Aura - The Pure Truth: A Homecoming
Feb 6 11:54:55 2005

The darkness seemed everlasting. As Aura's subconsciousness swam
through what seemed like an endless void of voices and faces, she
tried to recognize any of them, but found that the fair majority
were far from her own memory. Off and on, pieces of a familiar
song seemed to nit and pick at her, taunting her with words she
felt she ought to know, but still didn't. All at once, the voices
came together in a crashing dischord of this song, and she cried
out against the dissonance...

See... my dream...

...My beautiful dream...

The final, almost maternal voice rang clear against all others,
chasing away the haunting echoes and clamor of so many voices that
she wished she had known. But then it, too, was gone, and she was
left all alone once more.

Dawn broke.

Opening her eyes for what seemed like the first time in an eon,
a pain in the back of her head shot through her like a bolt of
lightning, causing her to cry out softly. Her vision was slightly
blurred, but she could make out enough to know that she was lying
in a relatively comfortable bed, layered with pallet upon pallet
of blankets and sheets. At first, she felt like she were strapped
down, but the weight of all the coverage was misguiding. Another,
more peculiar sensation suddenly came to mind, as the pain in her
head slowly faded, and she recognized the feeling for what it was.

Cloth. Cloth... against skin? Against...

In alarm, she jolted to life at once, throwing blanket and sheet
astray in all directions. The body that greeted her beneath was
not something she found familiar. Save for a few nondescript
plates of sheeted metal in unspecific locations, she was entirely
without clothing. Without armor. Without... anything. For the
first time in years, she saw... her own skin. Her own flesh.

It... what happened to me? I know... is this my body? All
this time... was it always like this?

Gingerly, she reached down and touched one of the strips of metal
that lay across her ribs It felt as though it were welded into
her skin, as a few scars around the outside betrayed the knowledge
of. Just as suddenly as her shock at this wore off, a new feeling
replaced it, one that she still didn't know an origin for, but it
felt natural enough, all on its own. With a furious blush, she
reached for the nearest blanket with which to cover herself, an
odd sense of modesty overtaking her in a way she had never before
felt. It was just as well, since, as she draped the cover around
herself, a lean-looking male poked his head around the doorframe
from a different room in the house she seemed to be in, looking at
her with a neutral-yet-curious sort of expression. For all the
questions Aura had, she couldn't find the words to voice any of
them, realizing she must look like some kind of frightened forest
animal, clinging onto the blanket that separated her from the rest
of the world for dear life as she was.

After only a moment of exchanging silent looks at each other, the
man withdrew his head back into the other room, leaving her alone
again. It was by this time that she realized her vision had
refocused, allowing her to see things as clearly now as ever she
had before. Before the lack of knowledge as to her whereabouts,
before the unseen truth of her body... a burning question remained
in her heart. But it would have to wait for an answer, for just
then, another man moved into a different doorway of the house,
seemingly leading outside. He looked rather old and wizened, with
a lengthy shock of white hair falling about his shoulders in
standard old-man fashion. His eyes were not unkind, however, as
he looked upon Aura with shining green eyes. However, it was more
of what was on either side of him that grabbed her attention most,
two beings that she was very familiar with.

Dryads. One hovering easily over each shoulder, and looking very
content, at that.

The man eased himself into the house with agile steps despite his
apparent age, but kept his distance from the bed where she sat,
aware of the undressed girl wrapped in a bedsheet and the fear she
obviously felt. Instead, he gestured with a quiet chuckle to the
door he'd just entered, his voice as kind as the rest of him.

"Welcome home, Aura."