It is dark, the sun has fallen beneath the horizon. No stars can be seen and even the moon seems to have taken leave of the world.
‘Hello there…’ A voice within the pitch blackness of the night.
Vardarianna blinks, hoping to see something, anything. ‘Hello?’ She answers.
Something growls and fur brushes against her skin.
It is at this point that the maiden realises that she is no longer in any pain, she feels for the cuts and bruises upon her skin but she feels nothing.
‘You won’t feel anything here… Well you might, when you wake up.’ The voice explains.
‘I am asleep?’ She questions, stepping forward and then tripping over what the maiden assumes to be a root. She falls onto the hard ground beneath her, grazing her elbows on the stones embedded within the dirt.
Vardarianna screams, she feels a wetness on her arms but she feels no pain. Then confused, the maiden pushes herself up from the ground and she crawls across the dirt, casting her hands about herself; feeling the ground, trying to find her way within the darkness.
‘A moment ago I had been in the camp, being kicked by that horrible man…’ She stops, gasping, remembering the pain that she had been in.
‘Maybe you were, maybe you weren’t,’ the voice answers.
‘Where am I?’ Vardarianna questions.
‘Does it matter?’ The voice asks. For a moment there is silence, not a word is spoken. The person speaking to the maiden groans as though pained and then, strangely, she begins to chuckle.
‘All that matters is that you are in danger Girl…’ The woman speaking to her breathes deeply and very audibly. ‘The elf…’ She is cut short, she groans again, louder, more pained.
‘Who are you?’ Vardarianna asks.
‘I can show you if you like?’ Another cruel chuckle.
‘Please…’ The confused maiden begs, something about the person speaking to her seems wrong, oh so wrong.
Then suddenly, in the distance, the moon seems to rise above the horizon, ascending with speed into the skies above. At first Vardarianna can see a form, a woman, long hair, piercing blue eyes.
The world becomes lighter, the shadows begin to lift.
Vardarianna gasps.
Before her sits a woman, with Vardarianna’s hair, the same length, the same colour, her eyes are similar; what can be seen of them, the woman even wears the same blue and red dress. Only this woman is not Vardarianna, it cannot be her. The woman’s features are swollen and bloodied, her lips are split and upon her cheek is a large wide cut- it is infected, fluids seem to leak from within it.
Coughing, Vardarianna recoils, crawling backward, she covers her mouth, her stomach threatens to empty onto the very ground before her.
‘I am you Vardarianna… I am Vardarianna’ The woman, the thing, hisses. She smiles, though the smile is twisted. Something moves within the shadows behind the creature with the cruel smile and then slowly from within the darkness comes a warg, it growls, it’s eyes intense with hunger.
‘No!’ Vardarianna screams.
The dream fades and the maiden realises that she is no longer in the woods where she had met the twisted version of herself. She is instead in what looks to be ruins. Stone walls tower above her and she can hear talking, though she is too tired and too pained to recognise the voices or even hear what it is that they are saying.
She groans, the dream still so real within her mind.
