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When Aurora wakes up, it's cold.
Too cold. And too dark. It's not morning yet, barely any light peeking around the curtains, and Aurora doesn't know why she's awake.
Why is it so cold? Maybe that's why she's awake. It feels like her bones have frozen solid and a jolt of pure terror goes through her. She tries to wiggle her fingers, then her toes, relieved when they move at her command. Their numbness is a little concerning, but she can move. That's what matters.
Her breath is coming too quickly, the air seeming to have evaporated from her lungs. She sits up and scoots to the edge of her bed, blanket wrapped around her as tightly as she can manage, and tries to count before each gasp. But her mind is too fuzzy for that. Numbers won't form, just crackly confusion and fear and cold-
She shakes her head vigorously, and it hurts, the fuzziness in her head almost overwhelming, her vision blurring so that she can barely see anything in the dark. Her heart races, dread wrapping itself around her, and she can do nothing but sit here which scares her even more.
She blinks and blinks and tries to breathe until finally, she doesn't feel like she's about to explode and her vision has cleared somewhat. Blink. Breathe in. Out. Wiggle her fingers, then her toes.
Aurora swings her legs round to the side of the bed and stands up abruptly, too abruptly it seems because she stumbles and almost falls. She doesn't, though, and somehow it's a relief to be out of bed. On her feet, she's able to run if she needs to. Though she doesn't know why she'd need to run. Targent, maybe, or worse, though she's not exactly sure what would be worse.
She's shaking, from the cold or from nerves she doesn't know.
She can't hear any noises from the rest of the airship, though she strains her ears to listen. No intruders. No one else awake. It's too dark in her room to see much, but from what she can tell everything is in its proper place. She's safe, and she's alone.
There's no reason for her to be awake right now. Why is she awake?
Aurora isn't scared of the dark. She doesn't think she ever has been - the darkness is comforting, enveloping her like a blanket, and it's a thousand times better than the harsh lights that sometimes make her head hurt. What she is scared of is the cold. It reminds her of things she can't remember, and there's nothing worse than not knowing what lies within her own mind.
She gingerly takes a step forward, almost surprised when her foot moves exactly the way she wants it to. The freedom is nice. She can move however she wants, so she pads across her room and opens the door and goes out into the hallway, her blanket still wrapped around her. Her breathing's almost back to normal now. Everything is fine.
It's so quiet when everyone's asleep, so calm. Too calm. She strains her ears as hard as she can and when there isn't a peep of noise from anywhere, a bubble of panic rises within her. This isn't the kind of quiet she craves sometimes when she's out in some busy city with the others. This is a kind of quiet that bites, that wraps itself around her and seeps into her bones and makes her wonder if she's ever going to hear anything ever again.
Dread rising in her, she coughs loudly, once, twice, and she can hear it just fine. She breathes out. She can hear that too. Nothing but air surrounding her ears.
She doesn't know why she's awake and she doesn't know why she's scared. This is concerning, because normally there is a reason for things like this. But there's no Azran artefact nearby that she isn't already used to, and there are no intruders, and logically she shouldn't even be that cold with her blanket around her and her warm pyjamas.
Aurora does not know what lies within her own mind and it terrifies her. She has known this ever since she was freed from the ice, but right now, it hurts more than ever. Her blood runs cold.
She keeps walking, breathing in sharply as her feet connect with the cold floor in the hallway, ice spreading up her leg. Pushes away the irrational panic that rises in her once again and keeps going, carefully treading down the stairs of the airship to the kitchen.
She instantly regrets it. Why would she choose to go to the kitchen, of all places? The floor is even colder here, which is the opposite of what she wants. Vaguely, she remembers drinking pots of scalding tea with the others, warm and safe, but she has no clue how she would go about making some. She'd probably end up hurting herself.
Perhaps getting a glass of water will help. Emmy said once that drinking water is good if you have a headache, and while Aurora's head doesn't exactly hurt, it certainly feels fuzzy. Retrieving a glass from the cupboard is an easy job, and she breathes out with the satisfaction of successfully completing a task. For once.
She'll feel better when she's had a drink. She has to.
She turns on the tap and watches as the glass fills, small bubbles appearing in the water. Fascinating. She almost forgets to turn the tap off, and by the time she remembers, it's almost full to the brim.
Success! Aurora steps back.
But as she does, the water spills over the side of the glass onto her hand. She flinches, which causes the water to spill further, and it's cold and it's cold and she can't remember and she can't breathe-
Shaking, she drops the glass and it shatters into a million tiny pieces on the floor with a smash that makes her ears ring and buzz. Shards bobbing up and down like pieces of ice. Too cold and too broken and Aurora doesn't know how long she spends standing there, trembling like a leaf, her head about to explode and her breath coming in wobbly gasps.
"Aurora?"
She snaps her head up, the world spinning around her.
"Aurora, what happened? Are you hurt?" More urgent.
She blinks hard. The blur in front of her morphs into a figure. Professor Sycamore?
He's waiting for an answer, Aurora realises, his eyes widened slightly in alarm. She manages to shake her head - she certainly doesn't have the capacity to form actual words right now. She isn't hurt. Though she's still shivering and she's still forgotten how to breathe properly. Nothing hurts, except her mind maybe, but that doesn't count.
Professor Sycamore sighs. Aurora is suddenly aware of the shattered glass on the floor, and shame rises through her. She broke the glass, and she has no reason to explain why. He's probably angry. She wouldn't blame him.
He doesn't look angry, though.
"Take my hand. Don't step on any of the glass - you'll hurt yourself." He reaches out towards her, and she takes his hand. Hops over the sea of icy water to the other side of the kitchen. She scrambles an extra few steps to the kitchen door, away from the cold tile of the kitchen and onto the slightly-less-cold wood floor of the dining room.
Professor Sycamore follows her. She's still shivering, and she wraps her blanket tighter around her. It's not doing any good. It's like the cold has made its way inside her.
"You're cold," Professor Sycamore says, correctly. "I'll get you another blanket." And he disappears out of the room.
Aurora sits down at the dining table and tries to breathe. One. Two. Three. She's all alone now, and she wishes she wasn't. Hopefully Professor Sycamore will return soon.
Sure enough, he comes back quickly enough, carrying a purple blanket. He drapes it over her shoulders, and she relaxes a fraction under it, pulling it around her on top of the other one. Her breath is coming a little easier now. At least it doesn't feel like the air around her feel so thick, so difficult to take into her lungs.
Professor Sycamore sits on the chair next to her, and turns it so that he's facing her. "May I ask what happened?"
Aurora copies him, spinning her chair around. Now they're directly across from each other.
She takes a deep breath. Makes sure her voice will actually work before she attempts to use it. "I was cold."
She's well aware that this probably raises more questions than it answers, especially when Professor Sycamore's brow furrows in confusion. She doesn't have a better explanation. She clenches her hands together under the blanket to try and stop them from shaking.
Maybe she can add a little more. "I woke up and I- and I-" Her words falter, freeze in her throat like ice as she tries to explain. How can she explain, the fear and the confusion and the cold-?
"Breathe, Aurora." Professor Sycamore says, and Aurora realises she's gasping for air once again. She makes an effort. Breathes in and out. One. Two. Three.
"I don't know why I woke up," she says, probably a bit too soon. "But it was cold. I went to the kitchen to-" she doesn't know why she went to the kitchen "-and I dropped the glass." She doesn't know why she did that either, apart from it was cold and she's well aware that that isn't a proper excuse, or any kind of excuse, or even a reason. "I'm sorry about the glass." Her eyes track over to the shards and water on the kitchen floor.
"Don't worry about the glass. The glass is replaceable." Aurora's eyes snap back to Professor Sycamore's. He still doesn't seem angry. "I'm just trying to understand why you're upset."
I don't know is not a good enough answer anymore. "I woke up," she says, and she can't get any further because she really, truly doesn't know, and her eyes sting.
Professor Sycamore tilts his head slightly. And then, suddenly, his eyes soften at the corners. "Did you have a nightmare?"
Aurora blinks. She recognises the word night, yes, it is night right now, but she doesn't understand the rest of it. Or what he means. "What is a nightmare?"
Professor Sycamore clears his throat. "A nightmare is… a type of dream. A bad dream."
Aurora knows what a dream is. At least she thinks she does. "A dream, as in something you imagine? Or something you wish for?" She hasn't been wishing for anything since waking up. Except maybe to stop feeling so terrible.
"No, a dream as in…" Professor Sycamore trails off. He sits back in the chair. Breathes out. "Sometimes, when people sleep, they see pictures in their mind."
"Real pictures?" Aurora does not think she's experienced that before. She doesn't think she remembers anything from when she's asleep.
"No, not real pictures." He pauses. "Pictures similar to… when you imagine things when you're awake. Do you see pictures when you imagine things?"
Aurora nods. She has experienced this. To prove it to herself, she summons up an image of Professor Layton in her mind, then Luke and Emmy, then an image of a cup of tea. Yes, she can certainly imagine pictures.
"Right. Sometimes, when people sleep, they see pictures like that."
"They can imagine things in their sleep?" Suddenly, Aurora is rather glad she doesn't have these dreams. Her mind tires her out enough while she's awake - she's sure she'd be permanently exhausted if she was able to think while she was asleep.
"No… it's not like imagining things when you're awake." He stops. Sighs quietly. "It's an opportunity for your mind to show you things that you don't have time to process during the day. But you can't control what your mind decides to show you."
Aurora nods. She understands this. Occasionally when she's awake she can't control what her brain does. Such as when she's near an Azran artefact.
Professor Sycamore nods too, mirroring her. "And sometimes dreams are happy. But sometimes they can be sad, or frightening. That's what is called a nightmare."
Aurora is still following, she still understands, but she's not sure how this applies to her. "I don't think I had a nightmare. I can't remember anything from when I'm asleep."
"Sometimes people don't remember their dreams," Professor Sycamore says, and Aurora's eyes widen in surprise. "That doesn't mean one still can't feel disoriented even after they wake up. I think this might be what's happened to you, Aurora."
She rotates the idea around in her mind. Did she have a nightmare, and she simply can't remember it? "I still don't know why I woke up, even if I was dreaming."
"Dreams can be jarring enough that they wake you up," Professor Sycamore says. "Even if you can't remember them."
Aurora hums. It makes sense, in that case. She had a nightmare, which she can't remember, but she still woke up and that's why she's awake now, and why she feels so strange. Residual trepidation from the dream. But…
"It's not actually very cold, is it?" Aurora asks.
Professor Sycamore smiles, though sympathetically or pitifully Aurora can't tell. "No, it's no colder than usual. I can turn on the heating though, if you'd like."
Aurora nods. "Thank you." She pauses. Thinks. Takes a moment to appreciate the fact that she's breathing normally, and the fact that if she thinks about it she's not actually that cold anymore. "Is there any way to prevent yourself from having dreams?"
"Unfortunately not, I'm afraid." Professor Sycamore smiles again. Ruefully this time, maybe. "They're just a thing that happens from time to time."
"Ah," Aurora says. That is rather unfortunate to learn, but hopefully she won't experience any more dreams - or nightmares - any time soon. She's never had one before tonight. Not that she remembers, anyway. Surely she won't have another for a long, long time. That would be nice - she never wants to feel that confused and cold ever again.
She doesn't feel like that anymore. In fact, she almost feels warm now, even if there's no way that the heating has been turned up yet. And she's no longer confused - she knows why she's awake, and she knows why she felt what she felt. The relief is palpable. Everything's okay. She is okay.
And, come to think of it, she is also rather tired. Her eyelids feel heavy. And she suddenly remembers how dark it is outside. It's the middle of the night - she should be asleep right now.
Professor Sycamore seems to pick up on her sudden drowsiness. "Are you ready to go back to bed now?"
"Yes," Aurora says, and she stands up, still with the blankets pulled around her. Then, "Thank you."
She walks to the door. Stops before she leaves the room. "Professor Sycamore?"
"Yes, Aurora?"
"Do you ever have dreams?"
Pause. One. Two. Three. "Sometimes." Another pause, longer this time. "I wouldn't want to bore you by talking about them. You must be terribly tired."
Aurora nods, because he's right, and leaves the room with slow, sleepy steps.
She makes her way back to her room, and she doesn't feel alone or scared anymore. She flops down into bed, and it is warm and cozy and safe, and she breathes out in relief. She knows why she was awake, and now she knows that she can fall asleep again. All the fear, all the cold, it was all in her mind. Everything is okay.
And almost instantly, Aurora falls into a deep, dreamless sleep.