Her new surroundings are hot, bright, dry, and flat. There is a dead tree nearby. A smudge on the horizon might herald a second dead tree.

There are no spirits anywhere. In fact, there is nothing anywhere. Just a dead tree that doesn't even hold a wisp of once-life anymore. The dreamscape shattered into darkness because there is nothing, anywhere.

She considers, for a few seconds, the benefits of screaming. None, really. It won't help. It'll just echo across the emptiness and go without answer and probably won't even make her feel better.

After a pause, she decides to do it anyway.

It echoes across the emptiness. The dead tree declines to reply.

Good, that's out of the way, then.

She takes a deep breath, stands, and dusts herself off.

Silence is a strange and foreign companion. She doesn't like it very much. It's so boring. She's accustomed to multitasking and juggling the wants of at least half a dozen spirits and listening to idle spirit chatter and watching the wisps of dreams even while awake and there's just. Nothing. There's just nothing, and she is immediately bored.

She wanders over to the dead tree. Is there anything interesting about it?

It's super dead. It's been that way a while. It doesn't look like it's touched water this century.

And probably doesn't contain a drop of it for her, either. That's wonderful.

Okay, so. Water collects downhill, is there a downhill available here?

There is pretty much just flat.

Great.

Well.

She could go walking to see if that smudge on the horizon is another dead tree, she guesses, but she kind of doesn't want to waste the energy if she's stuck alone in an empty wasteland.

Instead she sits beneath the tree, in the shadiest spot available, and she tries to fall asleep. She'll see further that way.

Sleep is not readily available just because she wants it, though. That's not how it works. It's not at her fingertips just because she was asleep half an hour ago, but she can close her eyes and let her thoughts wander and try to ignore the fear, bubbling quietly in her belly.

There's a noise from off to her right, some distance away. As though something was abruptly dropped on the ground.

The something, if she looks, turns out to be an unhappy-looking naked boy.

Trying to sleep was getting on her nerves, anyway.

She sits up, looks towards the unhappy-looking naked boy, and decides he's worth investigating. If nothing else, from a purely cold logical standpoint, he's the only source of food for miles. So. It's better not ignore him in case she needs to commit cannibalism to survive. (Distantly, she wonders if that would make her mother proud, and then she resolutely ignores that thought.)

She abandons her seat at the base of the dead tree and goes to peer at him.

He is approximately humanoid in shape, with claws and long pointed ears, and curled up miserably in the dirt surrounded by an aura of biting cold.

Well, biting cold is at least different from baking heat. She picks a spot where half of her is freezing cold and the other half is burning hot, and kneels down to look at him.

The aura of cold around him doesn't imply great things about his edibility, but she decides to be hopeful anyway.

"Would you appreciate a blanket or something, or are you too busy?" she wonders.

He looks up at her in complete bewilderment.

"I could also leave you to paradoxically freeze in a burning desert wasteland?"

Bewilderment continues. The aura of cold, however, begins to ebb.

"Or... not?"

"Who are you? Where am I? What the fuck is going on?"

"Ah, he speaks! Valeshiel-of-Dreams, the middle of some kind of bizarre desert wasteland, and it seems to be collecting people."

He rubs his head.

"I'm Tias. Tias Iserra Aluvanna, I guess, if we're being fancy."

"Is this a situation for being fancy?" she wonders, lightly. "Our only other companion is a long dead tree, and I don't think it minds."

He looks over at the tree and snorts.

"Careful now, if you offend it, it might gossip about you to the cracks in the sand."

He giggles. (The aura of cold is now entirely gone, replaced by an aura of pleasant warmth that would be subtle if it weren't contrasted to the heat of the desert.)

She smiles, a little.

"Did the desert also steal you while you were sleeping?"

"No, I, uh... I was at home not doing much and then something—hit me?—and then everything sucked for a while and I learned like a hundred languages by magic for some reason?—and then I landed here. The everything sucking for a while was like... imagine you're falling, really fast, and you can't see or hear or breathe and you're on fire and freezing cold at the same time? It was kind of like that, mostly. Only it made less sense."

Valeshiel does not actually immediately have a snappy reply to that. That... just sounds awful, really.

She considers possible things she could say, and eventually awkwardly settles on: "... I'm sorry."

...This is apparently almost as confusing as the whole incident was in the first place.

But: "...thanks," he says, after a moment.

She nods, once, a little uncomfortable with squidgy feelings.

"My entrance was not quite so... grand. I was asleep, and then I was abruptly here. I'd suspect foul play, if I didn't think I'd spot the culprit before they tried anything."

"...while you were asleep?"

She smiles brilliantly at him. It's a very pretty smile. "Do you not see better while you're dreaming? A pity, it's quite fun."

He is so confused.

(And the pleasant temperature is beginning to fade back into the heat of the desert.)

Oh, fine, she'll explain. She guesses.

"Hags are a monstrous set of creatures that steal into the dreams of mortals for their own amusement or to torment them. Often both. I, being the daughter of a hag, have a similar set of abilities."

"...huh. There's nothing like that at all where I'm from."

"No? No horrible hideous monsters, stealing into your dreams and your town and your bed, to seduce and then devour innocent victims alive?" Pause. "Good! Because they're very irritable and have the most loathsome breath."

...he giggles.

"And the voices! Screeching incessantly like old rusted hinges that have grown a sense of entitlement and a hatred for all sapient life. No, you're better off without them."

"Wow, that's an image," he says, snickering.

"I take some measure of joy in using words to weave evocative images."

"Unfortunately, this quality might be quickly wasted in a desert wasteland. It's so hard to weave anything with words when they all come from a parched throat. Do your temperature powers extend to making or finding food, water, and shelter?"

He blinks. "My what?"

"The temperature around you has been fluctuating, I believe in accordance with your mood. It was ice cold when you first landed, and has shifted since."

"...I didn't notice. So, uh, maybe??"

"Not a powerset you had before?"

"No??? People having powers like that is not even a thing where I'm from."

"Congratulations on your newfound extraordinary talents?"

"Thanks, I guess."

"Is it something you can control consciously?"

"Why would I know that?"

"That was more of an invitation for experimentation than a question."

"I don't—know how to try," he says, frustrated. Fire flickers over his skin; he doesn't appear to notice immediately.

"Well, even so, you seem to be doing a passable job at it," she says, pointing at the fire.

...he blinks at his hands, which do indeed seem to be harmlessly burning.

"That's still not..."

"Think happy thoughts?" she offers, not at all seriously.

He gives her an impatient look. The comfortable temperature is now long gone.

She sighs.

"As far as I can tell, it's at least somewhat tied to your emotions. When you found me funny it was warm and pleasant, and now that I'm annoying you, you are spontaneously catching on fire. I don't particularly know what trying looks like either, but 'thinking happy thoughts,' is probably going to do something."

"What the fuck is a happy thought," he snaps, exasperated. The flames go out, and a brief torrent of ice-cold water pours out of the air over her head.

She yelps at this sudden icy downpour. It's definitely very cold. Also very illuminating. She realizes that she's been very very stupid. One should perhaps not take out their mood on the first person available when that first person available has strange foreign magic and he's the only one around for miles.

After a few seconds of consideration and uncomfortable being-coldness: "... Yes, all right, I kind of deserved that."

...he giggles. The pleasant warmth comes back, wrapping around her like a blanket.

Oh, good. That bodes well.

"I have decided," she says, after another pause to consider how uncomfortable it is to be covered in ice cold water while wearing furs, "that you probably deserve an apology. So. I'm sorry."

Those last two words sound a bit like pulling teeth, but not so much that they're insincere. Just an apology from someone that doesn't like giving them very much.

"Thanks," he says, amused.

Okay, being in furs in an empty desert was uncomfortable, being in furs soaked in ice water is sort of an improvement, but not enough of one to be worth being in furs soaked in ice water. She has something on under the furs, it is time to stop being in the furs. Also, in her bid to live another day, it's probably useful to be a pretty girl in front of this person. As such, she begins stripping.

"So, on the bright side," she says conversationally while completing this task, "we are probably not going to die of dehydration in an empty desert. That's very exciting!"

He snickers.

"Granted, we should probably figure out a better method than this. It doesn't seem very good for my health."

"I don't know, could be worse."

"Oh?"

She drops the last of her fluffy warm furs unceremoniously onto the ground and looks at him, archly. The pants and close knitting tunic are not immodest, but they definitely reveal more of her than fluffy warm furs.

...he looks at her with a slight smile.

"Could you have set me on fire?"

"I didn't know how!"

"So, it's possible you might still accidentally set me on fire. Should I keep my distance for my own safety?"

"Where would be the fun in that?"

She snorts!

"I might find it more fun to not be on fire! What about that, have you considered that?"

"Mm... no?" he says, cheerfully.

...

She cracks up.

He giggles.

"What if I'm more fun when I'm having fun? What then?"

"Well then I guess I won't set you on fire!"

Snort. "I thought these were accidental incendiary incidents. Are we abandoning subtlety?"

"I'm pretty sure I couldn't set you on fire completely by accident. The only time I've done something to you I was at least sort of trying."

"You realize most people would be upset at that sort of thing."

"Mm?"