"I still think we could have bedded down in the master suite," Flint grumbled.
"You still can," Noble responded, rolling her eyes.
Even crossing the lake, the man had felt the need to give all his thoughts about how the evening should go.
It was so annoying that Noble could barely appreciate the lack of monsters in the lake and almost missed the fractured moon in the reflection of the water.
Now that they were inside Mirage's former home, Noble had had quite enough.
"Whatever fantasies you have, you are welcome to do on your own. Don't make me witness them," she added.
Thankfully, they hadn't used the belt to travel this time, so they hadn't used the shared memory to communicate their thoughts.
Noble didn't really need it to see the flash of anger on the man's face to guess the curses running through his head.
"You're a cruel one," he said at last. "But even if you didn't pick my location, this place doesn't exactly scream restful either. There were plenty of places with furniture that we could lie down on."
"True, but as Bel pointed out when picking this place, the ceiling and throne do not look like this in the Bastion we know, which means that those pieces must have been removed for some reason." Roan pointed to the mosaic of mirrors overhead.
In the darkness, the strange cuts in the glass were harder to see, but Noble could still feel them vaguely shifting in her peripheral vision.
"So we are putting ourselves intentionally in harm's way just to see what will happen?" Flint grunted.
"Isn't that the essence of being in a Nightmare?" Helie raised one eyebrow at him.
"She has a point." Noble shrugged. "You are welcome to sleep wherever you like, but this is the spot I am choosing."
Noble called forth Helios and began lashing her body to him. The others followed suit. Although the hall was enormously vast, the Masters found themselves huddling in the middle of the room under where the mosaic seemed to merge to a central point.
Sighing, Flint lowered the pack from his back. "Fine. Let's get this over with. Who wants the first watch?"
"My echo can do it," Noble offered.
But in the end, no lookout was needed. The exhaustion of the cohort melted away under the unfamiliar ceiling of Imagination's Palace. Bastion might have been home to humans in the present time, but in the time of this Nightmare, it was unlikely that before yesterday that any humans had ever set foot in the palace, let alone decided to bed down inside of it.
And it seemed that these humans would not be sleeping either. Each sound brought them all to attention, and every phantom movement of the ceiling brought their drooping eyes to be wide awake once more.
Eventually, the heroes gave up on their sleep and began chatting idly. The group hadn't had much time to bond before entering the Nightmare, and their first night all together again had been spent fighting a dragon and then navigating a maze of mirrors.
This was one of the first times that they had a moment of rest and were able to speak without any particular goal.
"What do you think is going on in the waking world right now?" Helie leaned back slightly, using her arm to support her head.
"By now, my wife has made it to Bastion to search for me," Roan mused. "I do hope she isn't too worked up, or the weather in the whole region will suffer."
"Tyris can be such a drama princess. I am glad you married her and not me. I don't know how you keep your cool," Flint picked something from between his teeth.
Rather than be offended, the Master in the blue scarf laughed lightly. "It is better that I remain calm. You don't want to see me when I lose my temper."
"Why?" Flint pursed his lips. "Does it have something to do with your Flaw?"
Roan's smile grew a little wider. "What an excellent question!"
"And that was not an answer!" The surly Master held up a finger in objection.
"No matter what I said, you wouldn't believe me. Even if Bel over there vouched for my honesty," Roan's gaze became far off. "Suffice it to say, Tyris and I were made for one another."
"If Saint Tyris tracked down Uncle Orum, he would calm her down. He is good at that sort of thing," Helie smiled. "Right now, he is probably writing by firelight. He always likes to do his work at night. He says he finds the night soothing, but I think he just doesn't like me glancing over his shoulder to correct his spelling."
"Steel doesn't ever want anyone to see what he is doing either," Flint chewed his lip.
"Do you think he misses you yet?" Helie took her gaze from the ceiling just long enough to see the hurt in the man's eyes before he blinked it away.
"Eh, that old fool probably hasn't even noticed I'm gone," Flint answered mildly.
"That sounds like my clan. In the Stormsea, we often do not know where our comrades are. The few people whom I trusted know that I am on a mission, but not the nature of my quest. I suppose they will find out when I return." Aether allowed a small smile. "What about you, Bel?"
"My loved ones will be fast asleep at this hour of the night, but I hope that they are living their lives well and comfortably until I can get back to them." Noble pictured her boys in their beds resting peacefully.
Since Fort knew the dangerous journey that his wife was on, he was unlikely to be getting much sleep, but Noble hoped he wouldn't be worrying too much.
And if Rain was still awake, then she was gearing up for another hunt. Though with Sunless in Bastion, that seemed unlikely. Rainy was foolhardy but not completely insane. She wouldn't go out without the protection of her big brother.
The group fell into a melancholy silence.
They had risked a lot by coming into the Nightmare, and now, for the second night in a row, they were reminded of what was waiting for them back home. They all leaned back, staring into the mosaic of mirrors.
"Bah!" Flint cried into the darkness, startling all but Noble, who had felt the emotional outburst coming. "I ended up in a cohort with a bunch of saps. Can't we talk about something else?"
"Like what?" Aether scratched his forehead before placing his hand behind his neck once more.
"What else? Horror stories!" Flint smiled wickedly.
"Don't we live through enough horror stories?" Noble rolled her eyes. Below her, Helios grumbled his assent.
"Don't be a spoil sport." Flint pursed his lips as he stared at the ceiling. "Telling scary stories is what you are supposed to do in a haunted house."
"This isn't a haunted house. It's a palace owned by a demon." Roan shook his head against his bedroll.
"A dead demon," the surly Master grunted. "And don't forget about all those drowned people at the bottom of the real Bastion's lake. This place is just asking to have dead souls running around it!"
The rest of the group remembered the poor people who had lost their lives in the flood at the bottom of the hill in true Bastion.
How harrowing that night must have been!
Just then, the moon reached its peak overhead.
The mosaic overhead began to glow.