He wakes out of his dreams more slowly than he might have otherwise, the oddity of them lingering more than they might have otherwise - it's rare enough that he dreams of any of his fallen friends, much less more than once in short order. But odd though they are, they're naught more than that: dreams. Fleeting drifts of memory and thought that he can no more stop than he can set aside his eternal duty.

Instead, he yawns, stretches, opens his aetherial sight to the world... and freezes, mid-stretch.

A soul is screaming in pain.

A familiar soul is screaming in pain.

He doesn't stop to think. There's no time to. Nor any time for his usual dramatics. He simply reaches out along the trails of aether, following the path of that soul he knows so well until he knows where she is... and between one moment and the next he goes from his cabin to standing at her side.

"Is it truly that unbearable, here?"

For all that he was - and still is - standing very nearly on the edge of panic, his voice is light. Or as much as he can make it, anyway. At this distance, the great cracks running through her soul are all the easier to spot, and he has no idea what she might be feeling, besides.