Someone awaits at the crest of a hill just beyond the pillars, and ancient trees twined with human-like shapes made from wood and moss, empty holes for eyes watching impassively in the cold blue-black dark. For another dreamer: no lucidity, and no hope of remembering. Magic touches each in its own way.

The figure looming ahead is cut in the shape of a man, featureless in shadow. His head rises at the primal cry-- a glint, then, two points of reflected light, like moonlight on water, and he's looking at her. No, past her. Something that's stalking her with the crackle of breaking ice, reaching out with dark spears and barbs to ensnare and draw in and change. Attention, a gaze, like a physical presence, though turning reveals nothing but ice, stone, black, empty, nothing. A part of what should be neatly cut away with the sharpest blade, a corner of the world snipped from existence, left with only the frozen void of unmaking.

Behind the figure erupts black fire, and it screams and screams like one of her dragons raging. He moves forward, as though underwater, sword in hand. Ice shatters around him, each movement casting hidden threats and outstretched claws into the light and obliterating them the next minute. The sound and screaming of the impossible fire rises.