Blue eyes blinked slowly open, vision blurred; his eyes were crusted and felt thick, so he spent a moment to blink away his weary sleep. Habit drew a hand to the corner of his right eye, his goal to rub the closed lids to free them, but something big touched his cheek instead. Immediately his eyes snapped open, hands—paws—pushing against the ground to get him upright. A beast's paw sat beneath him and he bristled, his lips pulling back over his teeth—but he could not make out the beast. No, when he turned to view it, it was always just beyond his vision, its tail trailing his sight. He felt a guttural snarl rip from his chest and this surprised him. Somnus had never snarled like a beast before, though he may have been close...

But as he turned, he realized the beast's paws were moving in tune to him, its tracks beneath him. A chill froze his blood.

He was the beast.

Studying his paws, he focused on the way the white of the beast's legs ended at the toes, like the fingerless gloves of his armor. He felt the beast's lips relax, his gums dry and sticky from being exposed. Within his chest he felt the beast's growl, rumbling and angry and confused.

What manner of nightmare was this? Had he even been asleep?

Like a poor puppeteer he turned the beast's body, suddenly clumsy on his legs when instinct did not move his muscles. He found it difficult to move smoothly but at the same time it felt almost as natural as breathing. It was easier to steady on four legs but he still found that he could stumble and catch in his footsteps. With the beast's sharp eyes he scanned his surroundings. If this was a nightmare, it was incredibly real feeling. Perhaps the most unholy thing he had ever experienced. Unholy... Instead of looking through the scenery, he took a second to look at it.

It was beautiful. Stained in a blush that he could only imagine his family would enjoy. Some kind of place they'd drag him to on a lazy weekend...

Stellia, he stammered, choking on the name as he began to turn wildly again. She wasn't there. Or over there. Or... Stellia? he called, louder. For the first time since he woke, he felt his nose draw in the scents around him like some kind of outreaching grasp—and had he ever contemplated looking for his daughter by scent? It was ingrained in him then, some primordial knowledge, something that he could feel and understand as a part of him. A part of the beast.

Reluctantly, he let himself rely on the beast's nose, but the absence of her scent made him panic. Her scent, soft and floral and sweet, was not here. Her shimmering hair in the sunlight, her laughter rising in the air, the way her eyes regarded him like he was the pillar of the world: they were all missing. Was this how she had felt, when she accepted that death meant these things are gone forever? Was this how she felt when she realized her mother would never lift her again, never walk through the door to smile at her again...? Had he left her, too?

He crumbled. He'd never felt his legs shake the way they did now and he found the beast was gasping for air.

He had died. He had died and gone to hell to live as a beast for his sins. As he struggled to collect himself, he found solace in the absence of his daughter. At least whatever fate he was given was not also passed to her.

Somnus was not religious, but he found himself closing his watered eyes and praying for her safety and her happiness. If anything, he knew his brothers- and sisters-in-arms would not leave her an orphan. She had family in the knights but for her father to leave her, too—he shook his head. Maybe this was temporary. Maybe he would wake and find her sitting on the bed with a bundle of flowers to greet him: "You slept in again!" she'd gripe though a laugh.

Blue eyes blinked slowly open and he was met with the same blushed meadow as before, and while beautiful, it was utterly and wholly absent of Lia. She had been the only thing he had left in life, his purpose for living and being and breathing. He could not help but wonder if she thought the same of him. Would her world now feel so empty, even if it was full of the life around her?

A knot of regret twisted in his chest and he felt his heart die. Such was hell.