Ravi looked around to find himself in the same field from his first dreamscaping adventure. The only difference was that his head wasn’t resting on Sori’s lap. This time they were sitting side by side under a tree looking out at a small lake.

“I’m curious,” Sori suddenly said, “where did you get the idea for this place? Is it someplace you’ve been before?”

“Don’t think so,” Ravi shrugged in reply, “why do you ask?”

“Minji told me that dreamscapers use places they’ve been as the settings for their first couple of dreamscapes,” she explained, “just until they get the hang of creating something from nothing.”

“Well I don’t recognize anything,” Ravi said, looking around, “but I haven’t spent much time looking around.” He paused before looking over at her, “do you want to take a look around with me?”

“Yes,” she nodded, “but can I ask for a change of clothing? I’d rather not walk around barefoot if it’s all the same to you.”

Ravi looked at Sori’s clothing before looking at his own. Both were dressed in the same clothing they’d warn before going to bed. The pajamas weren’t bad, but the lack of shoes could prove to be a problem if they were going to explore the area.

“How do I do that?” Ravi asked, turning his attention back to Sori’s face, “just picture it in my mind or something?” She shrugged, honestly not knowing herself. She wasn’t the dreamscaper, Ravi was. She didn’t know much about this gift, so learning about what he could and couldn’t do with it fell upon Ravi to figure out.

Ravi stared at Sori’s feet, willing a pair of shoes to manifest themselves in front of her. After the third try, he sighed. You would think it would be easy to just create a pair of shoes since it was his dream. But no, it wasn’t. Because nothing relating to his gifts was ever easy.

“Calm down,” Sori told him, patting his shoulder lightly, “don’t try so hard. You’re trying so hard that you get frustrated when things don’t work the first time. The more upset you get, the harder it is to do something you’ve never done before work.”

“Easy for you to say,” Ravi frowned, “you’re perfect at everything.”

“Because I’ve worked hard and practiced,” she told him, “when my gifts first started activating, I was worse than you’d think.”

“I don’t buy it,” he rolled his eyes, “like I said, you’re perfect.”

“I changed into an elephant,” Sori admitted, looking rather reluctant to share her story, “I was three and a half. My mother had just finished reading me a bed time story with elephants. I was going on and on about wanting to be an elephant and then suddenly I was.”

“Huh?” Ravi blinked.

“I thought it was fun,” Sori continued, “so I played around a little. Finally my father shifted into a larger elephant and scared me into changing back. I’d busted up half of our house with my little rampage. And that was just the first time. I caused a bunch more damage by the time I was four. At first, I was just having fun changing, something no other kid could do. And then after a few weeks it stopped being cool. I’d see a stray cat and suddenly I was a cat. I’d wake up to birds chirping and I’d be a bird like them.”

“I didn’t know,” Ravi said.

Sori was always so perfect when it came to her gifts. She never messed up, she never made a single mistake on anything. She was perfect. But now Ravi was realizing why she was so perfect; because she couldn’t afford to mess up like she had in the past. Those mistakes she’d just told him about where probably the reason why her parents had given her up. Mistakes had cost her everything once, she couldn’t let them steal everything away for the second time.

“I don’t share,” she told him, “that’s why you didn’t know. Only a few people know. Jessica knows almost everything. Krystal knows a few things, but not everything. Kris, Yuri, and Hyuna know everything. And know you know part of it, too.”

“I’m sorry,” Ravi told her, “that shouldn’t have happened to you.”

“It shouldn’t happen to anyone,” she shrugged, “but it happened to me so I have to live with it.”

“Do you ever get mad about it?” Ravi found himself asking before he could stop himself, “like at your parents for giving you up? For not being able to deal with your gifts?”

“Yes,” she nodded after a moment’s pause, “I hate my parents for doing what they did. I probably always will.”

“I kind of hate my parents, too,” Ravi admitted, “but it’s different from why and how you hate yours. Mine died. I remember begging them not to go out the night they were killed, I told them I thought something bad was going to happen. But they just shrugged me off and told me I was being silly. I told them, but they didn’t believe me. If they had of trusted me, maybe they would have survived.”

“My mother loved me before my gifts activated,” Sori told him, looking away from him, “my father loved me, too. They’d always spoil me and make sure I knew that they loved me. But then my gifts came and got out of control and they just stopped. Their love was there one moment and the next it wasn’t.”

“Parents shouldn’t take away their love like that,” Ravi’s mouth once again moved faster than his brain. He glanced at Sori, wincing when he noticed the pained expression on her face.

“You’re right,” she nodded, “good parents don’t just take away their love like that. No matter what their child does, they should always love them. Guess my parents were pretty ty at their job, huh?”

Ravi didn’t know how to respond to that, so he just pulled Sori into a hug. The older shifter stiffened. Hugs weren’t her thing. Not at all. Her first instinct was to push Ravi away. But it felt kind of nice being hugged by the younger shifter so she relaxed a little and just let herself be hugged. When was the last time someone hugged her? Kris wasn’t touchy feely either. Hyuna and Yuri hadn’t hugged her since they were little. No one else bothered to try.

Well, until now.

“Let’s go look around,” Ravi finally said after pulling away.

“No shoes, remember?” Sori started to say before she felt something surrounding her feet. Looking down, she found that she was now wearing running shoes. She looked up to find Ravi wearing a very proud look on his face.

“Let’s go,” he smiled before starting to walk off in a random direction. Sori watching he go for a moment before following after him, a small smile on her face.

The pair silently explored the dream Ravi had created. It seemed like nothing but field and forest at first, but they ended up finding a small cottage looking out across a lake. Ravi looked at the building before heading in the direction of the lake. Sori watched him, curious as to why he didn’t want to explore the house.

Ravi himself didn’t know why he was avoiding the house. He just found himself really reluctant to go inside. He couldn’t even think of an excuse to avoid it and that worried him a little. Was the subconscious part of his brain sending him messages? What the house something he’d known once? It was confusing and it troubled him.

“Ravi,” Sori called, “calm down.”

“Sorry,” he bowed his head slightly. Getting all worked up probably wasn’t a good thing. Well, not if he still wanted to explore the dream anyway.

“Worry about the house later,” she suggested, “for now, just focus on looking around. I’m sure there are a lot of other things to see around here. Like the forest.”

“Alright,” he nodded, letting Sori lead him in the direction of the forest.

However he couldn’t shake the feeling that the house was something important. Maybe tomorrow night he would try to explore it. He could even try bringing Hongbin into his dream for help. It would be good practice too since the only other person he’d brought into his dreams was Sori. He wondered why that was.

When he first started to dreamscape, he wasn’t that close to the older shifter. Pulling her into his dream would have made much more sence if they were close, but they weren’t really friends at the time. in talking to Minji, the school’s owner had explained it was easier for dreamscapers to bring people into their dreams that they had strong feeling for or that they were close to. Since he knew it wasn’t the second, that meant it was the first.

Ravi blushed.

He couldn’t deny having feelings for Sori now, could he? Hongbin had a few times after Sori started training them, but he kept brushing it off and saying that he didn’t feel anything but friendship. Yet here was the proof, right in front of his eyes. Ravi had no idea what to do, so he faugh back his blush and just silently followed Sori around, commenting only when asked. Maybe in the morning he would ask Hongbin or Ken for advice. Kai was pretty close to Sori, so maybe he would be able to help him figure out what to do.

A/N: this is, like, the most depressingly sweet bonding time I’ve ever written. I kind of wanted to cry and I’m the one writing it. But at the same time it’s really sweet ‘cuz of the hug and Ravi realizing his feelings (even if he doesn’t know what to do with them). Bet you Ravi-Sori shippers are happy with this, huh? Happy enough to, I don’t know, vote for him in the poll? *points to poll below* because last time I looked, N was leading by a lot. Like a lot, a lot.