Solae stood before the Empress on her gilded throne as ornate tapestries fluttered in the invisible wind. They were alone in the massive room yet all she could see the polished floor, the ruler of the Stellar Empire adorned in luxurious fabrics that had been draped with a delicate attention to detail, and the massive seat on which she presided over official affairs. Inky tendrils on the edges of the marquise's vision threatened to expose the dream as an act of fiction yet she dismissed their existence each time they crept forward.

"I request that Rene Quentain be kept in my company, your excellence," she heard herself say with the impeccable polish of the courts. As decorum dictated she swept herself down in a bow, for she was wearing a suit rather than gown, and waited pensively for the approval that she felt must be coming. The war was over. As a pivotal piece to the success the empire had in reclaiming New Concordia, Solae was confidant that a reward would be granted to her for the loyalty with which she acted. No longer was Solae just one of many with titles that afforded them prestige; she was a name that spread across several sectors and dripped off the lips of the most prominent courtiers. She was [i]known.[/i]

"Keep him by your side?" the Empress asked derisively as her cold gaze pierced Solae's lifted eyes. Her face turned a dark shade of purple as it elongated and bulged monstrously. "You poor dear, you know that keeping him here with you will kill him. [i]You[/i] will kill him, Solae Falia."

Solae stumbled back in abject horror as the Empress contorted and metamorphosed into bubbling mounds of gelatinous ooze that grew. A hollow, echoing peel of laughter resounded as numerous arms extended from the creature and pointed to her feet. The body of a man lay inches from her feet that had not been there before. Her breaths became labored as she intuitively recognized the back splattered in blood. Rene rolled over and turned his head in her direction. Two milky white orbs that had been clouded with death stared at her as a crackled, rotting mouth wrenched itself open.

"How many more people have to die before it is your turn, Solae? How many must suffer? [i]You[/i] did this! For you to live see what has been lost!" it spat with accusation. From the void above her head fell every employee of the Imperial Embassy, her parents, the few friends she had in the nobility in Armistice, and Lord Armon. With each sickening smack of bone and flesh impacting the floor she backpedaled. Each was horrifically scarred in ways only a brutal imagination could create. Their lifeless shells mimicked Marlene as she had succumbed to the embrace of death with pain etched on her features.

"No, no, no..." she chanted to herself before she turned and sprinted.

As instantly as it had appeared the throne room vanished, her psyche melting her into a dense jungle not unlike the one she had been in when she had been waiting for Rene to return from the assault. Amber Horizon was not in sight and the trees, vines, and underbrush stretched into a endless cage of landscape. Her legs burned from the exertion that lasted veritable hours in easily doctored timeline of the subconscious. Solae stopped to catch her breath, her lungs screaming for air, when she spotted shadows leering at her. She stood and spun around but they were in every direction; there was no escape.

"What a fine prize," one amorphous shade purred at her malevolently.

"We'll bend her over so many times she'll never be upright again!" one boasted as it cackled to itself. "Even the dogs will have her before we collect our bounty!"

Reality grabbed her firmly, shaking her out of the nightmare, and jolted her back to consciousness without even a flickering sensation of warning. Her eyes opened but she was not aware first the first precious few seconds. Each sense had to be roused from its chemically-induced slumber which led to her awareness being stifled as stimulus trickled in. Before all else she was aware of a lumpy mattress on which she had been laid. Scent came next, foreign odors filling her nostrils, and then with painstaking delay were the vision and hearing that Solae relied upon so heavily.

"No, no, no," she choked with such despair that Enro stepped back respectively and Lasha had to stop herself from springing into action. With the marquise's last memory being capture, and the threats upon her involving non-consensual acts presumably on a mattress, it was exceedingly clear that the safety of the room was lost on her. In a blind panic Solae reached down, her fingers closing over the fresh bandaging on her thigh, the unspoken threat being that she would rip into the wound in hopes medical distress would stay the captors she believed were upon her.

"Solae, I'm here," Rene reassured as she took the offending hand into his own calmly but with concern.

Initially she started to wrench away but, at the sight of him injured yet quite alive, tears filled her eyes. His talking corpse was still fresh in her mind with its allegations she heralded the grim reaper itself. Rationally she knew that it was an illusion manifesting from her deepest fears- but there had been shreds of truth buried within the hellish visions. "Rene," she confirmed as she relaxed and sank back into the mattress.

"How do you feel?" Lasha asked delicately in the common tongue.

"I... I just had a bad dream," Solae said with minimization that every soul in the cramped quarters knew her to be trying to avoid any further explanation. "I'm fine now," she then convinced herself as she pushed herself to sitting upright and moved to slide off the edge of the bed.