The vision roused her from her meditation as it had three separate times this week.
It was always the same. She stood back-to-back with another, a male who she knew to be her best friend. He was laughing as they fought overwhelming odds.
By now, she knew that laugh better than her own.
It ended before she could decipher it, breaking her focus. She sighed, pressing a palm to her head. Who was the man? What was he to her? For that matter, who had she been - for such a thing had never happened to her before her rebirth, she was certain.
She stood, gracefully, padding soundlessly through the halls of the temple. Her footsteps took her to Master Absylon's room. She bowed to the master, then sat, patiently waiting for him to rouse from his own meditation.
"What troubles you?" He sat with his back to her, but she felt the gentle caress of his mind against hers, reassuring, nonetheless.
She felt herself smiling softly, though the smile faded as soon as it appeared. "Who am I?"
"You are Aeryn." He smiled. "You were reborn to us as one of the finest pupils this temple has seen in a long time." She heard his voice in her mind. And you are as a daughter to me.
As you are like a father to me, she thought, confident he heard her. "But who was I before?"
He shook his head. "You were no one. You came to us a mortal, without direction or purpose. We chose you for who you are now, who you have become, not who you were then." She could hear the smile in his voice. "We took your pain with your memories, dear one. You are a better person without them."
"Master, I ..." She closed her eyes. "I do not know who that person is, not really." She shook her head to clear it.
She felt his smile, then, and it warmed her to her core. "Then you must find her. You are ready."
