Having cried all her heart out, Chalice was finally able to create a semblance of calm and normality to her emotions. The night has already progressed and she couldn't hastily move around despite her having two royal beasts by her side. She decided to pass the night by the small streams. Thankfully, Aslan seems to have a berry-detecting ability in him, so she was saved from the dreaded hunger.
Chalice woke to the sound of birds chirping gaily, greeting a brand new day with zealous vigor. The sunshine passed through the branches of the trees creating a halo of subdued light around the stream. The glimmers of the water made the whole place magical. Her two loyal pets were still on her side fending off the cold breeze of the early morning. She reveled in that little bubble of comfort, wishing she could stay there forever.
She knew she was just escaping the inevitable. But Chalice couldn't help it. The recurrence of her entrenched memories was a huge blow to her pysche. She sighed.
'Honestly Chalice, you're just prolonging the agony.'
She thought to herself as she snuggled in Aslan's fur. Her feet brushing against the silky mane of Onyx. Chalice secretly thanked her dubious luck for giving her these two. At the very least, they anchored her to the living world at the most crucial time.
After several more minutes of idling, Chalice stood up and collected herself. She walked languidly, aimlessly for a few miles with her two beast. She looked around her, the towering trees of Zeru mountains are quite aesthetically pleasing. An OCD person would surely give it a thousand thumbs up. They stood in lines after lines in an orderly manner. Chalice also noted that these trees were all fruit-bearing ones. Suddenly, Chalice realized something off.
This was a forest. A freaking forest. Not an orchard. So why were the trees arranged as if it intentionally grew that way?
Unless someone really did plant them that way.
Chalice grew vigilant. Has she perhaps tresspassed on an area she wasn't supposed to? But this was the mountain ranges, who would live deep in its most dangerous parts?
As if an answer to her questions, a woman dressed in immaculate, white robes and loose, red trousers reminscent of those shrine maidens back on Earth. She was walking leisurely as if she was just in her backyard and not on dangerous woods teeming with wild animals. However, that wasn't the strangest thing about her.
It was her mystical, silver eyes which looked as if they were glazed over and blank, seeing pass through the things in front of her. Was she blind? If she was, what the heck is she doing in here by herself?
"Hello, young lady. You seem lost."
Chalice looked at her incredulously. She was lost? Between the two of them, the lady looked like she was the one who was lost. She looked so out of place with her beautiful countenance, pristine clothes and aura that forbade sullying. She looked like she was more fit to be found in a temple of light and sunshine, far from the dirty clutches of the secular world.
"Pardon me, lady. But I am not lost. I know I am at Zeru Mountains. It is exactly where I am meant to go."
The lady's thin and pinkish lips formed a mysterious curve. Her dazed eyes met hers. Chalice felt like drowning from those eyes. It was as if they were prying into the deep recesses of her soul. It unnerved her greatly.
"I did not mean it that way."
Chalice tilted her head at her confusedly. Why does she feel like there was an underlying meaning from her statement. She just couldn't pinpoint what.
"That aside, welcome to Amaterasu. It has been a long while since fate has brought someone here. You arrived just in time for my morning walk. You aren't alone, I presume Lady Chalice."
She stiffened in shock. This lady knows her? How? Was it her eyes that gave her away again? But that wasn't possible. Chalice was pretty sure this woman can't see. Even moreso, she was on her morning walk? She really did treat the forest as her orchard.
"You know me? You know I'll be here? Are you psychic?"
There were still countless questions she wanted to ask and it was all encapsulated in those three questions. If she had added more, it'll be a monologue.
"Know you? Not personally, no. I only had a glimpse of who you are. That doesn't count as knowing you. However, I was expecting your arrival for some time now. Psychic? I don't know about such things. You could say I am a bit blessed with precognition. Though, I only see what I am allowed to see."
Chalice was in utter disbelief. And the more she listened to the lady, the more she was confused. She summed all of what she has comprehended at the moment.
So, the place she was in now was called by the woman as Amaterasu. But she surely was in Zeru Mountains. She didn't know her for she only saw things about her. Huh? She wasn't psychic, only precognitive. Wasn't that the same thing? And she was already expecting her. Okay, that was apparent because she was precognitive in the first place.
But who was she, really?
The lady suddenly laughed lightly derailing her train of thoughts.
"Oh my. I seem to have forgotten the most important thing: introductions. Silly me. Enchanted to meet you, Lady Chalice. I am Hikari, Priestess of the Amaterasu tribe of the Zeru Mountains."
Chalice nodded stiffly. Well, at least she remembered.
"And to you, Priestess. As you already know me, I won't bother with it anymore. But I will introduce you to my companions. This is Aslan and Onyx."
The Priestess nodded with another one of her strange, mysterious smiles.
"Interesting. A lion and a thunder horse. Fitting, indeed."
Chalice gaped at her flabbergasted. She blurted out a questions she has been holding off desperately.
"But aren't you blind, Priestess?"
The woman nodded at her in understanding. An amused chuckle escaping her lips.
"I am. Nevertheless, I may have lost my sense of sight. But that doesn't mean I am unable to see."
Chalice has been proud of her intellect. But she was rendered mute by such mysticism. Her brain whirred theories upon theories of explanation. She ignored all of that in the end. After all, why does it matter? Chalice acknowledge that there are things that are not meant to be explained in the world. They were meant to be believed in.
"Follow me to the tribe. The morning haze would make you susceptible to colds."
Chalice followed the woman beckoning to her. Though she was unsure of it, she had an inkling that somehow coming here was right. And that this place will help her find the answers to her uncertainties. Somehow, she believed this place would be the catalyst to the wavering future.