Anya Was Not Like the Other Students of the Deep Foundation.
From childhood, the Dream Realm had never appeared to her as a mere place of study or a training ground—it was an extension of her very soul, a vast and intricate echo of human emotions.
She had been born with a keen sensitivity—almost a curse—that made her receptive not only to dreams, but to the hidden, unspoken feelings of others. It was as if her heart were a resonant chamber for the world's silent joys and buried sorrows.
This gift made her an exceptional student—but also a fragile soul. While the other Wardens learned to manipulate the shapes and landscapes of dreams, Anya perceived the emotional vibrations that lay beneath them.
A dream of anger appeared to her not merely as a volcanic eruption, but as a wave of bitterness burning her throat. A dream of joy was a symphony of colors that filled her eyes with tears.
Often, she returned from her dream explorations exhausted—her face pale, her hands trembling under the emotional weight she had absorbed.
Master Elian had recognized her uniqueness from the very beginning.
While many would have tried to temper her sensitivity, Elian, with the hard-earned wisdom of experience, chose instead to teach her how to channel it.
"Anya," Elian would say in his calm, patient voice during their private lessons in the quietest corners of the Foundation,"your strength does not lie in bending the dream to your will, like Lyra does, nor in dissecting it with logic, as I once did. Your strength is feeling. It is your resonance with the soul of the Dream Realm that makes you special. You must not block your emotions—but learn to dance with them."
Anya, often lowering her eyes in shame at what she saw as her weakness, once replied,
"Master, sometimes the pain of others overwhelms me. It's as if their fears become my own. How can I tell my heart apart from theirs, when everything blurs together in the Dream Realm?"
Elian rested a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
"You mustn't separate them—not entirely. You must learn to bear the weight, but without sinking. The Dream Realm is a mirror, Anya. And sometimes, to see the truth, you must be willing to face the darkest reflections."
Her training with Elian focused not only on technique but on emotional control and the understanding of the intricate bond between the waking world and the dream.
It was Elian who taught her to visualize a barrier of calm around herself—not to block emotions, but to filter them, to observe without being consumed.
Through him, Anya began to grasp the true nature of the Ash—not merely as a physical or dreamlike threat, but as a sickness of the soul, an emotional aridity that drained hope and vitality.
She could sense the Ash as a chilling dissonance, a deafening silence where once there had been life.
One day, during an exercise in reading the dreams of an area tainted by the Ash, Anya found herself in a landscape of twisted nightmares—once a blooming garden.
While the other Wardens focused on the structural anomalies of the dream, Anya was drawn toward a deep echo of sorrow—a nearly imperceptible lament that lingered amid the ruin.
"There's something here," she whispered to Elian, eyes closed, hands pressed to her chest."Such a great sadness… it isn't just the Ash. It's a memory of ancient pain—a desperate cry that still resonates."
Elian, who had studied the traumatic experience of the Founder, looked at her gravely.
"It's the residue of lost hope, Anya. The Ash doesn't merely destroy—it suffocates what was once beautiful, turning it into an endless lament."
It was then that Anya understood the true nature of the threat.
The Ash was not a simple destructive force—it was the result of suffering so profound that it had corroded the very origin of dreams.
Her sensitivity—once seen as a weakness—became her greatest strength, allowing her to perceive subtle intrusions and distortions that others could not.
Her gift made her more cautious than Lyra, more inclined to seek deep understanding before acting.
She was not a warrior in the traditional sense, but a protector—her most powerful weapon was her ability to connect with souls, to feel their pain, and perhaps, to awaken the spark of hope the Ash sought to extinguish.
In the heart of the Deep Foundation, Anya became the silent voice of emotion—the keeper of resonance, the hope that the Dream Realm could still feel and heal.
And yet, the most intense negative emotions still struck deeply within her, flowing through and silently shaping her spirit.
Her sensitivity, while an extraordinary strength, was also a double-edged blade. Every time she perceived deep pain or intense fear, a part of her bent under the weight of those emotions. It was as if, entering dreams tainted by the Ash, she not only absorbed the suffering of others but made it her own, leaving invisible traces upon her spirit.
Sometimes she felt a subtle burn, a dark current sliding down her spine, almost a whisper urging her to give in, to succumb to the darkness that surrounded her.
Elian had taught her to build barriers of calm, yet no protection could fully block the most violent emotional waves.
The contaminated dreams, especially those in which the Ash intertwined with memories of despair, were invisible temptations. If she were not careful, her sensitivity could become a vortex that swallowed her, turning her gift of feeling into a prison.
Every echo of pain she caught risked corrupting her thoughts, blurring the line between good and evil, the desire to heal and the urge to flee, or even awakening a silent, destructive impulse.
Anya felt this fragility during sleepless nights, when she wandered alone through the corridors of the Foundation, among the silvered reflections of torches flickering against the walls. In those moments, she perceived the Ash as a tempting voice, a whisper promising relief if only she would stop struggling, if she surrendered her mission and let herself be overwhelmed by the pain of others.
She knew that if she yielded even for an instant, she would no longer be merely a witness to emotions: she would become part of their darkness, a shadow in the Dream Realm, incapable of fully returning to herself.
And yet, despite the constant danger, Anya continued to walk among the dreams as if on a thread of light and shadow, striving to use that same sensitivity to protect, understand, and heal.
Each step was a delicate balance: her strength was simultaneously her greatest peril.
Every beat of compassion could become a gateway through which darkness might creep, and every emotion she perceived was a seed of corruption to defend against, without ever losing her own light.
Just like the Solara at the dawn of time…