Dreamless Sleep

Kaori’s account describes Dreamless Sleep as a guarded stage of rapid growth. Its length varies by breed, the sleeper has no dreams, and waking brings extreme hunger.

Andarna’s expected sleep period is about two months, and Tairn treats the stage as critical to her growth and development while refusing Violet’s questions about dragon parenting secrets.

Although Dreamless Sleep is a sleep period, Andarna can briefly speak groggily through the bond while she is in it.

Dragonkind uses Dreamless Sleep as part of keeping hatchlings and juveniles hidden and safe in the Vale until they are past that protected early stage.

Andarna’s deepest stage makes her unavailable for public obligations and immediate solutions. Tairn uses it to explain her continued absence from flight maneuvers and Varrish’s inspection, and Imogen says nothing can be done about Andarna’s situation until she wakes.

Tairn says the elders have never seen an adolescent remain in Dreamless Sleep as long as Andarna, making the length of her sleep a dragon-elder-level anomaly.

Travel and repeated waking at critical points can disrupt the process. Tairn says younglings do not leave the Vale for many reasons and that Andarna might have grown normally if she had been quickly and safely sheltered in the Vale or at Basgiath after Resson.

Andarna is the directly known dragon undergoing Dreamless Sleep; she has entered or drifted into it a few days before Violet’s Orientation.

Andarna tells the irids that after Violet channeled her power at Resson and they slowed time together, the magic was too much for her small body. Her body demanded Dreamless Sleep as a result of that juvenile overexertion.

The Vale is the protected place associated with Andarna’s Dreamless Sleep: Tairn says she must be brought back there to enter it, and the state is later described around the Vale caves.

Tairn speaks for Andarna while she is in Dreamless Sleep, including when he demands Varrish’s apology on her behalf.