Kira had been running for a while, her breaths steady but deep, until she found a quiet clearing deep in the woods and decided to settle there for the time being.
All of a sudden, she started feeling hungry, and when she spotted a small animal, instinct took over and well… a fire was made, and the result was a roasted meat.
It wasn’t perfect, but it was quite edible.
Now, Kira was seated on a log she had found in the woods while tearing into the roasted meat. The juices dripped onto her fingers, but she had that under control and wiped her fingers on her pants before sighing and staring into the flames, thinking about her life.
“I am a mess,” she thought, feeling like she was the most complicated, confused and disheveled person in the world.
After she was done with her little feast, she reached for the small black bag she had kept beside her and opened it.
She was expecting a letter or something handwritten, but instead she found a small glass vial, and it did not look ordinary at all.
The liquid inside seemed like water, but on a second thought, it wasn’t quite water, nor was it oil.
“This is water, though,” Kira said to herself, trying to convince herself she was right and not confused. “It’s water, just… I don’t know,” she sucked in a breath and bit her lips, thinking. “The color was deep blue just now, but now it’s changed to silver, and look, it’s now light blue.”
“Hmm… Can anything more weird happen today?” She asked herself, and without thinking, she popped the cork.
The moment Kira did that, the liquid leaped out like a living thing.
It surged upward and twisted in the air, stretching and expanding.
Kira gasped, scrambling backward as she watched the liquid grow bigger and swirl in front of her.
It grew taller and wider as if it was going to take some kind of shape, and before she knew it, it became a mirror.
A perfect mirror with a floating sheet of water, shimmering yet holding completely still, and when she looked into it, despite where she was now standing, she could not see her reflection; instead, she saw something else-somewhere else.
A kingdom.
She saw towers, castles, some trees that looked so enchanted and magical, golden petals drifting lazily in the air and the sky…the sky was not just blue but a pale blue with a warm golden hue. It was breathtaking and unlike anything she had ever seen in her life.
Kira had no words to explain what she was seeing or the shock she felt. It was simply… mesmerizing, and above it all, she spotted some winged creatures fly by, and she was certain they were not birds.
What she saw was much larger, longer and elegant, their wings like silver light.
“What is this place?” Kira thought as her breath hitched, forgetting how taken aback she was of the water moving in an otherworldly way, and before she could say more, the water moved again.
At first, she thought it was probably just going to act as weird as it did earlier, stretching and all, but as she tried to figure out what it was doing, it reached out, like hands reaching for her, and grabbed her, leaving her no time to react.
Then, the ground beneath her slipped away.
She was pulled.
Kira gasped and at the same time felt the cold wrap around her completely, and suddenly the world dissolved.
There was no sound; there was nothing. She tried to turn, but she couldn’t, and even under her feet, there was no ground.
“What is happening?” Kira thought and started panicking. She attempted to scream, but she could not make any sound. It was like she had lost her voice.
“Baba Razz, I swear if this is one of your little tricks,” she silently fumed, but stopped when she saw the light.
A blinding golden light.
The feeling of being pulled into something had stopped, and next thing she knew, her feet had hit the ground, although there was something different about the ground she was now standing on, and when she looked around, she noticed she was not in the woods anymore.
Instead, she was in that kingdom she had seen.
Slowly, Kira braced herself and raised her eyes. It was exactly what she had seen in the water, and those creatures… “They are real,” she whispered to herself, and then turned her head, taking in the place. “H-how is this even possible?”
Everything was huge and magical. It was obviously not earth.
“Where am I?” She asked, still looking around, her mind reeling from the shocks and surprises that had unfolded in the past hours. She wasn’t even sure she could take any more surprises or shocks, as it was becoming too much to comprehend.
“Is this even real?” Kira asked herself quietly, then lifted her hand and pinched her forearm hard.
“Ouch.” She winced, rubbing the spot. “That hurts…”
“Just needed to make sure I wasn’t dreaming,” she muttered and exhaled, truly looking at where she had ended up. “Is this where you wanted me to go, Baba Razz? If it is, I think I landed safely.”
The place was nothing like the world she knew, and each step she took while looking around, made her feel like taking more, except if she did that when she didn’t know where exactly she was, she might end up in trouble.
But aside from all that, Kira couldn’t help but admire the place, the massive trees towering high into the sky, the buildings that came into view in the distance, the… “Wait,” she muttered and stopped walking, keeping her eyes on the building she had just spotted. “Buildings. There are buildings,” she exclaimed from both happiness and relief of finding something as helpful as that.
“Maybe people are there,” She thought. “If people are there, I can find some help or an explanation to why I am here. Yes,” she nodded, agreeing with her thoughts. “But first, I need to find a way to get to that building.”
“Kira Valen.” A voice broke through her conversation with her thoughts, making her freeze instantly, as she wasn’t expecting to hear anyone speak.
Slowly and cautiously, Kira turned toward the voice, and there-standing-was a woman.
A woman who stood tall, her presence commanding yet calm. She was putting on a deep green dress with golden embroidery at the edges, which had a split at the front that revealed black leggings underneath. And over this, a fitted leather corset with gold details was also wrapped around her waist, and it matched the armored shoulder pieces and bracers on her arms.
Kira noticed all these as she carefully studied the woman, taking in the layered skirt that extended from the corset and blended into the flowing fabric behind her and her tall leather boots, which also had golden accents, reinforced at the knees for protection.
Additionally, the woman’s hair was silver, long and cascaded down her back. But another thing that caught Kira’s attention was the woman’s face.
It was sharp, elegant, and flawless. It was a kind of beauty that didn’t seem natural, almost too perfect to be human.
Everything about the woman… seemed perfect.
“Wow,” Kira found herself muttering, not being able to hold herself back from admiring such a beautiful being.
In response to Kira’s admiration, the woman tilted her head slightly before she finally spoke.
“We have been expecting you, Kira.” She said, and lifted a hand, gesturing toward the world beyond them. “My name is Lythari; welcome to El’fiannor. The kingdom of Elves.”