Seasons drifted in and out of focus, weeks slipped through his fingers, and sometimes a single night sat heavy in his bones like a month. A handful of visits could feel like years, as if he’d been living in that meadow forever.
With Wildflower.
Four real years had made the place familiar in the only way it could. Lived-in. Breathed-in. Held together by the weight of shared memory. Kylar knew where the grass grew thicker, where the willow’s shadow cooled the ground, where the pond held the moon’s reflection so still it looked painted on the surface.
He knew her, too.
Not in the grand, romantic way songs pretended to understand. In the small ways that counted. The way she folded into herself when the world felt too sharp. The way she laughed with her whole shoulders when something truly pleased her. The way she watched him when she thought he wasn’t looking, like she was trying to decide what kind of man he was.
He’d secretly enjoyed catching those moments.
They were close. Close enough that he had started to want her approval. Close enough that her silences didn’t just register as quiet anymore. They landed.
He didn’t know he loved her. Not yet. Love was a word for later, for songs and vows and things that felt too soft for a Shadowguard to admit.
But he knew that when she was happy, the dreamscape felt warmer.
And when she wasn’t, it felt like winter.
It started with a good thing.
A real good thing. The kind that made his chest feel lighter all day, even as duty pressed in around him. He’d earned praise from someone who did not praise easily. He’d untangled a mess of reports and patrol routes with one clean decision. He’d felt competent in a way he’d been starving for.
He wanted to tell her. The helpless giddiness that had carried him through the day followed him all the way to sleep.
So when the meadow opened around him, grass brushing his boots and the sky holding that endless, impossible sunset, he smiled before he even saw her.
She was by the willow.
He started toward her, but then he saw it, the wrongness in her shape. Instead of sitting upright, watching the horizon or picking at the grass like she sometimes did, she was curled in on herself, knees drawn to her chest, face angled away. One hand gripped her sleeve as if she could keep herself contained by force.
A rough day, then.
“Wildflower?” he called softly, as if volume might startle her into breaking.
She didn’t answer.
He walked closer, careful. “Wildflower?” he tried again.
Her shoulders tightened.
The good thing he’d been carrying all day faltered, confused, and then something sharper took its place. A prickle under his ribs. Worry turned into annoyance so fast it embarrassed him.
Something was wrong.
“Did something happen?” he asked. “Are you hurt? Are you—”
She drew in tighter, arms locking around her knees.
She didn’t want to talk.
Kylar stopped a few paces away, staring at her like he could will her to look at him. “I wanted to tell you something,” he said, and hated the childish edge that slipped into his voice.
Still nothing.
His jaw tightened. “Fine,” he muttered, and turned away.
He went to the far side of the meadow and sat down hard, back against a rock, staring at the pond without really seeing it.
It was a stupid thing to be upset over. It was only a dream. Only a place between worlds. Only a girl who didn’t owe him anything.
And yet… he wanted to talk to her so badly it ached.
He sat there until the dreamscape thinned and he woke with a sour taste in his mouth.
The next night, he did the same.
And the night after.
Two silhouettes in a meadow that was supposed to feel safe, sitting on opposite sides like strangers.
He told himself to let it be. Not to care.
It didn’t work. Every night was short, but it lingered with him all day, a burr under his skin.
After a couple days, she finally moved.
He felt her before he saw her, a shift in the air, the soft whisper of grass. When he looked up, she was walking toward him slowly, hands twisting together at her waist. She stopped in front of him like someone approaching a skittish animal.
“I’m sorry,” she said low, and for once she held his gaze.
That was all. No explanation. No excuse. Just the words, offered like a small, awkward gift.
Kylar’s chest tightened, anger and relief tangling together. He wanted to demand why. He wanted to pretend it didn’t matter. He wanted to pull her down beside him and make the meadow right again.
Instead he stared at the ground and said, stiffly, “Okay.”
It wasn’t forgiveness. Not yet. But it was a door left cracked open.
Over the next few nights, they repaired it slowly. Not with grand speeches, but with presence. With small jokes. With quiet sitting, shoulder to shoulder again. With her leaning into his arm like she belonged there and him pretending it didn’t matter while his body relaxed anyway.
Best friends again.
As if the distance had never happened. As if he hadn’t felt something sharp and frightening when she’d shut him out.
Then she went distant again. It happened without warning, like a storm rolling in from a clear sky.
He noticed the way she answered him with one word. The way she stared at the pond too long. The way her smile looked like it was being worn for someone else.
He tried to make her laugh. It was clumsy. He knew it was clumsy. He said something stupid about the way the dreamscape grass grew too perfect, like it had been combed by invisible servants. He expected an eye roll. A huff of laughter.
Instead she snapped, voice sharp enough to cut.
“Just stop.”
He froze. The words hit him like a slap.
Kairi’s eyes flashed, immediately regretting it and still too upset to take it back. She turned away, hugging herself like she was bracing for him to lash out.
Kylar’s throat worked. “I was only—”
“I know. I said stop,” she repeated, and this time there was pain under the anger that made him feel like he’d stepped on something raw.
He stared at her for a beat longer, stunned, then turned and walked away. He sat by the pond for the rest of the night, the water reflecting moonlight and nothing else. The silence pressed in until it felt heavy enough to crush.
What did he do. How did he fix it. He stared at his hands, then at the water, then back again, until the dream broke.
The next morning, he groaned himself out of bed, muscles aching from training, mind aching from something worse.
He dressed for sparring with hands that moved automatically. He opened his journal without thinking, the ritual grounding him. He flipped to the margin where he’d begun to make those little marks only he understood.
WF.
Angry.
Distant.
He drew the small symbol he’d been using for her moods each night. Then he paused. The ink dried. And with it came a small, stupid ache behind his ribs.
What was he doing wrong.
He carried that question through the day like a stone in his pocket. Through drills. Through reports. Through conversations. Through meals that tasted like ash because his mind kept returning to the same moment.
Her voice. The regret in her eyes.
Just stop.
He replayed it until it lost meaning and gained weight.
That night, she was still distant. The night after, too.
He tried to apologize, because that was what you did when someone was upset with you. He tried to say he didn’t mean to do whatever he’d done wrong.
She cut him off without looking at him. “Don’t apologize,” she said quietly. “It isn’t you.”
The words should have soothed him. Instead they made him feel worse. Because if it wasn’t him, then what was it. And if it wasn’t him… why did it feel like she was aiming it at him anyway. He agonized. He tried to help. He tried to give space. He tried to be gentle. He tried jokes. He tried silence.
Eventually, after a handful of nights, it faded. Like fog lifting. Her joy returned.
She laughed at something he said. She leaned against him again. She acted like nothing had happened.
Kylar did what he always did.
He accepted the peace. He didn’t ask questions that might break it. He told himself the careful attempts to make her laugh had worked. He told himself he’d learned what not to do. He made himself believe something had simply happened in her real life.
A few weeks later, he woke in the meadow to the sound of her crying.
Not quiet tears. Not sniffles. Real, shaking sobs that seemed too big for the dreamscape’s gentle air.
Everything Kylar had planned to tell her that night vanished like smoke. He crossed the grass without thinking and sat down beside her.
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“Wildflower,” he said softly. “Hey. What’s wrong?”
She curled in on herself, arms locking around her knees, face buried.
Kylar stared at her for a beat, helpless, then did the only thing he could.
He stayed. Close enough that she wasn’t alone.
Cautiously, he placed his hand on her back. Relief flooded him when she didn’t jerk away. He rubbed slow circles, steady and wordless, a rhythm meant to tell her body that someone was here. That she didn’t have to hold herself together by force.
Her crying eased eventually, thinning into quiet breaths, but she didn’t speak.
Neither did he.
When the dream broke, Kylar woke with his heart still tight.
He lay in bed for a long time the next morning, staring at the ceiling, the memory of her sobs replaying in his mind. Was she not safe. Was she in danger. Was something happening to her in the waking world that he couldn’t reach. The thoughts made him sick.
He forced himself up, sat at his desk, and opened his journal. He wrote down the night. Wrote down the tears. Wrote down how she wouldn’t talk. Then he flipped back, pages rustling under his fingers.
He scanned old entries, places they’d visited, notes on villages, patrols, politics, small moments. He’d begun keeping track of the dreamscape nights too, because they mattered in a way he didn’t know how to explain. Because they mattered to him.
His fingers slowed. His gaze snagged on the symbols again.
WF.
Upset.
Angry.
Distant.
He frowned. Flipped forward. Saw it again. Flipped again. Again.
His brows drew together. Something in him shifted, sharp and sudden, like a lock turning.
He began counting. Not pages. Days.
The space between the symbols that marked her shifts.
Twenty-eight.
Twenty-eight.
Twenty-seven.
Twenty-nine.
His breath stopped. He stared at the numbers like they were accusing him.
Then it hit him so hard he actually laughed, once, under his breath, the sound bitter and stunned.
“Dato,” he muttered to himself. “You are an idiot.”
It wasn’t him. It had never been him, not in the beginning.
Not at first. It became him later, because he kept pushing into a wound he couldn’t see.
Her body was just… being a body. A rhythm. A cycle. A tide she didn’t control and probably didn’t want to talk about. And he’d been sitting in the meadow taking it personally like a self-important fool.
He sank back in his chair, rubbing his forehead hard.
Stupid.
Dumb ass prince.
All this time, he’d been trying to fix something that didn’t need fixing. He just needed to understand.
That day, he did his duties with a strange urgency, like the kingdom was in the way of something important. By afternoon he found himself in the library, hunting through texts meant for healers and midwives and the kind of household knowledge men weren’t expected to care about.
There wasn’t much.
He cursed under his breath, then cursed louder when the next shelf offered him nothing but battle histories and poetry.
So he did something he rarely did. He swallowed his pride and went to the healers’ wing. The entire walk there he built a story that would make sense, something to justify his sudden interest without admitting the truth.
He sought out Sera.
She sat behind her desk, quill in hand, expression unreadable as he approached. She looked up once, took in his posture, and set her quill down.
“Highness,” she said, tone cautious. “Are you injured?”
“No,” he said quickly. Then hesitated, nerves showing. “I… need to learn something.”
Sera’s brows lifted a fraction. “Go on.”
Kylar forced the words out, locking his jaw as if tension could keep him from choking on embarrassment.
“It’s for the Shadowguard,” he said, and even to his own ears it sounded thin. “For the women in the ranks. I want to… be better. As a comrade. When they have their monthly…” He searched for a word, found none that didn’t make his skin crawl, and let the sentence die there.
He waited.
Sera stared at him for a long beat. Long enough that he felt heat rise up his neck. Then she nodded slowly, like she’d decided something about him.
Prince Dato had always been a good man. The servants talked about his kindness. His patience. The way he spoke to people like they mattered even when he thought no one was watching.
Sera’s expression softened, just slightly.
“Sit,” she said.
He sat.
Sera folded her hands on the desk. “What is it you want to know.”
Kylar swallowed.
He thought of Kairi crying in the meadow. Of her snapping at him with pain in her eyes.
He thought of the way she’d said, It isn’t you, and how he hadn’t understood what a mercy that had been.
“I want to know,” he said quietly, “how to help. What’s happening. What helps. What doesn’t. And… how to ease embarrassment.”
Sera held his gaze.
Then she nodded again.
“Alright,” she said, voice gentler now. “We’ll start with the basics.”
And Kylar, prince, Shadowguard, and helpless idiot, leaned forward and listened like it was battle strategy.
Because in a way, it was. Not a war against enemies. A war against ignorance.A war he could actually win.
For her.
Kylar fell into the dream that night. He laid there in the grass for a moment. His usual instinct was to do something, to fix whatever was broken before it could cut deeper. After what he learned that day though. He stopped himself and took a slow breath to refresh himself.
No questions.
No jokes.
No hovering, no pressing, no bright insistence that she tell him what was wrong so he could make it right.
He’d learned, finally, that sometimes the kindest thing he could do was simply be… steady. And absently he realized, she always sought out his steadiness.
He rose and looked. She was already there, sitting near the willow with her knees drawn up, shoulders hunched as if the night itself was too loud. Her face was turned away, but he could see the tension in her posture.
He didn’t call her name. Didn’t even let his steps hurry. He approached like you approached a wounded animal: slow, careful, not making yourself into a threat.
When he reached her, he lowered himself to the grass a little distance away. Not far enough to feel like abandonment. Not close enough to feel like pressure.
Just there. Present. He took off his cloak and folded it once, then nudged it gently toward her, wordless. A small offering.
Her eyes flicked to it. Fingers curled in the grass for a moment like she was deciding whether she was allowed to accept comfort.
Then she pulled the cloak to her lap and draped it over her knees.
Kylar didn’t smile. Didn’t react. Didn’t make it a thing. Internally he was overfilled with relief.
He sat with his hands resting on his thighs, gaze angled toward the pond, as if they were simply two people sharing a quiet night.
Minutes passed. Her breathing was uneven at first, shallow and sharp. He didn’t speak into the silence. He let it exist, let her have it without trying to fill it.
A tear slid down her cheek. She wiped it away angrily, like she was offended by her own softness.
He shifted slightly, he offered her something else.
He reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a strip of cloth. It was plain, worn soft from use, the kind of thing a soldier carried for a dozen purposes. He held it out without looking directly at her, the gesture casual enough to pretend it was nothing.
Her eyes lingered on it for a moment. Then, slowly, she took it and dabbed at her eyes. Not gently. More like she was scrubbing evidence away.
He kept his gaze on the pond, posture loose, pretending he hadn’t noticed the tremor in her hands. When her shoulders shook with a quiet sob, he didn’t flinch. He only shifted closer, inch by inch, until his shoulder brushed hers. A light contact, barely there. A question without words.
She didn’t pull away.
So he stayed. Small victory obtained, he thought to himself as another stretch of silence went by. He hesitated, then placed his hand on her lower back and held there as steady pressure. A promise in the shape of his palm: You’re not alone.
Kairi’s breath hitched. For a moment he thought she might recoil, might snap, might curl away like she had before.
Instead she leaned into the contact, just slightly, like her body had decided to accept what her pride was still fighting.
Kylar began to move his hand in slow circles then, gentle and repetitive. The way you soothed someone who couldn’t name what hurt but still needed something to anchor them.
The rhythm was simple. Unchanging. No demands hidden in it.
She rested her forehead against her knees, cloak over her legs, Kylar’s hand steady on her back.
Kylar stayed quiet. His thoughts were loud enough.
Don’t fix. Don’t pry. Don’t make this about you. Just be here.
He watched the pond instead. Watched the moonlight tremble as a breeze rippled across the surface. Watched the dreamscape’s stars burn too bright in a sky that wasn’t real.
And beside him, slowly, Kairi’s breathing steadied. Her shoulders loosened a fraction.
She didn’t speak. Neither did he.
But after a long time, when the ache in his chest had settled into something calmer, Kairi’s hand lifted from her knees and found his wrist.
Just that. Her fingers wrapped around him lightly, not clinging, not desperate.
A small touch that felt like a trust offered.
Kylar’s chest ached. He didn’t squeeze back. Didn’t overdo it.
He only let his hand remain on her back, warm and steady, and kept breathing with her until the dream began to thin.
She huffed suddenly, angry at the universe.
“This is stupid,” she muttered.
Kylar didn’t ask what. He just waited, keeping his hand moving in those calm circles.
Kairi swallowed hard, and her voice came out rougher than usual, edged with bitterness and something that sounded like shame.
“My body hates me,” she grumbled.
Kylar’s fingers paused for half a heartbeat, then continued, gentler than before. He kept his gaze on the pond, not forcing her to meet his eyes.
Her words tumbled out now that the door was cracked open.
“I’m fine, and then I’m not fine,” she said, voice tight. “I wake up and everything feels wrong. My skin feels wrong. My thoughts feel wrong. I’m angry and I don’t even know why. I’m sad and I don’t even know why. I get mad at you for breathing and then I hate myself for it.”
Her laugh was short, humorless.
“It’s like I’m possessed by a stranger,” she whispered. “And everyone just expects me to… smile through it like it’s normal.”
Kylar listened. Truly listened. He didn’t interrupt. Didn’t offer solutions. Didn’t tell her it would be fine.
He just let her speak, because he’d learned that being heard was sometimes the only thing that softened the sharp edges.
When she finally fell quiet again, breath trembling, he shifted slightly closer until his shoulder pressed more firmly into hers.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
Kairi stiffened, the old instinct to reject pity flaring. “Don’t apologize,” she muttered. “It isn’t you.”
“I know,” He said, his voice held something different now, something steadier. “I’m not apologizing because it’s my fault.”
Kairi’s head tilted a fraction.
Kylar swallowed, the words catching in his throat like they didn’t want to come out.
“I’m apologizing,” he continued softly, “because I should have figured it out sooner.”
Her eyes snapped then to him, a creased formed on her brow.
Kylar stared at the pond as if it was easier to confess to water than to her eyes.
“I thought you were angry at me,” he admitted, voice low. “I thought I was doing something wrong. I… kept trying to fix it, and I kept failing, and it made me—” He exhaled slowly. “It made me feel like I was losing you on nights I couldn’t even understand.”
He paused, then added, quieter still, “I hate that you went through it alone.”
Kairi didn’t speak for a long moment.
Then, very carefully, she leaned her head against his shoulder.
The contact was small, but in the dreamscape it felt enormous.
“I didn’t want you to think I was…” she trailed off, swallowing. “Weak.”
Kylar’s hand slowed on her back, reassuring.
“You’re not weak,” he said simply.
Kairi gave a tiny, breathless sound that might have been a laugh. “My body certainly disagrees.”
Kylar’s mouth twitched, a shadow of a smile. “Your body is… rude.”
That got her. A real laugh, quiet and surprised, pressed into his shoulder like she was trying not to let it escape.
Kylar didn’t laugh with her at first. He just felt something in his chest loosen, something that had been tight for months.
After a moment, he let out a soft breath of amusement too.
Kairi’s fingers curled into the fabric of his sleeve, holding on like she’d found something solid.
“I hope it isn't always like this.” she stated, voice smaller now.
He wrapped an arm around her and hugged briefly.
“Not always,” he said, voice steady. “And even when it is… you won’t do it alone.”
Kairi went still. Then she nodded once against his shoulder, accepting the promise.
Then she spoke again, voice muffled into his sleeve. “It hasn’t always been… regular.”
Kylar’s hand slowed on her back. “What do you mean.”
She hesitated, as if naming it made it more real. “In...the past” she admitted quietly, “after… everything. After the days we didn’t eat enough. When we were traveling, hiding. When I was always tired.” Her fingers tightened on his sleeve. “Sometimes it came late. Sometimes not at all.”
Kylar went still. Not with shock, not with disgust, not with the awkwardness he’d expected of himself.
With anger. Quiet and focused.
Not at her. Not at the words.
At the idea that her body had been forced into survival until even its simplest rhythms had stuttered.
He kept his voice low. “That can happen,” he said carefully, choosing words the way he chose blades. “With… malnutrition. With stress. With—” He stopped himself before he said trauma like it was a weapon. He knew that trauma she dealt with came from something.
Kairi’s shoulders rose with a small, defensive breath. “I know. I just…” She swallowed. “Sometimes I wonder if something is wrong with me.”
Kylar’s jaw tightened. His hand resumed its steady circles.
“There’s nothing wrong with you,” he said, and meant it like a vow.
Kairi didn’t answer. She stared across the meadow, eyes reflecting starlight.
Kylar hesitated. This was the part where he would normally stay quiet. Offer warmth. Offer presence. Let it pass.
But something had changed. Not dramatic. Not a thunderbolt.
Just the slow, stubborn decision that he wasn’t going to let her carry this alone if he could help.
“I can look for information,” he said quietly.
Kairi’s head lifted from his shoulder so fast it startled him. She stared at him, eyes wide like she’d misheard.
“You… what.”
Kylar kept his gaze on the pond, as if looking at her made the words harder. “I can search,” he repeated, voice steady. “In the palace libraries. The healers’ texts. Anywhere there’s… documentation.” He cleared his throat, the sound rough. “I can find what helps. What’s normal. What to watch for. So you don’t have to sit alone with questions.”
Kairi just stared.
A small smile had grown on his face. "I sometimes go when I am off duty to read. Your talks of hidden libraries influenced me to read more. And....working in the palace. I have access."
Finally she asked, softly, genuinely confused, “Why would you do that.”
Kylar’s hand paused mid circle, then settled there like an anchor. He turned his head enough to look at her properly, eyes intent in the moonlight.
Because saying it mattered. Because she needed to hear it, not just feel it.
“You’re my best friend, Wildflower,” he said simply.
Kairi blinked, throat working like the words had landed somewhere tender.
Kylar shrugged, a small motion, as if the truth was obvious. “You would do the same for me if I was hurting.”
Her mouth trembled, caught between laughter and tears.
“I would,” she whispered.
“I know,” Kylar said, and there was a quiet warmth in it. Not flirtation. Not romance. Just the certainty of someone who trusted her.
Kairi stared at him for another long moment, then let out a shaky breath and leaned back into his shoulder again, slower this time, like she was choosing it on purpose.
“Okay,” she murmured, voice small. “You can look.”
Kylar’s hand resumed its slow circles. “Okay,” he echoed.
And as the dreamscape’s stars burned bright above them, he felt something settle in his chest.
Not love. Not yet.
Something quieter.
The deep, stubborn understanding that if her body was going to wage war on her, then he would learn how to be a shield.
Even if he had to fight ignorance itself to do it.