[...digging those out and stuff them into the lantern.]

[I burnt my hand enough times for real that a dream should be only a little terrible.]

The room lights up, enough to see by. The lantern light flickers. The room is totally circular; it has a diameter of about twenty feet. There are two doors -- the one you came in from, and an identical one directly across from you. The firepit is in the exact center of the room -- there's tinder and firewood beside it, on the opposite side of the cauldron.

The firepit itself is a solid ring of smooth, white stone -- the same material as the floor. The cauldron over the fire is deep and round bottomed, made of cast iron, and it's full of some dark liquid... sea water? Blood? Tar? It's hard to tell. The walls and ceiling are a shiny silver blue nacre, like the inside of a shell. They are lined with narrow wooden shelves all the way around, covered with a miscellany of objects.

[...Is there anything different in the cauldron now?]

Images still flicker across the surface:

You see yourself, your face turned up willingly toward the face of death.

His great grey wings, closing.

People screaming, crushed, drowning in darkness.

Mau flinging himself at Locaha, tiny and insignificant, battering himself against those closed wings, ineffectual, but fighting, always fighting.

[...looking back to the kneeling figure]

Mau?

His voice is still only a murmur, but it sounds more focused. "Yes?"

Is this the bad dream you're having?

"Yes."

[...]

What can I do to help?

"I don't know. I can't think... it's dark."

...Then you need light. Is there a way to make things brighter in here?

"There's probably something."

If you look around, you'll find the kindling on the other side of the fire, and lamp oil and torches on one of the shelves.

[gathering those all up and setting about lighting up the room some more.]

The room lights up, bright as day. The lantern light is now perfectly steady, and the torchlight dances lively and warm over the walls. You can see everything in the room now -- the items lined up neatly on the shelves, all manner of strange and ordinary thing. Knives, silver fish, hats, teeth, glass stars, musket balls, dried flowers, bowls of liquid and sand, feathers...

[...picking up a dried flower.]

You are struck by the fear that you are going to kill yourself and Mau won't be able to do anything about it. This may be a bit disorienting.

[...drops it.]

...Mau?

"Yes?"

...Are you that afraid of my dying?

"Of your desire to die."

I see...

[places a hand on his shoulder]

He leans into that.

How else can I help?

"You can change things... change the dream."

[nods]

Do I have to go elsewhere to do so?