turned to face the girl, "Do you know how to wield your sword?"

Cierra nodded, "Silva, one of the Fólkvangr warriors, taught me some basic moves. I've been practicing them on my own."

"Do you have any other weapons?" Nora asked, "As far as I know we," She gestured at Lonnie and Hans, "Have never been able to take things with us between the dream realms and the real world." She added as an afterthought, "Not that I've ever tried."

Cierra shook her head, "No, I only have this sword by chance." Or bad luck, she thought to herself.

"How have you guys been getting by 'til now though? Have you ever fought the nightmares?" Cierra had a hard time believing that they fought head on with any nightmares, let alone something like Menace or that tree monster.

"We mostly rely on distractions and reconnaissance," Hans jumped in, "Lonnie distracts them, and I typically morph in and try to see what they're doing."

He frowned, "We've never been really successful, all we've managed to do in the past is slow them down by inducing arguments or taking a few nightmares out here and there. Menace was the first intelligent creature any of us have encountered, I think."

Cierra bit her lip, she had expected to encounter people with more experience than her, and, now that she was here in front of them, she found herself a bit disappointed to see they weren't older, with more battle experience.

"I think we should try and set-up a meeting with Goldie for tomorrow night. We need weapons and training, it's been far too long and from what Cierra has told us, there are harder fights ahead. We can't keep playing around." Nora said, seemingly having read Cierra's mind.

There were agreements from the other two, and then to Cierra's surprise, they all started picking the large red-orange flowers Cierra had become enamored with earlier. She followed them, staying a few steps behind, watching as they carefully plucked flowers from the vines, avoiding the thorns. She was shocked to find that immediately after a bloom was taken, a small bud grew in its place.

"What are you doing?" Ciera asked as they started making a pile of blooms in the center of the clearing.

"This is how we leave a sign for Goldie that we want to meet," Lonnie explained.

"We think she's watching us secretly all the time," Hans added conspiratorially, "But requires a floral sacrifice in order for us to see her."

Nora passed him, jabbing him in the ribs with elbow.

"Hey!" Hans said, dropping a few blooms.

"Ignore him," Nora said, for the first time sounding playful, "Sometimes I wonder if he's as dumb as he is big."

Cierra started picking flowers with them, telling them about her experience trying to get in touch with Goldie.

"She just put you to sleep?" Lonnie asked, disbelieving.

"That's never happened to you guys?" Cierra asked, equally doubtful.

"No," Nora shook her head, "She waits until we come back and she either has a meeting place that she drags us to, like that abandoned house from before, or she leaves us a gold flower."

"What's the gold flower for?" Cierra asked.

"We've taken it to mean 'I've got your message, but I'm busy right now,' Hans explained.

"When that happens, she usually gets back to us in a few days," Lonnie said.

"I think the longest I've ever had to wait was a week?," Nora, added, guessing.

When the pile reached Cierra's knee, they stopped. Looking around, Cierra saw the buds from earlier had already started to grow into fist sized flowers.

Hans walked over to where Cierra was examining a flower up close.

"We're not really sure why they grow back so quickly, but it matches the whole idea of dream realms, I think." He said, Cierra looking up at him, "In a dream so many unexplainable things happen, just like this." He pointed at a flower that seemed to pulse for a second before unfurling a new layer of petals.

"You know, after Menace and what happened with the Skogkatts, I realized I'm not sure if I've ever had a normal dream. Are the dream realms like dreams?" Cierra asked, looking at Hans and then the others.

"Kinda," Lonnie said, "But I never really remembered my dreams, I always remember the realms."

For the first time in what felt like weeks, Cierra woke up hopeful. Even if Nora, Lonnie, and Hans hadn't been what she had expected, it was nice that they were all almost in the same boat together.

That confused her was how long Nora had been in the dream realms. She had been there every night for two years, but somehow had no more information to provide than the others. What had she been doing with all her time? If Lonnie had named Goldie, did that mean that Nora hadn't met her before, on her own? Hans either for that matter? What had they been doing all that time without guidance?

Cierra made a mental note to do some sleuthing when she got the chance.

For now, she was going to follow-up on the points Nora had suggested before everyone left:

-Train our bodies in order to be in peak physical condition

-Add everyone on social media

-Join a sport

Cierra felt proud that she was already doing two of the most challenging items on the list, though she did feel bad for Lonnie, who had deflated immediately at the idea of having to do physical exercise.

Nora had patted him on the shoulder and told him to "weightlift and drink protein shakes like his life depended on it, because it did," and he had nodded along, face grim.

Hans and Nora looked fit, with Hans boasting a wide, muscular upper body that could be seen by how his shirt seemed half a size too small, and Nora was packed with lean muscle, like a stronger version of Cierra.

It was clear that the physical exercise was mostly for Lonnie, still Cierra had plenty of areas to improve. From her time with the warrior women fighting the nightmares, she knew she needed to build her muscles and stamina.

Hopping online, she looked for the social pages of Nora Zhou, Lonnie Howard, and Hans Stewart. She looked for Hans first, curious to see where he lived now. How had they never met yet he had handled her grandparent's lawn maintenance for years? It seemed like such an odd coincidence. His profile photo was just like he said it would be, a photo of him with his grandma, him kneeling down beside her while she sat in a rocking chair outside.

His location listed him as in Kennesaw, a good hour or so drive from where she was in Henry county. She sent him an add request and then flipped through some of his photos, curious.

It looked like he was on the wrestling team in high school, and his face could be seen in many team photos. Some of his friends had joined the military recently, and they posed together him in shorts and a tight t-shirt while they were in various types of uniform.

A lot of boys from her high school were talking of joining the military after graduating as well, it seemed like a popular choice in Georgia, made easier by the recruiters who would go and sit at different lunch tables, chatting people up, giving their usual recruitment spiel.

Cierra avoided them like the plague. Clicked away, hoping that Hans' friends returned safely.

From Hans' friends list, she was able to find Lonnie and Nora. Lonnie's profile photo was a popular meme of a little girl making an odd face, teeth sticking out, while Nora's profile offered only an image of an older woman, photo taken in sepia, hair permed around her face.

Exploring Nora's profile, she found no other photos, no events or posts, and a list of 42 friends, most of them random people from around the country, though some were in the UK. Nora didn't even list her location, and for the first time, Cierra realized that Nora had never told them where she was from.

Maybe she's just a private person, Cierra thought to herself. It wasn't like there was any reason to distrust her, if anything she seemed like the most dependable of the group, even if she seemed a bit uptight.

Looking at her calendar, Cierra was happy to find that she had nothing to do today but work out and prepare for calculus class tomorrow.