A white world laid in front of Lexa's vision, encompassing everything that she could see. No sound, no sight, no feeling. There was nothing to the endlessly blank landscape. This was the way of this place, she had found in her hours here.

Or maybe it had been minutes. Or days. There was something about the infinite void of nothingness that made her lose that sense of time. Or anything, really.

Only white, as far as the eye could see.

Lexa gazed down at herself, finding a drab piece of cloth to have replaced her cloak. It was the the same blank appearance, tricking her mind into perceiving a hole within herself as the cloth faded to the background.

Or the foreground. Or north or west or to the nonexistent stars. Just as with her sense of time, her sense of direction had been snatched away from her.

"Hello?" She found herself surprised to be able to hear her own voice.

It echoed back to her, as if bouncing off the walls of a cavern.

Hello, Hello, Hello.

The echoes seemed like crawling whispers, each one with a singing voice of its own. They were a crescendo, growing louder and louder with each and every---

HELLO! HELLO! HELLO!

Her mind was engulfed by the sound of them-

Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello.

HELLO. HELLO. HELLO.

hello.

Silence.

Lexa removed the hands she had clamped against her ears, letting them down slowly with apprehension. The screams of the echoes still lingered, and her mind felt dazed.

She gazed around her, still only finding a blank horizon.

It seemed to be gone.

"Hello there."

Lexa swiveled, finding a young boy clad in white beneath her eyes. He seemed to have spawned out of this blank, for he was of its appearance. The platinum hair and the snow hinted skin made him nearly unseeable.

If not for those eyes. They were sapphire blue, the only color in this place shining brighter than any star. He watched her intently with those eyes, waiting.

"Who are you? Where am I?" Her questioning voice bounced off the walls that didn't seem to even exist.

He smirked, an expression to challenge even Bennie's mischief.

And then he disappeared. Once again she was left with only the depravity of nothingness to keep her company.

Where in the world could the little bastard have gone?

A voice sounded all around her, a echoing sound like the bellows of a god.

"You are in everywhere, and I am everywhere. For I am fate and fate is me."

The boy once again appeared, as if he had never left with that smirk of his.

Lexa recalled what some spoke about the god of fate. They said that it was the ruler of all of the gods, neither a he nor she, instead taking whatever form it fancied. Once, people said, the fate had ruled over the humans and not only the gods. But fate was a feeble mind, falling for a young human boy. They had fallen in love in little time at all. Demigod children ran around at their feet and they spent their lives under a shield of bliss and blind happiness.

But even fate could not save his companion from himself. Old age stole the boy fate had loved away from him, for this the way fate worked.

Fate crumbled into grief, desperate to find something- anything- that would bring back his beloved. He created a concoction of herbs for this quest.

But the herbs were destructive in nature, not bring humans back to life but rather taking their lives away. It then became known as Mortolo Hebalia, named for the mortal demise of all humans.

Some people said that anyone who was unfortunate to fall to the herbs were cursed. Others said that the poison was so deadly because fate remained bitter, and taking any human personally to their deaths was some sort of compensation for the death of his own human.

Lexa never believed any of that though. She had fallen into mind with those who believed that the herbs were human's punishment for being so weak. For being so desperate to leave this world for another.

And now here she was, standing before fate.

She did not like the odds of this.

"Take me back," she demanded hastily, "I wish to go back."

The smirk fell. "You wear the mask of a body that is not your own, Just as I wear the mask of a human. Beyond, beyond, the mask and the games lies your fate beyond this place."

Fear was the dagger that was stabbed into her heart.

She glared at the human manifestation of fate, staring it down like she had so many before. "I am leaving. Right now."

The grin once again returned. "A riddle for the desperate, perhaps? Answer correctly and receive your desires, fail to complete and fall to an end quite dire."

She set her jaw in determination. She would not die here. She would not leave her kingdom behind.

"Anything. I'll answer anything."

"I am the force that moves the oceans, and drives the course of kingdoms. I have the control of one, but decide the course of many. I belong to everything, but I am the individuals to belong to. What am I?"

She blinked. Was this a trick? A question hidden beneath another? She pondered the riddle, but still came to only one conclusion.

But surely it couldn't be that simple?

But maybe it could be. Maybe what the god wanted to have her realize is that fate can only control so much. Maybe the key out of this place was not the riddle after all, but what she decided to do with it.

She didn't need an answer after all, just the conclusion that came after it.

He was fate, and so was the answer. But she could control it.

"I do not belong here," she declared to the empty space, "I am meant to live. I am meant to accomplish more."

The boy nodded, offering his hand.

The journey back to where your body lies is a long one, and it will not be pleasant. Memories tend to be that way, for most of you creatures. You can still go on the other way.

She rolled her eyes. As if she hadn't been living her memories for all of her life.

With only a moments worth of thought, she took it, and the blank landscape dissipated into somewhere far more familiar. A memory of her own, watching from eyes of afar.

Far into a shadowed alleyway of stone, A child kneeled in front of a puddle, causing strands of crimson to fall into it like feathers on the wind. The girl had been able to locate a small dagger from the inside of a criminals pocket, and guilt filled her being like the feeling of starvation filled her stomach. More than that though, she was simply overjoyed that she had not been caught. She had never stolen from another before.

The girl couldn't say that she hated it. After all, the dagger was being put to good use.

Another strand of her hair fell to the ground, and another, and another. The bright crimson scattered around the girl like a ring of fire.

A glance into the pond revealed the reflection of the choppy haircut, close around her face in varying lengths.

She loved it. Seven years of age and she would already be the talk of the slums with this haircut.

She skipped from the stone alleyway, darting through the herds of people in the market square. The crowds towards high above her as she weaved in between them, some gazing or stopping at the shops and others shouting their wares to the world, loud enough that even the goddess of the heavens could hear their cries. Each of these people she avoided as she made her way out of the slums.

Few eyes saw her, but she noticed that the ones who did now gazed upon her differently with this haircut. What had once been disgust or shock was now annoyance or boredom. Like they expected such.

It was an odd feeling, people looking at her in this way. Had her appearance changed so much that she somehow warranted such attitudes towards her? Surely she looked like a boy, but was this how things were for them all of the time?

She rounded the buildings until she came upon the young boys playing kickball in their own alleyways, these cleaner and lacking the stench of human filth. These boys would end up being the nobles and lords that would one day govern Catala, but the girl did not know that. All she knew was that the other boys she had once played with had disappeared in the last year, their childhood deceasing to either attending stables or the harsh work of farming the countryside.

She walked up to them with a stride, confident that they would let her play with them now that she had cut off her hair.

Lexa recollected this memory now. This was the day when she had realized that she was someone to look down upon. That unless she did something about it, she would always be lesser, even when she knew that she could be so much more. She remembered those sneers, that feeling of rejection flowing bright within her. She had not known to be angry of this then. She had only known to be ashamed.

Lexa looked away as her former self felt all of that. As the boys laughed at her cut hair she had once loved.

"What a fool," one had spoke. "She has the looks of that bitch that my father had a bastard with," a younger boy mocked. "She probably is the bastard!" Another boy taunted.

She looked back to the scene for the next one, for it wasn't the boys bullying and shoving her to the ground that caused for this memory to be seared into her head. It was the words she knew were coming.

"Even if you were a boy," the alpha of the pack had joked, "We would never play with trash."

The oldest one towered above the girl as if he was a giant, the others grouped around him like lackeys. His face seemed miles away from where she laid crumpled on the ground.

Watch closely, boys," he growled, sneering at her, "this is how you teach a little bitch where she belongs."

His foot came slamming down into her ribs, the bang of them cracking engulfing the memory.

Lexa's eyes peeled open, her head throbbing only like she had ever experienced with access of alcohol. Though this was amplified to the extreme.

She was surrounded by cold stone and poor lighting. Lexa made sure to notice the two shadows of bodies scaling the walls.

She instantaneously squeezed her eyes back shut. No need to be awake in their eyes quite yet.

"This isn't good, Cooper. She should be awake by now." A woman's voice sniped, obviously unhappy.

"I'm not the one who dosed the deadly poison." Another voice retorted, this one quite obviously male.

The woman huffed. "We need her alive. I don't know why she came here or why she knew about us, but I'm not going to question a miracle."

"Princesses do tend to make quite a pretty coin."

"Or," she corrected, "A powerful message."

"That's just like you Amika, always putting..."

Amika interrupted him with the sound of her feet moving away from him, and Lexa braced herself as she felt the vibrations of her feet beside her head.

"Seems like our princess is finally awake, Cooper."