Reality, Dream, Illusion?

She tried to gather her thoughts as she followed Aethir. Everything was so confusing. How could she tell just what in the recent past had been real, what a dream and what an illusion? And need it just be the recent past? Her experiences over recent weeks had been so improbable, that perhaps she was still in chains in the dragon's dungeon [38] and the whole of her adventures since then had been one long dream. But she knew she couldn't afford to believe that, and pushed the idea from her mind.

She wished that her memories of the last few days weren't so hazy, making the disentangling of dream from reality difficult. But she felt that she must now try to focus on the present in any case. Perhaps in time the mist in her mind would disperse of its own accord.

"Where are we going?" she asked Aethir. "We aren't likely to find my friends by just wandering aimlessly about the forest. I would have expected them to be entangled in the same tree as I was, since we entered its hollow trunk together. But perhaps they have somehow escaped, since that would explain why the Wood appears dead again." She thought, but did not say: But if they have freed themselves, why did they not free me as well?

"I am a skilled woodsman, and have seen broken vegetation and marks in the soil that indicate that someone has come this way," Aethir answered. "But I think that before we go any further, we should pause and you should eat something. You are as white as a ghost, lass. Being ensnared in the tree will have drained you. Look, there are some apples on this tree here that have escaped the general withering." And he picked one and held it out to her. She did still feel drained. Perhaps getting some food inside her would help.

1. Astra ate the apple.
2. Astra said: "But you were in the tree for many years yourself. How is it that YOU don't seem drained?"

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