With the promise of Kallo’s vigilance granted, though largely unnecessary and borne of a light-hearted humor anyway, Levani felt a soft sense of ease. Tilting her head towards the ceiling of her burrow, she listened to the faint patter of the rain tapping against the tree, the beautiful kamuna that hunched and curled and bowed to shield her from the elements. Yes, this was her home, her family, her everything. Spoken outloud, to a stranger, it had seemed so different from what she had meant to convey, from what could not be compared to the words of the heart. Her heart. There simply had been no words in her array, in her books or on the tongues of the people, to describe that she had meant she was one and the same with Asdenni, was a part of it as much as it was her, and yet this man had understood. She knew that - had seen it in the shallow pools of his eyes, the reassurance of his tone, and so she hadn’t had any need to wrangle with words and expressions.<br/><br/>While Kallo retrieved his things, Levani unbuckled the leather wrappings on her legs and the leathers of her pants, shimmying out of both, difficult to see as she was in the dark. Not that she would have minded witnesses, as shamefulness was a human construct, and she had none. The holster for her blade she fixed back around her thigh, however. She was not concerned with having to use it on the man within her home - clearly, as she had allowed him to watch her while she lay vulnerable in her home - but her spite and disdain for the black had been true, and she did not trust them not to wake her from her dreams at any moment.<br/><br/>Comfortable with weapon, companion, and tree to stand guard, Levani slipped beneath the many pelts, the soft furs flush against the length of her neck, the curve of her cheek. Copper and black hair was splayed, a tainted halo, and one hand curled beneath her chin, with the other resting on the swell of her thigh, fingertips brushing the bone blade. Golden eyes glimmered, languid, beneath the frames of dark lashes, watching the stone in Kallo’s hands glide over the metal, rhythmic, slow. A soft spark tantalizing its fiery edge, biting and strong. His hums joined the sword’s song, deep, rumbling, her eyes closing shut to its harmony. By the time that his words joined it, as a dulcet, somber tenor, she was already sinking to darker depths beneath her consciousness, rippled by alien notes of love and loss.<br/><br/>When the shadowy curtain parted, Levani could see the forest of Asdenni, the soft deluge trickling against beryl trees and painted, turquoise leaves. There was a song hidden beneath the canopy, a creek of jumbled melodies that felt painfully familiar, that felt at home. The rain tapped against her body, cool, fresh, dripped off of her black nose, down her muzzle and along long teeth. It saturated her fur, which she shook, heavy, luxurious, freeing. As she moved forward, she loomed over the tall brush, her large body snaking through the trees with an unwarranted grace. Smaller creatures scattered at her steps and sharp, golden eyes watched them with amusement, listening to their trite chattering as they went.<br/><br/>There was a path that only she could see, leading her away from the song that was a creek, until only the thunderheads could be heard rumbling, their roars occasionally shaking the earth. She called to them, in a voice that was hers alone, and they answered in flashes of light and beauty. The path took her to the edge of the world, where Asdenni fell away to a wasteland of glass, an endless sea. Levani had never seen an ocean or a sea, but she had heard from the merchants of its impossible perpetuity, its eternity of blue and water and air. This sea was unmoving, however, and its depths were dark - darker than any shadow or any body of water had a right to be. The stormclouds seemed frightened of here, for their voices were muffled in this place, at the edge of the world. They may have been screaming in fear or calling her back, but Levani could not tell. She could only hear her heartbeat now.<br/><br/>As though compelled, as though coaxed, Levani looked down at the eternal glass. Her reflection was marred and imperfect, black and construed, spined and agonized. She fought with cloudy eyes to see herself, to rid the mangled image from her sight.<i>That wasn’t what she was</i>, she reminded herself, wrestled with it, argued with it, even as the black filaments wiggled their way inside, even as she could feel her body shift and break beneath her, feel it beg to become one.<br/><br/>There was suddenly a hornest’s nest in her ears, angry and righteous, filled with the bloodlust of a vile pantheon. She bit and snapped, as though to rend the sound with her teeth, even as it choked her into silence. She retched until she was devoid of it, her eyes clear again, golden as the sun. The forest was gone from behind her now, and she stood atop the glass sea alone, until something rose from its depths, bringing the buzzing of the wasps with it. A wretched figure, amorphous but true, all-consuming, furious. Hardly more than a shadow, but it had meant to devour her with one look, wishing to swallow her in its figure, with sanguine eyes and a pale-toothed smile. It wanted her and hated her, and she could feel its ravenousness wrack her, but she rose to meet it. ‘<i>You will be</i>,’ it told her, its whispers a maelstrom that consumed her. ‘<i>You will be me.</i>’<br/><br/>In hardly a breath, the bone dagger was torn from its sheath, dragging flawlessly through a toughened pelt. Levani was sitting up in her bed, heart beating mercilessly in her ears, thrumming rebelliously against her chest. When she came to, a moment later, she laid back down on a long, drawn sigh, sheathing her dagger and inspecting the damage done on the pelt. A clean slice, from near-center to corner - nothing that couldn’t be repaired just as easily as flesh was stitched, but the nightmare perturbed her.<br/><br/>They were not uncommon, and they would never go away until the head of the snake had been cleaved, as the Watchers had diligently told her in their own way. Something about this one, however, had felt more visceral, more real, and she wondered instead if it was a warning of her creators. She did not ponder on it long, quick eyes turning to see Kallo still in the seat as she had left him, then glancing at the entrance to see slivers of sunshine poking through the vines. No rain, but the air was filled with a humid dawn, ensuring that she had not slept for a mere, short time. That, and the candles were far lower on their pedestals, wax crying down their sides to show for the journey.<br/><br/>Levani threw the furs back from her body, feeling heated and bothered from the dark dreams, a slight sheen of sweat built upon her brow. Long legs, at least for a small body, swung over the side, the skin creamy save where it was broken by black sigils and designs that elegantly lined the back of her thighs. She adorned her leathers once more, perhaps more for his sake, though she was determined to wash the black and sweat and ash of terror dreams from her flesh. “The night was calm, I would think?” She accented like a question, noting the quiet of the morning, but she could not be sure that he hadn’t left her side during her deep slumber. “You have a beautiful voice to sleep to, I confess, unused to it as I am,” she admitted easily, shrugging off the visions that had drank from her peace of mind. She grabbed the staff that leaned against the wall, its symbols alighting vividly at her touch, her power renewed and vibrant and spilling enthusiastically from her pores. She approached the passageway of her tree and its roots parted in her presence, washing her in the citrus, lavender light of the morning.<br/><br/>There was something new about it, fresh - knowing that they would seek together to find the source of her ails, the cancer that plagued Asdenni. It was not the head of the snake, she knew now, but it was something.<br/><br/>“We should hunt and clean ourselves, and then we can track the welp together,” she said now, glancing back at Kallo. “I have my suspicions - places that we may start, so that we are not trekking blind, but they are unkind places of Asdenni. We should both be thoroughly prepared.”