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month record rogue 3 2 3
'So, our dreams are actually Sami speaking to us?'
'You could say that,' answers Typhon. 'But it could be a call from long ago. Arges says that fate is like a snowball. The higher up it starts rolling, the longer it takes to hear the sound of it hitting the ground.'
She pauses her conversation with the young researcher. The other members of the survey team are stirring and sitting up in the campsite formed from tree branches, opening cans and discussing in low voices the strange dreams they had last night. Typhon takes an uneasy walk around them. The protections at the entrance have not been damaged, no one tried to start any machines, and no one gives off a demonic scent. How many survey teams has she escorted? Typhon does not remember, only that both Magallan and Arges have gotten closer to their goals in recent years.
As for herself, she needs no goal for the future, only to do her job here and now. She must preserve Sami's order from the creeping shadow that seeks to break the eternal cycle of the hunt.
'I dreamed of a saddled creature, two stories high, charging towards me,' said a researcher when she passed by.
'That's a rockhorn,' Typhon explains. 'We'll see them in the flesh when we go further north.'
'I dreamed I was an eyeless underground creature, digging beneath the frozen soil,' another anxious researcher asks. 'Is that a bad omen?'
'Just the shadow covering your eyes. It's not an uncommon dream in Sami.'
The southerners always make such a fuss about the dreams Sami bestows them. Some want to avoid the nightmares, yet reject the food and rituals of the Sami, trusting only in their own sleeping medicine. But Typhon does not get angry at them. Who gets angry at a young foal that's just stepped into the world? She walks back to the young researcher and slings her great bow on her back.
'What about you?' he asks. 'Do you dream about things from long ago?'
'Of course.'
After some hesitation, the young researcher reaches into his bag.
'You should have this back. Maybe someone with your experience doesn't need an outsider worrying about you, but if any of us needs to be well-rested and safe from nightmares, it's you.
He is holding a dreamcatcher that Typhon gave the team. More and more nightmares are wound around its threads. A helpless foal returning to the dark icefield, seeing the bones rolling out of the nest. Ill fates of all kinds hide in dreams. There, the shadow is the only hunter, the manifestation of fear.
'I don't need it,' she answers.
