It was a bright spring morning as the sunlight began to play across the plains. The beauty of simple nature in this place was breathtaking and utterly good. Across the plain there was a large stone building, made of marble, jutting from the grassy cliffs. And in this place, Alerisa, newly reformed, lay sleeping.

She felt the cold stone against her side, suddenly realizing how cold she truly was. A source of heat lay beside her, next to which she snuggled closely. She felt a hand touch her own, trying to disengage her arm from this source of warmth. Slowly she opened her curious eyes to see what was causing this odd sensation.

Her eyes met those of a young boy's, who jumped back in surprise and a small amount of fright in reaction to her sudden awakening. A furry, slobbery face was shoved into her own and she reeled back slightly, confused.

"Please miss, can I have my dog back? He didn't come home last night." The boy fairly whined, unsure if to come closer or not. She saw he looked to be about ten, with defiant red hair, and clear blue eyes. His ears, had two ridges on them, that should have seemed strange to Alierisa, but they did not even register.

She releaced the dog, it wagging its black tail very joyfully. It was a medium sized dog, with white on the tip of his tail, over his shoulder blades, down his chest and a white blaze down his face. Alerisa pulled herself up from the stone floor, finding that side of her body utterly devoid of heat. But as she did this she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirrory surface of granite.

Her reflection showed her to be as the boy, with red straight hair that hung down off her shoulders, green eyes lie in place of brown ones. She looked as a young girl, but not as mature as her last image. But only now did something strike her as strange, as she began to remember her last moments of consciousness, before she lay at the base of the pedestal for sleep.

She puzzled at these conflicting images as she rubbed her cold and weary side. Surveying her surroundings she discovered that while they were familiar to the place she last remembered, they certainly were not. This temple was hewn out of solid stone, and very much more crudely than the one she knew. The ornamentation was sparser and most definitely not of the same quality of the other place.

"Miss, are you okay?" The boy's tentative voice called out, jolting her out of the sphere of self-questioning. Alerisa looked over at him and smiled, somehow wondering how long it had been since she last shared the presence of another.

"Yes, I believe so… what is your name, boy?" She inquired. "Granian" came the answer "but you can call me Gran, Miss." He added on hastily. A slow smile spread over Alerisa's face as she watched him trying to figure out where she had come from. Looking into his bright face you could almost see his mind working out the various aspects of this problem. "And this is Ulan" He added again, uncertainly pointing to the dog.

"Thank you, Gran… my name is Kelala-" Alerisa's eyes shot open, as a word foreign to her intent shot out of her mouth. She didn't mean to say that. 'But what had she meant to say?' She questioned of herself. There was another name she knew herself by, she was sure of it. 'But what was it?', she couldn't answer that question.

Her new name didn't seem like a lie to her, so she decided to contemplate this later. Right now she had Gran's curious eyes searching her green ones, wondering what lay behind this young mysterious woman. Ulan's nose found it's way to Alerisa's hand, which made her laugh out loud as she ruffled the dog's shaggy hair.

"He's made a friend in you I see." Gran offered gladly "When he didn't come home last night I was worried, set out early this morning to find him. I came to this temple and found you laying here, your arm around Ulan. First I waited to see if you would awaken, but you didn't stir. Are you a traveler, Miss?"

Alerisa now only discovered the state of her appearance in this moment, she felt her own garb and was surprised to see she donned a dark pair of trousers, a blue heavy winter shirt, an overcoat with some oddly shaped roll at the neck that apparently functioned as a scarf.

"I honestly don't know" Alerisa answered truthfully, but somewhat uncertainly. To this, the boy drew one knee up, upon the wall on which he sad, and laid a thoughtful chin on it, attempting to ascertain what he could about my situation. "Well if you are a traveler, you must have been robbed in the night while you slumbered." He said thoughtfully. "Because you would be a very stupid traveler to set out on the Westermond country without so much to defend yourself."

Alerisa tooks his words with careful consideration, trying to form her own ideas about how she got to where she used to be, to the place she was now. Suddenly a noise rang out, one unlike anything Alerisa had ever heard before. The boy perked up, and the dog jumped from his place of rest, at the boy's side, and took off bounding down a path that could just barely be seen between the pillars of the temple.

"Come on!" The boy cried excitedly, starting to hurry after Ulan. "Well do you want to be late?!" He continued crying after her. She sat there looking a bit dumbfounded for a moment, until he realized her hesitance, and came back.

"It's starting… come on! You can meet my parents." This time not taking no for an answer, he took her hand and pulled her to her feet. She laughed merrily as he pulled her along; she gave in and fleetly took after him wondering what she was heading for. But in a corner of her mind, she also wondered… where she was.

Alerisa kept wanting to slow, to see the scenery as Gran hurried her down this narrow path. It seemed a fairly good path, somewhat well trodden. She realized as soon as she left the temple that it had been carved into the sheer granite and inlayed with marble. But strangely it had been set apart quite a distance from any other buildings around. The cliff that it sat on the edge of dropped several hundred feet down to a sandy shore.

Beyond that the blue-green waters of the sea stretched in many directions, Alerisa found herself wondering if this was an island, or peninsula. Even at the same time she wondered how she knew what those were. But of further interest, ahead she saw what looked to be a fairly good-sized city sitting near, but a safe distance away, from the shore.

Even as she paused to study it, Gran had already started to pull her in amongst the buildings. They were natural in materials, rough hewn as the temple had been. Fine craft-work in copper, silver and another dozen materials that Alerisa couldn't even identify, ornamented the buildings. But as special ornament, flowers and drapes of fine looking materials lined every balcony (and there were a lot of balconies) and decorated every plain piece of material in sight.

'Obviously something important is going on here today', Alerisa thought to herself, Gran still tugging her through the streets, but at a slower pace now.