The woman had been talking but Cassie hadn’t been listening to a word she was saying. She looked over at her and saw that she was very young , though her demeanor seemed so much older, more like a mother hen than the young chick she appeared to be.

“What is your name?” Cassie asked.

“Tsk, tsk,” the woman frowned. “You ask me that every day and I tell you every day. Why don’t you just make one up and try to remember it?”

Cassie smiled. She liked this woman with her spunky attitude and sparkling eyes.

“Okay then, I will call you Flora,” she told her with a decisive nod.

“Why Flora?”

“Because she’s a fairy godmother, and you remind me of one, always flitting about and taking care of me.”

Flora smiled. “Well that’s nice. It’s better than calling me a mother hen so I will go with it.”

Cassie smiled and it was a dreamy look. Flora looked at her and Cassie saw the sympathy that filled them. Why did Flora feel that way towards her? It’s not like her life was hard. She just slept, ate, drank her wonderful red drink and danced. What was so bad about that? But there at the back of her mind, something lay just out of her reach, something important discarded and forgotten.

“Why do you look at me that way?” Cassie finally asked.

Flora quickly pushed her features back into a motherly smile. “You just seem tired and I wish that Lorsan would give you more time to rest.”

Cassie didn’t feel tired, well at least not then. She knew that eventually the red liquid would wear off and she would crash. She didn’t like the crash and she pushed the memory of it away as quickly as it had come.

“I’m fine, Flora,” Cassie assured her. “Really, I like to dance.”

Flora shook her head. “You shouldn’t be dancing for those elves with their greedy stares and goofy grins.”

Cassie stood up in the tub and the water cascaded off her body. She glistened from the oils that had been added to the water. She smiled as she spoke. “They can’t help it; they are enamored with my beauty.”

Flora smiled as she helped Cassie from the tub, but Cassie could see the hesitation in the smile.

She dressed in silence and Flora hummed as she fixed her hair. When she was finally ready she stood in front of the full length mirror and, as she did every time that she looked at herself, she wondered who the girl in the mirror was. She didn’t think that she had always looked this way. Her clothes were more revealing than she thought she would ever choose for herself. Her makeup was heavy and accentuated her eyes and lips. Her hair was done in elaborate twists with tendrils hanging down to frame her face. There was no doubt that she was beautiful, but her eyes were empty and so she avoided looking at them. She turned to follow Flora out of the room and she staggered against the door frame. She squeezed her eyes shut against the first onslaught of the crash. She heard Flora muttering under her breath about needing more and more and something not lasting. She couldn’t understand what the woman was saying because of the sound of her own blood pumping in her ears. Her heartbeat was fast and hard in her chest and her palms grew sweaty. She drew in a ragged breath as she moaned. “More Flora, I need more.”

“I know child, I’m moving as quickly as I can.”

She heard the splash of liquid into a cup and groped blindly for it. The cup was pushed into her hands and she guzzled the liquid as a thirsty man parched from the desert would guzzle water. No, she thought. Not a thirsty man for water, a desperate one for his next fix, a user for the next high that he lives for. That’s what she had become and as the warmth brought on by Rapture flooded her system she pushed the thought far from her mind because she didn’t care. She felt good again, she felt invisible and it was time for her to dance, and dance she would.

~

Lorsan sat at the long table in the throne room. The room was loud with talking and laughing. Warriors had come from all over his land wishing to see the human girl, the woman that was enthralled with Rapture and danced so uninhibitedly. Lorsan reasoned that he wasn’t totally depraved as he never requested that she remove her clothes. She stayed fully covered and yet her dancing enthralled all who saw her. Many of the male elves had come to him seeking to have her and he was growing tired of it. He thought to kill her, but now he had decided that an even more painful fate for Trik was for him to see his Chosen in the arms, in the bed, of another man. Lorsan knew what it would do to him if he were to ever see Ilyrana in the arms of another, the thought alone put him in a murdering rage, and because of that he knew that Trik would quite possibly go mad when he saw Cassandra held by another. He had to plan it just right so that when Trik came for her, as he knew he would, he would find her in the throes of passion with another. Okay, he thought. Maybe I am more depraved than I thought.

The room was plunged into silence as the doors to the throne room opened and Cassandra walked through them. She was dressed in a deep blue gown with split sleeves that left her shoulders bare. When she walked, the slits on either side of her legs gave teasing glimpses of her calves. The back of the dress was see-through lace encrusted with blue sapphires that shimmered as they caught the light. The silk of the fabric moved with her as she walked further into the room and she held her audience captive.

She walked to the end of the table and bowed her head.

“Warriors,” Lorsan stood and the other elves followed his lead. He held up his hand gesturing to Cassie. “I present Cassandra. She will be dancing for us and one of you will be chosen to take over her care.” A rumble rippled through the room as the males voiced their approval.