Kitty, Eve, Ashlin, and Psyche sit in a small circle on the floor of one of the village huts. Miazan sat with her head on her knees in a dark corner one the far side of the room, fingering her silver star pendant with a bright silverish-red star sapphire, and wishing she didn't have it. She didn't feel like part of the group, and doesn't care what the other are talking about.

The three girls and the lareon quietly converse, and every once in a while one of them would look over at her. Ashlin offers her some food every one in a while, but Miazan doesn't ever answer her.

"Please, sit with us," Ashlin insists, but still she refuses. "It's important. We need to talk to you." Miazan sighs and reluctantly joins the others.

"Miazan, can you remember how you came to be in the service of the Dragon Mistress?" Psyche asks.

Miazan is silent and composed on the outside, but as she looks back on her past everything is clouded. She desperately searches for some memory or trace of her life before she joined the vast armies of the Dark Zodia Dragons, but she can find nothing. It seems like the answer is right there, but her she couldn't quite reach it. Miazan began to panic as her misty past seems to drown her.

"I - I….." Miazan sits and stares at the floor. "I can't tell you…. I don't know….."

"What's wrong?" Kitty asks with a hint worry. "Why can't you tell us?"

"There's not….." Suddenly Miazan's body becomes stiff, and then she collapses onto the floor. The last thing she sees before she passes out is Kitty, rushing over to her and two other concerned girls behind her.

~*~*~*~*~

"What happened to her?" Eve demanded as she darted over to Miazan.

Kitty takes Miazan's head in her lap and looks for a pulse. "She ok, just unconscious. But what could have done this to her?"

"I don't know," Psyche says, rather bewildered. "Maybe she was brainwashed."

"We better let her rest, there's nothing we can do for her," Ashlin says. She rolls out one of the sleeping mats, and Kitty lays Miazan down.

"Sleep well while you can," Kitty whispers.

~*~*~*~*~

Miazan finds herself in a large room, richly furnished and without lights. Brilliant flashes of lightning illuminate the room for seconds at a time, and rain dances on the bushes outside the window.

She notices a great physical difference as she looks down at herself. To start she was just a few inches short of four feet, her body seems to be that of a child's, and her wings were a fifth their normal size. She was wearing a black gown decorated with several shiny red sashes and ribbons.

A girl, about 17, with a similar dress and scaly metallic lilac wings runs in from a door on the far side of the long hall. Miazan can't see the woman's face well as the shadows seems to darken.

Miazan called out to her, "Cari?" She doesn't know where the name came from, but it seems right.

The woman picks her up with ease. They hear footsteps on the floor above them, and someone barks orders.

"What's going on?" Miazan asks, almost surprised a childish, high pitched voice.

"Don't worry little one," she replied. A small light appeared on the woman's forehead, and it shaped itself into the mark of Cancer. The woman leans her head forward until her brow touched Miazan's.

Miazan feels a strange sensation rush through her body, and as the woman draws away, she sees the mark is no longer there. She quickly kisses Miazan on the cheek, and puts her down again. They hear the footsteps draw nearer.

"Hide, now," the woman orders.

Miazan is overwhelmed with sadness and a bizarre fear. Tears well up in her eyes, and she turns and runs. She doesn't know where she's going. All that matters to her is that she gets there. Miazan finds the end of the long, twisting hallway and throws open the door.

Outside is a huge garden. She steps cautiously out the door, and is almost instantly soaked by the pounding rain. Miazan runs along the sides of the mansion, just inside a row of bushes that are lined against the walls. Then she comes to the only dark window she had yet seen.

Miazan stops and sees a small reading lamp, and upon further inspection, Cari, sitting at a table and reading a book, as if nothing had happened.

The room lights up, as if on cue, and someone opens the big doors on the opposite side of the room. Miazan can't quite recognize the figure because of the dark cloak that shadows her face, but for some reason she begins to tremble with fear. Her eyes began to overflow, and she cries as she watches the person approach Cari.

Cari stands up, and the other woman says something, but it is so quiet Miazan can't make out the words. Then there is a bright flash, and Cari falls to the floor.

Miazan turns and runs into the forests just outside the gardens. The trees tear at her dress, but she keeps going,. She cries as she runs, and suddenly the very wet and messy Miazan arrives in a clearing. A tall woman, wearing a dark cloak and hood, with dull yet magnificent black wings is standing there in the center of the clearing. Miazan stifles her weeping and sniffles.

"Oh, your poor thing," the woman says with mock sympathy as she strolls over and kneels down, then puts her hand on Miazan's shoulder. She flinches at the woman's touch. "I'll take care of you," she says. There is something in her voice, Miazan thinks, it sounds compassionate, but there is also something else…. The woman half-smiles, and Miazan feels a shock rush through her veins. She screams with pain, and after blackness consumes her she wakes up.

Miazan sits up, realizing that it had been a dream, and she rubs her eyes. Kitty is packing a few clothes in a small bag in the middle of the room.

"Good morning," she cheerfully greets Miazan. "Or should I say afternoon? You've slept through a whole day."

"Huh?" Miazan looks out the window to see a soft green and yellow sunset. "Oh my gosh! I've been asleep for that long?!"

"Yup. You and Eve in the other room."

"Hey, I've been up for at least a couple of hours!" Eve yells from the doorway of the adjoining room.

Ashlin walks in and smiles. "Now tell me you're not hungry! You haven eaten for TWO days!"

Miazan falls back on her pillow and sighs in a rather frustrated tone.

"You'd better eat up now," Psyche advises. "We're departing for the dream plane soon."

"Alright," she complies.

After a small meal, consisting mainly of fruits and a type of bread, the four girls and Psyche gather in a circle in the middle of the room, carrying what few possessions they have. Psyche's rose-jade pendant begins to glow, and with a flash of light they disappear.