Teralyn stood in her her dream. Her feet were bare and the grass was wet but warm, as if the sun has kissed the grass but the dew had not yet faded. The first thing she noticed was that though she could see there was no source of light. Looking at down at her body, dressed in her usual night shirt and shorts, the light was not from her though she could see all detail around her. What was more, what she thought was grass under her feet was not grass but thread. Thousands and thousands of cut ends of thread strewn upon the floor, still wet from the red dye.

Weird.

Taking tentative steps forward, what felt like a single focus of light followed her and her steps, Teralyn walked for what felt like hours, minutes, days, seconds. There was no sense of time in a dream. It was a dream and time was meaningless. Her feet now the color of the dye, the light around her started to pulse. Grow wider, throw longer shadows though where the source of the shadows came from she could not see. But as the light grew longer, it begun to dim.

Tera - lyn. Tera - lyn.

Her name started to echo ahead of her and quickly her steps picked up a pace as she ran. Ran further, ran faster, until all she could see was a field of broken dyed red thread. Then a dias. A long dias or short wall, a table without legs, that upon it laid a figure of white. The cloth of the white spreading onto the floor and pulling up the dye of the red. Or was the dye of the red coming from the figure upon the dias?

Tera - lyn. Teralyn.

She ran up fearlessly to the figure and upon it was an old woman with a face kinder than any she had ever seen. Kind, gentle, and in pain. Teralyn knew nothing of death, but it was death that was upon her.

“Teralyn.” The old woman spoke. “Protect her.”

“Protect who? My mother?” Confused, Teralyn grabbed the hand of the old woman but it was too late. Her breath was gone and as suddenly as she heard the old woman speak, she was gone.

Darkness again, and the light that had extended beyond her faded and pulled in until she was once again in a little circle of light without a source.

“Is this who you chose, Malha.”

This time the voice was different, and for the first time Teralyn felt fear at the voice. It was cold. It came from no source yet it was everywhere within the darkness and shadows beyond.

“Who is there? Who is Malha? What was I chosen for?” Teralyn demanded, though her voice shaky. This was just a dream. It was stupid to be afraid, but she was. Within her heart Teralyn begun to realize that this may not actually be a dream.

A porcelain mask emerged from the shadow before her. It was not a small mask, but larger than her. It encompassed her entire view. Though in it’s mass it seems small, diminished, as if not to scare her. Teralyn fell back among the red thread, staining her hands.

The mask was an unmistakable mark of the Matron Mother of Death.

“I am dead. I have been chosen to die.” She whispered, and it was the only words she could say though her thoughts fled to her mother, briefly.

“No, Child of Cairma.” The voice still came from all around her, and the mask itself did not move, but the focus was still on the Matron Mother. “You have been chosen by Malha, marked by her. I have no power of you. While you live.”

“Chosen by who?”

“The Godmother of Children, of course. Though she has now fallen into my domain, seeing as she is dead now.”

“Dea..d.” Teralyn stuttered. This was very much a very odd dream.

“Protect her, Teralyn. You are all she has in the mortal world.”

“Protect who? Matron Mother… Who..”

But the shadows collapsed into her as all that remained was the glow of red from her hands and from her feet. The mask gone. Looking closer at her hands, Teralyn realized then that this was no red dye. Blood. Blood of a dead God.

Finally she screamed. Echoing into the dark oblivion.