Quill is unprepared when the dream arrives. She is fully aware that dreams always follow after her panic attacks, however, this one is different.

She floats above a planet she doesn't remember, her form mountainous, towering over the landscape. Power radiates from her fingertips, energy cascading off of her in waves; energy that is familiar, yet hard to place. Energy that is certainly not hers. It takes a moment, but as she raises a hand, the claws spark recognition.

She recognizes his dark skin, the tail that sways lazily just out of the corner of her eye. What she recognizes most is the arrogance; the greed, the hunger for power.

From the eyes of Solace, she notices a woman for the first time. Floating higher than he, her dress swirls in constellations and galaxies, eyes a mismatched sun and moon. Quill doesn't recognize her either, but she feels Solace's rage swell, and watches his arm raise as if to strike.

Instinct screams at her to warn him to stop, but it is too late; the celestial woman strikes him with a blast that could have wiped out an entire planet if she were not in control. Quill closes her eyes, blinded by the light, by the raw, ground-shattering pain that rips through him as he is torn apart, pieces left to the wind. It takes a mere few seconds, yet Quill is so far submerged into the moment that it feels as if minutes, hours, days, have passed.

The pain finally subsides and Quill finds herself able to gasp for breath. She presses a hand, her own hand this time, to the ground, willing for her heart to stop racing. The grass provides a soft comfort, cool in the night air, and she finally cracks her eyes open, peering around her carefully. At first, she senses nothing. Then, a bit of movement catches her eye; tiny and minuscule, barely noticeable if not for her improved dream eyesight. A strange, small blob of something inches along in the grass. It seems almost like sludge, yet has a smoky, familiar quality; a rather Solace-like quality.

She remembers now, how Ros had found Solace. A small sliver of a god, too weak to keep his own form; banished to another world to regain his strength on his own. Despair overwhelms her, then. Solace's despair, then his guilt as his consciousness connects with hers.

This connection isn't nearly as overwhelming as when she'd first felt his emotions; this time, he seems to be keeping them under control, though his sleeping mind allows her in. Despite this, his guilt still digs a hole in her chest; infinite and insatiable. Far in his heart, buried, she knows he would never have admitted these emotions existed had he been awake. For once, Quill allows herself to keep calm, to soothe him in any way she can, rather than rise to meet his hostility. He is vulnerable, after all. Much more vulnerable than she has ever been with him, and though she doubts she even means much to him, she chooses to have him mean something to her.

The last bits of the dream fade away as his consciousness drifts off, tranquil and soft, and she wakes to stare with adjusting eyes at the ceiling of her own room.