How do you know when you dream? How do you know that the pounding of your heart isn't real, that the shadows stalking you aren't really there? How do you know? How do you tell?

You don't. Until you wake up.

Hounded by transparent creatures, presences, malicious eyes glittering at the edges of his vision and jaws snapping, crackling, at his haunches, he fled across the landscape of his mind. Unseen, but felt, his own stress chased him relentlessly, herding him: bloody cuts marred his hindquarters, a crimson trail left across the face of the world. He would be easy to find. Too easy. But each time he tried to take a path of his own choosing, flee into the dark, tangled forest that loomed on the horizon, those entities were there, and he never realized it until it was too late - when their teeth were already in his flesh, their claws tearing up his skin. And as he fled, he realized he was sobbing and screaming, crying out the names of those he had known.

He had no sense of time, no sense of how long he was chased - seconds? Hours? Covered in sweat and blood, he saw his own reflection for the fraction of a heartbeat: a wall, a blank, reflective sheet, loomed in front of his tear-blurred vision, but he had no chance to stop. His heart was hammering in his chest, his pulse thundering in his ears, but he could still feel - smell - the invisible hounds chasing him, and with a wordless yell he tucked his head, the frosted tip of his horn leading as the next stride carried him through it. With a sound that didn't match the shattering of the mirror the ground shook, shards with fragments of his life falling like a silver rain around him - and his front hooves met nothing on the other side. Head over heels, Mauja tumbled into darkness.

He fell for what felt like an eternity. For most of the part, he was quite certain he fell head down, but then it changed, much in the way that things do in dreams. It felt - peaceful, almost, as if the air brushing past him stole away his worried thoughts and calmed the frantic gallop of his heart. Sighing, he closed his eyes, and accepted the dark.

A sound like water lapping against shore convinced him to open his eyes, and in surprise he saw that he lay in it, on a foreign shore. The moment he raised his head, Irma took flight into the sky, crying out, and with her she took the sun: her wings guided it up above the horizon, spilling golden light upon a small grove of apple trees. The water he lay in was cold and dark, the beach nothing more but a thin strip of gravel. Beyond that stood the grove, lush grass and wildflowers covering the ground; dark, thick trunks rose, healthy green leaves and shiny red apples sprouting from its branches. Irma had disappeared into the sky, and, frowning, Mauja got up and clambered onto the ground. It wasn't so much a slope as the rim of a basin. Shaking himself thoroughly, he paced into the grove, peering at the flowers - not even noticing that the sun dried him in an instant.