Torn between hearing her answer, and wishing for only silence, Mauja's gold-cast eyes kept staring out into the void beyond the glow of his soul. Even if she said that she did — how could it fit? Dreams lied to the mind all the time, and he had never before asked something he dreamed of if it dreamed of him.. perhaps because in some ways, dreams always knew these things. The dream knew that it was a dream, and thus, did not claim to have something to awaken to. That this particular dream would pretend to.. in such a confident manner... It was both absurd, and frightening. What if this was just a dream, but not his — but hers? What if he truly was dead, a specter come to haunt her mind? The thing which would be, perhaps, most kind to his worn mind and frayed heart would be for her to say, no, of course I am not dreaming of you — you're the one dreaming of me, silly. But life was like a pup with him between its teeth, tugging and worrying. Relentless, merciless, cruel. Of course it would not give him peace, or something else to soothe the stampede of hope and questions. Of course it would do nothing but fuel the fires.

"I am dreaming of you," she murmured to the golden beast, drawing nearer: again, the breath hitched in his throat, and his heart quaked, but at the same time, it filled him with sadness. If she had spoken louder, maybe it would've jolted him out of sleep, stranded him on that desolate steppe of snow and frost — but the lowness of her voice kept him anchored in the dream. Slowly, Mauja's head lowered, his moist eyes peering into the darkness. Subtly he tilted his head to one side, his silken, thick forelock falling across the eye nearest her, effectively masking the emotions leaking out from his pained gaze. She had fallen asleep in the Steppe, much like he, though if he was to believe her, she had done so in the real world, surrounded by all the individuals he knew and loved — but here, she didn't even exist. Paladin had killed Soleil or rejected her for one reason or another, and that was that. She and Onni were perhaps the ones he knew not whether to be glad or sad they didn't exist in his twisted world, but they were the ones whose lack of presence was the most noticeable.

"Why? Are you real? Are you not conjured by my mind?" A harsh, bitter bark of a laugh flew out of his mouth before he realized what he was doing. "Hah!" A mere heartbeat later a resounding boom rocked the world and the ghouls shrieked and howled, throwing themselves against the shield of his resolve. Taken aback, Mauja shied to the side, trying to avoid the sudden erosion of the ground near where he had stood — like a landslide it had just disappeared, with a slip of his confidence. Startled, he stared into the darkness, and only after a moment did he realize something: when he had sprung aside, the flat of his shoulder had connected with hers. They had not passed through. He had also learned another thing: if he doubted, the nightmare would consume them.

Slowly he turned his head to peer at her, and as he calmed down from the sudden shift in their world, the sadness in his golden eyes remained. "Ah, Ophelia.." He swallowed, not sure how to phrase his question, but it nagged at him — she knew him, she had seen him, touched him... And as a dream, it had been natural to accept that she knew him, the way she had asked him to remind her of their previous meeting nothing but the schemes of his mind to relive moments out of reach. But this.. this fell far beyond his understanding. "You should know me," he began in a quiet, melancholic voice. "I'm not sure if I am real anymore — but I once was... I once walked Helovia, I once led my people, aiming for prosperity but finding only ruin. And now... I fear I am dead. But if.. if you are real, if you have a world to wake to, you should know me." He was silent for a second, battling himself and his emotions. "But you don't." That much was obvious, from the innocence of her question.

Perhaps he was just talking to a twisted dream, after all.