Faith's heart raced in her chest and she stopped breathing for a good few minutes as she looked at the landscape beneath her. She was falling at increasing speed towards the ground.
"Oh my God, this can't be happening... Not again."
She couldn't deny that she was afraid to die. The first time was scary enough though she was so overwhelmed by emotions, that she managed to push the fear aside and do it. But this time it was something else, she was falling to her death consciously and not by choice. Before Faith could surrender to fear, she gathered all the willpower she possessed and thought of a possibility to survive. The last words of the unknown person ringed repetitively in her ear.
"And fly..." She concentrated on these particular words, musing about their meaning as best as she could at the moment.
Her time was running out. In a matter of minutes, she was about to crash into the ground. Leading to her certain death. Until she wasn't aware of the strange feeling on her back. She turned her head around only to find the most shocking thing in her life.
"I have wings?!" She sounded like a little child. For a moment, she forgot about everything else and just looked at her pair of white-feathered angel-like wings sticking in between her shoulder bones.
Her eyes wide in wonder until a strong wave of wind struck her face, breaking her stupor in an instant.
Now everything the unknown person said made sense, but there was still one problem.
"How am I supposed to fly when I have never flown before?" The question hung up in the air. Making her overflow with panic when she already saw the landscape forming under her.
"Jesus Christ on Earth, what am I supposed to do? What should I do? What the fuck should I do?!" Her mind panicking to the utmost until it turned into mindless anger.
The wings haven't responded to anything she did. As every rational notion left her mind and her body was about to crash into a vast green valley of trees, as the last attempt she cried out loud with every ounce of her body, spirit, soul.
"FUCKING OPEN!" she closed her eyes, as she had shouted it out loud. And much for her relief, it worked.
They opened up once their master's words reached them. Though they did slow her down excessively once they've opened, she still wasn't fully in control of them and couldn't move them even an inch. Despite that, Faith tried to land smoothly on the soft grassy ground, clumsily hitting at least a dozen things, branches, stems in the process, making her look like a drunk bird.
She was surprised that her wings didn't manage to get stuck somewhere as she tried to descend from the sky through the thick light-green leaf crowns. Once she passed through it however, she landed not so gently on the ground.
The impact of her body and the otherwise soft ground still managed to kill off the remaining oxygen in her lungs. And for a split of a second, she felt as if every bone in her corpus was shattered. Panting to get air back into her lungs, she passed out for a moment.
It didn't take her long to wake up. She sprung back up to her feet as if waking up from a bad dream. But it wasn't just a dream. It all happened. The images flooded back into her memory. Her death, the soft voice of the unknown person, the fall... Struggling to make sense of what happened, she fell back into the caressing embrace of the short grass, feeling the burning pain from the many nicks and bruises on her skin.
The leaves and short pieces of wood unpleasantly entangled in her hair and wings. Forcing her to scrabble steeply through her shoulder-length hair as if she had pesting louses. The pure white colour of her wings was now blemished with dirt and mixed with broken off pieces of branches, though she expected no less since she flew 'expertly' through the trees.
Despite the pain and her troubling thoughts, she stood up. And looked around, only to find herself in the middle of a vast forest of yet untouched beauty, wondering if she got lucky or it was like this everywhere.
She gasped at the breathtaking view around her, pushing aside every other thought which was running through her mind. From high up above, this seemed like a normal forest to her, but looking from a different ankle made her quickly reconsider what 'normal' meant to her. For all the negative attributes she claimed to possess, there was only one thing she knew for sure, she was by far not stupid.
She couldn't have spent her whole free time only playing games, watching anime or listening to depressing music. She wouldn't be much better than she was before, and Faith wanted to make her new parents as proud as possible.
Learning didn't belong to her favourite things of doing, but it wasn't as bad as she thought it would be and found herself more interested later on. She managed to get nearly top grades in school, earning respect or sometimes jealous glares from her fellow pupils.
"Good thing I paid attention at school." She analyzed one of the many trees around her like a researcher. They reminded her of Hyperion.
The highest living tree on Earth with a height of 115 meters, though he could have been even higher. They did look very much alike. Though she saw it just from a picture in her geography book.
"But the one on Earth was a conifer and this one is this world - Faith had no idea what world though - is deciduous."
"Guess I will name them 'Hiperion'." A mischievous grin escaped her. God, she felt so silly for her poor attempt at humour that it wasn't almost real.
Faith wandered slowly through the peaceful forest, giving familiar names to anything that catches her interest. From colourful flowers to abnormal trees. God help her, she felt like Alice in Wonderland. The scenery was alike.
Once in a long time, she felt at peace, nothing scary, stressful, unpleasant. Was this her heaven or God's paradise? Faith dismissed the sentiment once she recalled the words of the unknown person and her last wish before she died.
"'Your wish shall be fulfilled', it said. Though I don't recognize this part of Thedas. If it even is Thedas. The Emerald Graves maybe? Or a predecessor of the Brecilian Forest? Or even the old Arlathan Forest presumably?"
"So many questions but no answers!" She shouted angrily, losing her temperament. Faith wasn't usually the type to get angry at all, but this surely broke through her self-control. She felt amazing and frustrated the same.
Her heart jumped in her chest in throes of joy thinking about being in Thedas. But, there were still too many questions left unanswered. If she only could use her wings properly, but the damn things didn't work on her command.
She walked abstractedly about an hour straight. Speculating, planning, trying to wrap her mind about everything, until she heard a faint sound of moving water.
"A river?" Shot through her mind once she paid it more attention.
Faith followed the louder getting sound until she reached a thin river. It flowed slowly and made that soothing 'plop' tone, which calmed her down a bit. She slightly bends over it, the water so pure that she could see the stones on its bottom with utmost clarity. Faith tried to find her reflection on it, to no vain. But she expected nothing less. It was moving after all.
Nevertheless, she utilized it in other ways. Though she hasn't been feeling thirsty or hungry from the moment on when she fell into this world, she drank just to be sure and cleansed her sweaty face.
"A proper bath would be nice." She imagined the hot baths she used to have back home, almost falling asleep from the amount of comfort it offered her. She let out a sight, knowing she would miss them terribly. Couldn't be helped. She had to move on.
"Maybe if I follow the river, it might lead me to some bigger pond. Worth a try, I guess." She rolled her shoulders.
Faith patiently followed it, noticing the river getting wider any passing kilometre. At the end of it, was a presumably 8 meters high waterfall, along with other two plus three smaller rivers infusing into one big mainstream. Though the main stream's flow was slowed down by a cut-down tree laying horizontal on.
"Looks like an amateur dam." she chuckled at the poor installation.
"But wait-. Someone had to build it, which means there must be someone living nearby. It was only logical. Most ancient civilizations were founded nearby big water reservations." A feeling of relief and anticipation overcame her.
"So this means I get to meet my first elf, human, dwarf, or qunari!" A real girly shriek came from the usually sad woman. She chuckled happily from her reaction.
"God listen to me, sounding like some JB fangirl." She put a hand on her mouth to stop herself from laughing.
"Though I think that it would be unlike to find a qunari or a dwarf here in the woods. Isn't particularly their environment. Depends on what age it is. Because I - as a faithful DA fan know - that the elves were here even before the humans arrived from the north..." stated Faith expertly.
"I should probably stop talking to myself or I will become paranoid."
Faith went around the pond, so she could enter it more easily. As she was on its shore, she finally got a better reflection of herself from the water. Her pure black hair was freely hanging down to her shoulders and her light grey mixed with blue eyes were the same as ever.
Though her clothes were different from the ones she was wearing at her death. She was dressed in a simple white dress. Though it was now all muddy. Nothing more than that. No bra, no underpants, no shoes... nothing.
"Holy, I feel like a newborn." She flushed and became flustered from her nakedness.
"Well, it doesn't matter now. I need a bath and that's all. At least I don't have to waste time with undressing." She tried to drive away the uncomfortable feelings for the time being.
She carefully looked around to be sure she was safe to go. Then stripped off her dress as best as she could muster with the wings being in her way. After a few curses and great effort, she managed to get free and jumped right into the water.
Although the climate was overly warm, the water was oddly cold. Maybe from the time, it was covered in shade. It felt a bit chilly on her heated body, from walking around and all that. She went a few meters further into the pond, so the water reached her belly.
The something between stony and earthy bottom felt relaxing on her bare feet. Faith expected a slight 'stingy' pain once the water made contact with her untreated, hopefully not infected, nicks from the landing, but there was none. She wondered how she quickly forgot about them or if they disappeared. Once she examined her body, she was quite surprised.
"Completely healed! No trace at all!" She skipped her fingers on her skin to be sure she wasn't just imagining things.
"Another question for another time, I suppose." She huffed, knowing that it was useless to speculate about it now.
For now, she focused on washing her dirty body clean. Humming a familiar song in the process. Singing was one among her favourite things of doing, and she had a voice of gold. She was proficient in all types of genre that could be sung aside from metal and opera.
"If I told you that I love you would tell what would say. If I told you that I hate you would you, would you go away..." She sang just as she had listened to it so many times in her bedroom.
Every time she began to sing, everything ceases to exist around her, her mind was trapped in her own world. She put everything into her voice: her heart, soul, emotions. Her mind wildly fantasising as the rhythm of the song was playing in her mind. If she was to explain it to someone, the most precise description would be that it was like an AMV on YouTube, but more real.
"Now I need your help with everything that I do. I don't wanna lie, I am very relying on you." Her eyes were shut as if savouring the moment. Not noticing the young man behind her back watching her from his cover.
The blond haired boy had a wooden bucket in his hands and was hiding behind a bush once he saw Faith. He had done his best not to shriek in fear, though he muffled it in time with his hands and went for a cover.
"Falling again, I need a pick-me-up. I have been calling you a friend, I might need to give it up." That's where she began to rock.
Her voice singing to invisible music in her mind. But something unexpected happened, something Faith didn't notice at first. The music she thought she was just hearing in her head was actually very audible on the outside. Although the young man was thrown off at first from the abstract new tunes he was hearing and didn't perceive a single word from the lyrics, he found himself quickly drawn to the song, to her.
"I am sick and I am tired too. I can admit, I am not fireproof. I feel it burning me. I feel it burning you."
The tune was utterly melancholic and every time Faith raised her voice in a higher tune with her soft voice of silk, he felt as if his heart was pierced through with something sharp, and felt indescribable. The man had lost control of his body, everything around him dimmed into fuzzy colours, vacantly getting closer to her from behind and sat down to the shore where Faith's dress was laying on the ground.
"I hope I don't murder me. I hope I don't burden you. If I do, I do."
His blue eyes solely fixed at the unknown person or animal standing in front of him. Enamoured by her presence.
"If I meet you in the middle maybe we could agree."
It had wings like a bird, a body so slender yet not thin along with faded skin colour, and pure black hair darker than the deepest black, opposing to her overall light-coloured appearance.
"You make feel little how you're looking at me."
Her voice was soft as the clouds on a clear sky, still could be higher than the mountain's peak or deeper than the bottom of an ocean.
"And you can call me shade, all it does is just cool me off."
The boy was entranced by her surface and enamoured by her sounds. He skipped breathing to exclusively hear every change of tune, pitch, sounds from Faith's singing.
"First it just threw me off, now I am just moving on."
The man didn't mind hearing the somehow familiar passage of the song again. What he did perceive was how her the background rhythm slightly changed than the first time as Faith repeated.
"Falling again, I need a pick-me-up. I have been calling you a friend, I might need to give it up."
The rhythm got a bit louder this time, and so was Faith's voice. The first time seemed like a warm-up for this.
"I am sick and I am tired too. I can admit, I am not fireproof. I feel it burning me. I feel it burning you. I hope I don't murder me. I hope I don't burden you. If I do, I do."
The melody suddenly calmed down to such an extent that it was incomparable to the beginning, like the silence before a storm. And Faith's voice, the middle of it.
"Swim with me. I think I can see the beach. I know what's underneath. I need you here with me. But we're out in the open."
Unexpectedly, Faith's voice was simultaneously getting louder and louder with background music, each passing second, and recited the same passage in a quicker pace. The water, in which she was standing, was vibrating along the louder getting rhythm. Creating small waves on the pond's surface. And out of nowhere, the blue clear sky was replaced by a dark shade of grey countless clouds, indicating heavy rain along with a strong wind.
"Swim with me. I think I can see the beach."
As if instinctively sensing the incoming uncertainty. His heart stopped in sheer anticipation of the unknown or perhaps it was even fear. His body tensed up, sending shivers down his spine. A storm was coming.
"Just don't look underneath us. I need you here with me. Don't let it go."
She muzzled the last few words as if she was about to pass out, just to literally shout the last lines of the song.
"I am sick and I am tired too!"
She shouted on top of her lungs as if life ceased to exist if she didn't. The man could only gasp at the scenery, eyes full of wonder. It was like any coherent thoughts simply perished.
"I can admit, I am not fireproof. I feel it burning me. I feel it burning you!"
The weather was storming without anything to hold it back. Waves raging unpredictable in all directions, and the wind blowing wildly, crushing anything in its wake. It was like a nature inferno.
"I hope I don't murder me!"
Yet the boy wasn't afraid.
He felt the touch of the wind, rough yet so gentle. The touch of the water, cold yet a bit warm. A dangerous reminiscent storm, yet not meant to hurt.
It had another purpose. A deeper meaning, hiding behind thick layers of platitude. Easily misjudged. Not visible to those who only see with their eyes.
"I hope I don't burden you!"
He could literally taste the despair in her voice, the fear lingering in the air, the anguish in the waves, the sadness emitting from her. This was Faith's emotions.
"If I do, I do." The last words were not more than a whisper. And so the rhythm stopped and everything went back to normal without Faith even noticing anything. She opened her eyes, only to drastically turned her head around to the sudden sound.
"Aaaaa...!" Before she could register anything else, she had let out a really girly shriek from seeing the young elven man behind her. Getting down at moment's notice so she could hide her naked body under water.
"OMG, HE SAW EVERYTHING!" Embarrassment taking ahold of her. Feeling the heat flooding her cheeks even under the cold water.
"Aaaaa...!" He shouted back with a childish voice and ran instinctively away at his fastest. Leaving the bucket behind. And so the elf disappeared into the woods.
Faith had looked around before she quickly got out of the pond and put her dress on.
"I think he listened to me singing." She said to herself while looking in the direction where the boy ran out.
Note: Song - The Neighbourhood - The Beach
AN: Sorry if it is a bit shitty, but I am super inexperienced in describing something and my English too, so sorry and I hope you like it anyways.