Knocking on Dragon's Door (D7 EM ASK)

[Makime Ayano]

Dragons are free to enter as they want....I am in your room after all.

In the early morning hours the occupants of the Dragon rooms would her a pounding, as polite as a pounding can pound, on the entrance to the communal areas. The noise would repeat, and though the person doing it seemed to not want to wake anyone else...the urgency was plain.

[Togashi Satsuki]

Satsuki was awake, having awoken from a rather bad nightmare herself after a very... unpleasant night. She knew she needed to sleep, but first she needed to put distance between herself and the events of the night.

And then there was the pounding.

Infernal pounding.

Still not properly dressed and wearing only her sleeping-robes, Satsuki groaned wearily and moved over to the door. "What?" she almost hissed as she pushed it open.

[Makime Ayano]

"My apologies Togashi-sama for the intrusion." Ayano said, her eye's downcast. Her expression was stoic...no emotionless, though what glimpse of her eyes the Dragon may get and the slight tremble of the Lion's hand probably said much. "I have a matter I wish to discuss...if such would be possible." Again her tone was almost eerily calm, but there at the back of it was a faint pleading.

The Lioness herself looked disheveled, a single layer thrown over her body and held closed with her other hand, and hair a mess. She looked very much like a person that had rushed over and not at all the like normally very organized and neat Ayano.

[Togashi Satsuki]

"Come in, Makime-san," she said, her voice weary, but not so that she would be discourteous to someone in distress. "We can have some tea made, if you want...?"

All the bedding hadn't been put away yet, so as she guided Ayano to sit down by the table that was now in the corner of the room, she also offered her a blanket to put over herself so she wouldn't freeze. "What can I do for you?"

[Makime Ayano]

"Thank you..."Ayano accepted the blanket and pulled it around her. "My apologies again...but our clan was the first to come to my mind when encountering oddities."

"I had a dream last night...about the weight of responsibilities and expectations crushing me," Her cheeks redden, "I...have had such dreams often but something changed. There was a sudden...darkness...no maybe it was emptiness...that surrounded me, at first it was oddly comforting. Stripping away all that weight but then, I was drowning it and there was no hope." She pulls the blank it tighter, "Like I was being swallowed whole."

"No...wait near the end I saw a light...green I think...maybe the color of jade?"

[Akodo Kawauso]

Lurking in the hall behind Ayano and trailing her in is the tall Lion, Akodo Kawauso, silently (except when she fails to stifle a yawn) on hand to support her clan mate. She wasn't awake enough to understand what was happening, but when the stoic Makime-sama woke you early and beckoned you to follow, you knew you needed to.

[Togashi Satsuki]

Satsuki sat down by the table, one elbow propped on it as she focused her attention on Ayano. She was tired, but she pushed through it.

But when hearing Ayano's dream, her breath froze for a moment as she too went rigid. "That's..." she exhaled slowly, "how very strange... I had the exact dream too."

Concern was evident in her eyes. "... Is this the first time you have experienced such... vivid nightmares?"

Finally seeing Ayano's yojimbo, the princess quickly patted a free seat by the table for her to join them. It would be rude to force a guest to stand!

[Makime Ayano]

"Nightmares? Yes...there is a heavy we..." Ayano stops and takes a breath, "Never like that."

Her eyes focus on the Satsuki, "...what do you mean...the same dream?" Her hand was still trembling, Ayano had poor stamina and her heart was already racing. She clasped her hands together and hid them under the table, while she fought to control the shakes.

Her eyes shift to the Akodo, she frowned at her apologetically. It was a unfair of her to drag the other woman along...

[Togashi Satsuki]

"What I mean is I dreamed the same dream you had... down to the feelings and the details you described. I too dreamed I was overwhelmed with the expectations around me, and that I was then in darkness. First feeling comforting, and then realising that I was sinking into the darkness. Pulled down. And then... that tiny needlepoint of green light. Emerald... or jade, I'm not sure. But I woke when I felt I reached the light."

Satsuki frowned as she explained this. The times when she had succumbed to the moon, she'd rarely had dreams. More like formless nightmares that she could never remember.

"Something is going on."

[Akodo Kawauso]

Kawauso had sat as bidden, looking uncomfortable for an entire list of reasons. Catching the frown from Ayano, she forces out some reassuring words, or what she goes is helpful.

"There there, Ayano-sama. Togashi-sama was clearly the right place to come." She manages a smile that's more confident than she feels, buoyed by her faith in the Dragon princess.

With the Dragons explanation, she relaxes a bit. "You see, a wise choice."

[Makime Ayano]

Ayano paled as the Togashi explained her dream, "This is not my realm of expertise...how does one plan for something like this?" Her eyes widen for a second, then she closes them and breathes again. Her heart feels like a drum.

"...have you had such dreams before? Have others?"

[Togashi Satsuki]

"My own dreams tend to go more towards... minor glimpses of the future. On rare occassion," she explained, keeping a calm tone even if she was exhausted from last night, with creepy nightmares on top of it to boot.

"... I don't know if others have, but I know some among my kin have stronger ties to the realms beyond than I do. I can ask them. However, I won't rule out the possibility that others may have had the same dream if the two of us did. It seems very strange..." Satsuki eyed the two Lions carefully. "... You don't happen to have any particular spiritual curses lingering on you, Makime-san?"

[Makime Ayano]

Ayano shakes her head, "Nothing I can think of..." She frowns in thought, "My grandfather swears the Fortune Daikoku looks on me with favor, but I never thought much of it..."

"Unless my poor health is the result of some spiritual malady." She squeezes her hands, "I have since I was a child found myself quickly exhausted by even the mildest of physical labor."

[Togashi Satsuki]

"Maybe..." Satsuki didn't seem convinced that it was likely.

"It seems to be a lot of troubles with dreams lately... and I don't like it." It was very troubling when someone who wasn't even that spiritually aligned was being affected by it. "Have you been experiencing troubling dreams yourself lately, Akodo-san?"

[Makime Ayano]

"I asked Akodo-san to accompany me," Ayano looked down, "It is embarrassing to admit but I was...unnerved...and wished to have the comforting presence of a skilled warrior."

Her eyes shifted to her fellow Lioness, "But...if you have had such, please tell Togashi-sama. It seems this is more important then just one bad dream."

[Akodo Kawauso]

Kawauso looks down, embarrassed.

"No, samas, I... I have noticed nothing remarkable in my dreams." Her cheeks turn a bit red.

"I, um, have only noticed the great bear as being out of what I presume is ordinary here..."

[Ryoshun Rei]

There was another knock at the threshold.

[Makime Ayano]

Ayano tensed at the sudden noise then looked at the other two at the table before turning her eyes to the door.

[Hantei Genji]

Genji arrived next to the others, he had a harrowed expression on.

[Akodo Kawauso]

Kawauso, herself relieved at the distraction, makes no move of her own. She sees Ayano's tension, biting her lip as she tries to think of some reassurance she can give.