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Entry Two

I think the roasted miacid we had for dinner was bad. Like, really bad. I had the weirdest dreams I think I’ve ever had. I saw snippets of Karaan Nolan’s family, on some beach somewhere with a woman and a pair of twins. They looked and seemed happy. They talked about going North somewhere. For these Eorzeans, that could mean just about anywhere, really. Then I saw snippets of some elezen riding a white chocobo and a trick being played on them both during a joust. Then I remember a dream of one of father’s old challenge hunts, where I had til sunset to find him, wherever he’d hidden in the Chocobo Forest.  I hadn’t thought about those in ages…

The weirdest part was when I ‘woke up’ in some desert somewhere. I didn’t really wake up, I don’t think, but it was the realest-seeming dream I ever remember having. In this strange desert, I remember seeing the stars and how they were unlike the stars I recalled when father taught me how to navigate by them. These were strange, unfamiliar.  Not in places I was taught. 

Stranger still, Karaan was there along with an elezen dragoon that introduced himself as Irridias Velnyx.  They went on about magic stuff that went over my head, but it had something to do with ‘shared consciousness’ – why we all had similar dreams – and our aether being confused or something. I don’t know. I never understand half of what mages say and most of the time it seems too far-fetched to really believe. This was no exception.

The only way to go was forward, though, so we scouted the area and eventually found a small – very small – settlement nearby. It seemed to be populated with… sick people. Afflicted with some kind of malady that turned their skin a strange shade of white from what I could see. I didn’t get any closer than I had to to investigate. Disease is a hunter’s worst nightmare; it keeps us from food and money; it gives us away to prey and sometimes makes us the prey if a predator feels and smells we’re weak enough. Father never let me go on a hunt, ever, if I had so much as a sniffle. He said it was life or death out there and illness led to death more often than not. And I’m not ready to die.

Thankfully, we didn’t linger long in the quarantined area, making quickly for a market town that the dragoon had seen from one of the cliffs over the hamlet. I have never been so glad to move on from a place. The market was a much better place, Mord Souq, the kobold called it when Irridias spoke to one. The place seemed to put Karaan on-edge; he wouldn’t stop patrolling and scrutinizing the citizenry.  Me, I took in the local cuisine.  It was… interesting, let me tell you. He called it mushloaf and it certainly was that, but the cactus paste inside was filling and even slaked my thirst, so I suppose there are benefits to eating such a thing in the desert. 

It wasn’t long after that Irridias started feeling strange, he said something about how he was being pulled back and that he’d find us wherever we were in the world – both Karaan and I still being in Tailfeather.  Me at home and Karaan over in Priorfaix’s barn.  I faded not long after, though I couldn’t help but tell Karaan he had a cute family.

I woke up at home, in bed, Sillesti’s snoring audible even from his bedroom. I didn’t feel any worse for wear, though I wasn’t at all hungry, which I usually am in the morning. I resolved that I’d get up and find Karaan, see if he had a dream like mine. He might think me foolish or crazy when he hears, but the dragoon in the dream said we’d shared the experience. I only hoped he was right…