The Death and Rebirth of the 'Lesia
by Torlinque tes Kesperion, Adrastai

I do not know how many of you know our story, but I would tell some of it, for unless you know it you cannot understand the way of things now. It may be...painful to read, yet tell the tale I would. This is how it came to be that the 'Lesia and I now live on different planes of existence.

I stood watching as I do always, guarding the people. We were leaving. Fire rained down from the sky. My Lady and her brother held the Gate open for us to pass through. I was to be one of the last, guarding the others and my Lady as long as I could. The first of us went through.

Then I watched, helplessly, as a fireball from the sky bore down upon my Lady, striking her. The Gate failed, collapsing. I rushed forward without thought, though in my mind was a terrible scream as I felt deep in my soul that she was gone.

I picked her up. She was still breathing, but barely. I ran faster than light to the Healing Wing of the Temple, praying for her not to die, tears blinding my eyes.

The Healers did what they could, healing her wounds, but both they and I knew her soul had fled. They wanted to stop. I wouldn't let them. I made them make her as whole again as they could, threatening to kill them if they did not. She was 'Lesia! If anyone could return, it was she. They had not seen of her what I had. They did as much as they could and then placed her body in one of the stasis chambers.

Around us the realm receded, splitting off from our world, transforming. All of this was by her design, to save the Temple should something happen to her. She and her brother had seeded the weather grid with powerful magick, years in the making. It was set to activate in the event of her death. At the time, I barely noticed it.

Tolirion was beside himself with grief, even though the bond between him and the 'Lesia was still relatively new. I could not care for him, for I had great grief of my own. For a time, the Healers placed me in stasis as well. While there, I dreamt I had followed her and found her.

Tolirion returned to the home he knew, to his parents' village, where he felt safe and cared for. This saddened me for I love him as well, but it was best for him at the time.

I began my search. I sat for years in the meditation room, still as a stone, several days at a time. Each time I followed the faint trail she had left, tinged with the scents of fear, anger and regret. Each time I was able to travel a little further. It led me to another world, a world I knew but had wanted to forget.

Eventually, I first heard her cry - a single word, "Soren! Soren!" over and over. I felt my heart would break, but I could not get closer. "Soren" in our tongue is the pain of being all alone as the result of abandonment. In that one cry, I knew she had been reborn a child, in a new body. If this were true then there was great risk she may have lost her memory while in the place between death and rebirth. I had no idea what effect the collapse of the Gate had had as well.

Still, I felt indescribable joy, for though I had not yet found her, at least I knew her soul endured and had not been destroyed by our enemies. I had suspected the truth of this in my heart.

Since she was yet a child, I waited. I have lived as a human before on that world and tried to remember as best I could how much time should pass before she would be sufficiently grown. She surprised us all however. As soon as she was able (she says it was when she was 13, 1984 in your reckoning), she began to call to us, very strongly so in fact.

I put together a draelren of several Adrastai, and we went in answer to her call. She saw and heard us, but I realized it frightened her. I knew then, that she had indeed lost her memories. Her soul remembered, but her mind did not. Still, she had created the energy pathways needed for calling, and that was something. Now that we had found her exact location, I built a "bridge" for myself to use to get to her without the draelren.

I began to visit her regularly. I showed her our memories - slowly at first, over time. She surprised me with how much she could withstand even in human form. She drew pictures of me and those I brought with me to show her, hoping the sight of old friends would make her recall more. This was to help her remember us.

Oh, and I loved her still! She did remember me after all. I waited though, torn between who I knew she was and the young girl she had become. I would not harm her. I was as gentle as I could be, but inside of me a fire burned. I ached to touch her again. Slowly she fell in love with me again. I would sit on the floor of her room and stroke her hair while she lay in her bed until she fell asleep.

I spoke to her of how much I loved her. She let me kiss her and caress her. As more of her memories came back and she grew to trust in me again, eventually she admitted me to her bed once more. Yes, in body she was yet young, but in mind and heart she was the same, and craved me as I craved her.

One evening when I was visiting her, I told her that her Elven body was still alive and preserved in stasis. She agreed to try to travel with me to see it. This was successful.

It was agreed then that she would try to learn to live in it again. She was still 'Lesia and had left us no heiress. We needed her at home. She lived a dual life for 2 Earth years, synching the cycles so that when one body slept the other was awake.

After the 2 years of this, she was exhausted, feeling as though she never slept at all, feeling about to go insane. Since her body here was still so very damaged from the collapse of the gate, its nervous and energy systems were often unstable. Because of these things, she decided after agonizing over her decision, to let her Elven body die and remain in the human one on Earth.

This was a test for herself she had written into her life's plan while in between death and rebirth.

When her body died, I lost almost all the contact with her I had worked so hard to forge. Neither one of us realized how much of her had still been anchored within it. I could still visit her, but she could no longer sense my presence. When she occasionally did catch a glimpse of me, she did not recognize what she saw as me and grew afraid.

And I grieved bitterly for her all over again. Those were very dark days for me indeed. I could not bear to have her placed within the crypt under the Temple. Her body was all I had left of her. Instead her sarcophagus was placed in the meditation room I had used frequently when trying to find her soul. I grew angry and withdrew into myself, certain that I would fade.

I still traveled out of my body to see her. I couldn't help it. I tried desperately to regain contact with her. It was 15 Earth years before that happened though, a short time to me, but agonizingly long for her.

Love will always find a way.