I.

The first time she had heard his voice she had been lost in the fade. Whisps had taken on the forms of past lovers, the keeper, members of her clan, and they had whispered her name as she had wandered troubled through the mists. She had pierced the veil many times. She had encountered it's spirits and it's desire daemons, and she had recognized the trappings of their vast domain, but never had she come to be there without any recollection as to why or how. Even the small tendril of energy that had linked her back to her physical form had dissipated until she could feel it no longer. She had had no sense of self. No destination. Only the apparitions slinking around her had given her some concept as to whom she might have been, but even that had become tenuous and fleeting. Slowly, even the geists themselves had eventually lost interest and moved off to seek out stronger prey. Obviously, one could not be tempted if they could no longer hold goals and ambitions, or lust...

Geraint, a young city elf that they had recently brought into the clan, and that they had lost almost immediately to a pair of scavenging black wolves, had knelt beside her to run a cold transparent hand up the inside of her inner thigh. At first she had been pleased to see him, as she had welcomed him to the clan with a night in-between her legs and she had found him to be both gentle and kind, but as she had watched him then, his face had begun to distort and blur and she had quickly lost the memory of him. The whole of him had begun morphing and changing until only a black gape had served as his countenance, and though the fade had quickly rushed in to try to fill it with something of consequence to her, all that it could sustain were a pair of hands. Without a sturdier form to cling to even they had simply turned to vapor and weaved aimlessly in and out between her legs.

Sensing that she could offer no more, the mists closest to her had cleared slowly leaving her to sit alone in the dim twilight that forever permeated the fade. A single tree had made up the whole of her surroundings, and it had failed miserably in it's attempt to be one. The branches had been bare and skeletal and it had seemed as though she could not bring herself to mentally conjure more. If the fade were indeed a mirror to the dreamer's mind, then this certainly had not bode well.

Staring down at her hands, she had been collected enough to become alarmed at their growing transparency. It had appeared that if she did not reconnect with her solid form soon, she would be doomed to join the ethereal ranks there within the abyss. And though It was a lovely place to visit, she had had no desire to dwell there, permanently.

"Aneth ara, andaran atish'an."

The voice that had eased the silence had been rich and low, polished like a small stone at the base of a fast moving brook. And though it had not yet chosen a shape, she had heard the intelligence behind it. The dialect had been uncommon, the emphasis on the syllables as though whomever spoke them had learned them from reading ancient texts rather than from speaking it conversationally. She had been convinced he was a daemon. A mage in her position would have been looking to make a trade, of sorts. Its timing would have been impeccable, though she had assumed they'd both only end up disappointed.

"I mean you no harm, Lethallan," it had continued, convalescing slowly as though it were previously made up entirely of fog and was struggling then to accomplish more. "I 've come to guide you. There isn't much time."

She had squinted narrowly as the figure before her had fully emerged. Perhaps the fact that she had never known him had made it more difficult for her to perceive him. She had had no references to draw upon and the fade worked in mysterious ways. In either case, whatever it had initially planned to be, it only appeared to her then as little more than the standard caricature of a tall elvhen man. It had not bothered to materialize hair, or much of anything in the way of clothing. It had worn a simple tunic and had had all the trappings of a thin simple hedge mage. A very...beige...hedge mage.

"Who are you?" she had demanded.

"We can deal with the questions, later. If you do no come now, there will be little need for them."

She had been taken aback by his abruptness. She had also thought that if he were indeed a daemon, he was very poor at it.

"And why should I trust you?"

"Because if you do not, you will die. I've managed to slow the spreading, but that will make little difference if we do not hurry."

"The spreading?"

So, it had come down to this. She could have continued to wander lost throughout the fade and waited until it utterly chose to consume her, or she could trust him.

"Fenedhis lasa..." she had cursed, and she had meant it.