Shenouda opened her eyes, but they would not focus. The world around her blurred into a haze. She murmured. Birds chirped in the background. The air felt humid on her naked skin. The searing pain in her leg had abated into a dull prickling sensation. She felt the prickling intensely in her leg now, but also in other places. She felt it all over her body. It prickled inside her and all over her gooseflesh skin.

“Wake up dear one.” A deep, yet bold and soothing voice accosted her.

Her lenses finally focused. A pale, grey, robed figure with a stern chin and broad shoulders sat atop a huge trunk of African Blackwood. Shenouda found herself lying on a wooden table in a wide, arboreal hall with long tables and high ceilings. The wide wooden beams comprising the walls and trusses and ceiling looked like full trees that had been ripped from the ground, notched, and pieced together like a three dimensional jigsaw puzzle. At the end of the hall, a wooden platform wrapped around a huge tree trunk. At the zenith of the trunk sat the dark-robed man. The massive trunk rose twenty feet into the air. At its apex, a throne had been carved into the dark, smooth wood. Bones surrounded and outlined the seat. Ornate carvings of tremendous creatures interposed with cryptic script covered the trunk. The colossal throne could seat a giant or an ogre, but the man reclined comfortably on animal skins strewn across a notch carved into the forefront of the blackwood throne.

Shenouda heard the soothing voice addressing her,

Music plays and roses grow,

Upon the fields where rivers flow,

The angelic life, void of strife,

Brought on by the epoch.

Angels dance, revel, and prance,

The epoch done,

The people run to find the sun, but

Take their place,

As they fall from grace

Shenouda blinked and realized that there had been music playing along with the verses. She saw an enormous baroque pipe organ behind the throne. The man was now sitting at it playing slowly and soulfully. After a spell, he stopped and turned to her.

“Open your eyes now, princess, you’ll soon be new. This ordeal may seem arduous, but trust me when I tell you that someday you will know how lucky you were to endure it and, in time, if the old ones are to be believed, you will not remember it at all.”

The voice got off on a tangent, “I dare say I am getting a knack for this new language, by the way. The panoply of idioms and wealth of pithy connotations allows for breathtaking range and scope of expression.”

Then, the voice took on a serious tone, “Vestige of the Aldenduenum. Most comely queen-to-be. Venerable specter of the most majestic Dahjvenerum who once walked the earth. The ever-living incarnation of the first angel to commune with mankind. Heir to Echidna’s august lineage. Wake up princess. Soon you’re reign begins.”

Shenouda understood every word uttered by the sylvan king. The words did not sound familiar, like a language that she knew, but she, inexplicably, understood the meaning. The message, on the other hand, confused her. The incoherent ramblings left her bedazzled. She felt so scared. She wanted to cry, but her eyes had no moisture in them.

The prickling sensation intensified. Then, she felt suddenly cold, but the cold did not bother her. The cold felt good. She closed her eyes and gave into the prickling sensation as waves of it crashed across her body. She felt like she was dying and healing at the same time, except that healing was the wrong word.

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