The mirror was no stranger to visions and dreams. Even so, this one felt special. Important, maybe. Ei stretched, standing, and looked between the path of torches and the cave behind eir.

"Hullo?" Magpie called. "Whose dream is this? Do you need help?"

"Well, that's a silly question, ain't it?" The mirror's echo called. "After all, you already know, it's your dream."

Magpie spun around, eyes flickering around for the source of the voice despite eir poor vision. Nothing smelled like an intruder, but there was definitely a shape lurking just across the way.

"Who are you?" Mags called. Ei knew it was an incredibly silly question considering the circumstances, but really, what else could ei say?

Eir echo made a patronizing tutting sound. "You don't remember me? For shame, dearie."
Magpie's own shadow stepped out from the wall, revealing itself in the torchlight as a mutated, shambling creature.

"Come now, as soon as you knew you could tell the future, you wanted to see how you died, to see if you could avoid it. Instead, you found what you'd become in the future. We're a mess, aren't we? But we're alive. Isn't that really all that matters?"

The creature thought for a moment. "I suppose for this encounter you could consider me... your conscience."

Magpie sighed, looking out at the torches lighting the way outside the cave. "Then those lights..."

"You blame yourself for staying behind while your clan scattered," Eir shadow shrugged. "This talk of the traitor brought the memories back, and so here you are, dreaming that you can follow them into the world and keep them safe. But they didn't die, dearie, they just moved on, and you stayed behind with your friend because it was home."

The torches and whispers began to fade, and Magpie lowered eir head and sighed.

"You're not a traitor, dear, and you'll even meet some of your old friends again along the way. But for now, you have a job to do, and for that... you have to wake up."

art and a post i made for this week's arcane dominance event wooooo

ive had astral romance stuck in my head for 2 days now, that title was inevitable