The stones of the Hecariat stood about her, the carved faces all turned toward her. The air lay gentle as a blanket about her. No blade of grass moved. No cloud shifted in the sky above. The world was silent and watchful.
An enormous woman stepped from behind a broken stone, crossing the grass with silent steps as she approached the lithe form lying beneath the frozen sky. The hem of her turquoise robe brushed across the blades without disturbing them. Brown hair fell in waves around her cherubic face. She stopped and watched the sleeping human with a deep sympathy in her eyes.
A second figure stepped from behind a shattered pillar. This one was a broad-shouldered human woman with powerful arm muscles and a narrow, determined jaw. She wore armor of leather tooled with ancient symbols and carried a scimitar with practiced ease. Her dark eyes, too, were on the Lyric.
“Murialis,” the human warrior-woman spoke in hushed tones as she nodded in acknowledgment to the large woman.
“It is good to see you as well, Felicia,” said Murialis in a whisper.
“Does she sleep still?” asked Felicia of the Mists, leaning closer over the Lyric.
“She does,” Murialis nodded, “and so she must remain.”
A new figure-a chimerian in mismatched armor-stepped hesitantly from behind a jumble of rocks, its four hands shaking slightly as they gripped four blood-soaked swords. The chimerian spoke warily as it approached. “Who are you?”
“I am Murialis, Queen of the Faery,” the enormous woman answered. “This is Felicia of the Mists-Raider of the Nordesian Coast. And who are you?”
“I am. . I am Dyan, assassin warrior of the Shadowclan,” the chimerian answered, slowly returning all four sword blades to their scabbards crossing its back.
“You are new here?” Felicia asked.
“Yes,” Dyan answered then nodded toward the Lyric, still sleeping on the large flat slab before them. “Is she the reason we are here?”
“Yes,” Murialis answered. “We have come for her.”
A ghostly man, transparent down to his long, flowing hair drifted through a stone to meet with the three females in their observations. These were joined almost at once by four more figures stepping from behind even more stones-a towering female manticore in ancient battle armor, a sad elven woman in tattered robes, a pinch-faced human woman in an elaborate black-mantled robe, and a small, female gnome carrying a sack over her shoulder. These joined with the others, forming a circle about the sleeping form of the Lyric, all gazing down upon her.
“Who is she?” asked Dyan, the chimerian.
“She is all of us now,” said the black-robed woman.
“Better to ask who she was,” spoke the ghostly man.
“Who was she then?” Dyan said as she gazed down on the sleeping figure.
“She was loving,” the gnome said sadly.
“She was an incomparable talent,” said the black-robed woman.
“She was powerful,” agreed Murialis.
“She was fragile,” said the sad elf.