I slowly opened my eyes.
The room was still dark, implying that the sun has yet to rise above the horizon. Yet, the strange, fresh taste of the air signaled that it was only a matter of time before the new day would bring all sorts of new challenges.
I blinked my eyes a few times before releasing my breath and relaxing a little.
'This feeling…' I thought, clenching my jaws as I desperately reached out to my short-term memory, hoping to recover whatever I was dreaming about.
I could feel that it was important. More important than nearly anything that I've learned in the recent past. And yet, as if there was an active effort of some sort of mental being, I couldn't break past the barrier of my dizziness to access whatever I dreamed about.
"Hmm…" Mia released a small moan as she cuddled up to my arm.
She had her eyes closed. Her breath was stable. There was absolutely no sign of her waking up.
But something told me it was just an act.
"Are you up?" I asked, moving my hand to caress the delicate skin of her back.
"Mhmm…" Mia made a small noise. She then rubbed her face against the side of my army for a second before twisting her body and raising up on her elbows.
The sheets that we were covered with gently slid down her back, revealing the full curves of her top half.
Thankfully, after everything that we went through in the past, I somehow managed to keep my eyes away from her chest, opting to look at her lovely face.
And it quickly turned out to be a great choice on my end, even if it originally was born out of mere courtesy.
Mia's slightly messy hair, her drowsy expression hiding behind her half-opened eyes… Even the way her lips curved up a little when she laid her eyes on me…
'How can she be so damn seductive even when she's half awake?' I asked myself, baffled by the girl's ability to get a rinse out of me so effortlessly.
"More or less," Mia whispered after a while.
She reached out with her hand to my face, caressing my right cheek with just the tips of her fingers as she took her time to cast her drowsiness away.
"Is it time to wake up already?" she then asked with a hint of protest at the very depth of her voice.
"It's not, don't worry," I quickly replied.
And I didn't lie. I never set any schedule for ourselves or the cultivators from the other world that we decided to both help and make use of. It didn't matter when one would sleep or wake up as long as they completed a fair share of work.
"I just thought you weren't sleeping anyway," I admitted, raising my right arm to lock Mia's hand between my cheeks and my fingers. "Did something happen?" I then asked.
I woke up because of just how insanely exciting my dream was. I couldn't remember even a single detail of what it entailed, but I was sure just how groundbreaking it would be if I could properly recall it.
Still, that was only a proper reason for me to wake up prematurely. On the other hand, unless she had some sort of a nightmare on her own, I saw no reason for Mia to be up so early as well.
"I…" the girl hesitated for a second, even going as far as to avert her eyes as the blush of embarrassment appeared on her cheeks. "I somehow sensed that you weren't okay…"
My heart started to melt again.
"Just who is teaching you those lines?" A whisper of agony left my lips as I removed my hand from above Mia's fingers and brought it to my chest to clutch at my heart.
"Huh?" Mia twitched a little. "What do you mean?" she then asked as she rose up even higher on her hands… only to let her upper body fall right on top of my chest, giving her the perfect angle to snuggle up her head right below my chin.
'And now this…' I thought, taking in a deep breath to rein my desires in when I felt Mia's soft peaks flatten against my naked chest with two, slightly harder points on those peaks poking right between my upper ribs.
As if reading my mind, Mia raised the knee of her left leg, bringing it right above my crotch. And by doing so, she obviously made a note of the state of my pants.
A small, satisfied smile grew up on her lips as she kept her knee over my tent for a moment.
"Do you want to have a go?" Mia asked casually, proving that the times when she would be shy about getting intimate were long over.
"Isn't it a bit too early for this kind of fun?" I countered, perfectly capable to rein in myself while my pants were just a natural state a healthy, young adult male like me would wake up with.
As long as my morning wood didn't change into a properly pitched tent, I still had a shot at reining in my desires and keeping our cuddle time for a little bit longer.
"If you say so," Mia whispered in response, raising her knee just high enough to stop rubbing it against my tent. "So?" she then asked, "what happened?"
Having my question from earlier turned right back at me, I could only release a long sigh.
"To be frank, I wish to know myself," I admitted. "I just had an insane dream, a dream that held enough information to answer a huge part of the questions that I have about my origins…"
"But you can't remember it," Mia finished my explanation for me.
I twitched, unprepared for this turn of events.
"How did you know?" I couldn't help but ask.
"What would make you so startled, puzzled, if not that?" Mia countered with another question, once again pushing her upper body up… only to change the position of her hands that she then cupped over my chest before resting her chin on top. "If you had a bad dream, you would be distraught. If it was something lacking importance, you wouldn't care. But you were just slightly startled," she explained her train of thought.
"You are right on the money," I admitted before reaching out with my right hand, moving Mia's hair out of her forehead only to lean up and forward and place a gentle kiss on top. "Despite feeling how it could change our lives, I cannot recall a single damn detail of what I've dreamed about!"
Updated from fr𝒆ewebnov𝒆l.(c)om