My sleep wasn’t pleasant, it never was. Since as far as I can remember, resting meant having blurry visions of some far off figures accomplishing grand and epic deeds, or at least I pieced as much. A delight for the younger me that slowly turned to resentment; as you can imagine, you could only dream of so many battles and bloody duels before getting sick of it, especially when some of them involved the chilling feeling of getting stabbed, as faint as it was.

My father often joked that I managed to piss off Morpheus something fierce, much to my mortification.

I shamble my way towards my window, opening the shutters and subsequently getting blinded by sunlight. Jolly, I missed dawn again. Grumbling to myself I started my morning ablutions, a process Dad practically seared into my mind with how much he preached cleanliness.

My room wasn’t much to writes poems about, I had the privilege of having the upper floor to myself, which consists of exactly my room, a not so spacious space where I could live with some modicum of privacy, I had a bed, a table where I spotted some grapes that didn’t ripen to the point of inedibility, and a small shelf where I stashed the odd papyrus scroll that I managed to get my hands on.

Putting on my chiton and sandals I stepped down to the living room, spotting my father putting down some breakfast.

“Good morning.” I uttered as I sat down, my stomach craving for the eggs and diced apples on my plate.

“Morning to you too! Rough night?” My father replied genially as he sat down, he was a tall man, taller than most people in the village, and it wasn’t the only thing that set him apart from the others as his features were definitely foreign, his skin was pale and his face was, for a lack of better words, softer; his small nose and full cheeks gave him an exotic look according to the gossip of older ladies but his most defining feature was his bright red hair that he kept in a ponytail, something that he passed on to me.

“I think it’s getting worse.” I grimaced, “My dreams are getting clearer and way more… real I guess; the last thing I saw was a man fighting fire?” It was more a statement than a question, while still somewhat blurry I could distinctly remember a blazing figure crashing down on the man, feeling as if a thousand pyres suddenly took physical form and decided to smite me with the weight of a mountain.

I noticed his musing, “Fire you say, you know a lot of myths and legends centre around this element, was it a giant?” He asked

“It was certainly big but not really human shaped.” I poked my eggs, trying to squeeze out more details out of my memories.

“Damn, here goes my guess, I was thinking about Fionn…”

“The bandit?”

“Now there, he was more of a mercenary at first, and even then do remember he became a highly popular knight.” He lightly chided in his classic all-knowing tone, debating and coming up with our own interpretations of the stories he used to tell me about was one of our favourite past-times, a very entertaining if silly one knowing where those conversations usually went.

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“You never told me he slew a dragon, I thought those… wait, that's it!” I thumped my fist against the table.

While my dream was blurry I finally remembered the missing piece of the puzzle, scales!

“What is it?”

“You know how I mentioned fire, I didn’t get it until you mentioned knights. I can remember scales around it, and you know very well what’s famous for spewing out fire…”

“”Dragons!”” We both exclaimed.

“Well that narrows things down a whole lot more, you think it was Saint Goerge?”

“Siegfriede maybe? Honestly It doesn’t really matter much in the end.” I could only shrug, while fun to theorise I never got much out of my dreams.

“Besides that, what are today’s plans?”

“Well the cheese is about done baking right now so I’ll probably go trade some of it for some of Nikolaos’ fish, ‘been a while since we had that.” He pointed his fork at me, “And you?”

“I’ll be fetching some drywood I think, the pile’s getting pretty empty from what I see.” I said while nudging at the direction of our pile of firewood through the window. “Maybe I’ll catch something if I’m lucky.”

“That’s grand, well let’s get to it Apollo won’t be waiting for us.” he said.

We got up and like usual we cleaned up the dining area and prepared ourselves for our respective duties.

I went to the shed behind our house and grabbed a basket, strapping it to my back, my hatchet and our bow with a couple of arrows. I had to go fairly light.

I was set, today’s bounty would be plentiful I hope.

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After about an hour of travel I finally managed to lose the road commonly used by the others, it was hard to find anything worthwhile when most of the trail was picked clean.

I walked slowly through the woods, filling my basket with twigs and branches that I judged flammable. It was gruelling work yes but imperative to the survival of the astronomical number of 2 people!

Snorting at myself my mind started to wander to less immediate matters. My life wasn’t anything exciting, I had my dad, our goats and the routine we set for ourselves - It was nice, if a bit boring. I didn’t have any ambitions worth of note, I once dreamed of getting married but it was quickly dashed by the fact besides the lack of status, my reputation with the younger people of the village was simply mediocre.

While I had admittedly pretty features, my eyebags were often qualified as “scary” when I was a child, mix that with a ravenous need to ask questions about everything and you could guess why my presence wasn’t the most appreciated when it was story time. It was a grave injustice yes but while those fools were currently busy wrangling their progeny here I was free as a bird and collecting sticks in the woods! Maybe I should consider becoming a priestess of Artemis, never got what was so attractive about boys anyway.

“This should be enough.” I said as I finally filled the basket to the brim, this should last us for a couple of days. “I should probably take a break, a clearing would be nice.” And I was lucky as not far from where I was I could see some open space.

As I walked over there I failed to spot the circle of vines in my path, and stepping over it the vines stirred as if alive, entrapping my legs and hoisting me in the air with a yelp, a cascade of sticks scraping over my back and head.

My world was a blur and I could only flail around in panic, and in response to that the vines tightened even more.

“I-is anyone there? Please I didn’t do anything to deserve this!”

“Silence girl!” A feminine voice whispered harshly behind me, it was soft and high pitched, which contrasted oddly with the tone used.

I could only shut up with a squeak, my mind panicking at the thought of what I got myself into.

“That’s better, hmm, I don’t see much of your kind out here, for an instant I thought you were a hideously malformed fox.” The voice continued, ‘kind’? Please don’t tell me this is what I think it is.

“And who might you be? Err… ma’am?” I asked, my wildly beating heart starting to steady.

I felt my binding stir as they put me to the ground, still gripping me tightly, well this was awkward.

“Oh we should do that, yes!” she exclaimed as my bindings made me turn, “While I bear no name you may call me Kyrillē.”