ChapterOne
December 2044 - The Elvish Protectorate
She was once boundless.
It was the only way she could describe her life before the storm, and the dragon, andnewness.
She was immeasurable, her consciousness a gossamer veil between the horizon and the dome of stars; formless, with neither body nor true mind, butpresence,personhood all the same.
Consciousness did not come all at once. It grew over eons, in starts and stops, and not always in isolation. In quiet moments, she thought she could reach deep into her memory, to that wild primordial time, and touch other beginnings, other beings, who joined to becomeher.
Her first clear thought came as a surprise. She had no eyes, no ears, no body at all, and yet she sensed the world below her and felt the thought in every part of her being. It was fully-formed, a strike of electricity through a haze of dull awareness:What is that?
More thoughts came, each one quicker, more focused than the last. Existing as magic and thought, she could do little more than watch the world below her andhunger.For what, she didn’t know — at least, not for many, many years. How could she, when she did not have words for the concept of curiosity? For loneliness? Despair?
And yet she felt, and wondered, and decided that if ever there was a chance to be reborn into something else, she would trade her vastness for even a moment oflife.Drifting over the world, she watched those below and felt envy. It took many thousands of years for her to recognize that they, too, were beings with thoughts. Watching them closely revealed previously unimaginable differences between them.
Sound. Movement. Community.Change.
They did not make sense to her, but one day she began to wish she could know what it was like to be small and strange and together with others. There was no one to hear her silent pleas, but she wished anyway.
It came as something of a shock, however, when that wish came true.
After eons as an entity of pure power, limitless and yet never free, she did not expect to feel herself… compressed.Squeezed.Like the claps of thunder she knew so well, the feeling rocked her. Once, twice, a third time. Again and again, faster, harder, until she was utterly insensible with confusion and fear and a brutal sort of pain that she had no name for.
Pain was the first thing her body felt, quickly followed by the foreign bite of cold, and finally a curious sensation like a string was attached to her belly and pulling tighter every second.
Her body, so strange and new, ripped apart in a flash before it came back together again. Weightless and then weighted. Bursting and then resewn. Made and unmade.
The fact that she had a body at all was impossible to comprehend. The knowledge was there, as real and solid as her flesh, but she could not process it at once — or at all as her form compressed and then shredded itself again in a blaze of white hot agony. Muscle roped new bone, sinew stretched, and then they were unraveled, the bone crushed to pulp, the muscle stripped strand by strand, her sinews pulled taut until they, too, snapped.
The agony was unimaginable. She had never felt pain, nor comfort. She did not know what it was to be battered and healed again. Was this life? Was this what she had hoped for?
It can’t just be this! It can’t be this!
The world spun. Thensound.
Oh, sound! It rose in volume as she tumbled through the cold, hair whipping, a silent scream torn from lips which had never spoken a word.
Terror. That was what she felt as she fell from the sky. Lightning cut jagged streaks around her, flashing through the thin skin of her eyelids. It kissed her flesh even as she plunged to the world she had longed to be part of for so long.
Impact.A powerful force rattled her frame. Teeth clacked together and spots floated in front of her eyes as she tumbled faster, this time with more weight, until shadows stretched out around her with asnap!
She slowed. The world stopped spinning. The awful, taut feeling in her middle began to dissipate. Gradually, she became aware of new sensations: something rough against her skin, warmth, and a rich, spicy scent.
Before she could silently ask all her usualhowsandwhys,there was another jarringthump,and then stillness.
Her ears rang. Distantly, she heard sounds and felt the lack of icy wind, but her mind was muddled, her usual curiosity muffled by discomfort and that terrible fear. She squeezed her eyes shut and curled closer to the warmth — her own personal sun, who banished the wind and the fear with ease.
Lightning flashed, but then she perceived a deeper darkness all around her. Even the sounds were muffled. Only the rasp of her own strange breathing and someone else’s filled the small, warm space.
Something curled around the delicate bones of her ankle, and though her head swam, shehadto see. To know she had an ankle at all was so baffling that it could not be overlooked. Her eyes popped open to peer down, but her vision was immediately filled with something else entirely.
A face stared down at her in the soft darkness. Four horns were a proud crown. A wide nose tapered into high cheekbones and an angular chin. A soft mouth was ever-so-slightly parted, revealing white teeth and fangs. But the eyes—
Half-lidded eyes of shadowed green stared down at her with a look she couldn’t hope to decipher. They were lined with long, spiky lashes, and when they roved over her face, she felt…she felt.
All was still again, but this time it wasinside.For just a moment, she was no longer spinning, falling, crashing together and pulling apart. She was simplyheld.
