Disclaimer:  Standard disclaimers apply, go me for finishing something. =)
Rated: PG-13  Email: inspiredthoughts@hotmail.com  Site: http://www.geocities.com/keitree
    Names:
Serena: Serenais
Lita: Leinta
Mina: Minka
Rei: Rhi
Ami: Aimes

Darien: Darius
Kunzite: Kunzath
Zoicite: Zaite
Nephrite: Nepran
Jadite: Jadreth	
				
			~*~ Nightmares Chapter 2 ~*~


	Jadreth stepped off the plank of his boat and onto the dock of 
Ocean's Love.  He wanted to scream his warning to the people waiting 
to meet him but he refrained.  That wasn't how things were done at Ocean's 
Love, even if the doom of the entire world was gathering strength just 
out of sight of the horizon, where he and his ship had finally out run 
it days ago.  
	He smiled politely at the man who clasped his arm in a traditional 
show of friendship; Jadreth bowed and allowed a real smile to cloud 
the fear that had temporarily gripped his mind as he kissed the 
woman's hand.  Her skin, smooth despite years of hard work, pale 
despite days in the sun, flushed under his lips.  He straightened and 
greeted them both with words.
	"Mayor Brumer, Lady Aimes..."  Aimes withdrew her hand and refused to 
let her gaze meet his squarely.  Jadreth's smile grew despite himself.  
	"Captain Jadreth," Brumer echoed in a friendly fashion. 
	Aimes's faintly said "Captain," followed it.   After another 
moment she raised cerulean to his cobalt and sighed.
	"Lady is a name for nobles Captain, not peasants."  He raised 
platinum brows and shrugged, hard, fierce.  
	"Lady is a title of honor and if I wish to grant it to you, 
then so be it.  I owe you my life, twice over, and the lives of my men 
as well.  Life debts are not easily repaid, especially when the 
heroine never requests, or asks for, my aide."  She flushed again and 
Jadreth's smile grew to a smirk.  
	Aimes was close to his heart, or as close as he allowed 
anyone.  Ocean's Love was an ideal trade stop for ships from half of 
the known world.  They dropped anchor here for many things, to find 
exotic items that the clever people of Ocean's Love bought at low 
prices from down on luck sailors.  They also came when trouble hit and 
they needed supplies, fresh water, vegetables, or salted and easy to 
store food.  The island was a bare, stubbornly obstinate sort of place 
but it was well off enough.  Another commodity Ocean's Love traded in 
was healing services.  
	Aimes was not a skilled healer, not like those who attended 
princes and Kings, but she had a solid basic training and she would 
heal anyone, pirate or rich merchant, and that was invaluable when 
injury and sickness hit at sea.  Many sailors died from lack of the 
basic healing knowledge that Aimes possessed.  She never demanded or 
asked for payment from her patients but Jadreth had seen her cottage, 
had seen some of the treasures grateful men had left their savior, and 
her island.  
	Most of the women of Ocean's Love disappeared when a ship sunk 
anchor at their docks.  Some stayed inside their homes, others went 
and combed the beaches at the deserted end of the island, for 
driftwood and crabs and clams.  It was easier, safer that way.  Ships 
and men from all countries, and classes, paused here in their journeys 
and it was usually best for all involved if women simply made 
themselves unavailable for the sea crazed men.  
	Aimes of course was the exception.  No one ever dared to lay a 
hand on her, or to speak out against her.  One for fear of retaliation 
from the townspeople of Ocean's Love, two for the retaliation from 
their fellows, three from fear of retaliation from him.  Jadreth was 
not famous, not by any stretch of imagination, but he was notorious to 
a certain extent, as an adventurer, as a skilled seaman, as an 
infallibly lucky captain.  His peers respected him, or at least feared 
him, to an extent, and he had made sure that it was well known to no 
certain extent that the young healing woman on Ocean's Love was under 
his explicit protection.  Not that Aimes needed it.  Not that she 
asked him for it.  But because, damn it, he owed her his life.
	Twice his men had brought him to this rocky, inhospitable 
place, so close to death not even one of those fancy royal healers 
could have saved him, and twice, twice Aimes had brought him back from 
that brink of the dark, eternal unknown.  Had nursed him back to 
health with those pale sure hands of hers and had held a cup of 
lukewarm water to parched lips and convinced him that life was worth 
the fight.  Had healed him with softly sung lullabies of the sea, had 
tempted him with thoughts of fame and treasure and the waiting arms of 
the gray rolling waves.
	She had done the same for hundreds of others, that Jadreth 
knew.  But what mattered was that she had done it for him, and that 
she would do the same for any of his men.  She was beautiful, in a 
fragile way that was striking, but it wasn't the beauty of her body 
that endeared her to him, it was the beauty of her soul.  A tender 
beauty that could so easily be destroyed by the tide of unending 
darkness streaming towards them.  Jadreth straightened and the two 
before him, sensing his change in moods, tensed.
	"This is not a scheduled stop Captain."  Jadreth looked away 
from Aimes's unasked question before nodding sharply.
	"No...  I... I come so that you may give warnings to those who 
might stop what... What I've seen.  What's coming."  He didn't speak 
the name, not yet, and Mayor Brumer waited expectantly for him to 
finish but Aimes... Aimes paled horribly and swayed, sapphire eyes 
wide.  Her perfect lips formed a silent 'o' of horror and Brumer 
actually lent her a steadying arm as he watched his healer with 
alarm.
	"Aimes?  Aimes, what's wrong..."  Jadreth stepped forward and 
took her unresisting form from Brumer, held her slender frame up with 
strong arms and stared her in the face.
	"Aimes," he said in a severe, stern voice, "Aimes... do you 
know what's coming?"  She cringed and a sigh was torn from unwilling 
lips, followed by a single word.
	"Darkness."  She breathed it and Jadreth shivered at the 
intensity, at the multi meaning layers implied in that one simple 
word.  Grimly now Jadreth echoed her sigh, and responded to her.
	"The Sleeping Ones."  Brumer swallowed audibly but Jadreth and 
Aimes were beyond him now.  Jadreth shook the girl slightly and she 
allowed it, shock by the realization that had just been pulled from 
her.
	"How did you know?" Jadreth demanded roughly, but not 
unkindly.  She turned slightly panicked round eyes on him, drowned him 
in waves of azure, and through suddenly present tears answered, voice 
troubled, trembling, face more so.
	"I... I don't know."
	
	"The messenger birds are over here," she said as she led him 
through the small village of Ocean's Love.  "We keep them in old 
Samson's house.  His son didn't want it when he died.  Nelsoe moved 
inland.  Wanted to become a farmer.  Most of us were glad Samson 
didn't live to see it happen.  It would have broken his heart.  He 
loved Ocean's Love almost as much as he loved Dorla; Nelsoe deserting 
it would have killed him."  Jadreth said nothing in response to her 
but padded silently behind, watching her with grave cobalt eyes.  He 
waited until she opened the door to the cottage, until she stood in 
the doorway, to move forward swiftly.
	Jadreth blocked Aimes in the doorway, arms to either side of 
her.  She looked at him, face serene, but he had seen her, known her 
long enough, to see the slight tremble in the stern lift of her chin, 
the weak fear that flashed in too solemn eyes.  She was not afraid of 
him though.  She knew him infinitely better than he could ever hope to 
know her, *that* Jadreth had always known and accepted.  She knew she 
had nothing to fear from him, but from the brooding horror of the 
Sleeping Ones who lingered just beyond sight of Ocean's Love still?  
	"How did you know Aimes?"  There was that fear again, that 
brief moment of vulnerability on her normally impenetrable face.  Fear 
and a flash of something else, of someone that wasn't entirely the 
girl who had saved him from the clutches of certain death.  Jadreth 
reached up and cupped one flushed cheek with roughened hands.  There 
was nothing but concern in his touch, concern and inquisitiveness, no 
deeper affection, no traces of lust.  Not that Aimes wasn't 
beautiful.  Not that Jadreth hadn't idly wondered what he would say if 
she had ever asked him to be hers, for a night, for a year, when the 
world ended.  Perhaps it was ending.  He shuddered and swallowed 
heavily, dropping his hand.
	"How?" he demanded.  She said nothing in the face of his 
roughness and, angered beyond reason; he slammed one fist into the 
door's frame, next to her now too pale face.
	"Aimes... I saw death, as it was never meant to be... I saw 
evil... I saw darkness... I saw the Sleeping Ones.  I saw them laugh 
as my ship out raced them, I saw...  How Aimes?  How could you 
possibly have known what's sitting there, on the horizon, blotting 
out the sun?  I know there's something you're not telling me."
	"What of it?" she demanded herself, fiercely, breathlessly.  
"I don't answer because I don't understand Captain.  It was as if the 
knowledge was buried deep within my traitorous breast and the moment I
saw the words forming on your lips I knew, and had always known, what 
you were going to say.  That the accursed Sleeping Ones would rise 
again.  That they had risen.  That they were coming again, now, for 
revenge, for triumph.  I can't explain it damn it!  I... I'm not sure 
I want to.  
	"All I know is that they're heading towards Roshanna and 
Bleserd and that it is my duty, your duty, our duty, to warn them, 
before its too late."  Jadreth, shamed, stepped aside and let the 
angry girl slip past him, into the cottage that served as a messenger 
pigeon house.  Aimes took down a slim scrap of paper and printed two 
identical messages in a neat precise hand.  Jadreth read the one 
message as Aimes took two cooing birds from a cage.
	'The Sleeping Ones are coming, for we have seen them.  
Prepare.'  Jadreth looked up as Aimes took the messages from him and 
attached them to the birds' feet.
	"That's all you're going to say?" he asked, incredulous.  
Aimes laughed harshly and he followed her back outside, into weak 
sunlight, where she released both white birds in one swift movement.  
She looked at him, with that somber, beautiful gaze of hers, and 
replied simply to his question.
	"What more is to be said Captain?  What more is to be done?  
The only ones who ever stood against the Sleeping Ones successfully 
were the Five and they are..."
	"Centuries dead," Jadreth whispered as he sagged into 
himself.  "What can we do?" he wailed, feeling panic overcome him with 
the memories of the black wave, the dark nightmares he had seen.  
Aimes stepped forward and put one small hand on a broad shoulder.
	"The only thing we can," she said softly.  Jadreth look at her
with frightened eyes, eyes dark with emotion.
	"Pray?" he whispered bitterly.  Aimes snorted.
	"No Captain, get your ship secured and your men settled for 
the night.  I doubt you want to be sailing anywhere anytime soon.  
After that we'll think about praying.  Come along."  Jadreth allowed 
an unwilling smile to flit across his features and he stood 
straighter, taller, before looping one gentlemanly arm through 
Aimes's.  
	"Yes healer," he replied obediently.  Aimes flushed despite 
herself and Jadreth's grin grew.
	
	His men slept in various cottages that night.  Ocean's Love 
hosted no inn, only a small tavern.  The people were very 
accommodating, and Jadreth made sure to imprint quite firmly upon his 
men's minds that if they even so much as blinked at a woman, no matter 
what she promised, he would have their heads on sticks.  They believed 
him, though many were too shaken by their brush with  their almost 
terrible death that many wouldn't have visited a brothel had Jadreth 
opened his coffers and bought the place out for the night.
	He slept at Aimes's cottage, on the floor, on blankets she had 
wearily provided.  None of the villagers had protested.  They all knew 
the lengths Jadreth had gone through to try to even the debt between 
them.  And besides, the times he had awoken, sick near death, he had 
spent weeks on the road to recovery in her house, with her by his 
side.  Then he had slept in the room next to her own, on the only 
other bed in the house, one reserved strictly for patients.  Jadreth 
hadn't asked for it, hadn't expected it, and didn't quite trust 
himself enough to sleep, fully well and able bodied, in the room next 
to Aimes.
	The next morning there was a reply by way of two messenger 
birds, one from Bleserd, one from Roshanna.  Bleserd thanked them, in 
a scrawl that couldn't hide the writer's terror, and Roshanna's...  It 
read simply 'The King is dead.'  Jadreth paled as he read it, and the 
note dropped to the ground from numb fingers.  Aimes touched his arm 
and he looked at her, unseeing.
	"How... How could Darius know that I was here?"  Aimes laughed,
bitter, before replying.
	"Who else could see the Sleeping Ones and live?"
	"But Trennan..."
	"Was a good man, but he won't be the first to die if the 
Sleeping Ones aren't defeated again.  If Prince Darius is by himself 
he needs you.  You're his cousin.  You're a Prince."  Angered suddenly 
by her words Jadreth grabbed and shook the slight woman before her, until 
aqua hair tumbled down and obscured too serene sapphire eyes.
	"*Was* a prince, Lady.  I gave that title up years ago."  Aimes 
sighed and touched Jadreth's cheek with the back of her cool palm in 
sympathy, without rancor for his moodiness.  She ignored his sudden 
tears and Jadreth was grateful.  Trennan had been Jadreth's only father...
	"You gave it up but that doesn't change the fact that it's a 
part of you.  Prince Darius is a child; you and I both know that.  
Darius is a child and you are a King."  Jadreth chuckled darkly.
	"I am no King."  Aimes stepped away from him and titled her 
head, studying the strong man before her before laughing softly, 
darkly in return.
	"Fine then, you are no more King than I am Lady."  Jadreth 
raised a sorrowful head and met her quiet gaze.
	"He... He needs me Aimes, and I can't say no but..."  He 
turned and looked away from the ocean and towards the not quite 
visible land, shivering.  He turned back to her.
	"I can't...  I live for the sea Aimes.  I can't abandon her 
and my men now, when I've seen the darkness coming."
	"But you can't abandon your people either Captain."  He turned 
on her; more furious than before, fists clenched at his sides.
	"They're not my people! Not anymore!"  Aimes laughed again 
and touched one fist with soft fingers, until he unclenched it.
	"One thing I've learned Captain," she said in mocking cool 
tones as she stroked the palm of his trembling hand, "is that once 
you've shouldered the burdens of responsibility then you can never 
totally be free of them.  Go, find your cousin, help him, he needs you 
Captain."  She paused and dropped his hand, face suddenly more somber 
than he had ever seen it.
	"I..." It was Aimes's turn to look away as she sighed from the 
depths of her complex soul.  "I think I will accompany you."
	"Why, may I ask?"  She shrugged and her face twisted from 
pained to slightly confused, confounded.
	"I... I don't quite know.  It just... it just feels like I 
should."  Jadreth bowed and brought her hands to his lips, relieved 
despite the prospect of being trapped on land, in the trappings of 
royalty.
	"Lady," he murmured quietly by way of response. 
	
	Frouth smiled ferally as he overlooked the boiling ocean below 
him.  Roshanna and Bleserd weren't visible, not yet, but they would be 
soon, so soon that he could almost taste the victory waiting for them, 
a victory that had been waiting for centuries, for what seemed like 
millenniums.  
	"Soon we will have vengeance, and triumph, won't we Frouth?"  
Frouth looked at his fellow King, Klarth, and chuckled dryly.  "Aye, 
though I'm not near as eager as Tergan and Gerith."  Klarth echoed his 
hollow laughter.
	"What else could you expect?  I saw the hellion Tergan lost 
his kingdom to.  She was a woman, you know that right?"  Frouth barked 
more genuine amusement in response.
	"After all the years spent listening to him then we had better 
know every slightest detail about her.  He will find her first I 
think.  Lensan, Warrior Queen, that was a woman even we could admire, 
if we could ever get past her bow."  Klarth grinned wildly.
	"And Gerith... I've never seen one so furious.  Rorian taunted 
him like no one has dared then or since.  Where ever, whoever Rorian 
is now he'll pay for his sharp words..."
	"And Verl..."  Klarth swallowed at that, uneasily.
	"We shall triumph because of his leadership, for we shall 
never sleep again."  They shared a silence for one long pregnant 
moment, the two men who were more than mortal, relics from a race, a 
life, and a primordial world before humanity.  They had a human form 
that they maintained but you could tell, looking into flat eyes and 
watching hands with knotted fingers slightly too long that something 
else, something darker, more savage, lurked below their almost normal 
appearances.  
	From the clouds of billowing darkness, all that remained of a 
once great kingdom that had spanned the breadth of the world, stepped 
a beast.  It was vaguely dog like but there was nothing friendly about 
its fangs and gleaming crimson eyes.  Frouth reached down and absently 
scratched a spiked head, fingers finding an itch behind one knobbed 
ear.
	"He shall find him for me Klarth."  Klarth stared at Frouth 
with unblinking eyes.
	"Ameray."  Frouth hissed.
	"Yes...  I may not want revenge as badly as Tergan, Gerith, 
and Verl but Ameray was the worthiest opponent I have ever faced and 
over the millenniums I have learned one thing...  Our kind cannot have 
friends, but we can have true enemies."  Klarth nodded simply.
	"Yes...  You shall find your Ameray, Tergan his Lensan, Gerith 
his Rorian, and Verl, Verl shall find Sandere and together, after I 
have found Mena, we shall rule again.  The Five will not win this 
time."  Klarth's inhuman grin widened to reveal sharpened teeth and 
Frouth, Frouth laughed softly in complete agreement.

Author's Notes: Yea, due to several emails from a certain author and friend 
*ahem*, I've been motivated to finsih this chapter.  Hehe... I Told You So 
is still there, don't worry, but yeah... I'll get around to it eventually.  
Oh yeah, if you email me please put something in the sbuject line like the 
title, etc so I can identify it as fan mail.  With all these blasted viruses 
going around I can't open an unidentified email.  Thanks for understanding!  
See ya guys! ;)