PART ONE - THE GIRL THAT WAS BORN FROM A DYING STAR

Chapter One - A New World

Where...?

The cave was wide and empty, nothing but bare walls and grey stone and the only colour in the room was the shape of a young girl curled up in its middle.

Where is this? What...?

She looked around, confused and unfamiliar to her surroundings. Hesitantly she sat up and her eyes followed the faint dark lines in the stone walls and finally landed on herself.

Mesmerised, she raised her arm and looked at the pale pink flesh. Her mind told her it belonged to her but she was quite sure she had never seen it before.

She had...never seen anything before.

Slowly, she pushed her other arm before her eyes as well and began to trace her hands across her body.  The sensation of her skin beneath her fingers, the ground on her skin, the slight wind caressing her, all was new to her. She didn’t know it, didn’t know anything like it.

Her skin was bare, covering her body without any protection and each time the air swirled against her, shivers began to run down her spine.

It was...cold.

Her mind knew the sensation, put a word to it almost naturally, yet she couldn’t help but twist the word around in her mind.

Cold.

Fascinated,  she wondered what else might be hidden in her head but quickly got distracted when her exploring fingers found her legs. She could move them, she noticed, and slowly wiggled her toes and drew her feet beneath her.

It was her instinct to push herself away from the ground and concentrate her weight on her feet, but the moment she tried, she began to stumble forwards, unable to find the balance necessary to stand.

She bit her lips,  frowning at her legs, wondering what else they might be made for if not walking.

She didn’t come up with anything.  

So she tried again, pushing herself up with the help of the wall next to her, this time managing a few wobbly steps until she crashed to the floor again.

This is...

A strange sensation filled her, swelling in her heart and shooting through her veins, filling her with boundless energy.

...fun.

A grin split her face and her pale, amber eyes lit up with glee. Despite falling and feeling a faint pain in her knees, she didn’t hesitate to stand again and try to find whatever was necessary for her to walk.  

It took her quite a long time of falling and getting up again until she managed to stand straight on her legs but the fire and curiosity that drove her to try it to begin with wouldn’t allow her to give up.

She wanted to stand.  To walk.

Her eyes fluttered to the narrow crevice between two walls of the cave, leading away from the room that was all that she knew. An exit.

When  she noticed it, her heart surged. She wanted to know what was out there. She had seen this cave, studied the lines of black and faint gold in the walls but she hadn’t seen anything else.

She needed to know what was out there.

And so her eyes narrowed as she drew herself up for another try and finally managed to stand, holding herself upright with the help of the wall.

Another bright smile lightened up her face.

I made it! She celebrated, proud of her very first accomplishment.

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Now that she stood, she looked down on her body again, this time examining it in full length.

There was a lot of hair, flowing from her head, hanging down to her hips, in a fiery, bright colour her mind identified as red.

She was rather small, at least compared to the height of the cave, but the muscles running under her pink skin were smooth and all obeyed her commands as she tried to move them. She ran her hands over her skin, from her stomach to her legs and up towards her face.

She reconized her mouth and nose, the eyebrows above her eyes and the hair that fell to the sides of her head. There was also a pair of hard, curled horns on the sides of her head, with a texture not completely unlike the rough stone of the wall.

She was fascinated.

She had no idea what her body was, what she was, but feeling her own skin under her fingers left a deep impression in her, a curiosity that mere exploration couldn’t quench.

Instead she held on to the wall and turned around, tracing eerily glowing golden veins in the stone walls with her sensitive fingertips.

They were of a rich amber colder and under her palm, they were warm and pulsating, as if they themselves were alive. Her eyes widened when she felt it and she quickly pressed her hands against one of the golden steaks.

Feeling it, she couldn’t help but be astonished.

She didn’t know this. She didn’t know the feeling of skin on skin or of the stony walls or of the pulsating gold. She did not remember the red of her hair or the pink of her skin and the more she thought about it, the weirder it seemed to her.

Surely, she should know something?

But no matter how much she concentrated, there was only a feeling of warmth in her chest and then, opening her eyes to this cave.

She blinked and then looked down onto her now standing legs again. They were wobbly and weak but when she thought of the crevice that would lead her out of here, she knew it would be worth the try.

Maybe she’d remember something once she left this cave.

Or maybe there would be something, anything out there that could tell her more about herself.

She nodded to herself, determined to do something.

So she raised her foot and placed it hesitantly on the ground in front of her, stepping away from the wall she’d used for support. The small rocks stabbed into her feet, prickly and rough, yet not sharp enough to hurt her anymore than the fall earlier did.

And then she walked.

She was still uncertain, stumbling in wavy lines instead of straight ones, but she did her best not to fall again. And when she didn’t, the wonderful, fulfilling sensation swelled in her heart again.

It was exciting, to stand on her own feet and walk, even if she had to stretch out both of her arms to the sides to hold her balance.

Let’s do this! She thought to herself and slowly but surely walked towards to crevice.

The golden veins pulsated under her fingers again as if they wanted to lead her and the dim light they provided did a little to light up the path in front of her.

They got darker and darker the further she walked away from the cave she woke up in and it didn’t take many of her uncertain walking until they grew so dark that she couldn’t make out the way in front of her anymore.

She frowned and stopped, staring into the darkness as if she expected something to jump at her any second. It was another instinct that told her to be wary of the dark and whatever could hide within and since her instincts were the only things she could trust, standing and hesitating was an easy decision.

There could be danger ahead of her, she could feel it in the prickling of her neck.

Danger wasn’t something good, that much she knew. It came with pain and small awareness in the back of her head told her that there were  sorts of pain could be far worse than the scraped knees she got while falling.

She didn’t want that.

So she bit her lip and stood, steadily getting better and standing on one spot without her legs wanting to give in.

If only there could be some light in here...

Light...

She knew light. Her body knew it at least and it wasn’t just because the golden streaks in the wall had emitted it. It was familiar.

Light...fire.

The second word came so naturally, it felt like a piece falling into place, making everything clearer.

Fire. She knew fire, she knew it more than she knew cold or curiosity, it was a part of her, a burning in her chest that told her what to do.

And just like her legs were obviously made for walking, the burning in her chest was obviously for making fire.

She stretched out her hand and let the burning seep into it, not the least bit surprised when a cluster of bright orange flames exploded around her skin. They raced up her arm, enshrouding it in flames and they felt warm, almost caressing on her bare body, lighting up the cave around her far more than dimly lit gold could.

Pleased with herself, she smiled. The fire was a part of her, was her and it wasn’t hard at all to let it out and make it form shapes that danced around her. She laughed as small flame balls circled around her and changed the world into a play of light and shadows, making everything seem mysterious and profound.

She liked it, this fire, she decided.

Thus, she led a few balls of fire to her head to illuminate the path in front of her and with but a thought, the flames on her arm extinguished as if they’d never existed in the first place.

Looking at the fires, she felt a little less strange about being anywhere without a memory to hold on to. She felt like she found a part of herself, the burning in her chest that was almost as powerful at the steady beat of her heart.

And with that feeling, the young girl with flaming red hair and fire swirling around her stepped forwards, steadily beginning a new journey.

At that moment, no one could’ve predicted what would become of her or how this peculiar girl without a name or identity to herself would ultimately change the fate of worlds and destinies and her own most of all.

That moment, she met a whole new world. And the world would soon enough meet her.