"Gasp."

He woke up, startled, gasping for air as if waking up from a nightmare.

There was no headache, no other pain, if not from his wounds; so he could regain his lucidity immediately.

This time, he was leaning on the ground, his hands touching a floor made of stone, cold and rough.

He blinked a few times to let his eyes get used to the dark.

He was inside a cell in some dungeon; bars of rusty iron closed any way out and locked him up in a small room of a few square meters between walls of stones and iron.

Inside the cell, there was nothing if not an old and dirty cloth, full of holes and spots.

Small and used-too-much torches, attached over the walls, were the only sources of light; a red and yellow shivering light that glowed, mixing with the shadows.

In the dim light, he could see the other cells, all empty. He was alone. The faint crackle of the torches, his only companions.

The stale air was heavy to breathe, and the smell of musty and piss disgusted him and this constant fainting and waking up in unknown places was getting on his nerves.

He stood up and went near the bars. He pulled the bars, trying to open a passage, but the bars did not move.

Getting annoyed, he pulled and pushed stronger and stronger, until his frustration erupted in punches and kick.

The bars screeched, but still did not bulge, only few pieces of rust fell, and even after various hits, he wasn't able to open a breach.

Disheartened, he dropped to the ground, and while falling down, his hand rested on a piece of rust.

He closed his hand, tightening the pieces of rust stronger and stronger, while the crimson of blood mixed with the dust of the rust.

Feeling the pain, he opened his hand, and saw the drops falling to the ground.

He sat there, with the legs crossed, touching the drops with a rust's piece, in the beginning, just to play, but in the end, finding himself drawing, lost in his thought.

  Time passed, and he didn't know how many hours has he spent seat there in a cell.

He was sitting there with his back leaning against the wall, a leg bent and the other stretched ahead, the head tilted back, eyes turned to the sky; his drawing a meter in front of him.

Suddenly, from a dark corner on the other side of the dungeon, he heard sounds coming. A group of people were approaching. Four guards escorted the lady of the flower.

She, raising her hand, was the last thing he could remember before finding himself here.

She stepped in front of the guards, and while keeping her gaze at the prisoner, told something to the guards.

The guards, after a moment of hesitation, bowed slightly and retreated about ten meters.

Now, inside a dark and dirty cell of some dungeon, a prisoner was staring at the "sky", and a woman, so beautiful that imprisoned her would be a crime itself, was staring at him.

Intrigue, she was staring at him, maybe because she recognized the look he had in the garden, or maybe because she was only bored.

So, for a reason that even she didn't know, she spent five minutes looking at a boy, that call him child would not be wrong.

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Amused, she got near the cell and knee down, a hand supported her chin.

"So.. Who are you, my little boy?"

Again, that incomprehensible language.

"My guards found you during a patrol, lying in a pool of blood surrounded by dead bodies of goblins and suffering from gob's fever. You killed even a hobgoblin."

She took a pause before resuming to talk again.

"An incredible achievement, event for one of my guards. Not that they are more than armed peasants. They would have probably just run away."

She waited for a reply, but he didn't utter a word. Still another moment of silence.

The Lady extended a hand and touched the floor, rubbing the dirt between her fingers.

Talking again, her gaze was now fixed on the dirt.

"You scared my guards. They wanted to close you here as soon as they found you.They thought you were a Child of the Black, but they don't make differences between foods or maids, right?"

Her gaze went back to him.

"But after your tour of my castle, I found myself forced to close you here, or they would have killed you. Or run away. Those fucking cowards, they took after their master.

I apologize for this.. place.. we don't use this much."

She said while looking left and right, like observing the place for the first time as her attempts to start a conversation didn't go very well, if not for a fast look, stolen out of the corner of the eye.

"I am Diantha Algea Chalestery.

Mallo le aiano?

Rumol ath othok?"

She kept talking in what looked like different languages, but even so, he understand nothing of what she said.

"My servant told me you can talk, so why wouldn't you?"

Her head fall down, an exaggerated show of her disappointment, but then she put again the head over her hand, this time a little title to the side.

"You have been inside this cell for almost a day, and spend two sleeping because of the fever. Don't you think it's time to get out of here?"

The Lady waited, but there was no reply. She then raised the other hand in front of her and pointed a finger at herself.

"Diantha." She repeated few times.

After, she turned her finger towards him, but he did not deign her of any reply.

"You little rascal."

Getting annoyed, she lost interest in him and looked around, checking the place, as she wasn't used to being there.

"Sure this place sucks. I can't even see your face."

And then she moved her hand, drumming into the air, back and forth while talking. She talked again, but this time it was yet another language. It sounded more mystical, like a canticle, whispered in a majestic tone.

And slowly, a ball of light appeared in her hand.

The ball of light grew in luminance, reaching the intensity of a lamp.

She tossed it in the air, where the ball stood, a meter from her head.

And for the first time, he moved.

While seated, leaning his back again the wall, a light entered his perispherical vision and out of instinct, he turned his vision to see a ball of light suspended in the air.

The light wasn't too strong, but it was enough to illuminate most of the dungeon.

The ball was of a perfect sphere; the outside was of a light yellow, while inside, some bluish energy moved like snow in a crystal ball, and the light illuminated, swirling at the rhythm of the blue energy.

  In the last few days, nothing made sense: not that woman, not the 3 moons, not the goblins. Everything seemed so impossible, and the impossible was what he needed.

Captured by the spectacle of light, almost in a trance, he crawled to the bars, and a hand stretched out towards the sphere.

He moved, not for the interested in a show, but for what lay behind it.

The guards moved to protect their liege, but were stopped by a hand's signal and went back to their place.

A finger touched the ball, and the ball exploded, releasing the energy that rained down before disappearing into the air.

The hand withdrew, recalled inside the cell, but a feeling now lingering in it. The energy flow for a moment inside his arm.

A playful smile appeared on Lady Dianthe. Finally, she got something.

"That a look I know."

She saw him looking at his arm. She knew that same feeling of pure power running through your veins for the first time, when she knew nothing about that energy but inside her, something told that everything was possible with it.

Again, her hand drummed in the air, back and forth,the air moved, vibrated, and slowly, a ball of light appeared in her hand.

And like the one before, it floated in the air, a meter over her head. But this time he was near and could see everything.

Her movements, her gestures and the fact that it comes from nothing.

This time he saw it, from the beginning to the end, but it did not understand.

He saw she moved her hand, her lips, but not where did it come from.

He was no more a child who believe in everything he saw. He knew the laws of science and that, for everything, has to be a reason.

But what was the reason behind the 3 moons? What was the reason behind the goblins he met? What was the reason to believe in science, if even the science was useless?

He has lost everything he care, so he could even lose himself.

So, he accepted, maybe there was a reason behind all, maybe everything was not lost, and he still had a chance.

"Dylan, my name is Dylan."