That is the first remotely useful thing Rush has heard all day. The sound of an approaching something cuts him off before he can enumerate as such. He gyrates in a full one-hundred-eighty-degrees, takes two steps to back away and immediately hooks his heel over yet another fucking root that sends him fucking sprawling. He crabs backwards frantically even as Nathaira plants herself in front of him - going in line with the absurd animal-soul metaphor, she must be a manifestation of the part of him that has no fucking common sense - but soon finds himself backed up to a tree trunk, pressed up against it, the disconcerting stability of the allegedly nonphysical trunk doing nothing for his jangling nerves.

"What's there?" he hisses, the horrible needling sensation of being watched now peaking. He is not panicking. He is rational and calm and prioritizing. He is not going to fucking panic. Especially not in a dream.