Introduction: Gleaming Silverdream

Celes would never forget that first flash of Silverdream.

The Witherbane surrounded her. It knotted beneath her feet like an ebony net, locked over her head like a cage, frothed in the ocean beyond the sandy ribbon of of the Dragon Isles. She leapt through the increasingly narrow spaces between the thrashing vines. Thorns scraped against her leather armor. Beside her, Kaeli ran, amber hair flowing over her pointed ears; there was no armor between her and the vines, and her green gown was torn and crusted with dried blood. Time was no longer measured by hours or minutes, but by the spread of the Witherbane. When Celes and Kaeli had started running, the plants were a black knot on the horizon. Too quickly they had become a hedge in the distance, then fingers clawing their backs. Now, it was on all sides.

A vine as thick as Celes herself, laced with serrated leaves, tightened across her path. She leapt it, drawing her runic blade long enough to slash the creeper she coudn't avoid.

That was when it happened. Kaeli reached into a sling on her back and removed a double-bladed battle axe. It glowed with the sheen of starlight from its blade to its handle, curved like something grown rather than forged. For a moment, in that dark abyss, Kaeli held the sun in her hands.

The vines were severed with a single blow. They fell to the ground, squishing like something rotten before dissipating into smoke.

"I see the teleport stone!" Kaeli yelled. "We're almost out!"

Celes had been watching the vines as she would a human enemy, but now that Kaeli had spoken, she risked looking, and saw it, too. It spiraled from the beach sand, glittering gold. Celes picked up speed. After fleeing across the whole island chain, it seemed like such an insignificant distance. Could safety truly be within reach?

A strangled cry made Celes skid to a halt, and turn back.

The Witherbane converged on Kaeli from all sides. Vines tightened around her feet like rope. At first, she cut through them with Silverdream, but then another caught her elbow, and a third whipped around her hand, making it impossible to use the axe effectively. Celes kicked up sand as she ran. Heavy vines knotted in her path; she hacked through the first, the second, the woven mass that followed; but the faster she cut, the more quickly they spawned.

"Kaeli!"

For a moment, their eyes locked; Celes, battling through the massing vines, and Kaeli, twisting as they wound around her, grew between the two women like a wall. Even as Celes told herself there had to be a way through, that look told a different story.

With as much strength as she could manage, arms bound as they were, Kaeli hurled Silverdream to Celes.

"Everything depends on this!"

Yet more vines emerged, lunging for the axe as it landed with its blade in the sand. Celes beat them to it. She wrapped her fingers around Silverdream's handle and pulled it free just in time. She turned to avoid them, drawing her sword. She didn't strike them, though. Though she couldn't see Kaeli any longer, there was still a small gap in the spreading Witherbane. Celes didn't have as much time as she'd like to aim. She pushed the sword through. Hopefully, Kaeli would be able to reach it.

She sprinted. The vines were at her heels, her shoulders. She could feel them. Faster, she pushed herself, until it felt like her legs would give out. So close! She reached for the golden light. Her fingers brushed the teleport stone.

Then the vines twisted around the teleport stone. They knitted around the coast, blocked the sky from the ground, sculpted an impenetrable seal of thistles around the Dragon Isles. Celes felt none of it.

When the Witherbane engulfed the Dragon Isles, Celes had escaped.

In her hands, Silverdream glowed.