Yuuri reeled for a moment. It felt like an earthquake had just hit. No, not an earthquake. There'd been a distinct lack of, well, quaking. But it certainly felt like the ground had somehow bucked him off his feet, however immobile it was. There'd been no sound. There was still no sound. None at all. There had been the wind whistling overhead, the occasional rustle in the brush, the crunch of snow as one of the others shifted behind him. Now all was silence and cold.

It had gotten much colder. The air certainly hadn't been balmy before, but this was truly brutal. Breathing felt like ice thrusting down into his lungs. The perfect stillness all around made the frigid air harsher somehow. At least wind could b bundled against, turned away from. This cold attacked from all sides. It was like the cold underground only worse, bone deep, oppressive and heavy.

Yuuri tried to stand, but found he didn't have anything like the energy. It wasn't that he felt drained, but whatever was keeping him on the ground (and he felt no force, just its effects) was stronger than he was. He tried to call on the Maou, but couldn't. It was a hard thing to do on purpose at the best of times, but now… Whatever had Yuuri stuck on the valley floor had his wilder self trapped as well.

He managed to raise his head and look around. He couldn't see Gunter, which was very unnerving. In the dim light, he should have been easy to spot, his light robes standing out against both the snow and the dark soil where it showed through. Not a sign of him. Yuuri found that frightening more than the cold and silence. He turned to shout to Conrad for help. Wait, why hadn't Conrad helped him already? And where was Wolfram? And where was his mind, that he hadn't immediately thought of them?

While he couldn't manage to get up, Yuuri did force himself to turn around. At least they hadn't disappeared. Wolfram was only a little ways behind Yuuri, collapsed at a very uncomfortable angle. He must have gone down much faster. Conrart was further behind, his back against a rock. At least he'd been able to fight a little bit before he went down.

Yuuri would figure out what had happened after hed at least gotten to Wolfram. His fiancé was shaking. His eyes were open the tiniest bit. Yuuri fought hard against whatever was holding him, whatever intangible force wanted him to succumb like the others (or disappear like Gunter). He tried to shout for Alapai, who had—sensibly—refused to come down. His voice didn't work. He managed only the slightest croak.

His efforts to cross the arms length between him and Wolfram were rapidly exhausting him. Yuuri made it to his lover's side, tried to say his name, but crumpled immediately. His hand reached Wolfram's, but by then he wasn't conscious enough to know.

Yuuri felt himself slipping. For a moment it was physical, falling onto the icy stone, but the moment passed smoothly into a sensation of falling much further. Slowly. Yuuri had become very accustomed to the feeling of sinking in water. It was no longer the fright that it should have been. Yet here that sensation was, frightening him as badly as it had that first time in the toilet. He was drifting down, not being pulled, but that made it worse, because he couldn't resist. Couldn't even try!

And then it stopped. It was just dark and cold for a moment, but then he realized it wasn't the horrid, dead, all-encompassing darkness of his descent, but merely nighttime. No stars, though. It was cloudy. Or so he thought for a moment. Those weren't clouds. That was smoke, billowing, massive swirls of it with the orangey glow beneath that bespoke massive fires and destruction.

He was on a hillside, a barren place where a chill, empty wind whistled past empty trees. He thought he might have come back down to Bielefeld lands for a moment, but… No, yet again this was a different kind of cold. This was a hard, unseasonal cold that came with an empty autumn, one that didn't follow much of a summer. An ugly cold. And there were no mountains. No, he was far away from where he should be.

Yuuri stood, and found he had no trouble with it now. There was that, at least. He hurried toward the glow of the fires. He could summon real rain and put it out, save whoever and whatever he could, and then he'd figure out what was going on.

His eyes adjusted as he went, and at the same time the darkness lightened, illuminated by the glow around the next hill. Yuuri was horrified by what he saw. He'd seen battlefields. Sort of. He'd seen battles happen and seen their distant aftermath. This, however, was merely the field, the battle moved on to other pastures. Everything was burned and destroyed. The earth was cut to pieces by horses hooves and thousands of tramping feet.

The scorch marks were deliberate. He remembered reading about scorch-and-burn warfare in schools. He hadn't realized what it looked like. He could make out the remains of fences. These had once been fields of crops. Now merely ash and mud, no good to anyone.

But that was nothing to the blood that soaked the fields. Yuuri made out the first body when his foot bumped into it. He heard himself scream with an odd detachment as his head spun. He vomited, or rather gagged. There seemed little in his stomach. Elf fare wasn't known to be particularly filling, but that seemed odd.

Actually, the whole thing was odd. Yuuri found that when he focused, particularly on the bodies he was beginning to see everywhere, they were… fuzzy. Sort of unreal. This world was horrible. Absolutely gruesome. But it felt like a dream. Not even a nightmare, but a construct, a shadow of something real. And after all, he couldn't really be here.

He'd just fainted on the floor of a valley with his friends. He wasn't really in a burnt out field surrounded by the dead. But even with the strange, dreamlike landscape that was hard to keep in mind. Logic told him one thing, but his mind was trying very, very hard to accept another, quite in spite of his will. It was like the unfeelable force that had kept him on the ground. He was being manipulated by something he couldn't even fathom.

But he'd deal with that later. Dream, premonition, vision… Who knew? Maybe it was some kind of test, maybe a disaster he could avert, a clue, an enchantment… Yuuri had no clear theories, but he couldn't act contrary to his nature. There was a fire. The damage had been done here, was making him want to cry and scream and maybe be sick again, but he couldn't change that. Maybe ahead, where the fires were still burning or beyond, he could change it.

Yuuri ran up the nearest hill, hoping for a view. He was appalled by what he saw. Two armies clashed. Or he guessed it was two. There were thousands of them, cavalry and foot soldiers, strange machines, blasts of maryoku everywhere.

He looked back over his shoulder for a moment. It wasn't just fire that had scarred the land. The earth was torn and scarred in unnatural ways, now that he looked with a more critical eye and with the full, horrid illumination of the blazes in front of him. There was a riverbed empty, its waters torn away, its banks caved in, bodies and broken debris filling the bottom. Perhaps they'd tried to flee the fires. Yuuri was glad now that everything was so dreamlike and out of focus. If he'd had to look clearly at such a ghastly scene, he'd have done worse than throw up. He already wanted to curl into a little ball and cry.

He wanted Wolfram and the others. He wanted a bright day, or at least stars in the sky, not this cloud of blazing ash. He wanted to run. He almost did, for all the heroism in his heart. What could he change?

But when he turned, he noted again how unreal everything was. If he tried to focus too closely on one of the corpses, even an upthrown rock from someone's earth maryoku or a burned cart, it would waver and he'd want to look away. The same part of his mind that kept trying to believe this whole awful world was real wanted to look away, anyhow.

Yuuri was stuck in a dream, and all he could do was try to change it. He turned back to the battlefield. He could make out the flag of Shin Makoku, which he expected. No one else would be using such magic. But the other side was throwing a lot of power, too, the nasty, fragile, unnatural esoteric spells that made Yuuri mildly uncomfortable and mad ethe likes of Wolfram and Gunter pass out.

He looked for flags amid the human side as well. Or what was mostly the human side. This was not a tightly controlled fight, and the sides surged at each other with little regard for order. Yuuri knew little of tactics despite his tutors' efforts, but he thought he could see the commanders struggling to retain some sort of order.

It took a while to pick the sigils of the human nations out of the fray. Many were half burned, swathed in smoke, spattered with blood. But he could see them. He saw them, indeed, with more clarity than the horrors over the hill.

Caloria. Cavalcade. Big and Small Cimaron. Fransia. So many. Allies to Yuuri or his direst enemies all united as a front, a seething mass of soldiery. Death and magic and hate clouded the air as much as the curling smoke. Yuuri fell to his knees and cried. For a moment, the part of his mind that believed won out.

It was very strange. In the moment he believed, Yuuri saw a whole history. The collapse of his relations with various allies. Lady Flynn's suspicious death had ruined his pact with her little country. The Cimarons united in desire to bring him down once the alliance began to crumble. Princess Beatrice had been held as a hostage for a time, but that hadn't been enough to hold off Cavalcade. Big Cimaron had finally toppled Fransia's government. A hundred little stories and disasters and accidents intruded on Yuuri's mind, explaining to him the fall of his perfect world, the end of the peace he'd built.

He'd begun to lose hope when Wolfram died. Who could keep their eyes eternally on heaven when heaven was lost forever, after all? Well, not lost. Stolen by an assassin who'd been a bit more careful. Killing that damn Candide had been small satisfaction. And then came Small Cimaron's sabotage of Shinou's weakened temple, setting magical traps that had ruined Ulrike's powers and driven Ken mad with the backlash. Yuuri blamed that for Gunter's desertion. He'd believed so much in the power of the temple and in Yuuri's infallibility. He'd been broken when all that came crashing down. And without him, history and magic in the castle had lost their greatest protectors. Giesela had remained at court, trying to fill in for her father, but she wasn't the scholar he was, wasn't the advisor. Her failure to replace him and her short, bitter marriage to Gwendal had left her almost as ruined as Gunter. And now they were both gone, snatched once more from their summer home, from cursed Fallonhold. Yuuri hoped for their sake they were dead. It was better for the dead than the captured. Lady Celi's awful fate was proof enough of that. Gwendal and Hube together had ridden away in the night to avenge her. Only one had returned, and Gwendal would never speak of what had happened. He almost never spoke anymore. The only ones who did were Anissina and Josak, who planned together most assaults, who tried their best to keep the endless human forces at bay, to protect the country while everything crumbled around them. Oh, they were near cracking. Yuuri knew it, saw it in both their eyes whenever he was near them. So he tried not to be, except when he received their work. It was well done, but futile. They just didn't have the forces, the resources, the power…

Yuuri tore himself free with a shrill, thin scream that was almost soundless though all his power had gone into it.

He shook his head so hard it hurt. For a moment he looked down at his hands and them stronger, broader, scarred. For just a moment he saw himself as the man this awful world had had him become, ugly, empty, and vengeful. He sniffed, brushing away the tears with the sleeve of his jacket, not an elaborate military uniform, and forced himself to stand tall.

It wasn't true. Not a word of it, not a moment, not a vision. But it was still awful. It was all in his mind, now, the deaths and ruin of everyone in Shin Makoku he held most dear, the loss of his love and the family he'd gained here, every single one of them lost or rendered and awful caricature.

It was like Yuuri's first impressions of them all had been stretched and mangled into awful extremes. Gunter's bitterness against the humans, Gwendal's distant, standoffish nature… Someone had reached into the depths of his mind and showed him what he was sure to hate and fear most. And he couldn't shake it. It all felt half real, and the horrid possibilities… Haunting. He wouldn't let any of it happen! Not ever!

But if he'd been hoping that resolution would banish his visions, he was entirely out of luck. He was still watching the battle. Yuuri realized he hadn't been told by that awful stream of lies what this nasty, twisted world would have made of Conrad. Strange. After Wolfram, maybe even with Wolfram, Yuuri would expect his mind to show him the fate of his beloved godfather.

As if in answer, he suddenly saw Conrad on the battlefield. And whoever was crafting this nightmare hadn't been remiss. He was thin and pale. A wreck, a shadow of himself. His swordwork, even Yuuri could see, was sloppy. His eyes were hollow. Yuuri didn't know how he could see all this. Conrad was riding all the way across the battlefield. But this did seem more dream than reality at the moment, and somehow his vision telescoped. As did his other senses. Yuuri caught a whiff of strong alcohol. A shadow of untended stubble covered his sallow cheeks. There were new scars. His body looked wasted. Even his horse was drooping.

No wonder. After losing his younger brother he'd been as devastated as Yuuri. The maou suspected he'd begun drinking in earnest then, and even Yosak couldn't help. And when Gwendal had withdrawn into himself as well, when Celi was dead and Stoffel close to it… He'd snapped like the rest of them. Even the Lion of Rutenburg had his limits, far beyond those of any other mazoku as they might be. He'd lost his love and his family. All he had to cling to was Yuuri. And Yuuri was disappearing too.

He shook his head. He most certainly was not disappearing! But then… how had he let this happen? Yuuri swallowed. He realized with a sickening start that he remembered executing Candide. And now came others, traitors, spies, war prisoners… It was as shady as the bodies on the road, but he knew he'd done it.

Whoever made this world thought Yuuri capable of cold-blooded (or was it hot-blooded) murder. And who was he to say he wasn't? Maybe this was the future he was seeing. Time yet to come would be as fuzzy and unstable as a dream, after all, wouldn't it?

He choked back a sob and shouted what he meant to be a no. He didn't quite manage the word. He wasn't that person. He would never be that person. Even if Wolfram was… No. He never could.

Then who was the man beside Conrad? Yuuri grudgingly, horribly recognized himself. Older, taller, hair long and wild, wielding a sword with far greater competence. The Maou entirely now, or a cold, twisted, evil thing that had been made of the Maou. There was power in the dark warlord's fingertips, power to tear through ranks of human soldiers, to raise horrid golems from the earth. There was death in his eyes, and no mercy anywhere in him.

Wolfram's ring shone on his hand, awfully incongruous beside dark, imposing armor.

God, those eyes. Yuuri wanted to turn and run. He turned, anyway. Now he could see Gwendal. Like Conrad, he was a shadow of himself, unhealthy and drawn. His characteristic scowl was no more. He didn't even seem like he could scowl. That'd be too much. There was no emotion, no soul left in him. He was a voice, commanding the soldiers above the fray, a sword reeving through enemy infantry, and nothing more.

And then a cart came over another hill, on the other side of the battle field from Yuuri's. It carried a box. No, a cage. His too-sharp vision gave him an immediate look inside. Giesela and Gunter. She stood, tall and proud and scowling, bruised and battered but refusing even to teeter, clinging to the bars of her cage to stay up. Her clothes were shredded—the imagination cringed even to think of what had happened to her. Gunter cowered in a corner. He was blindfolded, and creeping from under the cloth Yuuri saw awful scars. The vision immediately supplied the knowledge that he'd been blinded in a raid, that under that fragile scarf lay a sight too horrid to think about. The vision provided it anyway, and Yuuri reeled from the mere memory. The same assassin who'd killed his precious Wolfram had done it. With a hot poker.

A human rider was shouting terms of negotiation, referring to the hostages and their status in the proceedings. Yuuri heard himself speak, felt his mouth form the words.

"Take two of the best archers to the hill and put them out of their misery."

"Your Majesty?" Conrad's voice was a cracked croak.

"You heard me. I will not have this battle further jeopardized. I will not wager the fates of all for the sake of two. But in recognition of past services I want it done as quickly and painlessly as possible."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Yuuri felt himself begin to shake uncontrollably. No. No! It had to be some sort of ploy, a clever plan, something the Maou would use as a distraction. There would never be a bargain like that! He fell to his knees and had no compulsion to get back up. He tried to look away, but the dream wouldn't let him. He saw them die. On his… on his awful doppleganger's orders.

Conrad looked away with a hoarse sob. Even Gwendal, deadened shell of a man that he was, threw back his head with a savage roar of pain. But the Maou only looked on. Cold.

Yuuri screamed again, and this time he heard it properly. No! This was not a world he would permit to come about, and whatever was showing him this awful vision had overstepped its boundaries. For a moment he felt his real power stir, felt the awful hellscape around him crumble to dust.

He was sitting in a small room. The floor and ceiling were jet black and icy cold to the touch. It smelled of dust after the rain when a drought has been in effect too long and that little sprinkle of water doesn't begin to alleviate it. Of a pile of love letters left unopened in a drawer.

Yuuri blinked. He was still shaky and crying a bit. In front of him seemed to be a cracked mirror. It reflected his own face back, but very faintly he could make out the battle still going on behind it. He spun away, refusing to see any more of that heinous lie.

There were three other mirrors, each making up a wall of the room. He looked into the one to the right of what he could only call "his" mirror.

He saw his reflection, but much more clearly than in his own he could see events unfolding behind it. After he looked for a moment his face disappeared and it was almost like watching a TV. Wolfram sat alone at the table Yuuri recognized as the one used for conferences with the Ten Aristocrats and the Maou.

He looked older. His hair was longer and straight, tied back. Yuuri smiled to see it was tied with a black ribbon, the sort of little touch he understood belonged only to the maou's consort. But why did he look so sad? His eyes were twin pools of absolute pain. He was pale and too thin, the way he'd been right after the assassination attempt.

After Yuuri had watched him, concerned and confused, for a moment, others entered the room. He recognized them all, at least faintly, all the Ten Aristocrats. Gwendal sat beside Wolfram, but neither spoke or really seemed to acknowledge each other at all. Gwendal seemed much as he always had. Yuuri supposed this wasn't flung so far into the future as his own awful vision.

He was a little jealous, really. He'd had to watch the world disintegrate, the end of his dreams and his friends, and Wolfram… Well, what was Wolfram seeing? He was clearly unhappy and detached…

Gunter sat across from them. He hadn't changed a bit, didn't seem at all unhappy. In fact, he was smiling more broadly than Yuuri often saw. Curiouser and curiouser.

Wait. Gunter was wearing a black-beaded bracelet.

Yuuri had only a split second to puzzle over the meaning of that when he saw himself enter the room. A bit older, taller and a bit broader in the shoulders. Yuuri wasn't surprised to see himself looking rather handsome and refined in any vision of Wolfram's, but he was still just a little flattered. It wasn't a way he could really think of himself. But he had more important things to think about than that. Yuuri shook his head.

Behind the maou in the mirror followed a pretty girl. No one Yuuri knew. She didn't even look like a real person. She echoed Naomi, Elizabeth, Lady Flynn… he saw strange, fleeting hints of many of the pretty and friendly women he knew in her, but she was no one special. And she also was wearing a little black token, a comb in her hair. As was a second girl who stuck her head in behind her. This one was brunette instead of blonde, but also had a strange, unearthly quality of being possibly just about anyone. They were young and pretty and smiling. Yuuri saw himself bow to one, kiss the other's hand, and there was anything but innocence in either gesture.

And then as he passed he took Gunter's hand for a moment with a sickmaking, simpering smile. Yuuri's eyes widened as he watched himself slide into place beside Wolfram without so much as a glance. The last few aristocrats appeared, among them Wolfram's father.

Yuuri watched the meeting unfold with increasing horror. Oh, perhaps Wolfram wasn't seeing the end of the world, but it was certainly the end of any joy he could take from life. Yuuri couldn't hear much. Occasionally he caught a word, but most he was limited to what he saw. Wolfram sat in almost perfect silence, never raising his eyes unless called upon. When, rarely, someone called attention to him, Yuuri winced to see the performance. He spoke to the table. Not even Gwendal paid him any mind, and before he'd said more than a few words someone would generally jump in and start talking again. Every eye that fell on him fell with disdain.

Yuuri tore himself away miserably. He wouldn't watch anymore. It wasn't fair or just. He'd never do that to Wolfram! But… well, was it part of the road to what he'd become in his own vision? Rejecting Wolfram before he'd been murdered, making his betrayal all the worse? Were they seeing the future? He didn't want to believe it. He stole a quick glance back.

Gwendal smirked mockingly at the moment he looked. As when he'd seen nothing in his own eyes when Giesela and Gunter died, Yuuri saw in that gesture proof that they were seeing lies. Whatever was doing this to them was taking whatever they most feared and hated and going overboard. One step too far and the horror became a farce. Yuuri would never be able to watch his friends die without batting an eyelash and Gwendal would never be cruel to his littlest brother. It was ugly and unjust, but it wasn't true.

Yuuri turned to another mirror. As with Wolfram's it took a moment to see through the reflection to what was inside. Funny, he always knew whose mirror he was looking at. Wolfram had been the only one in the room when Yuuri had looked (he hoped he'd never find out what might have happened before), so that wasn't so hard to figure out, but there was quite a crowd in Conrad's mirror. Yuuri still knew it was his, though. The feel was somehow unmistakable.

For a moment he thought he was looking at Svelera. It was mostly the same. A horrid, dirty, unsafe mining camp with poor souls toiling in the hot sun. There were overseers with whips and leers. There was a blast of wind as Yuuri watched that blew sand hard at all the workers. A lot fell over, probably wore to avoid the stinging grains of sand than from the force. They stood up gasping.

The first one Yuuri recognized was Josak. He looked sunburned and sour. Yuuri knew already that there was something truly awful about an angry expression on Josak's cheerful face. He felt the full force of it now. There are anger there, and sorrow and helplessness, all he'd seen the night Mael got what was coming to him. And it was even deeper. Yuuri felt a distinct hopelessness of his own.

Defeat. That was what he saw in Josak, and when that man was defeated, what hope could there be for anyone else?

Conrad stood beside him. His arm was in a sling, but he'd still clearly been working all day. Josak didn't help to steady him the way Yuuri knew he would have. There again he found his proof that he was seeing pure fantasy and dreadful lies. He supposed one could conquer Josak, but one couldn't keep him from helping Conrad with something so small.

Slowly, Yuuri began to recognize a few other workers. One was very small, a little girl with big brown eyes and brown hair, with a strangely familiar frown. He realized with a jolt he was looking at Elle. He knew many of them. Humans or half humans from the city, from around the country. Most of them were young or rather weak looking, the strong or the older ones mostly sacrificed at Rutenburg.

He wondered what had become of Chai. Then he noticed a little graveyard, the same as the one in Svelera, and swallowed. Oh.

And the overseers were all Mazoku. Yuuri sighed and stopped looking. He'd seen all he needed to. So in Conrad's worst nightmares, he and his kind and even their human brethren were reviled just as they were in human lands. That was all Yuuri needed to know. Something else he could vow would never happen. Something he wouldn't allow. He wouldn't watch their suffering anymore.

The last mirror took a while to see into. Maybe because he was closer to Wolfram and Conrad. But once he'd gazed past his reflection, he was horrified by what he saw.

It seemed that Gunter's utmost misery came about pretty much the same way Yuuri's did. He saw a massacre, burns and scars on the land. But it wasn't in some anonymous valley. It was Covenant Castle. Yuuri knew every face he saw on the dead. Oh, and they were real.

Actually, in none of the other's visions had he seen the shakiness, the wavering unreality he'd seen in his own. Every one of their nightmares was crystal clear and perfectly realized. How much the worse for them.

And at the moment, the worse for Yuuri. At least the gore of his awful vision had been out of focus and dreamlike. For Gunter it was real, and Yuuri shuddered and bit his lip just looking. Telling himself it wasn't real didn't help much. He had too weak a stomach for really gory movies on TV, and when the victims were friends of his, it really turned his stomach. He gagged again, glad his stomach was empty.

Gunter's subconscious apparently wasn't one for half measures. Essentially everyone was dead. Dakaskos, Greta, Sangria, Wolfram, Raven… He didn't see a corpse he couldn't name, and for a long time he didn't see anyone who wasn't a corpse already. But Gunter had to be there somewhere, didn't he?

Ah. Yuuri winced when he spotted Gunter, in chains with a few others, apparently captives of nearly faceless humans. They were so generic they put the girls of Wolfram's dream to shame, all the same bland, snarling, violent monsters, mocking and violent, killers of the worst kind.

Perhaps remembered from childhood horrors of his home being attacked, or that was Yuuri's best bet. But there was more here than the deaths of all his friends, Yuuri realized suddenly.

The castle was burning. The heart and center of Shin Makoku, its treasurehouse, its history, its safety, its wisdom… Gunter wasn't modest in his fears, was he? Everything was obliterated. Yuuri shivered to see the awful, fragile corpses of Giesela and Arianwyn. They'd been mutilated and he gagged again.

And he saw himself. It was almost a relief. One of the worst things about Conrad's dream was that Yuuri had been nowhere. Had he let it happen? Made it happen? He had no way of knowing what awful history the vision had planted in Conrad's mind.

Yuuri was thrown into the line with Gunter. He was rather the worse for wear, but not too badly injured. But Yuuri could guess from the looks of the human soldiers that he was due for some serious torture that Gunter would have to watch.

He turned away from that as well, but there was nowhere safe to turn. Every wall was a mirror, and even his own still held faint echoes of horrors. And he couldn't just hide. He had to save them. To his friends, he realized, it was all real. Every bit of it. That was why it was so sharp! Something, probably just being the Maou, as usual, had let Yuuri stay out of it, while the others were believing and participating fully.

"I won't let it happen!" He suddenly shouted. "I won't let any of it happen! No one will hurt any of you like that!" Yuuri covered his mouth and bit back more tears. This was so frustrating. Tired of just shouting, he wrapped his hand in his coat to punch the glass. His own mirror had broken when he escaped. Maybe it would let them out, too.

No such luck. It didn't even hurt, and the mirrors showed no effect. His hand just bounced back. He pounded until he lost a little of the restless energy that had been driving him. He wasn't tired from the exertion and his hand didn't hurt. The more he saw f this place the less real it became.

Having lost hope for the mirrors, he tried the floor, but it was even less responsive. He couldn't reach the ceiling. He jumped. He even tried wedging himself into a corner and squirming his way up, but there was no traction at all and he just fell.

Yuuri screamed with frustration, refusing to look at the miseries being wrought on his companions. He curled up and stared at the floor. He'd halfway escaped, but he was no good to any of them. He might as well return to his mirror and take his punishment, watch more carnage unfold.

He closed his eyes and laid on the cold floor. It felt like hours. Occasionally he heard a cry or a crash from one of the other mirrors and tried to shut them out. He couldn't help. The Maou was either powerless or locked away, and would lend him no power.

Then, suddenly, he heard the whistled of cold wind and felt wet snow on his cheek again. Yuuri's eyes snapped open. He couldn't see much. It was dark. But he could make out two tall, cloaked figures in the dim world around him and jumped to his feet.

"Well, we know you're alright, I guess." It was Alapai. "I'm sorry I left you. I'm not strong enough to carry any of you out, and you were all unconscious. Male elves are pretty brittle. I covered you up the best I could!"

Yuuri tried to calm down. He was shaky and sick and felt all the fatigue that comes of a really good cry. He nodded. "How long?"

"Oh, twenty minutes or so? I wasn't even halfway back before I ran into Gwendal."

Yuuri started and turned. It was Gwendal indeed, swathed in a dark green cloak and looking severe. He was also carrying what appeared to be a bright pink cylinder with a paper flower poking out of one end and a dangling string with a glowing end on the other. Anissina's, Yuuri knew instinctively.

As he leaned over Wolfram, the blond sat up with a whimper. Gwendal hugged him for a moment that Yuuri was sort of embarrassed to witness and helped him stand. He looked even worse than Yuuri.

Wolfram immediately looked for his fiancé. Yuuri's heart broke to see the look in his eyes. Without regard for their audience, Yuuri ran to Wolfram and kissed him, hugging him close. Wolfram clutched Yuuri to him and his shaking gradually ceased. In the meantime, Gwendal got Conrad on his feet. He shook his head and appeared to be alright, but Yuuri sensed he was far from it.

"We better get them out of the valley. We don't know how long that thing will last, and even I'm feeling pretty terrible." Alapai nodded to Gwendal and then to the steep slope out of the valley.

Gwendal's eyes narrowed, and through his scarf came the muffled words, "Where's Gunter?"

"Oh. He… he was that way. But I remember he… I don't know. But he was that way." Yuuri wished he could be more helpful. He pointed and sighed. Gwendal was so together and intense. He'd somehow known to find them, known to bring… whatever strange Anissina thingy it was that had freed them from that dream trap. And Yuuri was just being hopeless. Again.

"I'll find him." Gwendal took the pink thing's strap from around his neck and handed to it Conrad. "Take them out."

"I'm sure it will hit you, too." Conrad took the contraption, though.

"Maybe I'll find him first."

"I'll stay with him," Alapai volunteered.

Conrad seemed satisfied with that, though Yuuri couldn't fathom why he would be. He didn't feel up to arguing, though, and felt Wolfram needed his support. He looked so lost and his eyes were heartrending. Yuuri hooked his arm in Wolfram's until they reached the wall. Conrad climbed between them, and they all instinctively kept close to that Anissina contraption.

Once they were out of the valley, mere proximity to it felt warm and comforting. Down there, Yuuri figured, all it could do was cancel out the worst of the misery.

"I'd better go down and help. You two stay up here." He didn't tell Wolfram to watch Yuuri, as he normally would have. Conrad had apparently noticed which of them needed taking care of more at the moment. But before he got back through the cracked boulder, Gwendal pulled himself up out of the valley with a mostly unconscious Gunter clinging to him, riding piggy-back. Conrad immediately rushed over with the machine. Gunter's expression relaxed a little, from horror to mere nothingness, but he didn't wake up. In fact, he seemed to slide off Gwendal's back, and if the man hadn't spun around with an agility that surprised Yuuri, Gunter probably would have landed in the snow.

"What happened?" Yuuri couldn't believe he'd managed to miss Gunter. That they'd left it so long to help him when he'd already been sick.

"He must have just bolted when whatever happened started happening. He fell in a snowbank." Alapai hopped nimbly out through the rock. "So he'd a bit frozen. More than a bit. We better get him and the rest of you back fast, or you might all be in real trouble." The elf frowned.

Yuuri realized they all must look much the worse for wear, and he could barely believe what had happened himself. And he knew they should be reacting more. Every one of them, he could tell, was downright numb. Wolfram still looked shell-shocked, Conrad dull, and Yuuri… Well, he didn't even know what he was feeling. But it left him not much better able to react or understand than the others. Still. He'd known what was happening, or at least that it was happening. They hadn't.

He slid his arm around Wolfram's waist and held him tight. It was all he could do during the hurried, silent walk back to the tunnels. Gwendal carried Gunter the whole way and looked annoyed at all of them.

Once they'd returned to the elfish castle and been served hot drinks of questionable content, Yuuri felt himself begin to relax a little. He didn't relax his grip on Wolfram, though.

Alapai decided against splitting them up and had brought them to a room with four beds. It was small and plain, pretty clearly meant for servants, but Yuuri at least was grateful he could be near the others.

They spread out. Wolfram and Yuuri sat together on one bed. Gwendal carried Gunter to another. Conrad sat across from Yuuri and Alapai took the remaining bed. He looked awfully sheepish.

Conrad spoke first. "So what happened down there?"

"I'm afraid I don't know." Alapai sighed. "Or not exactly. It certainly effects you differently than it would an elf. I've heard about some elves who go in that valley losing their minds, but what happened to you… Well, I guess whatever effects us effects you much more."

"The rest of you passed out after I did," Yuuri volunteered. He figured they'd be used to him doing things like that by now. "But… It didn't do any good. I couldn't even stand back up." He thought of something. "How did Gunter run if I couldn't even stand up?"

"I guess he really is part elf. It must have taken longer to hit him." Alapai shrugged. Conrad and Wolfram both looked a bit annoyed. Yuuri was confused until he realized that the aristocrats of Shin Makoku kept very intricate genealogies. If Gunter was part elf and didn't know it, the only explanation was an indiscretion on the part of someone with considerable dignity. Yuuri reminded himself not to bring it up.

"That doesn't tell us what did happen, though." Wolfram's voice wasn't as firm as usual, but he sounded at least faintly like himself. "It was… it was like having the worst nightmare of my life. But everything seemed real. Every moment of it."

Yuuri hugged him. Conrad nodded solemnly. "I forgot where I was. It wasn't a dream. It was living in some… horrible future. Though I'd forgotten all about the valley and the plants."

"Me, too." Wolfram sighed and covered his face in his hands. Yuuri stroked his hair and he didn't even make a gesture of throwing him off. He needed the affection.

"Not me." Now Yuuri felt even worse. He'd escaped the worst of it. Imagine how much more terrible that would have been if he'd believed it? Come to think, he hadn't seen a current version of Conrad or Wolfram watching the proceedings inside. Had they been living their respective hells? Stuck inside those lies of their future selves? He hugged Wolfram tighter.

They looked at him in confusion, and Yuuri supposed he had to explain. He didn't want to explain too much, though. He didn't want them knowing he'd seen deeply into each of their worst fears. Frankly, Yuuri wouldn't want someone knowing it about him. What frightened him most wasn't being trapped but that somehow, something had looked into his head and heart and found his worst fears to show him. He knew already it wasn't impossible, but the thing capable of doing it was supposed to be gone.

Well, they'd found that evil power Ken had been talking about, anyway.

"I… I knew it wasn't real. It kept falling apart at the edges, and I was outside myself, just watching. It was still terrible. And part of me did believe."

"Lucky you," Wolfram said. There was no bitterness. He just sounded really tired. Yuuri wanted to comfort him, to promise never to treat him like that awful dream-Yuuri, but that would mean revealing what he'd seen.

"I sort of… escaped the vision. But I couldn't wake up until Gwendal and Alapai got there, anyway." He shrugged a bit helplessly. It wasn't fair that he'd missed out on the worst misery. "I guess Ken and Ulrike will have to try and figure out what happened."

"I suppose. Gunter would be more qualified than the rest of us." Conrad shot a glance at him. Gwendal had covered him in three blankets and let his hair fall over the side of the bed to dry. He looked angelic, but also a bit corpselike. Yuuri could head a slight rattle to his breathing from across the room. He grimaced.

"Gwendal, what is that?" Wolfram asked suddenly. Yuuri was glad he had. He'd been meaning to bring it up himself.

Conrad smiled. A ghostly smile, but a real one. "I believe that's Mr. Cheers You Up."

Gwendal coughed and left off feeding healing energy into Gunter. It was good of him to do. He had to be tired from his trip, and the rest of them were a bit too shaken to be a lot of use. "Anissina left it at my house years ago. I'd merely meant to bring it back to her."

"What's it supposed to do?" Yuuri couldn't imagine she'd created an anti-Tears of El contraption.

"It, ahem." Conrad paused to really smile. "Is the solution for any Gwendal-type gloom encountered when inappropriate."

"Huh?"

"She used it to try to make Gwendal more enthusiastic about things. Never worked very well, though." Wolfram sat up a bit and smiled himself. "I remember now. …Did she leave it in your castle or did you hide it?"

Gwendal sniffed derisively. He did not deign to answer.

"Well, it's a lucky thing. It always did work on everyone else a bit better than you." Conrad smiled and hit a small, red button. "We might need it again soon, so let's not waste the maryoku." Gwendal nodded, but he seemed to Yuuri to be in a very odd mood. They let him alone.

Yuuri snuggled against Wolfram. There seemed not much point left to keeping their affection hidden. There wasn't much else to say. None of them knew how to understand what had happened. They just needed some time and comfort.

The door opened a crack. "Um, hi, everyone." Maddox's voice slipped in. He opened the door the rest of the way. "Well, if I'd known you'd be having such adventures without me…" He laughed weakly.

"Where were you?" snapped Wolfram.

"Um, well, you guys didn't wake me to come with…" He shrugged sheepishly. "I'm not psychic."

"If you'd been paying any attention you'd have at least known to ask. We all could have died!" Wolfram's fuse was even shorter than usual. Yuuri didn't blame him.

"Well, I'd have been very sorry if you had. But I bet I wouldn't have helped much either. So… there." Maddox rolled his eyes and left. Wolfram glared at him suspiciously. Yuuri couldn't manage any suspicion of his own. Certainly Maddox couldn't have orchestrated that mess… Could he?

He sighed and leaned against Wolfram once more. They snuggled a bit, and exhaustion caught up with them once more. They'd been out in the cold much too long, immobile, and their bodies were suffering. Yuuri stretched out to sleep and Wolfram curled up beside him. He heard the others settle in and Alapai leave the room.

Yuuri woke a while later. He had been having nightmares. Hardly a surprise. But normal nightmares, so it was no great worry.

There was a lamp lit. Or what passed for a lamp, one of those cold, glowing orbs. He looked over blearily, wondering if something was going on.

Gunter looked even sicker, though that was probably the harsh light. Gwendal was sitting on the bed beside him, holding his head up a little, tipping a cup of the elves' tea into his mouth. Still looking after him. Gwendal was a good friend in spite of his gruff attitude. Yuuri smiled and almost closed his eyes to go back to sleep.

Then something caught his attention. That smile. He'd seen Gwendal smile a bit like Conrad before, been astounded at the resemblance the two could have under the right circumstances. But he'd never thought he'd see Gwendal looking… like Wolfram.

That soft expression, the gentle smile, the doe-like, shimmering, adoring eyes, the love and devotion that filled the very air around him. Yuuri treasured the rare moments when Wolfram was really like that, when the two of them could be lost together in a world of their own making. And now… Those same eyes shone down at Gunter.

Gwendal loved him.

Yuuri couldn't suppress a little gasp. Gwendal's head abruptly twisted toward him so fast Yuuri heard his neck pop a little. The soft, unconditional love vanished in an instant, and all he saw was anger. Yuuri quickly buried his face in the pillow, but he was pretty sure he'd been spotted.

He lay unnaturally still for a long moment. Through his tightly closed eyelids he still saw the light go out, heard the near-silent padding of Gwendal trying to tiptoe. He tried hard, but he just stepped heavily. There was darkness and silence and soon he calmed down.

Yuuri could see why Gwendal would be angry. What a private moment. But… what a sad moment as well. Why didn't Gunter know? Because he certainly didn't. Why not tell him? What a beautiful truth and a painful lie! Yuuri had seen all he'd needed to in a few moments there. Gwendal adored Gunter.

Why would love like that be hidden? Maybe Wolfram's rather unusual openness about his feelings biased Yuuri, but loving someone like that and not sharing it… Yuuri had a feeling he knew what Gwendal's hellish dream would have been if he'd had one. And it probably wouldn't be too different from right now.

Author's Note: Alright, this chapter here was an angstcake with angst filling and angsting on top. Sorry if it was grating on anyone. It wasn't really supposed to be fun times, though. And it was kinda cute at the end there, right? If a little bittersweet. It'll be less hellish next time. This was also longer in coming than I wanted it to be. As you might imagine, this was pretty tricky to write, though I ended up doing most of it in one sitting once I figured out how to approach it.

I'm aware it's kinda like what happened in that one OVA episode with the machine that showed the least desirable future for lovers. I had the idea before the OVA came out. And my take is surely darker and more serious, if nothing else. So… cope with it, I guess.