Linda woke up mere seconds before the hand around her throat squeezed. Two dark figures were looming above her (apparently at some point someone had taken her to a bed), who eerily reminded her of old drawings of Death - the dark skeleton with the huge scythe, who comes to take away your soul, when you least expect it. And right now, she didn’t expect it at all.

She also didn’t expect the shadow which had its fingers around her throat to pull her suddenly out of the bed. Disoriented and half-asleep, she felt the adrenaline rush into her blood like the powerful sting of an angry insect. But, since she was gifted with the fighting instincts of an ancient turtle, as she was clumsily trying to stand up, she got a kick to her kidneys and the pain that followed, dropped a bloody curtain before her eyes.

After that, each of the two figures grabbed one trembling in agony hand and started dragging her through the door of some room, into a lavishly decorated corridor with a heavy rug lying on its floor, which was currently scraping her knees. It wasn’t until they kicked her through the doors of some rather large room with too high a ceiling to be seen at night, but with enough lighting to recognise the two, she wheezed with her cracked voice:

“Wotar? Wint? What the…”, her question was interrupted by another kick, this time her liver was the target.

As she was writhing in agony on the floor, she heard, as if from somewhere far away, the Ruling over sea’s voice:

“Get up, Linda!”

She muttered something, which inside her head sounded like “I can’t”. She got another kick for it, this time, in her butt.

“No one cares whatcha can an’ can’t do!”, Wint growled against her. “Ye do as yer told, or let me tell ya!”

Linda gathered strength from some unknown secret reserves and raised her head in the direction from which the wind storm’s voice had come. She was towering above her, her hood down, looking at her with that mixture of disappointment and anger she had seen after they had jumped from the mountain cave. It was as if the sparks in the woman’s green eyes charged her like a shockwave and before the truly thinking part of her brain could come online, she ignored the painful cocktail, tormenting the different parts of her body and stood on her trembling legs.

“Why?”, she hissed through teeth, clenched not so much from anger, but to conceal the shaking of her voice. “Why are you doing this?”

“Did you not want training?”, Wotar replied, a steely tone to her voice.

The answer, in the form of a question left even more of those in Linda. But she had little time to deal with them, because in a split second, Wint closed the distance between them and blasted her with such a powerful hook that her head flew the other way, and her ears rang. She felt the metallic taste of blood in her mouth, and before she could think about what she was doing, she spat rather loudly on the ground and instead of cowering in fear, like she had done so far, she stared at the windstorm under her brows with all the rage, building up inside her.

“So you won’t even let me prepare, huh?”, Linda lisped slightly, for no other reason, than to let her tongue check if all her teeth were still there.

“Ha!”, Wint laughed in her face. “She’ll prepare, will she - are ye some sort of young lad? No enemy will wait around for ye to get ready - jump, get mad and respond or sit there, wonder and be done!

This time, however, Linda was surprised to find herself ready for the attack. Some quite ancient instinct, whose existence she had never even imagined before now, came on so suddenly and so effectively, as if it had always been there. She waited until the last moment, when Wint raised her foot in the air, preparing to send it swiftly and with great force to the side of her head, and she simply stepped to the side, ever so slightly. The woman’s powerful limb hung not even a full second in the air where Linda’s head had just been, but that was more than enough. Suddenly, her senses sharpened like knives - colours shimmered with brilliant and terrifying clarity and it was as if time had slowed down, or rather, it had faded from the face of the Universe, as often happens with every illusion which thinking creatures choose to believe in, because they are too lazy to think. Her knuckles connected with a loud thud with the side of the wind storm’s torso and for a beautiful, short, endless moment, Linda Pearce felt that things were under her control, for the first time in her life. Well, technically, her death, but still...

“One”, Wotar’s voice reached her ears, which felt as though she had just been under water.

“One”, Linda nodded, having absolutely no idea what it meant exactly, because she was too busy being ecstatic over the fact that she had managed to hit Wint.

Wint! The woman who looked and behaved as though she were made of stone. The woman with the deep alt, who would have as much trouble beating up every single Earth male Linda had ever met, as a professional boxer would have in beating up a ballet dancer. Linda would never admit it out loud, but there was something about the windstorm which inspired her awe and respect in ways she never thought any woman ever could. It was precisely because of this that only when Wint herself said “one” and smiled, Linda realised there must have been some deeper meaning hiding behind this simple word.

“Congratulations, Linda”, said the Ruling over sea, with a triumfant note to her voice, as if she were awarding a medal to an exceptional warrior. “You have just passed the initial level.”

“T-the initial level?” Linda stuttered, as she felt her sudden surge of power and confidence drip away as quickly as they had manifested and she was once again one step behind everything that was going on around her.

“Of your training, little one”, Wint’s heavy hand landed on her shoulder and it took her a considerable amount of effort not to keel over and fall to the floor. “It means we’ve managed to awaken yer sluggish reflexes.”

Linda was still looking at them as if she were seeing them both for the first time. On the one hand, because the more the adrenaline seeped out of her blood, the more she felt exactly how much pain she was in… Wotar however saw this as an invitation to further elaborate:

“Every woman is born a warrior - this is our nature, to fight and protect - our loved ones, our children, out homes”, she said, as she took the distance between them in a few long strides and placed her own hand on Linda’s other shoulder. “This is why we are gifted with the ability to control the pain we feel - if we could not do this, we would die instantly, when feeling the initial pains of childbirth. And just as they come without warning, so we have decided to make our warrior training. Every Warden of AWA goes through this treatment. Surprise, disorientation, excruciating pain - if you can go through all of this and still manage to retain enough self-control to land at least one hit to your attacker, this means you have enough of the gifts of our Mother-Goddess in you, to become the warrior we now need.”

Linda just nodded - it was the best she could do at the moment, really. A part of her, which still kept the memory of life on Earth, and which was shrinking quickly with each day spent on Alaiah, insisted that this was all too rude, too horrible, terrifying. That the Ruling over sea was just twisting around facts, as they suited her, and that actually, women were not supposed to lift weights, shouldn’t curse and shouldn’t get too angry, or get in fights, because they could get hurt… One by one, these thoughts flashed and disappeared from her mind, like flaming pieces of paper, thrown against the wind. In their stead, new ones appeared, with lightning speed - you are strong, you are fast, you can… you can do anything!

The silly smile which twisted her lips, made Wint burst in a new fit of mocking laughter, but it didn’t matter. None of it mattered, safe for the simple words, which would forever remain etched inside her brain - “the warrior we now need”...

Now that she thought about it, no one had ever told her they needed her. But then again, she reminded herself with a dose of bitter realization, back on Earth, she had never been someone who could give a great deal to others. She had lived, or, rather - existed, with the idea of one day being more of an attachment to another personality, instead of actively building her own. Here’s why she had traded off the pursuit of her own dreams with excursions to the mall for new clothes and shoes and slowly, but surely her personal opinions faded away to be replaced with more socially acceptable ones.

Even so, as she was now standing, bruised and bleeding in the center of the training room, a very early childhood memory began to resurface. She was truly a handful of a child, especially to her mother, who could never quite piece together how her little princess seemed to actually want to be a pirate. That she doesn’t want to wear pretty dresses and play with dolls, but preferred to run outside, build treehouses and climb every tree she could find. Which of course meant that the two of them were often at odds with each other. In this particular case, she was now remembering, she saw herself at four years of age, with the typical childish stubbornness plastered on her face, screaming at her parent: “What do I care what people think? What sort of dumbass person would think that anyway? I can think too! And I think, I can do whatever I want!” And, of course, she got a slap across her face for her insolence.

This was her first fight against public opinion. And she lost it. And after the next few losses, she had somehow stopped trying…

And yet here she was now, for the first time ever feeling capable and useful. The only thing which slightly bugged her about it, was that she had to go to a whole other planet to get there. At the moment, she was desperately trying to remember why she’d failed to fully develop her potential back on Earth. She had little luck with that exercice. That life seemed so distant and strange to her now, as though she was being told a fairy tale, or watching a movie, and the heroine, which was supposed to be herself, seemed to her at best laughable, and at worst - pathetic and passive.

She started suddenly, when she realised someone had turned the lights off and for a brief moment all she could see were colourful spots, dancing around in the air before her eyes. She focused for a bit on the small isle of light, seeping from the open door of the training room.

“C’mon, little one - let’s us take ye to the shaman, so ye can sleep some more before we get back to goin’.”

Wint’s voice came from the entrance and Linda shuffled toward her silhouette with visible effort. Every single part of her body hurt, dammit. But in a sort of pleasant way, she discovered with no small amount of surprise. She had never trained anything which even remotely resembled fighting, and yet the soreness after throwing some punches around seemed like the most natural thing in the world to her.

“And wha’s a shaman?”, she stammered, as she finally reached the other two women in the corridor, or had they just slowed down, to let her catch up, she couldn’t tell.

“A bunch of pretty lookin’ boys which like to get high and dance naked around campfires”, Wint said with an even tone.

“Well, ain’t that just friggin’ ‘mazing”, was all her muddled brain could get through her failing vocal cords.

She couldn’t quite figure out why her comment made the other two women laugh. They tried to pat her back, but instead had to grab her to keep her almost upright. Still, now that her nervous system wasn’t preoccupied with keeping her on her feet, she managed to gather enough mental resources to look around and slowly start to piece together some semblance of logical thought. For example, it occurred to her that it was entirely possible Wint had just been messing her about again. This seemed to be reinforced by what she saw on the other side of the door Wotar swung open, at the end of the corridor.

“Hey”, Linda protested slightly, as the other two kept pushing her through the entrance into something which looked a lot like a dimly lit meditation room. “It’s so bloody dark in here… like… like somebody’s ass… hahahah!”

The human body is a magnificent machine. At first glance it looks kind of random and absurdly built - especially the female one with all its curves and hanging squishy bits. But in actuality, it is stronger and sturdier than anything any earthly engineer could even dream of. It was kind of like having a smartphone, which could locate your car keys, while being pummeled with a hammer under water. With some margin of error, of course. But errors, which still had a major role to play in the organism’s self-defence. Take for instance the fact that the human body is capable of producing such powerful hallucinogens and pain-killers, that should one learn how to manage the process consciously, the narcotics industry would fail in less than a decade. Right now, Linda was blissfully under the influence of precisely this curious side-effect. On the one hand she wished it would never end, because it made her feel light as a feather and completely disinterested in anything the outside world had to offer. On the other, she just wished someone would hand her a bucket to hurl in and hug as she drifted off to sleep.

Despite all that, she managed to make a few steps entirely on her own, into this room which was so dark and full of candelabras, crystals and incense that it looked as if it were pulled directly from some high-as-a-kite new ager’s wet dream. Eventually, she did drop to the floor, littered with large fluffy pillows. She had just managed to convince herself that this was the best place for sleeping, when she felt two hands grab her gently by the shoulder and roll her onto her back.

The hands belonged to a young man with short black hair, glistening in the light of the burning candles. And yet what caught her tired gaze’s attention were his eyes - in the weak lighting, they looked dark blue, like deep lakes, radiating warmth and care. Some deeply dormant part of her brain barely budged to provide her with a comparison between the boy and Earth’s buddhist monks, which also seemed like the embodiment of endless, contagious peace.

“Brother Ma’ala, this is the girl we spoke of earlier”, Wotar’s voice could be heard from somewhere above and away from her limited line of sight. “Linda, this is the shaman which was kind enough to answer our summons to the base - brother Ma’ala of the Order of the Children of Eni. He will take away your pain.”

“But…”, Linda began, felt herself about to hurl and stopped, to swallow, feeling with just a small piece of her mind the eyes of the Ruling, glued to her face. “This guy ain’t naked…”

“Doubtless, you have a lot of work, brother”, Wotar laughed and she heard the two women turn and make for the door. “Good luck!”

The door closed with a muffled “thud” and all of a sudden, everything went so quiet, that it seemed as though someone had gotten hold of the universal remote and turned reality’s sound off. Linda frowned with the effort it took her to focus on the face of the young man with her eyesight growing blurrier by the second. She didn’t have much success with that, although she was fairly certain that his lips had not moved at all. Then where was this lovely melodious voice coming from? The one that was telling her to relax and hand him her pain? “Everything will be alright, lady Linda, trust me”. So beautiful, so calming…

“But…”, she heard her own voice, as though coming from the other end of a pipe. “It’s not fair… you’re not naked…”

The last remainders of her conscious mind gave up under the mantle of velvet peace, which was wrapping itself around her from all sides, like a warm embrace. After that, nothing else mattered, but the soft lights, which began their mystical dance behind her eyelids.