He couldn’t sleep.

Even after the retreat. Even after the push of the main forces away from Darkwood, after hours of dutifully tending the wounded, after being pushed away toward his tent when his own bruises and blackened eye were looked after.  The drizzle of rain not quite cold enough to turn to snow peppered the tent canvas. It droned on into a buzz and he stared wide eyed at the wall, lamp blazing despite the hour. His tent-mate was gone and he dare not ask how. He hadn’t seen him in the infirmary which meant he could be one of the many dead back in Darkwood staring at a black sky. A feast for--

Lyrenn sat up, pushing hands through his hair hard enough to pull strands free. Curled in the blankets in her crate Scritches whined. The druid continued rubbing his palms against his scalp. It had touched him. Whatever that thing was had touched him. It had wrapped warped black tentacles around his wrist and thrown him across the field as the army had scattered. Pushing his sleeve up he could make out the red and purple bruising it had left further up his arm, where Tyleril's arm guards didn't reach. The bruising would fade. He didn’t think the images it shoved in his brain would ever disappear. Horrible, awful, things. Death and pain and torture and it delighted in it. He could feel it’s glee at his horror. At all of their panic. Thousands of gnashing teeth in a sea of black and purple, swirling and growing, suffocating and devouring.  He shook his head violently, stopping only to throw himself at his satchel nearby, digging through it’s contents until he found the vial he was looking for. Dreamless sleep, the label said. So much more potent than the tea that he’d never dared to use it. And what if dreamless didn’t mean without nightmares of void and rot?  Lyrenn debated the consequences a moment before a full body shudder had him twisting the cap free and throwing back his head to down the bottle. He would drown them out or drown, but anything was better than this.