2 Chapter 2 Waking Up

Liliana woke to pain fluctuating throughout her entire body. She could feel the power of the lightning strike flowing through her veins creating chaos as it went. Liliana took a deep breath and focused on her body to access it's condition.

As she focused a strange thing happened to the energy. It seemed to make a connection with her consciousness and calmed to a peaceful flow. Liliana had the feeling that it needed a place to go and settle down.

Thinking back to a book she had read in her childhood years she recollected a mention of cultivating power through your dantian. Keeping her body as relaxed as possible she focused on the power to circulate it through her veins. The power trickled into the dantian located in the core of her body where it seemed to start to be slowly digested.

Liliana seemed to spend days in this state till it was all collected to fill her dantian and slowly be absorbed by her body. When she finally opened her eyes she was slow to sit up due to the stiffness of her body. Liliana stretched and loosened her muscles as she weakly stood to take in her surroundings.

She seemed to be in a dark and slightly damp cave. Her guess would have been that the crashing waves had swept her into the cave so she had miraculously survived. The problem with that theory was how deep into this cave she was.

When looking around the cave she discovered a faint glow against the far wall. When slowly approaching she discovered a type of pedestal with a massive egg situated on it. Liliana frowned as she studied the egg. It was to large to belong to any of the creatures known in the world. It was a dark green in colour and seemed to have an almost scale-like texture to its shell. She had a nagging feeling of worry that she was no longer on her own world. The glow seemed to come from a ring of strange writing circling the center of the egg.

This did not seem like a good thing to her so Liliana turned around to leave the cave. She had only taken a step when she seemed to feel something calling her. Pausing curiously she turned back to the egg and felt her new power react. With a new determination she approached the egg end reached out to touch it. 'In the worst case scenario,' she thought with an level smile, I haven't eaten for awhile and am quite hungry.'

Reaching out her hand she finally came into contact with the eggs hard surface. It turns out that the surface really did feel like scales and they were extremely sharp to. Liliana accidentally cut the side of her palm on a sharp edge and her blood dripped onto the surface.

As she watched in astonishment the blood was sucked into the surface and the glow suddenly intensified from the runes covering its center. The expression on Lilianas face grew darker as she watched these changes occur. With every change she became more certain that she was now in a different world. A white beam of light shot from her forehead to the egg and cracks began to form. She felt a connection form between herself and whatever entity was within the egg.

With a burst of explosive power the shell shattered and flew in every direction. Liliana ducked to avoid the worst of it but still ended up with some scratches of varying degrees covering her body. Still it was preferable to being hit with any of the larger shards. She noticed one of the larger pieces embedded in the cave wall and scowled.

The glow disappeared and in its place on the pedestal there was a small Emerald green creature staring at her. It reminded her of a Phoenix in appearance but was coated in scales rather than feathers. It was to bird-like to be a dragon and yet to dragon-like to be a bird.

It made a trilling sound as it struggled to stand and tumbled off the pedestal. Liliana watched curiously as it shook its small head and stumbled its way over to stand before her. She was still annoyed about the shards that had scratched her and torn her clothes.

As she studied the holes she also took note of the design of what she was wearing. She wore a leather skin shirt with an almost armour like quality to it and matching pants tucked into a pair of sturdy boots. A tough corded belt with a dagger and a pouch was tied around her waist and a furred cloak was around her shoulders. The clothing seemed to be well made but not of a very good quality. She had not noticed the change in clothing earlier but now she had she took in the other changed as well.

Her hands were smaller then they had been and the ground seemed closer to. There were also numerous wounds covering her body that were half healed as well. She was obviously not who she once was. While she had been distracted the little creature had made its way over to her and started to rub its head against her leg as it turned its adoring gaze towards her.

Liliana frowned in annoyance, "Did this thing imprint on me as its mother?" With nothing else in the cave to interest her Liliana started to leave without looking back. All her focus was on figuring out what kind of place she now found herself in. Truth be told there was a feeling of relief at being released from her old life.

As she left the creature twittered in distress and started to follow her as best it could calling all the way. Liliana paused and looked back at the struggling figure. "Oh well, come on then. Seeing as I was the one who hatched you I suppose you are now my responsibility." It was inconvenient as she did not even know how she would feed herself for the time being let alone what this little guy actually ate.

"I suppose you will need a name," Liliana lapsed into though about what would be a good name. Studying it she realised it was likely a girl but one never knew in a new world. She would just have to take her best guess at it for now. "Kayda will do for now as you do look a bit like a dragon but also like a phoenix." At the very least Kayda would be a companion on her new journey.

Liliana was surprised at a joyous feeling when naming Kayda. It seemed to come from the little creature instead of herself. "That was you wasn't it?" Kayda seemed to understand her words and twittered again in agreement.

Liliana was still surprised but she decided that in a new world she would have to just take things in stride and accept them. She remembered the connection that formed between them when Kayda hatched and felt a slight warmth towards her. "Time to go Kayda. We will have to figure out how to survive in this place together." After saying this Liliana bent to pick up Kayda before leaving the cave to explore and learn.

Liliana would have to learn from scratch but she was determined that eventually she would reach the top of this world as well. Only the strong could truly protect themselves. This was a lesson she had learnt in her past life and one she could never forget.