Her third night with Shaun had seen her stealing into his dreams once more, returning to the same world they’d populated in his last dream. But this time, instead of being a cute, hat-wearing mute, Naia instead found herself taking the sultry, vixen-like form of a young woman with obsidian-colored hair draped over her shoulder, gently tapering to ashen tips. She wore a school uniform consisting of a sleek black jacket over a plaid skirt of interlocking grays. Her nails were painted a soft cherry color, and her face wore nothing except a perpetual smirk.

Last time, she had been “Neo.” This time, the dream helpfully supplied her with a new name: Cinder Fall.

Shaun had not taken the form of another character from the show this time around, instead appearing as himself: lithe and lean with a runner’s build, a mop of sandy hair atop his head. In the dream, he’d been a student who had stumbled onto “Cinder’s” nefarious plots, and she (that was to say, Naia) had placated him with an offer of sex.

Naturally, he hadn’t turned her down.