Author's notes: Enjoy!

Chapter 3

"Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix."
-Christina Baldwin

The first signs that indicated to Melina that she was still alive were the smell of autumn that filled her lungs with every breath she took and the bright light she could perceive behind her closed eyelids.

Melina's first thought, after registering these signs, was: Not again! Her eyes shot open and, to her surprise, she realized that she was not on top of the dark tower, nor lying on the ground in hell and neither was she in the nursing home…but in some home she definitely was.

She was lying quite comfortably on a large bed under thick, warm blankets. She blinked away the sleep from her eyes and sat up; and she immediately noticed that none of her body parts were hurting. She examined her hands and her nails…nails which had been missing the last time she had checked. She also noticed that her hands were clean, and smelled quite nice.

She then noticed that she was no longer naked; someone had put cloths on her body. And not just any clothes; this was the softest nightgown she had ever worn, and with beautiful patterns intricately embroided into the fabric. She stared at the dress for a few minutes before moving on to examine the rest of the, she noticed immediately, richly decorated room.

Unlike her previous quarters, which had consisted of a rundown house, a butt-ugly nursing home room and a prison cell; these made her feel like a queen. The smooth stone walls were almost entirely covered with various multicoloured tapestries and breathtaking paintings. The room contained a panoply of furniture; aside from the bed she was lying on, she could see a gigantic wardrobe, a dresser with antique toiletries lying on top of it, a huge black chest at the foot of her bed, and a night table. All of this furniture was made out of expensive looking hard wood and all them seemed to have been handcrafted with unique designs.

She saw that someone had left a piece of bread and a glass of water on the night table. After finishing her drink, Melina pushed away the blankets and stood up. Her feet met with a warm furry carpet, where a pair of slippers had been laid. She put them on, they felt heavenly on her small feet, and proceeded to walk around the room.

Melina noticed a window to her right and walked over to it. When she peered out, squinting a little from the sunlight, she froze in awe. She was standing above what looked like an immense medieval city; there were people walking in old style clothes, dirty, happy children were running around, she could even see sentinels wearing bright shining armours and swords while standing guard at the bottom of a large staircase leading up to the building she was in.

Beyond the busy city, Melina could see miles and miles of fields and, on the horizon, forests and mountains. The whole scene seemed surreal, so different than anything she had ever seen…not that she had ever travelled much. She was so lost in contemplation of each and every detail the city had to offer that she did not notice someone had walked into the room until they tapped her shoulder.

She was so startled by the unexpected visitor that she jumped, screamed and tried to hit whoever was behind her. Her fist did not even come close to its intended target but her momentum made her lose her footing, do an about face, and fall backwards. Instead of hitting the ground hard like she expected; she was caught by two strong arms and helped back on her feet. Blushing furiously, Melina turned to the person shyly, her eyes glued to the ground. As soon as she heard the person speak in gibberish with a familiar voice though, her eyes shot up and she recognised the man in grey.

Without knowing why, she could not stop herself from jumping and throwing her arms around him in a tight embrace and she felt tears of unadultered joy run down her face He seemed to be taken by surprise at first, but then his body relaxed and he returned the hug. Melina could not remember the last time she had hugged anyone, or been hugged by anyone for that matter. Perhaps Celine had hugged her body after she had died; the random thought surprised her, but it was also strangely comforting thought. This man though, he was real, warm and even his smell was relaxing; a mix between sweet tobacco, hay and that particular musky smell most men carried. She decided she did not want to move away; staying like this until the next time she died seemed like the best idea in the world…unfortunately, the man did not share her hopes.

After a minute or so, he backed away; a thoughtful expression on his face. This man has too much on his mind, she thought as she wiped away her tears He said something in that strange language she could not understand, or even associate with any language she had ever heard, and pointed to the wardrobe. Confused, Melina followed him to the furniture and peered inside when he opened it. Suddenly, she felt like a 5 year old on Christmas and could not help but giggle excitedly as the man in grey took a beautiful gown out of the wardrobe. She had to stop herself from ripping the dress out of his hands and putting it on immediately; instead she decided to put her hands behind her back and watched impatiently as he brought the dress behind a folding screen.

Next, he returned to the wardrobe and, mumbling under his breath, picked up a pair of brown traveling boots, which he also then placed behind the screen. Melina tried not to laugh at this man, who truly did not look the part of a clothing maid, while he tried to tell her to go change in sign language. She played the part the naïve girl for a bit, truly enjoying toying with this lovely man; but when he acted out the part when she should "take her current dress off" Melina exploded in laughter and ran behind the screen. The poor man huffed in indignation and she heard him sit on the bed.

It took Melina a good hour, and a few grunts of random gibberish from the man in grey, to finally get the night gown off and the new dress on. After finally understanding how the dress was suppose to be worn, she now had much more respect for all those women who once had to live with these every day; no wonder they had maids back then. Melina's mood sunk down quite a bit as soon as she took the nightgown off and noticed the scars. As her eyes began to scan, from her hands up to her shoulder and over her tiny breasts, Melina's head began to feel dizzy. She felt her stomach lurch and her knees weaken as memories flashed through her mind. It took all of her will power, while staring at anything but her own body, for her to keep going.

When she finally reappeared from behind the screen, the man was pacing to and fro in the room. She looked at him with a neutral expression, and he gave her a weak smile before his face became serious again. He mumbled something, motioned for her to follow and left the room. Melina almost had to run to catch up to the man and had to walk quickly to stay in pace with him. She tried to look at her surrounding as much as she could, but with their fast pace and the few collisions she had with the man or certain statues, she decided to look in front instead.

They walked through a series of corridors, each one as richly decorated as the last and Melina wondered at the size of the house they were in…it seemed more like a mansion of some sort. The money it must have took to build this, she thought. The chandeliers hanging from the ceiling were all made out of gold and silver, the carpet covering the floor was dark red with golden patterns woven into it; but the most spectacular room was yet to come. When they entered the throne room, Melina stopped dead in her tracks. The first thing she noticed was the throne itself where an old weary man sat, wearing a beautiful golden crown. She did not linger long on him, for he began to speak with the man in grey and she had no hope of understanding their conversation.

Instead she slowly turned around and examined each corner of the room. It was huge, at least three times bigger than her bedroom and the ceiling was much higher. There were paintings on the walls, some depicted scenes of battles, other portraits of past Kings, and others yet showed glorious horses of every colour and size. Horses, she thought, seemed to be the predominant theme in this castle. She had seen a few paintings of them in her room and many more in the corridors. There had even been horses carved on the wardrobe now that she thought of it. Even the huge banners, which showed the colours and emblem of this castle, had two majestic horses in the middle of them.

Melina was brought out of her horse reverie when she realized that the conversation between the men had turned sour. She turned to see the man in grey being yelled at by the King...no...by someone else. Melina quietly walked by the man in grey's side, her eyes focused on the short and ugly man who had just spoken. She had not noticed him before; all clad in black he was, with black hair and ugly eyes. His voice, when listened to, gave her chills and she unconsciously took a few steps backwards and behind the man in grey.

The ugly man shot her a terrible glare, bared his black teeth in a ridiculous, but terrible, smile, and spoke to the man in grey. She noticed the man in grey tensed in front of her and he seemed like he was about to say something to the ugly man, but the old King cut in. It seemed to be painful for the King to speak; Melina wondered how the man was even still alive. Nevertheless, the man in grey seemed to take the King's word seriously and Melina could see that he was not pleased with the situation...whatever it might be.

After a lengthy, and seemingly painful speech, the King ended his statement with a wave of his arm and three soldiers appeared out of nowhere, circling them. Melina let out a weak squeak of terror and grabbed hold of the man in grey's arm. He looked down at her and the anger melted from his face, replaced by resignation. They were led, or rather forced to walk out, of the castle by the guards. As soon as they were out and left alone, the man in grey grumbled under his breath and headed down the stairs of the castle. Melina struggled to keep up with him as they quickly made their way down to the city gates. Whatever hopes she had of seeing the city dissipated as she noticed the evil and fearful glares most of the citizens were shooting them while they walked by.

All of a sudden she felt they could not walk fast enough to get out there. They arrived at the city gate 10 minutes or so later and were led out of the city by more guards. The plains Melina had thought beautiful from her room now seemed barren and uninviting…but they also seemed to be their destination.

Her companion said something and then laughed; Melina raised an eyebrow and glanced at him, was he also insane? He coughed and composed himself quickly, but a large grin lingered on his face. She could not help smiling back, there was just something about this man...and now I sound like a love sick teenager, she thought, brilliant. Though in truth, that is what she was now, at least physically...she clenched her jaw and pushed the thoughts to the back of her mind, now was not the time to linger on these things. Though what it was the time for, she did not know. To her utter surprise, her ever grey companion started to whistle as he began walking towards an unknown destination.

That's it, she thought, this man has lost it; but she did not have any brighter idea then to follow the mad man.

-"Where are we going?" she asked, but knew it was useless; he did not understand her. The man in grey turned his head slightly towards her and shook it, indicating that indeed, her language was gibberish to him. She sighed loudly and stomped after him.

They walked for a short while and Melina was surprised to see a building in the plains, outside the city walls. It looked like a huge barn, but as they got closer, she realized it was a stable for horses. There were about a hundred horses of various colours and sizes running in the fields around the stable and each one looked healthy and strong. The guards at the stable seemed to have been expecting them, for he spoke quickly with her companion and pointed towards the horses.

Her companion did not hesitate and immediately headed towards the fields; Melina wanted to linger back for a bit and relax, but when she noticed the soldier glaring at her she quickly caught up with the man in grey. What was wrong with all these people anyway? But she was prevented to think on it any more when she heard a muffled scream and looked out to see her companion falling on his back like a plank; a roused silver horse barely missing the man's head when its hoofs fell back to the ground. Melina broke into a run just as the huge stallion sprinted into the other direction.

When she arrived to the man, who had not moved since his fall, Melina thought she was going to slap him. Her heart was pumping fast, she had been afraid for him! And what was he doing? Laughing! She was too offended to help him up, but had to chuckle when she noticed that all of his back was covered in grass and dirt. He looked so ridiculous that she had to dust him off even though she was still mad at him; she even picked up his blue hat that lay pathetically on the ground. When she was done getting rid of most of the offending dirt, her companion turned to face her, bowed his head ever so slightly, took his hat from her and pointed towards the stable. Melina frowned, what now? Again he pointed to the building and made a shooing movement with his hands.

She frowned even more, he was leaving her?

The man, seemingly satisfied with his explanation, shoved his hat back on, turned around and began walking away…she followed him. But she had not taken ten steps when the man turned around and held out his hand. She stopped again, shook her head and raised her shoulders to indicate that she did not understand. The man pointed towards her and then to the stable, and repeated the movement. Melina looked back at the building with the guard that hated her, and hung her head in resignation. She now felt like a love sick puppy that did not understand the "stay" command.

She turned around and walked back towards the building; mid-way there, she stopped and looked back. The man was still standing there; he waved to her and walked away. She sighed and continued her short walk to the establishment. Once there, she looked back and was surprised to see that the old man had already disappeared from the horizon, he was faster than she thought.

With nothing better to do than to explore her immediate surroundings, Melina walked in and around the stable; occasionally petting a horse. The guard seemed to have decided to ignore her, for which she was glad. The last thing she needed was someone staring at her to make her feel even more unwanted. The stable was fairly big, no horses were residing inside during this time of day and she could see that the building was kept incredibly clean.

There were a few more guards inside the building that she had not noticed before; they seemed a bit friendlier than the one outside and even nodded their heads when she passed them. She smiled at them and returned the greetings before moving on. As she roamed around the building, she tried her hardest to not think about anything, but it was easier said than done. So many questions were left unanswered, with no way for her to even ask them to anyone. The only person that seemed to know what was going on had just left her and also did not understand her.

One important question was: where on earth was she? She had never believed in any particular religion, but she knew that some people believed that your soul went to a purgatory to wait for the final judgment. This seemed to have been her case; and if she kept with that train of thought, she was now free of the purgatory and preparing to live an eternal life…somewhere. She wondered if all these people around her had gone through the same thing she had. So many questions, she thought; she really needed to learn this language.

After what she thought was about two hours of aimless walking, she felt surprisingly tired; her new body was not as sturdy as she had first thought. Luckily, she found a sitting area with tables where two guards were already seated. She sat as far away from them as possible, so as not to disturb them or seem to want to engage in conversation. It worked, they looked at her, but quickly returned to whatever conversation they were having and she was left alone. Melina yawned loudly and blushed, maybe if she just rested her head on the table…and closed her eyes, just to relax a little.

She fell asleep seconds later.

Thanks for reading!