Sorry.

—The word died on her tongue as Gladiator Mercer opened her eyes.

She couldn't remember what she'd been trying to apologize for. It wasn't like she had ever apologized once in her entire life anyway, so she sure as shit wasn't about to start now, over nothing.

Even so, she couldn't help but feel profoundly... weird. Guilty? No, Gladiator would never feel guilty. About anything. And she would certainly never feel scared, either — and definitely not over something as dumb and boring as a dumb, boring nightmare. (Everyone knew that bears were big, slow, and stupid and she could beat one in a fight, easy.)

She lifted herself up onto shaky legs, feeling the familiar pressure at her back that usually indicated one (1) sleeping princess, and breathed a weighty sigh almost like relief. Good. Her charge hadn't managed to get herself kidnapped in the brief time while Gladiator's eyes were closed.

She fought back the urge to look (just in case) and instead sat blinking blearily in the rapidly dimming sunlight. Stars twinkled to life high above her head, sand crunched in the space between her paw pads, and Gladiator watched as dusk fell upon a desert she did not recognize.

Zora. Distantly, she heard the stuck-up voice of some stuck-up retainer chastising her for such egregious informality. ("It's 'Your Royal Highness' and you will address her with respect!") Zora, hey, get up. Gladiator slapped her.

These aren't our sands.

The dream is fading from memory even before she wakes. Zora noses her muzzle deeper into the cradle of her paws tucked around her face and feels the deepness of sleep begin to close around her again.

A smack barely stings her cheek. A silver eye blearily peels open, baleful venom flickering in its depths as it roves across the foreign sky and unusual dunes until it rests upon the girl. The knight. The dog. The first that belongs to Zora, and Zora alone, equal parts gift and burden and test and friend.

The princess wrinkles her muzzle in a grumpy 'why did you wake me up' sneer at the girl. Laying paws on royalty, now? Zora uncoils from her nest in the sand, sits up, peers around herself. She didn't go to sleep here. Did she? She has never been here. Has she? What the hell?