Ashleyien opened her eyes. She was lying in the center of a small clearing in dense forest. She sat up, rather dumbfounded, to get a better look around. The grass was so green and the trees… She noticed a small flower garden at one end of the nearly perfectly square clearing. She stood up and walked over to the flowerbed. They were all so vibrant and a live, not like the swamp that she should be in. “Lovely, are they not?” Came a voice from behind. The young warrioress spun around to face the speaker. The woman before her look about her own age, with long auburn hair tied-up upon her head, with just a few loose curls framing her face. Her strikingly gentle eyes were the same shade as her hair. She wore a long blue gown, about the same shade as Ash’s dress had been before the swamp muck soiled it, with long flowing sleeves and a low neckline. A tiny silver chain was tied around her hips as a belt. On her head she wore a silver tiara inlayed with a sapphire and the tiny silver chain she wore around her neck, which liked surprisingly like Ash’s, had a tiny sapphire charm which dangled from it’s end.
“Who are you? Where am I? Where are my friends?” Notes of fear and confusion were clearly heard in Ashley’s voice.
The woman smiled pleasantly, “Do not be alarmed, little one, I shall not harm you and as for your friends they are just where you left them.”
Ash raised an eyebrow in suspicion at the woman’s words, “Little One? I’m not little, I’m nearly 25 and you can’t be much older. If my friends are where I left them, then where am I?”
The woman laughed, not a malicious evil laugh, but pleasant amused one. “I am centuries your senior, Little One. You are in my sanctuary, my hidden garden.”
“But where’s here and how did I get here?”
The woman smiled a playful smile, “All will be revealed in time. You have great potential, Little One, more than you ever thought possible. You must harness the power and knowledge within you and become what you are meant to be.”
“Power? Knowledge? Meant to be? I have no clue of what you’re talking about.”
The auburn-haired lady smiled an almost serene smile. “You have a destiny before you that you can not imagine and many adventures yet to come. The power and the knowledge to use it, come from within you, not from the realm. They are part of your heart and your soul. You have done well with your powers so far and they will grow as you use them. Learning to control them takes time but you can do it, as many have done before you. It is your destiny to follow in the footsteps of those who came before you…”
“I have no clue of what you’re talking about. What destiny? Whose footsteps? And you’ve still not told me how I got here.”
The woman turned and walked away. “Such an inquisitive mind, I was like that once. You must trust your heart, Little One; it will lead you along the right path; have faith. We will meet again, for now I must go. Your friends are waiting for you.”
“Wait! I don’t understand. What do you want me to do?”
“The powers and the weapon you wield are yours by right of blood. Unfortunately, you were not raised in the Realm and hence were not taught your birth right.” The mysterious woman continued to walk as she spoke. “This is the dream world, a world beyond space and time. I am the past and you are the present.”
“But who are you?” The Warrioress asked, but the woman was gone.
Ash stood dumbfounded, trying to make sense of everything she had heard. She closed her eyes for a moment and when she opened them again she was lying on the floor in Tuculca’s tower, with her friends nearby, “W-what happened?”
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