Awakening, as if from a dream.

Slowly, the eyes of the elfin girl opens, and the golden haired one looks up into the eyes of the elfin boy who was also, in another life and another universe, her lifemate.

"Who are you?" Nimi'aia asks, in Terra Prime elven (sounding very much like the scared, little girl she was).

Unlike the others, she and her "other" have been "under" further into unconsiousness due to the spells used on her. Instead of being able to talk (or argue) with each other, each other shared strange dreams. Frightening, strange, and eery to the two different sides who were the same person....but just weren't fully integrated yet.

"One-Eye?" Clearbrook gasps in her world's version of elven, able to see in the eyes of this young boy the spirit of her love that had come back from the realm of the spirit.....pretty much in her arms.

That's about the time when Nim'aia's elven heart reaches out and touches the elven heart of Solik'tril, and the next thing that both new as they were sharing a fierce embrace, whispering and crying. The older part of the golden haired girl named Clearebrook is shocked at the feirceness of this wave of love....it was like she'd just fallen in love for the first time (oh...and just how special that memory was to her).

After a few moments, Clearbrook/Nim'aia's eye's open and fall upon the others that had come along with her love, and Clearbrook gasps in shock.

"I heard your Sending for help, mother," Jenny says softly.

"As did I, mother," Hathar'ruil chimes in.

Clearbrook/Nim'aia's mouth just drops in shock, for obvious reasons. She's not surprised at seeing her son, Scouter, looking different (now a young elfin boy with silver hair). It's seeing her long lost (and until now thought deceased) daughter!

She and the others of her family explain the basics of why they are here and how they came to be here via Sending (to save time and to best explain this utterly confusing situation). Be that as it may, it still takes several repeats and backtracks to fully explain it to the confused golden tressed elven girl.

".....but the thing that must be done is to help you, beloved," Solik'tril says softly.

Soul name whispered, he and the others then enter the realm of the mind, and see the problem that is vexing Clearbrook/Nim'aia so that she can not integrate her old self with her new self.

And thus the trauma is revealed, and for a change it's not the scene that played out in the Frozen Mountains.

Clearbrook was the elder female of a tribe calling itself the Wolfriders. She was always dignified and thoughtful, and never spoke without carefully choosing her words. She'd had a terrible shock when her love and mate, One-Eye, was killed right before her eyes by some treacherous trolls....and had grown deadly and hungered for vengeance. The body had been able to be magically revived later, but One-Eye's spirit had wished to stay out in the Palace....and have peace that had been denied him when his dying body had been accidently preserved in a half living state by a well meaning Preserver (a fairy like creature servant of all elves). Over time, she'd come back to herself and adopted her old ways for herself, her surviving son, and her tribe's sake. 

This journey had taken three years in the making to do, but she'd done it. 

Finally, after escorting Rayek, the self named Master of the Palace, back there after the recent events of the Egg (type of quasi magical spacecraft similar to the Palace) that the Blue Mountain (Winnowill's lair) had fallen, she'd finally decided to severe her last ties to the past, and free the still living body of her love from it's suspended state. With that done, the spirit of One Eye could finally have total peace within the Palace of the High Ones.....without any potential anchors to his old existence. Perhaps she'd even follow up, finally, on the interest her friend, Treestump, had in her. But only after this final act..... 

But it hadn't happened as planned. Things had departed radically from plans and from the plot found in the Elfquest novel "The Cry from Beyond". 

She'd opened the magical cocoon that held One-Eye's body in stasis, and waited for the body to finally get the message and draw it's last breath, when she felt a great....sweeping sense of fear and bewilderment from the spirits around her....and her departed mate's spirit sweeping through her (sharing a frantic but heartfelt sense of love for her), and right into.....the body he'd abandoned so long ago..... 

"It's coming," One-Eye whispered weakly, shaken what he'd sensed as a spirit. 

As the storm of confusion, love, and concern for her newly returned (and frightened) lovemate raged within Clearbrook's heart, outside Rayek keeled over, dead as the first shockwaves of his older self hit him. Seconds later the world dissolved in fire....and light. 

But one thing that Solik'tril detects this time right before the world dissolving around them and leaving a void....is a brief flash of....guilt from Clearbrook.

"I.....I wasn't expecting," Clearbrook sputtered, remembering just why she had come along with Bearclaw (the elder male elf and a contemporary in her tribe).

She had come to the Palace not only to escort Rayek up to the Palace (and keep him out of trouble), she'd gone up there to bid a final farewell to One-Eye (who was dead for all practical purposes....just his shell was living on). That done, she'd finally be able to (with clear conscious) accept all that Bearclaw had to offer. To finally go fully forward with life and develop a new romantic interest with Bearclaw.

But with One-Eye back (who now called himself Solik'tril), she needn't say goodbye. But her heart now felt guilt about what almost happened. She felt like she'd betrayed her love by even thinking about pursuing a relationship with Bearclaw.

But her family and her lifemate were finally able to convince the crying Clearbrook that it was okay. 

Yes, while logically feeling guilt about something like this isn't exactly logical.....what has logic got to do with love?

Nim'aia summed it up thusly to her other: "Look, you just could NOT believe something like this would have happened. Your family and our love understand and don't hold it against you. Let it go."

Thus new and old embraced each other and two parts became one. The golden haired girl awakens (now just calling herself Nim'aia for her new lot in life), whole, only to go back into shock when Ti'mma finally enters the room.

While she had met the High One before, she and the others till held this High one in high (almost religious) respect and awe and softly talks (along with the Terran Prime parents of the ex-Wolfriders). The discussion finally drifts to the one thing that Ti'mma was apparently about to tell them with just why, in addition to the others already given.

"Well, the other reason for you looking for other possibilities in those pictures was.....well," Ti'mma sighes, then continues, "Look, we already know that Jenny has several different versions of herself back in Xanth due to time fracturing? Well, we also have several different versions of the elves from the World of Two Moons here, now. Up to eight different versions from various point throughout time. Eight at the most....except for me. I am the nineth version of Timmain....the youngest version. The version that was up in the newer version of the Palace, and the only High One who survived the disaster that.....Rayek brought upon us all."

I do have a few select words for my "older" self that failed to prevent Rayek from running amok, she thinks darkly to himself, Instead, electing to retreat into the form and mind of a wolf and run. She didn't have to kill him, just stop the guy. As powerful as Rayek was, I was and am more powerful than he.....after all.

And so, later, the other versions meet themselves, and thus forms a yet another unusual family upon the face of Terra Prime is formed. And to make things even more interesting is the fact that the Jenny Elf that had come to Terra Prime to find her mother, decides to make her home here in the Elven Nation of Terra Prime....vice Xanth like her other (older) versions. Her older versions have a home in Xanth, but this Jenny has her entire people....her tribe here. Here she will stay (much to the chagrin of many Xanthians....who still see their land as this side of heaven in many instances). This Jenny Elf will visit her friends back in Xanth many times, but as stated before.....her home and heart is now here on Terra Prime.

1. But in the meantime, the newly reunited family (along with their Terran Prime parents and friends) are awaiting the results of a discussion about a rather unusual marriage in the works! 

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