Old Friends Wrapped in Clouds

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Old Friends Wrapped In Clouds

There was a tiny wooden house just a bit north from Copenhagen that was occupied by a middle-aged woman.

In the world of dreamers and phantasm becoming physical, ghosts existed as humans that had withered into anthropomorphic creatures that resembled dragons, with floppy horns that glowed and tails that were coldly aflame. They weren't true ghosts, but rather stuck between two dimensions.

These dreamer dragons were made of "dreamsand", extradimensional particles that phased through conducting materials and could interact with insulated materials, like cotton.

The dimension that had caused this substance to convert living things into ghosts was paradoxical in nature and was home to black tar and wisp-like slugs that someone called 1.0 had formed a symbiotic relation with, offsetting a pandemic that was dependent on the energy of drowsy humans, insomnia. This energy shouldn't be fed from, though, as the chain reaction continued, turning humans into dreamers dependent on Insomnia energy.

Still, life carried on, as the ghosts could grow in size, through biomass or dispersion, shape their lava lamp -like sand into any shape and phase through almost anything with enough force, but forced to phase through all that was metal.

***

The tiny house was still, inside it was strange smoke.

The middle-aged woman had become a dreamer, as the condition was spread by residue left from those who fed on drowsiness. She had been fed from.

The woman, however, did not mind much her change. She had the powers of a superhero. She had an imagination and plenty of time by herself.

She found to be able to disperse and become thinner, have more volume with less mass. She continued to practice with this new skill, until the house had no place without her tiny particles gently ebbing about, as upstairs she played her piano while reading a newspaper downstairs.

In this haze, cupboards would open, a TV remote would float, books would flip their pages and the fridge would open, a bottle would fly to the living room, as it opened and began to slowly empty.

Hilde lived a life of freedom. She no longer needed to worry about death, about her frail body, about anything. She was immortal like all the rest of the "vampires" as she called them. Well, no-one knew how long dreamers lived. Their metabolism had been readjusted to the world of the Nethersphere, where death wasn't even an event but a loooong reversible process, through feeding.

If she needed to be in any part of her house, she was there. Her mist had wrapped around the interior, squeezed inside by the wooden frame of her house, snugly. She swam inside the house.

She enjoyed being nothing but hands, bodies, a dream. If she wished to corporealize herself, she could partially, to either open a cabinet, turn on the TV or stare through the window. She spent time doing many things at once, until she found herself reborn as eight of her.

She thought she could be like so outside, too. Only once, as a gust yanked a bit of her. The errant loose bit of particles burst into cold, ghostly flames and disappeared from the physical reality, like an extinguished sky lantern in the night.

So, she stays inside, spending days with her selves and their forms. She had the full powers of ghosts and more, as any insulated matter was physical. It became a search for shapes to her, as she spread her mist to the attic for toys.

Yet, as she sleeps, she condenses into a strange creature, a dragon on two legs, a body without boundaries and the tail of a pokemon; a dreamer, a strange draconic humanoid creature.

What kept the ghostly particles present on Dreamer-Earth was the link to a living force and humans, animals too, all had plenty of force. For hundreds of years in excess, a regenerating potency that was usually cut short by biological malfunctions. This potency was lit up like a candle into dreamsand, as humans now burned forever as ghosts from the Nethersphere.

As Hilde woke up, she angrily burst into mist and began to once more occupy her house, as she became a shade, resembling a human again, not the stupid lizard with a charmander tail and butterfly antennae, as she thought of herself angrily each morning. As mist, her naked human body walked, along with many others she made from the mist.

***

Lynne woke up and opened her closet full of clothes for men and women.

She hops in place and squishes herself up, like a fountain she twists herself a top-heavy masculine body. She sighs, as she never gets used to seeing herself so intimidating from the mirror.

"Hej, hallo, hej, ja det er mig, ja, hej...godt." Lynne said, as Stefan's voice emerged from her throat. In addition to the Michelangelo-sculpted fetish body, Stefan was Lynne's favorite alter-ego. One she had dated with, loved with, as she knew more about the other side than many.

She still had time, before she needs to go see her "patient."

You see, Stefan wasn't Lynne and Lynne was always curious about the lives of those she had disconnected from. Maybe it was Stefan's personality that she felt secure with, re-connecting from afar, as Lynne was terrible in keeping in touch, but she never burned bridges, no. Work, mainly, was the cause of her disconnections from those he had studied with.

Those days were quite a while ago, as in 2035, she was fed from, fired and left to handle her mortgage on her own. It is why she decided to offer espionage services. Her shapeshifting felt sublime, as she shaped her horns into hair and even hid them into his body as she flattened to surfaces and moved like a shadow.

Lynne was gray. It was her advantage, her color didn't stick out from the darkness, as she blended with shadows and tucked her lights into her body, becoming a silhouette. Her default body let light through more than usual, as she hid this gift with clothes often. She was an expert in how to disappear completely. It helped to chant "I'm not here, I'm not here." To herself, as the flames dimmed to dark teal and then some.

Today, Lynne began with establishing Stefan to herself, as he liked to, by fixing his hair like it had gel and giving it body to stand. Then he stretched his legs, until they popped into sharper talons than dreamers wake up with, as his fingers became claws. It was all part of feeling secure, as Stefan clacked his claws on the door, pleased.

Stefan even had a scratching post, Lynne was channeling a feline energy to get into his role, as he looked to the mirror and pushed out sharp, wide teeth to smile at himself, with his brow warmly gazing and-

"Jävla." Stefan said, being very attracted to himself again. It was evident with the package he always shaped to have for himself. It was as Lynne would've wanted. Stefan had to suffer from her wants, as Stefan watched how eagerly his cock gushed out sticky, teal-glowing stuff.

Grabbing a kitchen towel, Stefan struggled to stop himself from shedding precum through his equine equipment, but his struggle was usually in vain. He had to take pause to empty himself, he told himself.

Just another one of Lynne's many roleplays as a male, enjoying the sexual freedom his horse cock gave, as Stefan flopped on the couch and took to stroking himself, while watching lesbian dreamers elongating around each other and forming many pairs of legs to eat out.

Stefan rubbed the head of his awkwardly sized member as he dug his claws at times to it, watching it deform and bulge with his load of wax.

Stefan saw one of the lesbians moan as she gave herself a second pair of breasts, as the teal wax burst up to fountain down along the claws and shaft, dimming into gray as it sank through Stefan's chest.

In boredom, Stefan squeezed his balls to fully empty, as all wax burst and messed the sofa and Stefan's face. Lynne knew it wasn't anatomically correct for a male to be able to eject their balls empty, but too much fun it was ayways.

Stefan got up, as he watched his wax to dim into gray floating globs that returned to his body, like in a lava lamp. He loved the feeling and the sight of it, as his tail flowed like a lava lamp, too.

He returned to his closet to dress up for his old friend, struggling to fit his shrinking member into human-sized pants. The beauty in being a ghost was that his tail could be squeezed through jean fabric with enough exertion. Stefan's digitigrade legs adjusted to fit better, as shoes he didn't need, because once he closed the front door, he slammed his tail down and took off, with slight struggling as the clothes weighed his body of particles a bit.

The air over Jytland was full of colorful ghosts, many enjoyed the wind-free day fully.

The good use for being made of extra- dimensional particles was the way in how they could act as a fulcrum to lift dreamers off the ground and slide them through the air, this act of levitation felt natural and was all about clinging to air molecules, while sliding air behind for the tail flame to thrust in propulsion.

Stefan flew with his tail that ebbed and held air, his legs would kick too, as he slid across the gas like it was water.

***

The doorbell rang, as the door was unlocked, but not opened. Stefan opened the door, as the orange mist withdrew inwards. Hilde dissolved her friends, as the house emptied.

[Translated from Danish] "Hello, Hilde. I'm here again." Stefan said.

The mist bundled together to form lungs, a larynx, a throat and a maw.

[Translated from Danish, too] "Of course, Stefan! I just prepared some tea for us." Hilde said.

Stefan put his polyester quilted jacket to the coathanger, his polyester scarf there too and walked through the mist, as the intangible, incorporeal maw followed with. Eyes would emerge as thin features in front of the hallway, staring forth without lids, like two bright moons.

Stefan flinched. "I forgot you keep your face in different places, sorry. I shouldn't get spooked like that." He said.

"Oh, don't worry. I forget how it looks when I stare forward without any other discernible features on me!" Hilde said, as a cupboard flew open and two glass mugs floated towards the living room. Faintest outlines of hands in every action.

Hilde struggled against the temptation to form twins of herself, as Stefan was becoming approachable, given their growing relationship and Stefan's idolic body.

Stefan sat in the armchair, comfortable with its insulation and feeling secure. He'd prefer plastics of course, but electroconductive values below wood were always good...unless things got wet.

He saw how the mist moved, carrying everything to the living room, as Stefan poured water and put the bag in, stirring with sugar. The slow process of dehydrating the tea was an arduous, peaceful one, as Stefan put his teal tongue into the cup and let the liquid slowly come apart into flavor and steam, through a chemical process called microphasing, which was physical microwaving. The billion or so ghost particles bombarding and stirring the tea through the tongue with kinetic energy caused the tea to heat up and release steam, as Stefan drank with his tongue.

Hilde's features slightly condensed to form her solid self, as an outline appeared next to Stefan, into another chair. A thin smile, a thin pair of eyes. A human, 10% corporeal.

Stefan placed the cup down, taking out his notes. "So...About this today, then..."

Hilde shifted in his chair. "Sure." She said.

"Shyness, unmarried, no history with pets, avoidance of public places, no driver's license..." Stefan listed.

"Those are all so strange things to desire, don't you think?" Hilde asked.

"Well, the human argument was always about making the most of the present which could always end too soon. You were confident that wasn't going to happen, that you'd leave without making anything significant, in terms of family or career..." Stefan pondered.

"I suppose those were worries from time to time. I think we're slightly too concerned not to be out of our bodies, which I continue to tell is the way we're supposed to exist now." Hilde said.

"As...mist? You're not able to go out as mist." Stefan said.

"What would I need from outside? My world is this tiny home, I am a tiny home in the middle of Jutland, surrounded by beautiful fields and wildlife. I feel like a spaceship often." Hilde said.

Stefan sighed, dipping a biscuit into tea and carrying on. "So, your history with recreational drugs..."

"Psilocybin, mescaline, LSD...muscimol." Hilde listed.

"Where the hell did you get mescaline?" Stefan asked.

"My little Ibissur...She has always grown in my little pot, look." Hilde said, pointing with four floating arms at the peyote that was thriving in an unknown mix of soils.

"Praise God...You really have..." Stefan was speechless.

The orange mist muffled sounds from outside. It felt like a strange dream. Stefan was inside Hilde.

"It was a mixture of mescaline and muscimol when I realized that my shadow is the one who wishes me to get married. I read through the ways in which my archetype has managed and decided that the only way for a jester to thrive is with his own wicked thoughts." Hilde explained.

Stefan was ready, this time. He dug out the book he had been skimming through, yet before he went to ask if her idea of a jester was a way to dodge trauma, he skipped to the part about the father. About power, authority and protection. The alcoholic man Lynne had had in his life had never represented any of the attributes of the archetype. Much of the more mystical aspects of Hilde's beliefs about her psyche were eye-opening.

Disregarding his discovery from the book, Stefan continued.

"When did you consider it felt right? Coexisting with these kinds of ideas?" Stefan asked her.

She shuffled her translucent shade in the chair. "I guess...In my early 30s when I recognized the absurdity of living close to everyone all the time. When things no longer worked out, I wanted to be left alone. I worked for two years to get the money for the smallest mortgage for the tiniest farm house I could get. I cycled 14 miles three times a week to where I needed to be. For work, I freelance... Now I don't need to do even that, the couriers are too good at their jobs and I don't need to eat. Just sleep." Hilde thought.

"Doesn't a jester want a court, though? What's the reason I'm talking to you, why is the Why there to your problem?" Stefan asked.

Hilde went quiet, the shade disappeared from the chair. Hilde reached throughout, every corner of the attic, the basement, behind the sink, between the cracks in the walls as she gently brushed herself against everything she knew now intimately. She danced with her imaginary friends, all copies of a single one.

"I love just...me. And being a dreamer, the shape that I must return to, that's not..." Hilde thought. "I can make anyone I please when I am this thin." She continued.

"We look weird. It doesn't change who we are." Stefan looked around, as he swore over dozens of wispy hands brushing the ceiling, with dozens of breasts laying on the floor.

"It can't be everything I could be like this. That's the addiction."

"Do you...want to be other women?" Stefan asked, seeing dozens of familiar figures surrounding a young spectral human, each caressing her.

"I want to be with them." Hilde said.

Stefan put the book down, to stand up. He sighed, as he got the answer he wanted.

He focused, as he gave up his masculinity and began to shape his grayish body and teal flames. His swept back hair burst into locks, his body yielded to squeezes and expansion, his eyes sharpened as his posterior thickened.

He had twisted his pecs, chest and hips to an hourglass, as he sat down, clearing his throat until he had her own voice again. She looked at Hilde, her friend.

Hilde's mist condensed into the living room to stare. Just stare, as she quickly yanked herself away from the intimidating sight of Stefan as a woman.

"Just me, I had a different shape, right?" Lynne asked. The mist had become a localized dispersion in the living room, as Hilde had her eyes full.

"You're pretty. You remind me of someone." Hilde said.

"It's a few tricks to adjust your horns into masculine hair, but eventually you get used to the quirky ways of shifting with your sand. I could bulge my waist thicker for fat, but I think it would break the impression of my masculine features.

The cloud gathered tighter, as Hilde was unsure what to say.

"You were afraid to approach others, right? What could you say? We were just kids back then? Like... eight years you kept quiet about your feelings." Stefan said.

"I don't understand."

"It's me, Hilde!" Lynne said, as Hilde looked at her features, listened to her voice. She knew her. She'd listened to her giggles, her gasps as Hilde had copied her around herself to keep her company forever.

"Lynne?" She asked, solidifying her form into a featureless dreamer dragon. She was auburn on auburn, her horns and tail slightly redder perhaps.

Her crush and childhood friend came to her, taking her hand.

It's been seven years since they last saw. They exchanged smiles in the graduation ceremony and walked from each other. Lynne felt bad, while Hilde cried driving back.

"No more hiding behind some stupid archetypes, I was worried for you!" Lynne said, as Hilde took a step back.

"You aren't...him? My therapist?" Hilde asked.

Lynne nodded. "I've worked my ass off to perfect both genders in mimicry, to spy and approach my past mistakes, to see if they're better off without me! Wouldn't...Wouldn't you want to do so, too? Because if I hadn't come to you as some door-to-door conversationalist...I wouldn't have ever known you miss me." Lynne said.

Hilde collapsed on her knees, her eyes shed glowing mist that gently floated off her before joining her back. "I'm so...confused!" She yelled.

"I wanted to see how you're doing! And you're doing like shit without me! Never married, never got anyone...Like LOOK AT YOU!" Lynne yelled.

Hilde looked down.

"I think I need to sleep." She said, monotonously.

Lynne was unsure what to say. Sleep was something that couldn't be avoided or delayed, dreamers were called so because of that.

"Okay um...I-I can come tomorrow if-" She paused, as Hilde took her arm.

"Please stay. I don't want to sleep another night with only the ghosts of you in my...house...*YAAAWN*" Hilde braced against Lynne, who closed her into a hug.

"I'm ...here now."

Lynne watched Hilde sleep, as she looked at the time. 6PM. It's very, very unusual unless one spends massive amounts of energy in maintaining shapes.

***

In her dream, Hilde was pressed against the shore cliff, the sun was setting and Lynne was unzipping her jean shorts, while hearing Hilde's heart race. The two were unstoppable as the sea slammed against the rocks.

***

Hilde woke up, hours before Lynne would. She slept as not Stefan, but how she truly looked.

"Lynne...My Lynne." Hilde said, as her body was already becoming ebby clouds of auburn mist, filling the house...before it all began to condense back into Hilde.

No.

She is here as this body, for Lynne. The feeling was scary, as she tried to accept the creature that looked at her from the mirror. Thick curved horns, curly nostrils and eyes. Like a hieroglyph, she thought. She was oddly...pretty. She smiled with her toothless maw, as it curved neatly. It wasn't so bad.

She felt her body for the first time in a few years, as she thought of its possibilities, seeing Lynne become a man. She stared at the mirror, as her ugly horns burst down to become her hair. She sucked inwards her snout, twisting it into her pretty nose. She yanked her ears down, as they could stay pointy.

Her body bloomed with a pair of B-cups, her hips bent to be her own, as the tail she slurped into her, leaving it a flicker of a flame. It looked a bit like a duck's tail. Her mind wandered, she had loved the comics.

Her face soon became beaks, as she tried through many, before settling with a falcon one.

Her arms widened to become wing-shaped. Such strange shifts she had never considered to do. How much was there? Was there any limit? It truly was like her mist!

Her legs had become digitigrade, but it didn't bother her anymore. She reshaped them into talons and her hair she bundled upwards like gel.

She had been mist and humans for so long, that the delight of experimentation she'd forgotten all about.

"What could I be as mist, though?" She pondered, before letting herself slowly grow larger, billowing her house full with her mass.

It was all ghosts, as Hilde shaped tiny mountains and towns to raze as two dragons before proceeding to use her copies to have fun. She and Lynne were tiny drakes that flew from kitchen to the entryway to upstairs, before the shades flopped on the bed to eat each other out. Hilde's wax rained as thin rivulets from the ceiling of the living room, as she used her time with Lynne in slumber to continue her lonesome games.

The two drakes swelled on the bed, as the other became Stefan. "Be gentle." Hilde's shade said, as she thrust Stefan's shade to penetrate her.

The two stayed as feral winged dragons, as Hilde coped with accepting her true self as one, even if her shade was exaggerated. She'd been afraid of becoming a mindless beast, but now felt its wisdom, as Stefan shot wax and Hilde clenched in the double orgasm she enjoyed doing every day as anything she could imagine.

And with it, the shades dispersed, as the mist gave form to djinn Hilde that began to clear the living room, as even furniture lifted and floated to allow the center of the room more space, before Hilde began to condense.

All the while, Lynne slept, as Hilde was unlocking her true potential as a poltergeist.

***

Lynne woke up, surrounded by mist, seeing nothing else. She felt hands brush her leg, her chest. "H-hilde..."

Lynne was lifted to hover at the center of the living room, as translucent limbs were emerging and disappearing on a whim. Lynne was fed fingers to suckle, as a hand massaged her breast.

The mist formed the transparent figure of a tiefling-like woman, as she levitated to gently sit on Lynne's body.

"Can't you be as thin as me? Just let yourself disperse." Hilde said from another copy that simply appeared as the mist took another shape, as physical as linen.

"I'm not...so good with stretching." Lynne answered.

"Stretching...Show me then, how do you stretch?" Hilde challenged her.

Lynne's featureless body slimmed several feet, as her neck made distance and elongated, along with her other limbs. "It grosses me out still, a bit." Lynne said, as Hilde fully caressed the long shape. "Look how your body ebbs like ink in water..." Hilde admired the particles swirling like the surface of a gas giant, as Lynne let her noodly body sprawl slightly, against Hilde's touch.

Ghostly hands were urging shapes from Lynne, as Hilde was curious to feel, caress the gray dreamer that now floated close to the ceiling.

Lynne eventually returned her features and sat, carried by hands and mist. The walls and the floor, even the ceiling were shrouded into an auburn haze, as Hilde formed a cloud around Lynne.

"Why did you lie to me? Why did you come to me as a man?" Hilde eventually asked.

"I...was scared of you. Of...us." Lynne said, as Hilde clung to her friend, as an upset head emerged from the cloud, a dragon's head. " Why? We slept together sooo many times, Lynne. It's not a joke." Hilde told her.

"I wasn't right in my head. My mother once said how "my future was with a man.", which has been echoing in my head as I've struggled to choose, because...You were the sexiest thing I knew. You changed me." Lynne said.

Hilde was lost for words. "I think I...I...I'm not sure if I should ask you to leave, or..." She continued.

"I...I'm so sorry, Hilde! I caused these years. I did! I regret not having them with you!!" Lynne said, as Stefan's brittle exterior wasn't enough for Lynne to bite her lips and push tears.

A wispy tentacle emerged to brush away the tear, hands caressing Lynne's gray body, as a maw came to kiss. A torso fully embraced Lynne, chest to chest, into a hug.

"I'm sorry, too. I was afraid to call you, tell you what you meant. I knew you had plans, who was I to those? To your parents?" Hilde said.

"They made me so alone, Hilly..." Lynne now sobbed. "Awww, come on..." Hilde offered her, hugging her deeper, as Lynne desperately grabbed the auburn smoke and sank to it like the softest pillow. A cathartic moan was all Lynne could offer, with quivering lips.

The hands would multiply, caressing Lynne, even below her tail, massaging her back. Hilde's head was over the hugging torso, as she was a djinn from the waist down. Breast to breast, Hilde smiled at Lynne, who smiled back.

"I love you." Hilde mouthed.

"Jag älskar dig också." Lynne mouthed.

"In Swedish, really, say it like you mean it!" Hilde replied.

"You're the only person I want to love, Hilde Gustafsson." Lynne said, as Hilde's ghostly hands squeezed Lynne from every part they were exploring, as crazed maws now licked Lynne.

"I want you. I need you." Hilde said, as Lynne felt her groin nibbled. Hilde dispersed into a head that watched from the corner, as Lynne entered her paradise.

Hands caressing her, a maw in cunnilingus, her clit surrounded by sensitive fingers. Lynne screamed in pleasure.

"Y-YES HILDE!! OH MY GOD, HILDE!!" She screamed.

The temptation to burst her cock for Hilde was great, but Lynne endured. Stefan had to wait his turn.

Eventually, all hands dispersed, as did the maws, as Hilde's head grew enormous and snatched Lynne's legs, pushing her giant ghostly tongue deep in her pussy, as Lynne couldn't speak, feeling two smaller maws latched to her breasts.

Bliss. A word that rang in her head, as wax poured from her pussy for Hilde to taste, licking Lynne dry.

"My turn." Lynne said and grabbed the djinn Hilde, as Lynne let Stefan fully out. The change was a familiar one, as Hilde struggled to comprehend what had penetrated her. Seeing it, Hilde could only spread wider.

Stefan's messy hair was accompanied by his burning eyes that stared straight into Hilde. The djinn struggled to stretch for him, as each thrust Hilde felt caused her to contract, until all that remained of Hilde was her dreamer body and open legs. Her senses exploded as she let go and allowed herself to take pause from shapes and simply enjoy Stefan's touches.

Like humans, the two laid on the living room carpet and Hilde let Stefan have him fully. Each thrust to the hilt, where a knot was. Lynne's gift for Stefan, obviously.

Stefan picked up pace and turned with Hilde against his chest, placing her over him as he continued hammering. Hilde got up to bounce on the dick, as Stefan growled. Hilde bewildered from the sound and sat, letting her pussy come to life as labia lips that opened and sucked, as Stefan roared. Teal spikes burst along his arms, as Hilde let his tongue out, letting Stefan to sink his teeth to it and swallow it, as Hilde was pulled into a kiss.

She came before him, but Stefan caught up three seconds after with his own wax flooding Hilde's dreamsand belly. Plopping out, Hilde leaked every milliliter of warm wax on Stefan and the carpet, as Stefan finished by squeezing the rest on Hilde and himself as a long string. Hilde sucked his tongue back to lick Stefan clean from the teal stuff, which digested into more mass for Hilde.

"Blchf" Hilde only said, licking the teal stuff.

Stefan got up, took Hilde to his arms while he messed and leaked along the corridor to the bedroom. He collapsed with her on the bed, before Lynne squeezed back tighter to be next to Hilde's exhausted body. Hilde squeezed a final spurt of teal wax from her pussy, as it turned gray and returned to sender.

Their tails coiled, flames conjoined and now burning blue, like the cloudless sky outside.

At times, Lynne would flinch, with Hilde gripping her friend. She was home, a truth that Lynne only partially still accepted. The gray dreamer wasn't going to learn by herself the ways in which her thoughts had warped.

***

2 weeks later

***

"And it is why we continue to carry these burdens, instead of letting them go, we continue to try to appease at the face of trauma. We tell ourselves that by accomplishment, we could cure their ways and repair our families. Yet, the drinking continues and we lose ourselves in the process."

Hilde and Lynne listened. The meeting had many people, many stories, all dreamers who continued to suffer from trauma. Their scheduled time was coming to an end, as Lynne had only listened.

The two walked out of the bubble hall to a windy day, as the two wore appropriate clothes for the occasion. Hooded, plastic overalls were enough to protect them from being torn apart.

Sitting into the car, Hilde brought her arm to Lynne's thigh. Their tails squished flat against the seats. The summer storms were scary. Less scary when Lynne could exhale, relieved to hear what she had. She was hopeful for the beautiful life she had ahead of her. Lynne closed Hilde's arm into hers.

"You okay?" She asked.

Lynne smiled at her. "I will be. With you."

To be continued.