Grey's mother and father were the King and Queen of all Guardia. Her father the King was tall and strong, and he liked to pick her up and let her ride on his shoulders, a burden which he could bear easily even though he was getting older and she was getting heavier. Her mother, the Queen, was small and gentle and always laughing. When Grey was younger they had tea parties together. Now that she was eight whole years old, they looked at pretty clothes and jewelry and talked about boys. Grey was very fond of her mother.
Today, because it was her birthday, she had taken leave from the day's studies with her stuffy old royal tutor. She and her parents walked merrily down the path and across the bridge to Auntie Lucca's house.
Auntie Lucca was a slightly strange lady. She was not Grey's real aunt, or so her father had told her; however, her father and mother were both good friends with Auntie Lucca, so she was treated like one of the family. Auntie Lucca was short and she liked to talk, although half the time she made bad jokes and half the time she used big words that Grey had trouble understanding. Auntie Lucca liked to play with machines, and every time Grey came over to her house there was always some new strange and wonderful gadget to look at.
Uncle Janus came out the door to Auntie Lucca's house. He waved at them with a grin as they walked down the path toward him. "Somehow I thought we'd see you three today," he shouted. Grey's father and mother waved and shouted back, smiling.
Uncle Janus was pretty strange, too. Like Auntie Lucca, he was not her real uncle; only just a good friend of the family. Grey had always thought that since Uncle Janus and Auntie Lucca lived together, they must be married—after all, that was what grownups did—but when she had asked her father, he had just laughed and shook his head. "No, they're not married, Grey," he had said. "Uncle Janus and Auntie Lucca are good friends. They live together so they can help each other."
Grey and her parents walked into Auntie Lucca's house, Uncle Janus leading them to the kitchen. He plopped down into a chair pulled out from the kitchen table, flicked his blue ponytail off one shoulder to hang behind his back, and took a swig from the glass of juice sitting on the table next to him. Grey walked up to him and gave him a hug, the way she'd been taught.
"Why thank you, Grey!" he said, returning it and patting her head fondly as she retreated. She sat down next to him on the linoleum floor with a smile.
Her father laughed. "Looks like Grey wants to stay here," he said. "I think I'll go say hello to Lucca, if she's around…?"
Uncle Janus nodded, taking another sip of the juice. "She's out back. Doing maintenance on Epoch, I think."
"Okay, thanks," her father said. He looked toward her mother for a moment, she nodded to him, and they both exited the room.
"So, Grey," Uncle Janus said, looking toward her with a sly smile. "I hear today's sort of a special day…"
Grey nodded happily. "Yeah! Today's my 8th birthday!"
"Eight whole years old! Wow! I can barely remember back when I was eight…" Uncle Janus's smile turned into a wry grin. "Well, Uncle Janus doesn't have a real present for you, unfortunately, because he's sort of dead broke. But how about this?"
Uncle Janus held out his hand palm up, as if expecting something to fall into it.
"Hana toujou… Bara!"
In a shower of white-bright glitter, six yellow roses appeared out of nowhere, dropping from midair into Uncle Janus's outstretched palm.
With a short laugh, grin widening at the look of surprise and amazement on Grey's face, he handed her the roses. "Happy birthday."
"How did you do that!?"
He raised an eyebrow, his grin metamorphosing again into a mysterious smile. "My little secret."
"Tell me! Please?" She tried using some manners.
Uncle Janus just laughed. "Sorry. A magician never gives away the secrets of his trade."
She turned her gaze away from him, an indignant expression on her face. What a way to treat someone on their birthday! "Uncle Janus, can't you ever be serious? You think this whole thing is just a joke."
He laughed again. "That's because it is!"
"Is not!"
He shook his head, suddenly sobering a bit. "Don't worry, Grey. I'm very good at being serious when the occasion calls for it. The occasion just isn't right now." He smiled.
Grey sighed, smelling her roses. She could never stay mad at Uncle Janus. "Okay," she said, shaking her head and smiling back.
That night Grey's mother tucked her into bed. She kissed Grey goodnight and even told her a bedtime story, because it was her birthday.
"Once upon a time," she began (after all, the very best stories always started with 'Once upon a time'), "there was a princess named Marle. At a fair one day, Princess Marle met a handsome boy, and she was determined to go out with him! But the princess was stolen away by evil magic…"
At the end of the story, Grey fell asleep with a happy sigh. The Princess and the boy were together, which was the best way to end that kind of story.
It was dark when she woke up.
Grey looked around, startled. Where was she? Where was the castle, her room, her snug bed? How had she come to this place of black nothingness?
She floated senselessly in the ebony void, bored and confused and sleepy, and finally drifted off again. There was no telling how long she had slumbered there, but when she awoke, she felt somehow older. The darkness around her was diffused now with a faint blue light.
"Is someone there…?" she whispered. "Can you help me?"
"Perhaps."
The strange, echoing voice came from everywhere and nowhere all at once. Grey could not tell whether it was male or female.
"So," the voice mused, "you somehow survived the purge, did you, remnant? Your will must be strong indeed."
Grey frowned. "Remnant? I'm not a remnant… I'm a human being…! My name's Grey—Princess Grey…!!"
"You misunderstand me, human. You are a remnant of the purged dimension, the reality that was destroyed here six hundred years ago."
She sucked in a breath. "Six hundred years…!? Have I been here that long? How's that possible!? What happened to the rest of the world!?!?"
"You have existed here for those many centuries outside the flow of reality—your body has grown and matured in the ways it is equipped to, but true aging will never be known to you here in the void. As for your world… it no longer exists."
"WHAT!?"
"Your home dimension was but one tentative possibility among many for the future of a second dimension. Another possibility was chosen for that dimension, and therefore, the unused possibilities were purged from existence. But somehow… you survived." The voice paused. "You are truly the daughter of the Lavos Slayer. Only one of such power could possibly live through a purge by reality itself."
Grey's eyes shone with tears not yet shed. "So what you're telling me is… everyone I ever knew is gone. And I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere, literally, forever."
"You are not, strictly speaking, stuck. With the help of an interdimensional being such as myself you could travel to another world and make a life there, if you so desire."
"Of course I…" She shook her head, wiping a hand across her eyes. "I want to go to another world. Could you take me?"
"Gladly."
"All right… please, if you ever saw what my world was like… take me somewhere like that one…?"
There was a flash of light.