The Fate of Xon

Death, blood, screams. Lightening, mountain, full moon. A young woman with flaming red hair stood high on a rampart of a dark brick castle. It was nothing special. Nothing like the sapphire and ruby of Zanidy Palace or the solid white marble of Mystic Manor and especially nothing like the onyx and diamond of Starlight Palace. It was just the faded gray stones of ages before sculptors had even begun to mold precious gem into buildings. There were gargoyles on every corner, but they moved as if they were real, looking at the woman as she screamed into the night sky. Bats flew into the night, flying low to meet the group of Dead Things in the field below. They all raised their horror inducing screams up at the woman before turning to head towards The Pass that was clear in the distance. The woman seemed to sense something behind her. She turned quickly to look behind her. There was a flash of red eyes and then pain ...



The High Seer woke screaming from her vision, looking around at the group of servants that had gathered around her as she lay gasping in horror while she had slept. They all knew better than to wake her, knowing that it could cause irrevocable damage to not only her mind and body, but to the room and people around her. So she was left panting, looking up at them until she had regained her composure enough to speak.



"I\'m fine. Really. Just a vision of ... I\'m not sure yet. I\'ll have to meditate on it and find out." Dahlia sat up and swung her legs off the bed, letting them hang a foot off the floor for a moment before dropping softly to land with her feet in her slippers. She allowed one of the servants to put her robe on and then shrugged them all away, heading to the Sanctum.



She wandered the halls of the Housing Unit, ignoring the numerous heads that popped out of the doors and asked her for help. It was called the \'Housing Unit\', but the only people housed there, besides Dahlia herself, were those who dedicated their entire lives to nothing but the service of the High Seer. She didn\'t need them as much as they thought she did. And right now she didn\'t need them at all. She just needed her thoughts, her vision, and the Goddess.



She opened the door to the Sanctum and stood back, admiring the sheer beauty of it as she always did. There were high ceilings set with buttresses in the baroque style with a glass ceiling that allowed the beauty of the sun to shine onto the image of the beauty that was the Goddess in the middle. It surrounded by an altar, covered in handwoven silk blankets, in which patrons knelt for worship. The statue of the Goddess stood over eight foot tall and was made of the same white marble as Mystic Manor, though there were emeralds of the greenest shade for her eyes. She was completely nude and her hair hung around her body, though it didn\'t cover her body so much as accentuate the beauty of her nudity. The gardens around The Goddess shown with every flower known to man from the elegant rose to the lovely, everyday use tulip. The bushes were lush and every shade of green imaginable, and the trees held every fruit that would grow in their region.



Though it was still a few hours before dawn, the Sanctum was brightly lit with a multitude of magicked candles that floated around the room. They were normally blown out as soon as Dahlia went to bed, so someone must have come ahead of her to light them. With the beauty of this sacred area, she hadn\'t even noticed about the candles. She made a mental note to ask the servants who had been in the room with her to find out who had done it, but right now, she had work to do.



She removed her shoes at the door and walked up the silk covered steps, eyes always on the Goddess. She knelt on the top most step and already felt herself go into her trance-like state. Her eyes became white and she looked almost blind and her facial expressions were wiped off her face until there was nothing but adoration for the figure in front of her. Her hair felt in her face and she began to see the images she had seen earlier in dream more clearly.



Again, there was the woman, the army of Dead Things, and them marching, but it made no sense. Though now there was more, and it scared her because this was the first vision Dahlia had ever seen herself in. Especially with Daniel.



Dahlia had an arm wrapped around Daniel\'s waist as they rose fast on horseback in unknown territory. There was fear on both their faces as well as in the horse\'s eyes. Dead Things were behind them, but there was something else in front of them. A larger army loomed before them and they seemed to be riding to them. The front lines of the seemingly friendly army were nothing by animals. No, not animals. SHAPESHIFTERS. In every size, shape, and species imaginable. Behind them, there stood a group of humans, or at least humanoids, who were trying to break through the lines, screaming for Daniel and Dahlia, scared more for the two on horseback than for themselves. There was love and devotion on all the strangers\' faces that frightened Dahlia even more than the Dead Things behind her.



A earsplitting scream came from close behind them, too close. Before Dahlia could think, something had her around the waist and was pulling her skyward. She kept her grip on Daniel, and he kept his grip on the horse, but they were beginning to rise. A spell rose to Dahlia\'s lips and the words came from her mouth before she had even thought them, "Aknuta arubam ninuta kamrea!" A lighting bolt crashed from the sky and hit whatever was holding her. Her and Daniel fell back onto the horse and they were riding towards their allies again. Then everything exploded and the vision went black.



Dahlia slowly came back into herself, still staring up at the Goddess. She frowned, still not understanding the visions. She knew that they were giving her pieces and clues to the future, but she didn\'t know who the woman was in the first one, or who the people in the back of the shapeshifter army were. Most importantly, why would she ride into a dangerous situation with Daniel? It was true that he was the best hunter amongst his people, but he couldn\'t stand up to the Dead Things without a weapon. Another Mystic would be better to take into a battle like that then Daniel. Not to mention that she would risk her life for her best friend. She would give herself over to anyone if it meant keeping Daniel safe, her people safe, Xon safe.



"What does it mean, Goddess? Why are you sending me this visions without helping me interpret?" A warmth flowed through Dahlia as she finished speaking and she closed her eyes, letting it the heat fill her body from head to feet. She sighed when she full of the presence of the Goddess. "I understand, Goddess, you don\'t want me to know what your divine plans is until you\'re ready to reveal it. Gotcha. Just make sure you give me a little heads up before you have me doing something stupid to get Dead Things after me."



She said a quick prayer asking that, when things went down, she had the strength to keep Daniel, and any others whom she had made friends with, safe and well. She stood gracefully, tossing the curls of her ankle length strawberry blond hair over her shoulder, getting it out of her face. She glanced back into the emerald eyes of the Goddess\'s statue with eyes that matched before closing the door behind her.



She turned to find the servants all staring at her expectantly. She took a deep breath, gaining the courage to tell them the one thing she always hated the Goddess telling her. "The Goddess has informed me that the visions I have had today, in which I have seen myself, are visions of my future and that she does not want to reveal the meaning until the time comes for it to be necessary."



The servants all looked at each other, afraid of what this meant. They all knew that Dahlia never had visions about her own future. They were only about the people around her. And if she was in their visions of the future, she saw things from her own eyes. From the way she was speaking now, she had actually seen herself as another person. It had never happened to her before, but she was so new at this and so different because of her lack of male organs, that none of the Elders knew what to think, and they made it hard for the servants to know how to handle things when it came to Dahlia. Just like right now.



One brave soul, a veteran servant by the name of Belvedere, managed a coherent sentence in the confused silence. "Princess, how could this be possible? You have never viewed yourself from the outside during a vision. What does it mean?"



Dahlia turned to him and sighed. Of course he would be one to remember her parents and her true title. "The Goddess will reveal all in due time, Belvedere. Right now, I wish to go to bed for tomorrow, the caravans from the South- and Northwest will arrive."



She hurried back into her room and closed the door behind her. She couldn\'t lock it, for they needed to get to her in case something went wrong, but it gave her a moment where she believed she was alone. Alone enough to take her robe off and toss it onto the floor, throw her slippers across the room, and flopped onto the bed with her Siberian huskey and wolf mix. She pulled the blankets over their heads and wrapped her arm around his next. "Finley, what am I going to do? I\'m so scared. What if I\'m seeing the events leading up to my own death?"



The dog merely whined in response before flicking his tongue across her face. He cuddled against her and began to snore softly after a few minutes. She laughed and kissed the top of his forehead, getting comfortable herself. "Good idea. Let\'s catch a few winks."





* * *

A few hours later, the sun hit Dahlia\'s ankles and moved up her body. She could feel the heat and knew that it was about time to wake up and greet the day, but her late night meditation in the Sanctum had completely worn her out. At the same time, she felt that familiar call to do something completely against everything that the High Seer was about. It was the same urge that got her into trouble at least twice a week and more often than was proper for a young lady, not to mention the second highest authority in the land under the Emperess.



Finley moved under the blanket and jumped from the bed, preventing her from getting any more sleep. It was with this that she made her decision. She crawled from the bed and grabbed the dress that was less likely to get attention from others. It was a simple black number that hung loosely around her willow body. She pulled it over it her, pulled her hair up and out of her face, tied a scarf around the noticeable strawberry blond locks, and grabbed a cloak. She walked quietly to the window and dropped her shoes and the cloak onto the ground two stories below. She opened the window wide, listened carefully to the door to make sure no one was coming in.



When she was a hundred percent sure that there was no one coming near her room to hear any noises that she was making, she ran across the room and took a flying leap out the window. She caught the branch six foot away from her window and swung around to crouch onto it. She moved from one branch to the other lithely, getting down gradually due to having to stop every few branches and make sure that no one was walking past window or through the courtyard. She jumped from the lowest branch that was nearly ten feet from the ground, but landed solidly on her feet, ne\'er making a sound. She slipped her shoes on as quickly as she could before throwing the cloak around herself and running through the orchards toward the South Road.



When she was clear of everyone and in view of Lionore, she slipped into the shadows and moved through the city. She loved to be around her people. Of course, due to the fact that she was High Seer, the risk for assassinations was always a little higher. So there were rare days, like today, when she knew that there was no one but her people in town, that she venture out into the city and mingled with her subjects. They all knew who she was as soon as she walked into the town, but they were polite and ignored her until she spoke to them.



Today, though, she had an agenda. She was going to her secret place just north of Lake Lionore. It was a beautiful shaded grove with apple trees, grape vines, and strawberry patches. It was green and shove brilliantly with the light that reflected off the clear blue waters of the lake. No one knew of the place just past the strawberry patch where the land dropped and a small cave rested at the waters edge. That is, no one but Daniel, and he was in the Desertland. There was no one who could find her right now and that was definitely a pleasant thought.



She removed her cloak and shoes, resting under the tree that covered the opening of the cave. She slipped her feet into the water and leaned back against a tree root. She yawned a little, feeling the long night wearing down on her. She bunched her cloak under her head as a pillow and decided to take a little nap. After all, how was anyone going to find her in her secret spot? Seeing as there wasn\'t likely to be anyone coming this way today, she was as safe as she as going to be. Or at least, she thought she was.