It's not the storm before the calm, this is the deep and dying breath ~ [Sindri]

She was trapped. The girl struggled for a moment against her sheets, seemingly blind to her actual surroundings. Impossible to breathe. Impossible to escape. It took her a second to realise that her thrashing only caused the sheets to become more and more tangled around her arms and legs, and that she was in her bed at home. Safe. Dash released a slow, shuddering breath. She was okay. She was safe. The girl realised that her cheeks were wet… apparently she’d woken up crying. Her fingers found her face, and she ran her fingertips against her skin with shaky hands, dragging lines of salty water across her cheeks in the dark until the water was gone.  She relaxed and lay absolutely still for a moment, catching her breath slowly in short gasps. Sindri hadn’t woken up yet (how, she had no idea), and she didn’t want to disturb his sleep. He was working early the next morning, after all. Her dream was intensely clear in her mind, but she didn’t want to think about it because it made her chest ache.

Tonight’s vision wasn’t a new one. It was a repeat of a dream she’d had twice already; almost a record seeing as how they’d occurred over what felt like a very short time period. A few weeks. Maybe two months. It was unusual for her to have such an intense dream so many times, but this one was overwhelmingly personal and hard-hitting. Dash felt shaken to her core. Again. Tonight, and not for the first time, she’d dreamed that she and Sindri weren’t together. The girl felt a little sick and more than a little fragile. Mounting horror and shock were building up. She had to get out of here.

She slid out of bed, wincing at the roughness of the sheets. The girl had no idea why her skin was always so sensitive after her dreams, but that was just the way it was. The way it had always been. All of her senses felt especially sensitive and fragile, and she knew that her magic would be all over the place at the moment. Once, she’d tried to perform a simple summoning charm after waking up from a vision. The jug she’d been summoning had shattered and the lights fixed to the walls had all flickered on, then off again. It was scary, having no control like that, and the girl was sure she’d hurt someone if she tried to perform anything more complicated than a summoning spell.

Dash was a slim girl and she was light on her feet, so her footsteps didn’t make the wooden floorboards creak at all as she stepped lithely outside their bedroom door. Spider steps, she thought firmly. The brunette made her way through their house, crossing her arms against her chest and holding herself to stop her hands from shaking. A shiver spread over her body, and she felt as if she could the air sliding over her skin as she moved. It made her feel uneasy. Dash didn't want to think bout her dream, or what it meant. She didn't want to even consider the idea of the future and she didn't want to try to discern whether or not her dream of the two of them, without each other, would come true. Every fibre of her being rejected it.

She was shaken. And shaking. In fact, now that she was in their workshop room, filled with a strong smell of sawdust and clay, (and not with him) the girl started to cry again. She tried to keep it as silent as possible, but her tiny frame couldn't fight against the tremors or the rising panic. Her greatest character flaw, in her opinion, was that she thought about things too much. She wished that she could turn her head off, but it just wasn't happening. Trying to stifle her tears and little gasps for air, Dash started going through her usual routine for when she had intense dreams... her senses all felt... raw, but she knew that having something to do with her hands would distract her. It always did. The fact that this time the subject matter of the dream was so sensitive only made her cry more. She didn't want to think. If she didn't think about it then maybe it would go away...

The girl shakily took a large lump of clay from its place on one of the shelves they'd built together and moved to the table in the middle of the room. Her back was to the door. The room was filled with all kinds of little creations; pots, sculptures, paintings. They'd decided that they had to have a workshop room when they moved in. The thought of it sent an acute pang of pain through her body. Dash's actions were somewhat manic, but she was definitely on autopilot. She had to pause for a moment to try and wipe her face, but when she came back, the woman bumped against the the table hard. She watched with wide eyes as a large glazed pot at the end of the table toppled off the edge and felt her whole body tense as it smashed loudly on the ground. Dash scrambled forward, but the damage was done. She was helpless. Totally helpless.

In an instant Sindri was torn from his deep sleep, wide-eyed and heart racing. The loud crash of something breaking in the house hadn't even made it's way into his dream before the man was sitting straight up with his chest heaving, taking in the unnaturally empty air. Sindri protectively reached an arm to cover his girlfriend but her body was absent. Arden's familiar shape was replaced with a pile of sheets, her warm skin now lifeless cotton. Sindri grasped the fabric in desperation, hoping that if he squeezed hard enough the outcome would be different. This wouldn't be the first time that he was woken up in the middle of the night as a result of his girlfriend's dreams but this incident felt different. Something was wrong. 

"Arden!" Sindri called out. The throbbing lump in his chest grew until it felt as though every muscle in his body was being controlled by an outside force. In the blink of his eyes, Sindri was watching from the ceiling as his body methodically rushed from room to room, searching for the source of the foreign noise.     

Workshop! Workshop room! Sindri screamed until his head felt unable to contain his thoughts for another second. Feeble attempts to put out the fiery panic in his veins were all but useless now. How had he not thought of it immediately? Dash made a habit out of busying herself after a particularly intense vision, and there was no better place to do that than in a room full of things that did just that. Most nights, Sindri would have known exactly how to handle this right down to a science. He would make tea and put on a fire, careful to soothe his girlfriend without being too affectionate. Dash seemed to avoid touch after a poignant dream. Not that he minded, the last thing he wanted to do was make it harder for her.   

"Are you o-" Sindri's throat clasped shut mid-sentence. "Arden, arden..." He rushed to her side, ignoring the protocol and wrapping both his arms around the small crumbled frame of his girlfriend. She was shaking like a leaf. Sindri's heart dropped until it felt as though he was all but void of the vessel. Arden's tear stained face reminded him that he wasn't completely numb to feeling the pang of pain in his chest. Sindri worked to stop Dash from trying to clean up the broken vase, her dainty wrists enclosed in his hands. "What's wrong? Talk to me," He pleaded, struggling to keep his voice down. Sindri's instinct had not failed him. This was no normal dream.   

She heard his voice like it was far away. He was coming. Her slender frame winced at the prospect. The brunette didn’t want to talk to him. She didn’t want him asking her what was wrong, and she didn’t want him to silently blame her for withdrawing when she refused to tell him. She couldn’t vocalise it. The brunette didn’t even know how to speak to him anymore. Weeks of silence and months of drifting had led to this point. She didn’t want him to ask. It was confusing. Little details from her dream lingered. Did the room really smell like a lush forest, or was the smell a remnant sensory experience from her dream? Maybe she was just confused, and the heavy, woody smell was coming from the sawdust and wood blocks that they had in here. She didn’t know.

Sindri burst in to the room like an explosion and she flinched. It was too much. His arms appeared around her and he muttered her name repeatedly. To comfort her, she supposed. She couldn’t move away. Her slim body shook as she sobbed uncontrollably, her little gasps startlingly loud against the silence of the night. Dash tried and failed to gain composure. This was a mess. The usual emotional fragility that came after one of her dreams was particularly intense tonight, and she felt raw. Exposed. Vulnerable. He felt abrasive to her. When he stepped back to take her slim wrists in his huge hands, the sensation of his palms on her skin gave her goosebumps. Her skin crawled and her eyes were wide and dazed. It wasn’t comforting. It hurt.

“N-Nothing,” she managed to gasp out, squeezing her eyes tightly and shaking her head jerkily. No. The girl ducked her head, tears streaming down her cheeks and dripping off of her little chin. Dash didn’t want to reach for him; she wanted him to leave her alone. She wanted to go for a swim in the ocean and hide under the water until she couldn’t breathe. Cut out sight, smell, hearing, taste. Everything was in overdrive and she felt manic. Shakily, the slender brunette prised his fingers off of her right wrist and moved to push a straggly strand of hair out of her face. She wished she wasn’t crying. She hoped he wouldn’t push her for answers. Right now, the idea of him leaving her alone and the unavoidable cold shoulder that would follow for the next few days was the much better option.

Dash took a deep, shaky breath. She had to stop crying. The girl opened her pretty hazel eyes and pleaded with him silently to let it go. She looked up into his handsome face and made a wordless appeal. The tears were slowing now. “Nothing is wrong,” she lied. Please, said her eyes.

Arden was recoiling. It felt like years since the last time that she had responded to his touch in a favorable manner. For weeks they had been avoiding each other, afraid to speak incase the truth were to make it's way off their lips. Incase they let their real feelings show. Incase they would actually have to deal with it. Sindri and Dash were perpetually avoiding the inevitable. Even now Sindri was trying to convince himself that everything was going to work out. That Dash was going to explain an intense dream involving her parents or her friends, nothing to do with him. This is just a phase he reminded himself at hourly intervals. Sindri was grasping, not holding, to any shred of hope that he could wrap his hands around.

Nothing. Sindri repeated the phrase in his head until it didn't sound like a word anymore. It was foreign to him, much like the broken figure that was once Dash in front of him. Where words fell short, eyes said everything he didn't want to hear. The man knew his girlfriend better than he knew himself. He knew that she was begging him to just leave and go back to bed. Let her deal with it. Any other night and he would have complied. It was much more easy to just keep running. Not tonight. Sindri had reached his breaking point.

"Don't," Sindri forced out a single word through clenched teeth. It took everything in him to keep his voice low. He wanted nothing more than to go break something, channel his pain and anger into something physical. His only coping mechanism was miles away now. Sindri was torn. He wanted to hold Arden, cradle her until her sadness was gone. There was a time when his arms would have made her feel safe. The other half of him was angry. Angry from months of frustration trying to figure out why his girlfriend was retreating from him. Angry at himself for not saying something sooner. Maybe if he had been there for her more, this wouldn't be happening. The thought pushed him even further into his pain, the hurt now rising up in his chest.

"Just stop," He dropped her wrists from his hands. Her skin touching his only seemed to make things worse. Sindri knew this was the worst time to address their issues but ignoring it for one more minute was not an option. "You've been gone for days, Arden..." He looked up from the ground, trying to contain an outburst. She had stayed at a friends for the weekend, without so much as an explanation apart from wanting girl time. "This," He threw his arms in the air in exasperation. "This is first we've even touched in weeks," Sindri clenched his jaw in an attempt to keep tears from filling in his own eyes. "Don't tell me nothing is wrong," The man's voice deepened, his pain sounding more angry than he had intended. 

Her little heart thrummed in her chest, and her throat had swelled as if her body didn’t want her to get the words out. Everything was working against her, and she was struggling. So frail. So fragile. Dash swallowed against a dry throat. She wanted to say something, but she simply couldn’t. How could she explain how she felt when they hadn’t really talked for weeks? Months, even? Her hands were still shaking as she wiped her fingers against her cheeks, trying to remove some of the evidence of tonight’s events. Her own fingers felt foreign to her skin. How was she supposed to explain the way she felt to him when he felt like a stranger, and she couldn’t even articulate the way she felt to herself? Arden Dasher was an emotional creature and right now, she was drowning in it.

Empathy had always been her strong point. She could almost feel the wordless information rolling off of him in waves. He was tense. Frowning. Clenched jaw. He was hurting, and he was furious, his body language was telling her everything. Dash could see it all, and it was overwhelming. “I…” She tried to start a sentence, but she couldn’t breathe. Her chest was tight, and now that he’d let her hands go, she’d wrapped her arms around herself again to try to stop herself from shaking. Her pretty face was contorted with emotion. She was trying not frown. Trying not to cry. Her full lips were tingling and had formed a pout that she couldn't wipe away. Her lower lip trembled and words were simply not coming. A part of her was worried that he’d turn around and start smashing things. The room was certainly full of things to smash, she thought dizzily.

There was no reason for this. They hadn’t fought before. No one had cheated. The couple had a beautiful little house out in the country, just like she’d always wanted. Fuck, they were the perfect couple. Everyone said so. His family loved her. She loved his family. He got on well with her brother. Their lives were so, so intertwined. Who was Arden Dasher without Sindri Trickett? She hadn’t been single since she was fourteen. She didn’t know. The slim brunette couldn’t look at him any more. Instead, she shut her eyes again. They were fine, she thought. All she had to do was calm him down. Go to bed. Maybe she could entice him into make-up sex and put off the inevitable for one more night.

He was right. She hadn’t let him touch her for weeks. She’d gone to bed early and pretended to be asleep when he joined her, or feigned interest in a book while curled up on the couch late at night and let him go to bed first. Dash was good at avoiding, but she wasn’t a good liar. His hands on her felt like a stranger’s hands and it made her feel panicky and uncomfortable. The seer hadn’t thought that she could fake that kind of intimacy at the moment, so she’d avoided it completely. He hadn’t asked, either. In fact, he’d been leaving for work earlier than he needed to and staying later. Maybe another girl would have suspected that he was having an affair or something, but Dash knew better. He was as invested in this as she was.

“I told you,” she whispered insistently, without opening her eyes. Her voice was quiet, but the night was quiet too. She could hear her heartbeat racing, but she didn’t think that he could. Her ears were ringing. The girl squeezed herself tighter, doing her best to withdraw into herself. Her fingers bit painfully into her thin arms. “I went to Ruari’s. We went shopping and had hot chocolate and…” The girl took another deep, shaky breath and took her lower lip between her teeth. She was wound up too. Tense. Everything was horribly raw and she was especially sensitive in every way right now. It was the worst possible time to be talking like this. “It isn't," she protested weakly. Please. Please let it go. It wasn't too far gone yet. Things hadn't reached breaking point. There was still a way out, she just had to find it. "I just had a vision. I just feel... I..." She frowned. Her words were forced and weak. they sounded pathetic to her own ears. "Nothing is wrong," she insisted.

Each word floating out from Arden's mouth felt like it was poisoning the air. The more she spoke, the less Sindri felt like he was breathing properly. Without control, his chest began to quietly heave as it worked to suppress the boiling emotion within him. Every breath was constricted and the man had to powerfully inhale to obtain enough air to think coherently. The anger and hurt incessantly burning his insides was dizzying. How had this all happened so quickly? Sindri found himself wishing he could rewind time. Rewind back to when things were normal. When he didn't feel guilty every time someone was envious of their perfect companionship. Now, whenever someone commented on the couples outwardly happy dissonance, Sindri felt like he was acting. Living a lie that he was too scared to face.

"Ah, for fucks sake, Arden!" Sindri could no longer keep his voice calm. A long arm extended to knock another work in progress from the table next to him, sending an incomplete vase tumbling to the floor. The shattering of dried out clay sounded distant. Sindri immediately wanted to take back his outburst but he could no longer control it. The moment he allowed himself to act on his impulses was the same moment that he lost the reigns. His conscience politely tried to remind him that Dash would not be able to handle his anger at a time like this, but Sindri was unable to calm himself down as her words floated around in his brain.

"What am I supposed to think? Hm?" The man interrogated. As deep and angry as his voice sounded, the underlying pain was what rang out in the otherwise silent house. He was pleading her. Begging for an explanation. An out. Anything. "You leave... without so much as a word to me," Sindri shoved an index finger into his chest. "Oh riight," He couldn't help but mock. "It's not as if we talk anyway, yeah, love?" Anger brought out the worst in him. He became a stranger to himself. Spiteful and jealous. A far cry from the gentle and caring man that he prided himself in being. Without something physical and immediate to destroy, he set his sights on the closest thing to him. Arden.

"I can't keep doing this..." Sindri turned his back to Dash, planting his hands on the work table. "You know that," His voice had lowered considerably, the anger in his voice had deflated and all that was left was sadness. Sindri knew the inevitable was coming but he couldn't face it. He couldn't face her. "Just tell me what the vision was," The man worked to remain calm but his white knuckles on the table were a reminder that he was all but in control. "I deserve at least that," Sindri tightened his jaw, trying to swallow all the things that he wanted to yell. As much as he wanted to take away Arden's pain, he first had to deal with his own.

It was escalating. Dash didn’t know how to stop it. The brunette felt like this had all come out of nowhere. It wasn’t like things had been building up and up – at least not for her. There had been no build of anger or hatred or blame on her end… there hadn’t been anything. Just a growing sense of hopelessness that really wasn’t too hard to fight when she worked to remind herself how lucky she was. A growing sense of… nothingness. Flatness. The occasional moment of resentment or claustrophobia that was easily suppressed and forgotten about. She didn’t want to blame him for the distance that had been between them for some time, but was suddenly very obvious to them both. It wasn’t completely his fault. It was nobody’s fault, as far as she could tell.

The brunette was still kidding herself that there wasn’t a real problem.

He swore and she flinched like he’d hit her. He was loud and his words were attacks at her already fragile state of mind. She wanted to say no. To beg him to stop. Maybe they could just wait. Maybe things would get better. All couples fell into ruts at some point, right? It couldn’t be all rainbows and daisies and passion all of the time. This was a phase. The man struck out at one of the many breakable items in the room and the sound of it smashing on the ground was a shock, even though she’d known it was coming. His anger tore at her. It hurt her too. She wanted to tell him to stop calling her Arden. That he usually called her Dash, and how were they supposed to go back to normal if he wasn’t acting normal?

Her eyes were open again and she watched him as he directed it all at her. She knew him too well to think he’d do anything to hurt her physically, but his anger was scaring her. When had he been this angry before? Never. Not at her, at least. This was new and different. He accused her, and he was right about everything he said. She’d left and hadn’t told him. She’d left a note. He was mocking her and the arguments that had already formed in her head. Well they didn’t talk! Why should he care if she left for a few days? It didn’t make sense to her. He didn’t ask and she didn’t tell. When they had problems, it was all cold shoulders and passive aggression until the point of contention wasn’t important enough to matter. When people asked, Dash told them truthfully that she and Sindri had never had a fight.

She was searching through moments and memories… looking for the place where things had stopped. Because it was perfect once, she thought fiercely. The brunette was sure that the romance and sweetness of it all had been real at one point. They had been really, truly happy once. She was sure. He turned away from her and she exhaled shakily, a little relived that he’d stopped yelling at her. She didn’t have answers to his attacks and accusations. Yes, he was right. Everything he was saying was true. He was deflated, but Dash felt sick. “Can’t do what?” she asked, finally speaking up. Her voice was still shaky and weak, but there was a flicker of something else. Defensiveness? Irritation?

He was telling her that he deserved to know what she’d been dreaming about. Deserved it, like this was the only reason that they were falling apart. Like there weren’t a hundred other things that mattered. She ignored his last words. “Can’t keep doing… nothing?” she asked, accusations ringing through her voice. Her chest was constricted. She coudln't breathe. She had to force the words out, but they were there. Despite the silence between them and her constant efforts to pretend that they weren’t… it was all in her head. “Can’t keep telling everyone about how perfect we are and then blaming me for every little thing behind closed doors?” The girl felt like she was on autopilot. She couldn’t stop herself. He didn’t know when the last time they’d touched had been. Well when was the last time they'd gone out to dinner? Gone camping? When was the last time he'd bought her flowers or written a romantic note for her? It was dizzying.