[They've dreamed together often enough that it's become a comfort to Myr, but this--this is palpably, startlingly different. The Faun hasn't placed his own position in his mind's eye and isn't apparent in the scene at first. The landscape itself is oddly realized--sharp as cut crystal in some places, especially where L directs his gaze, and vaguely smeared like gelatin over glass in others.

The eyes and the bleeding flesh are all too palpable.]

Linden, I...

[He wants suddenly to duck away from this, pull his quilt up around his pinned ears and hide. To be known this way when he's in the depths of his own despair and uselessness is agonizing.

A little frustrated noise escapes him, a near-sob. The landscape in his head ripples and twists to afford a high crenelated wall dividing the dudes, and beyond it a vague sketch of Hasmal's Circle tower. Myr's memory device, made apparent, and here at last is the Faun himself at the wall's base. He's even more disheveled here, stained with blood and dust and an uncertainty about his face that's both eyes and scars.]

I--I do, I've done nothing but think these past few days--I'm, I--

[His imagined self sheds the quilt and throws it over another cluster of eyes that's emerged from the dunes.]

--don't know where all this has come from.

[Not precisely true. But the whole truth is something he can't face head-on for fear of forgetting it, except last time he had forgotten so L had accused him of lying--]