My name is Ahni, and, I like all my people, am a slave of the mareps, as we have been for generation after generation. We are born as their pets, grow to be their slaves, and when we become too weak, serve as their sustenance. This is our lot in life, and many of our people imagine no other life exists. But some of us no different, for we carry with us the memory of the dream. The dream of our shadowed past, when the young could run free across the land and the aged past their wisdom down to the tribe, teaching them how to hunt and kill the great lizards to survive.

For generations, only the wisest and the strongest of my people knew of this legend. It would come to us as a dream in the night, but not like any other dream. It would come with such clarity that we knew that it could not be false. Our people had lived this life once, and we would do so again.

A secret sect grew among our people, a group simply called the Knowing. The Knowing were those of us who chose to embrace the dream, and together we secretly worked against our marep overlords to one day attain that dream.

Among our most wise talk of a prophet arose: an individual who would bring about the last push towards our freedom. Many signs and portents would herald her arrival, from the blackening of the eternal sun on the prophet’s day of birth to the arrival of men pale as the cave newt on the day of her ascendance.

On the day of my birth, a great rain of stone blocked out the sun for six hours. It destroyed much of the mareps’ grand city, and the elders took this as the sign they had been awaiting for generations. I first had the dream when I’d only seen a thousand days, and this proved to even more that I must be the chosen prophet. My training began after that night, and for many thousand more days I have been groomed for just that purpose. I never quite believed myself, until I saw you and your friend emerge from the jungle to free me from the procession.

All would have remained well if it wasn’t for a woman I thought my closest friend. Zakez was born only an hour before me, and mere minutes before the shower of rocks. We were raised together as sisters, and I never knew of the hate that brewed inside her. She craved my position as prophet, the position she herself could have filled if she was born only an hour later.

The envy in her heart grew in to destructive rage, and that rage led her in to the lowliest of actions. In secret, she went before our marep overlords and broke the vow of the Knowing. She revealed the prophesy to our slave masters, and she revealed my place as prophet. And although they considered me some of their finest breeding stock, I was taken from my home and sentenced by the Grand Vishnur himself to death. I was to be tied hand and foot to the ground and torn apart by the bird lizards that scavenged for scraps throughout our land.

Until you arrived, appearing from the jungle with your boom-staffs and attacking the mareps as so many of my people have dreamed of doing. It will be seen as a miracle to my people. Your pale visages are like those of angels, sent down to protect me. Despite everything the mareps might do to us, my people’s spirits will be raised just by knowing I am free and well protected.

The hope of an entire race lies on our shoulders, Vance Higgins.

Vance’s eyes came open, and his eyes met those of Ahni. “And I could not ask for a better protector than you.”

She leaned in again to kiss him.