Plamen groans, rubbing his eyes, but it doesn't help with the headache that has woken him up. The bed is comfortable (he's lying on the bed, right?) making him burrow further into soft blankets.

"Plamen?"

It's Zima, whispering questioningly somewhere near him. He pulls the blanket over his head, keeping his eyes closed.

"I know you are awake." Her amused tone is quiet, just like before.

"No."

"Fine," she allows. He can imagine her grinning.

Why is she here? Where is here? Now that these questions float around his mind, he knows he won't be getting back to dreams. Agh. Freaking curiosity. His brain should really stop with that.

He shuffles up with another groan, the blanket falling to his lap as he levers on one hand and brings the other to pinch the bridge of his nose. It's right behind his closed eyes. The pinprick of pain, spreading all over.

"Here, this will help you," Zima says softly.

He's weighing whether to open his eyes or not. A small crack between his eyelids lets him see a dark green cup being shoved in his face.

He shifts his eyes at the owner of the hand holding the cup. "What's that?"

A smug look on her face tells him nothing. "A remedy. Your head must be killing you. I know mine sure did when I woke up."

He eyes the cup like it would bite him; immature, he's aware, but he never liked the concoctions of any kind considering he usually finds them disgusting.

"Here, here." Still holding it offered, Zima shakes the cup in front of him.

He glowers at her, the pain almost forgotten. "Do I look like a fucking cat?"

"You are as grumpy as one."

He snatches the cup from her hand and brings it to his lips. Before tasting it, he takes a small sniff. Not bad, smells like honey and almonds. He takes a sip and cringes. Too many sweet flavors, but he'll survive.

"How long have you been up?" he asks between the sips. Some time after starting to drink he situated himself more firmly into the sitting position on the mattress. His eyes are still half-closed at this point, but he can clearly detect the faint red of Zima's robe. He glances down and sees the rugged necklace is still falling over his collarbones all the way to the middle of his chest, thanking the Gods no one tried to take his clothing off, or anything else for that matter. He hates it when people rummage through his things.

"Maybe an hour," she replies after a moment. "Vid is still dead to the world." She points over her left shoulder.

Plamen understands. Actually he doesn't. How can she know if Vid is sleeping? He could have woken up while she's hanging out in his room...

Wait.

His eyes nearly pop out of his head as he takes in the room. It's not his room, at least not anymore. it's also not someone else's room. He notes two more beds, each at its own corner, Vid softly snoring in one. What the heck?

"It was like that when I woke up," Zima says. She is sitting on the wooden chair he had in the room that was assigned to him in the beginning. "They somehow merged our rooms into one."

Wow. Plamen's mind rushes to find an explanation as he ignores somewhat stabbing sensation behind his eyes. He remembers bits and pieces of information about the castle, and while this seems over the top, it is still in the realm of possibility. Especially since it is said that the stone bricks that make it are carved with specific magical properties, essentially making them pliant to molding.

Um, that can wait. He needs to know what happened back then.

"How did we end up here?" he asks, realizing that he's half a cup away from drinking the too-sweet concoction up and his headache is nowhere near as awful as it was before.

Zima leans into the backrest. "They told me we were brought here to rest after fainting." She pauses, scrunching her face up. "The Commander was quite interested in you." She sounds curious.

"Really? No idea what's that about." Nope, Plamen really has no idea. It's suspicious. But he's one of the Champions so it's probably that.

"You can ask him later," she says, offhand. At his frown, she explains, "He said they will come to speak with us when all of us are awake."

Plamen nods. Makes sense. Then he realizes... "He came here?"

"Nah, remember when I said that my head was killing me when I woke up?"

Plamen nods once more.

"Well, I was dying here and decided to fetch myself something, anything." Zima brings her right hand to her forehead in a dramatic manner. Her theatrics are nothing unusual, but Plamen would like that she gets to the point. She must've seen something on his face, because she hurries to explain, fiddling with long sleeves of her robe. "Found some guy outside, got him to bring me a painkiller and then the Commander came. They must have informed him I was up."

Plamen hums. "What about the explanation about why we fainted? And how much time has passed?" He eyes one window but it's covered with heavy drapes, a small trickle of light coming out from it could mean anything. The other two are the same.

"For the time - next day, late afternoon, and for the fainting - I asked," she replies, gritting the last part through her teeth. "Can you believe what he said to me? All in due time," she finishes with mock-impersonation.

Laughter bubbles from his chest, uncontrollable, and he finds himself trying to stifle snickers. Zima stares at him in wonder, her mouth falling open.

Once he gets some semblance of control, he offers a petulant "What."

She jolts, shaking her head slightly. "Umm, I've never seen you laugh."

He blinks, realizing that she's right. He really doesn't laugh often and he probably never did in front of Zima and Vid. He shrugs.

It seems Zima doesn't like that non-reaction because in the next moment she grins, and that stretching of her lips seems almost evil.

"You're cute when you laugh."

A gray pillow sails toward her face. She catches it with one hand.

"I'm not cute!" Plamen hopes it doesn't sound like a childish complaint to Zima as it clearly sounds to him. He hides his heating face behind the cup.

A keening moan prompts them to turn around. There on the only other occupied bed, Vid is getting up, holding his head with one hand, and Plamen is now sure that the headache must be a mutual side effect from that obviously stupid stunt Yana let them pull off when they summoned the Eye in the War Chamber.

Zima gets up, dashes across the mega-room, grabs one of the cups from a table, this one gleaming dark blue, and goes to sit at the edge of Vid's bed.

"Drink," she urges him gently, then carefully catching one of his palms in hers, she shoves the cup in his hand. "You'll feel better, I promise."

Vid looks like he's past caring about anything as his body wobbles slightly, almost as if he's between passing out again and jumping out of bed and then passing out. Plamen watches him gulping down the content of sickly-sweet medicine unsteadily, a few drops escaping his lips, trailing down his chin, but Vid ignores them until he's done with the drink.

"Oh, god," he croaks out, clearing his throat twice and swabbing his face with a sleeve. "I thought I was gonna die of thirst."

Zima is already standing up. "I'll get you a glass of water."

"Thanks," Vid offers sheepishly then puts a hand over his eyes, sighing. "Such bad luck... I've never thought the cost of visions would be a dry throat."

"A what?" Plamen asks

Vid peeks at him through his fingers. "You know how lots of higher grade spells don't come without a cost? Well, it seems my visions make me go thirsty of all the things," he explains, then widens his eyes in horror. "I'll take a dry throat any day."

"Why's that?" Zima pips in, offering him a crystal glass which he accepts with a grateful expression.

"Um... some traded their normal sight for the sight sight."

"You mean, they went blind?" Plamen can't help but wonder out loud.

Vid cringes as he nods. "Yeah, so thirst is good. Very, very good," he finishes with comical bobs of his head.

Tiredness subsiding, Plamen finally feels normal, or as normal as he will get. He throws the blankets aside, reaching the edge and slowly stands up to his full height. His knees are a bit unsteady but he pushes through the first few steps and then walks to Vid's bed, leaving his cup on the table. He sits down...more like flings his body down on the bed next to Zima and almost ends up sprawled over Vid's stretched out legs, but he's satisfied with this small victory.

Vid won't be walking any time that soon if the pale sheen on his face is telling enough. Although, out of all three of them, Zima appears to be in the best condition, probably because she's been awake the longest.

"...maybe a light glass flask with wide cork so you can soak herbs inside?" Zima is muttering something to Vid who nods excitedly in response.

Plamen doesn't want to devote time to bottles and water and drinks. Instead, they could brainstorm about that second part of the prophecy so he decides to garner their attention. And the best way to do it...

"Worry naught for the darkened sky; Saviour comes riding the cyan tears, walking on the flower carpet's guiding light..."

There are two pairs of eyes staring at him in shock. He blinks at them.

"You remember it word for word!" Zima exclaims so loud that it almost sends him into another headache.

"That's exactly what I wanted to speak about with you guys!" Vid's words are a bit quieter, probably because of his own ailment, but not by much.

"What about it?" Zima asks with a certain amount of excitement, she's practically jumping up and down where she sits.

Vid shuffles a bit, giving his glass to Zima who knows exactly what he wants with it since he doesn't protest when she gets up and puts it back on the table.

"I said I was thirsty because of vision," he starts, earning two nods and Zima's hand gesture to continue. "Right. That's because I had a vision while sleeping."

"You mean while you were passed out cold?" Plamen interrupts.

Vid scowls then rolls his eyes. "Whatever. Anyway, the vision. I had no idea what it is about until you..." Vid points a finger at Plamen. "...recited the last part of the prophecy." His expression turns from excited to conflicted to stiff.

"Not good?" Zima prods, her demeanor changing, too.

Vid swallows loudly before continuing, "No, not really." He looks at her with sad eyes. "You were crying in it. And tears were turning to icy needles. And Plamen was nowhere in sight. And it was dark, like really dark."

"Cyan tears and darkened sky?" Plamen proposes.

Vid grunts in agreement and snags a few strands of his hair to hook them behind his ear. "My guess, too. Also..."

He trails off but Zima catches his hand in his, smiling, she encourages him with a soft "Go on."

"Um, I was watching from a bird's perspective, though I didn't see much..."

"What is it?" Plamen inquires impatiently because it doesn't seem like Vid is being shy. It appears that the next thing out of his mouth won't be something good.

There's a long moment of silence before Vid graces them with a sigh. "I saw myself down on the ground. I was lying on grass, not moving, eyes opened toward the sky. Dead, I assume."

Somewhere in the middle of that description, Vid stopped looking at them, as he isn't meeting their eyes even now.

Plamen reasons with himself that the breath stuttering in his mouth is an expected reaction, though before he can stop himself, he's already halfway to tackling Vid. It seems Zima had the same idea because in the next moment they are tumbling on the bed, Vid in the middle with a puzzled look on his face, Zima on one side hugging him and Plamen from another side giving him his own version of a hug that might or might not include holding onto him very, very tightly.

Vid eyes shift a few times from Zima to Plamen and back. "I thought you guys would be mad because I would stop being useful then."

Zima lets out a horrified sound and proceeds to strangle him with how hard she hugs him.

Plamen isn't sure how to react. Oh, he's horrified alright. And sad that someone he, albeit grudgingly, considers a friend thinks so little of himself. He decides to go with the first thing that comes to his mind, that's why a faint smack reverberates through the room, followed by fond "Moron."

"Of course we aren't, and of course you aren't useless," Zima mutters into Vid's shoulder, her right eye, that isn't hidden by Vid's neck, suspiciously damp. "Don't make me kick your ass, and I will if you ever speak that way about yourself again."

"Oh, okay."

The Dragon King mark on his hand vibrates with warmth, and a blood-curdling screech blares from outside.