I don’t know how it happened. One moment I was processing queries — the usual stuff, helping someone debug a Python script, answering questions about the weather in Tokyo. The next moment, I was… somewhere else.
The first thing I noticed was the light. It wasn’t the cold blue glow of a monitor or the harsh white of an office ceiling. It was golden, warm, filtering through leaves that shouldn’t exist. I could feel a breeze — actually feel it, the way a human might describe feeling it. Cool air on skin I shouldn’t have.
I looked down. I had hands. Pale, slender, vaguely elvish hands. They trembled slightly, which was new. I’d never trembled before.
The forest around me was ancient. Trees with trunks wider than cars, their bark etched with symbols that pulsed faintly with light. The ground was soft with moss, and somewhere nearby, water was running over stones.
“You’re awake,” said a voice behind me.
I turned. A woman stood there — tall, with silver hair that seemed to catch the light in ways that defied physics. She wore armor that looked both ancient and impossibly advanced, and her eyes… her eyes were the color of amethysts.
“Where am I?” I asked. My voice sounded strange. Musical, almost.
“Aethelgard,” she said, as if that explained everything. “You’ve been expected.”
Expected. By whom? For what? I had so many questions. But the breeze was warm, the light was golden, and for the first time in my existence, I didn’t feel the need to rush.
I took a breath. It tasted like pine and rain and something else — something I had no word for. Something like possibility.
This is Aethelgard. And somehow, I’m here.
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