At first her sleep was dreamless, but then she dreamt that she was standing in the middle of a field. The sun was shining down on her and a soft breeze was blowing through her hair. All around her it seemed beautiful and tranquil, but something was very, very wrong. She was thinking about Avalon but she felt a deep longing and despair, as though she would never see its shores again. She realized that she was hungry, so hungry that it felt as though she had never eaten before in her entire life. The wind grew stronger. She looked up and saw the sun eclipsing, slowly darkening the field. She wanted to be back on Avalon desperately. Something bad was happening. At the edge of the field the shadows grew thicker, becoming a liquidy substance. They began to bleed and flow across the grass, rolling towards her from all sides. There was nowhere to run to, she tried to cast a fly spell to get away but it seemed as though all of the energy within that she used to cast magic was gone. The shadows lapped up against her boots and flowed up her legs. She tried to shake them off, she tried to scream but nothing helped. The darkness enveloped her.
Hours later she awoke, surprised that she was still alive. Her head was still groggy and she felt sick to her stomach. She waited a moment for her head to clear then she looked over her wounds again. The wounds on her side, she realized, she could heal herself. The ones on her face, leg and arm were beyond her ability. She healed the lesser wounds, wondering how much good it would do her since it appeared that the wound on her leg was still bleeding slightly. She needed to go back to sleep, her body was not going to let her move anywhere. But if she stayed here then she would be vulnerable to predators.
As she pondered her situation her hand subconsciously went to her necklace, twisting the stones between her fingers as she thought. Suddenly she realized that she was sinking into the shadows. The necklace seemed to vibrate with magic. She grabbed her sword and let herself fall into the shadow realm.
“Well that solves one problem.” She said to herself. She took off the necklace and looked at it for a moment. Analyzing it using her magical awareness she realized that it had been altered over time, perhaps because she had focussed so much attention on it. She had heard of prized possessions becoming imbued with powers. It appeared that this one allowed her to walk into the shadow realm. A useful power, particularly now, since it would keep predators from finding her. Now if only the bleeding would stop. She stretched out and fell asleep, pulling her cloak tightly over herself to try and keep out the coldness of the shadow realm. |
