One after the other, blades sang free of their scabbards. The too-familiar screech of steel pulled Arvyria back to her senses immediately, and she staggered back before she even realized she was on her leaden feet. All around her, strangers muttered and shouted and interjected in a language she'd never heard before; keeping her momentum, she strafed further from the group toward a forest she'd only just noticed. She chambered her armored right arm in front of her face like a raised shield, peeking over her bicep to keep the entire group in her field of vision. She'd already heard the waking cry of two swords -- she scanned the group for other weapons. A knight's sword and a foreign, curved blade stood out most readily, but she didn't come all this way just to die of oversight.

...As her pulse steadied, she remembered just how far she'd come: she'd fallen asleep [i]inside a guard post.[/i] For an instant, she wondered if the building had vanished from around her, but it was more than that: none of this terrain looked the least bit familiar. As such: however she'd arrived here, from black midnight until sunrise, these strangers had clearly not harmed her. In fact, none of them paid her any mind. Gradually, their heads turned away from her, toward the horizon.

Blinking her bleary eyes, she suddenly realized the figure at the edge of her vision wasn't the rising sun after all. [i]It had too many arms.[/i] Brilliant though the creature's aura was, she couldn't help but gaze directly at it. Whatever spirit or fae this might be, she knew even less about it than she did her...captors? [i]Companions?[/i] Mortal fascination could not outrun her fear and unease.

A man -- braver than her, thanks surely to the sword in his hand -- broke from the group and made his way toward the creature. Her eyes darted between the rolling flame and the glint of light on steel, desperate to see where they fit in the puzzle.