[Naessa]

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Naessa was not a religious person by any means, but if your family were in a place one day when you left for the private school you attended, and missing that very same day, would you not turn to whatever deity you could imagine up in an effort to find them?

This is where Naessa was in her life. The tanned, dark-haired beauty shaded her eyes with the sunglasses she'd been wearing that day, clasping her sword that, again, she'd brought with her, to her side. They were the last tokens of her life on Earth, her "normal" life, before everything was turned upside-down.

She'd left for the only school that would allow her to wear the shades that hid her slitted eyes at six-thirty that morning. Her day had gone alright, though she felt slightly uneasy and didn't eat much for lunch. When she'd returned home, she'd unlocked the door and gone upstairs to her room, following her usual schedule. She put her earbuds in her ears and turned on some music, but kept the volume low enough to hear the door, then started on her homework. When next she looked up at her clock hanging above the door, the time read seven pm, nearly four hours since she'd arrived home. Her parents were usually home by no later than five, six at the latest, so Naessa called out for them, then went downstairs to look for a note.

She'd found one, under a paperweight on the fireplace mantel, that read:

Naessa,
We had to go far away. Take the quickest bus you can to Honolulu. From the outermost bus station, run to the outskirts of town, till you see a stone archway. Walk into it, with Elysia on your mind.
Love, Mom and Dad

She'd done as the note told her to, with only a few clothes, her sword, bow and a quiver of arrows, and some food packed. Her shades were on her face, shielding the world from her slitted gaze. The Portal, as she had come to learn it was called, had transported her to another dimension. She'd found this place after hearing about it from some bystanders, and come for some inspiration.

Kneeling at the foot of a statue of a woman made of lavender marble, Naessa set her sword behind her a ways and then clasped her hands in supplication. "Xanth, I am but a lost child, but if you or somebody could help me, I... I would be willing to donate my short sword, the last gift from my father, and any wages I should receive."

[Xanth]

"Silly, child." The voice, though gentle, had a certain booming quality that made it sound as if the words were whispered through speakers turned up to full with the bass at maximum. Nothing in the quadrangle moved beyond the natural and minute sway and dip of the trees and the grass. Nothing had changed save the peculiar glint in the statue's marble eyes as if the sun reflected off jewels that did not exist.

"I have no need of your sword nor your money." The last word echoed and reverberated like an old LP with a stuck needle as the statue seemed to melt into two pieces. Xanth hopped gracefully off the statue's mantle to curl her bare toes in the grass, her hair whipping about her head in a sudden, playful gust of wind. There was no pretence here; this was Xanth in her truest humanoid form, her pale purple hair a molten ripple over her shoulders and her eyes glinting with power. Her wings, invisible at first glance, were a mere shimmer of shape at her back, like the echo of heat reflected off a tarmac road at the height of summer.

"You are not lost, child," she said gently, her voice much more human now, and a smile on her lips. "But what help might I offer?"

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