The Bonding

Prologue:

She was walking down a long dark passageway. Far ahead she could see an opening, and from it shone a radiant light. Slowly she moved through the darkness; her hands skimming the surface of the cold stonewall for guidance, as she tentatively placed each bare foot in front of the other. The debris, of what seemed like generations, crunched and then crumbled to dust under her feet. The air was thick with the smell of decomposition, and her lungs felt like they were filled with cotton wool.

Step by step she pressed on, though she had no idea why, or for how long she had been doing so. She knew only that she must continue; every fiber in her being compelling her forward, urging her toward the light.

The closer she got to it, the easier her way became. The surrounding stone, seemingly reluctant at first, released its grip, and the passageway broadened into a large chamber. Suddenly, the floor in front of her cleared; the rubble covering it swept away as if by magic. Her lungs expanded with the wholesomeness of fresh clean air, and as the fog inside her head vanished, her determination and excitement grew. Just ahead, not more than thirty paces from where she stood, was a simple stone archway and the source of the radiant light.

Constructed from wedge-shaped stones place vertically one on top of the other, then curving inward and held together at the top with a single keystone, the archway was the ultimate expression of strength and stability, and yet the whole thing was alive with movement. Each stone seemed to be made up of a thousand tiny crystals, and the light from the other side of the archway reflected from one crystal to next, moving in a flowing rhythm of bursts and flashes.

As she stood there, rapt in the wonder of such a thing, she realized that the rhythmic movement of the light from crystal to crystal, from stone to stone, felt oddly familiar to her. The pulsing of the blood through her veins, each beat of her heart, every breath she drew, the bursts and the flashes, all were in perfect harmony. It was as if the light, the archway, all of it, somehow existed because of her, and she because of it. If one were extinguished the other would surely cease to be.

She could feel her heartbeat quicken as a warm sense of confidence and determination enveloped her. This was her reason for being, her purpose, and it was all within her reach. All she had to do was to pass through the archway and into the light.

Suddenly, she was outside, no longer standing before the archway, but standing at the edge of a forest, looking down onto a lush green valley. The sun shone brightly above her; its light shimmering in her hair as the warmth of its rays melted away the tension in her muscles. Her feet were no longer bare but clad in soft leather boots, and her dust-covered jumpsuit had been replaced with a brushed cotton tunic and trousers. Over her right shoulder lay draped, and fluttering slightly in the breeze, a long and flowing red cape, and in her left hand she held a wooden staff with a smoky blue crystal set on its tip. She felt happy and fulfilled as she stood looking down at the peaceful valley below.
… Then someone screamed.