Dream Fulfilled, The

The woman stood in stark contrast against the backdrop of her
surroundings. She was beautiful, the land was not. She was innocence
personified, those about her were the ultimate evil. She had eternal
hope in her heart, her situation seemed hopeless. But she stood brave
and proud and strong in the face of her captors and her
tormentors.

She was clothed in white silk, which billowed in a breeze that seemed
to not exist to the feel. It seemed incredible that the dirt and the
muck and the flame of the area did not seem to affect or soil her. Her
long blond hair cascaded about her and her deep blue eyes, though
filled with pain, were filled with hope...

"Another will be coming soon," she was told by the largest of those who
tormented her. He was their lord, she knew, because after this untold
time, he was the only one who addressed her as a person. She often
regretted that he wasn't a human himself.

Leather and bone seemed to make up his body... eyes that burned bright
and black as oil seemed to look right through her. She stood, hope
flickering in her own eyes again. The creature laughed an evil
laugh.

"This is the best part," he said, "Your hopes rise and your hero
comes... and fails you again, leaving you to our mercy once
more..."

"It will not always be so," the woman spoke. Her words echoed in the
stale air if this terrible place, like the voice of an angel in the
midst of hell.

"It HAS always been so," her tormentor laughed.

"Only," the woman retorted, "because it has not yet been
different."

The creature reached out his leathery hand and arched his talon
backword so he might rub the smoothest portion of his palm against her
tender face.

"My sweet one," he hissed, his tongue protruding slightly between his
razor-sharp teeth, "This is the delicious part... you get your hopes
up, we kill your would be rescuer, and then... I corrupt you
again!"

The woman pulled against her chains... facing the demon... the fabric
of her clothing conforming to the curves of her sensuous body...
accentuating her magnificence for him to see... It was a futile thing
to do, she knew this. She had lived this out more times than she cared
to remember...

"It is sweet, is it not," her tormenter continued, "to know that you
will heal; you will not die; and we will forever dance the dance
again..."

"Not true," her voice sang, still drenched in hope, "my love WILL
rescue me... all it will take is one victory..."

The demon allowed his hand to trail slightly, his claws shredding the
white fabric to expose the pale skin of her femininity. He leered as
she stood before him, watching as the cloth quickly repaired
itself.

"It is not yet time," the woman said.

"I know," the demon agreed, "but your charms are always a joy to
behold... even for the briefest moment..."

*****

The boy had become a man. He had a power inside him that he had
recognized from his early childhood. It was not only a goodness of
spirit and of heart, but it was a longing for something... for
someone... that he felt destined to find. He had left home as a young
child, hungering for more knowledge than his parents or teachers could
provide. He discovered a secret chamber, as if led by some unseen hand,
and found it had a caretaker who took over the role of parent, teacher,
and master.

The boy had been trained in control above all else. There was power
within his body, he had been born to a destiny. But he knew not what it
was. What he did know was that he had dreams. Dreams of a strikingly
beautiful woman who was in need of him. A damsel who would love him.
She was always out of his reach, chained as if in a dungeon, manacles
on her wrists and ankles. There were other people... or beings...
around in the darkness, just out of his view. He could hear the
guttural sounds of them as they stayed in the peripheral. He never
looked for them, his focus was always on the woman.

He did not know how or why, but he knew that he was born for but one
purpose. To save her and to love her. It was what he trained for, even
though his master had not informed him of such. All his master did was
train him in strength; especially inner strength. He was taught to tap
into a eternal power that existed just beyond the plane of the
physical. Many knew it was there, but few knew exactly where and
exactly how to best use it.

He also learned to control his mind and to channel his emotions to make
them as weapons to slay his enemies. He became a living thing of hope
as well as a living weapon of death. But his battlefield was to be
another realm. And the battle was to come soon.

*****

The woman was the center, she always had been. Her beauty seemed to be
the one source of light in this dark place. Even as the hordes of the
unholy assembled around her, she stood proudly. Her soft lips glistened
with moisture, and her nostrils flared in anticipation. Her eyes burned
with a fire, and her heart beat with a passion. Her lover was again
coming... perhaps this would be the time they escaped together. Perhaps
this was to be their moment of glory.

The horde of creatures danced in delight as the air began to shimmer
near the woman. Many of them had been involved in past invasions. The
man would appear by the woman and they would en masse attack. They
would prevail again; their lord would satiate himself on the woman's
ample charms... and they would be safe from his fury for a time... as
he recovered from his ecstasy and she from her wounds... until the
curtain raised on the play again.

Lightning crackled and filled the air. It was a rare sight for most of
those assembled; a first site for a few. The porthole was about to
open... the game was about to begin...

*****

It was a basic spell to cast; but one his master had not taught him
until just before it was needed. The hunger and the calling would have
led him to open the doorway before he was at his peak of readiness.
There were always optimum times for the assault, but even the most
optimum time was not likely to be enough. It never had been before...
but hope sprang eternal for the man. All it would take would be once...
and all would be well in the world.

The lightning flashed and flared and then a distinct hole opened in the
air. The man uttered a few words and a sword appeared in his hand. He
arced it through the air and nodded in satisfaction and then stepped
into the void.

He emerged on the other side. A woman... THE woman... the one he had
known in his dreams since childhood was there... bound in chains and
dressed in white. Surrounding her were a horde of demonic beings. The
odds were not good, but he would try to save his soul mate, even if it
cost him this life. It was indeed what he was born to do. Every
time.

*****

The battle commenced. It filled the dark realm with fire and light and
the sound of screams and wails. The woman stood and seemed to be
feeding power into the man. Her dress and her hair billowed in a wind
that carried it's way toward the him. He and his sword glowed as they
fought against the angry army. Demons fell to the rocks and rolled into
the fiery lake that surrounded the small island, an island that seemed
to be there only for this purpose. For this never ending battle between
good and evil. The place of confinement for the woman and the place of
death for the man.

The horde was falling and yet still pressing in. Their numbers were so
great and the man was but one. But as much as he loved the woman, he
hated the creatures that had kept her captive and from him for these
many centuries. It was a hatred that you could see in the eyes of the
man... and it grew until it flashed from his eyes like twin beams of
power... slicing and slashing those it came in contact with. Shrieks of
agony echoed on the battlefield as the minions of the woman's tormenter
were pressed back, from the island and into the liquid that surrounded
it.

The woman shrieked as her tormenter approached the man. Times before he
had gotten this far only to be cut down by the sheer evil that
inhabited this creature. The circled each other and the man's eyes
glowed with their powerful hatred... but the beams seemed rather to
feed the demon and he grew larger and larger until he towered over the
woman and the man.

Maniacal and evil laughter erupted from the survivors of the horde as
their leader stalked the man. The man would be squashed beneath the
hooves of the this realms master. It had happened before. The woman
cried softly as she prepared for it to happen again. Her tears were not
for herself... though she would once again face defilement at the hands
of this demon. No, for she knew her scars would heal and over time she
would be good as new. It was part of the hell of this existence, to
suffer the same savage rape and torture again and again and again...
each time knowing that her lover was dead... and waiting for him to try
once more...

But there was the spark of hope, that this might be a different time.
Something about the man seemed to shout that boldly. He had not come to
die, but if he must, he would decimate this realm in the doing.

It was not something his master had taught him, but it was something he
knew inherently. It was something that was so instinctive that he
didn't even think about what he was doing. It was something that
brought horror to the woman's face and a scream of agony from the
master of the dark realm.

The man's hands transformed into talons... razor sharp and very large
and strong... and he plunged them into his own chest and ripped it open
wide... to expose his still beating heart for all to see. For the first
time the dark realm had seen the purity of a human heart in love... and
it wreaked holy havoc on a place that was the most unholy of all.

White light exploded forth from the man, like the light from a thousand
suns, and drove the darkness into oblivion. The little demons cried out
in horror an were no more as they could not survive in the light. The
chains of darkness that had bound the woman of innocence for so long
shattered and fell away. The lord of the realm fell... long and hard..
to the ground, the black orbs that had been his eyes running down his
face like ink spilled on a paper. He cried out in pain and shouted a
curse toward the man. Then the demon convulsed, bile and blood flowing
from his mouth and nose... and then it was he that, for the first time,
died.

****

The woman hurried to embrace the man. He was dying and she had to see
to it that they escaped this place before the darkness returned. The
man's heart beat slower and less rhythmic, but he looked at the woman
and knew that all the training and all the pain had been worth it.
After untold tries, he had finally freed her from her terror and now
she would be safe... if he could summon the strength to utter the
spell... one final time... for love and for freedom...

The woman seemed to shimmer as she touched him and despite the
brightness that still glowed about him, there was something visibly
electric about her lips as they kissed his. He found the energy to
speak... the spell... and the words he had been born to say to
her..

"I love you." he whispered softly.

With her guidance, they stepped back through the porthole and found
themselves in a garden paradise. The realm they left went black and the
evil would ressurect itself soon, but without the woman they would feed
one each other's pain and suffering forever. The man and the woman
collapsed to the ground, he clutching the wound in his chest... pain
etched across his face.

"Live," she said delicately as she touched him. His heartbeat increased
and the wounds healed over. His eyes sparkled with a new fire as he
looked at the woman.

Laying as they were, in the lush green grasses of the garden, he rolled
over and kissed her. There was a magic in the air between them... the
physical love that they had been denied for untold centuries was about
to pour forth. The woman he had lived and died for too many times to
count was finally his. The man she had been born to be with would be
touching her instead of a vile tormenter. Expectancy gave way to lust.
Lust gave way to love. Love gave way to passion...

And then they were naked and unashamed, their clothes on a pile on the
grass as they embraced and consummated their great love. They had both
suffered through so much for this moment of passion, it seemed as if
the very earth had gone quiet out of respect for the victory of their
love. When the woman screamed, thus shattering the silence... this time
it was from pleasure and not from pain.

The man had at long last claimed his prize... and life now spanned
before them. A lifetime of joy and happiness, of love and passion...
atoning for what had seemed an eternal damnation...

The dream fulfilled.