Death is imminent. All efforts to retain heat have been utilized, but the cold will take this one. An attempt at timely retrieval has been deemed too inefficient and unlikely to succeed at this stage. Frostbite has progressed beyond easy treatment.

Consciousness has began to fade. Further reports are impossible utilizing the network.

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Suddenly, air fills my lungs again, and my eyes shoot open. Instead of the frozen wasteland I remember surrounding me, I lay in a comfortable bed, in what appears to be a small, one room building with a fire burning in a fire place and various trinkets and a few lanterns hung on the walls. In a chair next to the bed sits a woman. She has long golden blonde hair, as well as sleepy looking green eyes that seem to sparkle like gems in the light.

Many questions flash through my mind. Where am I? Who is this woman? Who am I? But I could not muster up the strength to speak any of them. And, before I could even try, the women starts to speak in a voice reminiscent of a sleepy forest brook.

“Oh, you’re finally awake.” she says, her every word making me feel more alive, “How do you feel?”

Again, I attempted to speak. And, to my surprise, stuttering words came from my lips.

“Wh-who are you? Where am I?”

The woman smiles and raises a golden eyebrow, “I was hoping to know if you were okay, but if you’re sure that you’re well enough for introductions. I am known as Caris. And I have plucked your consciousness from your body for a little chat. Now, who are you?”

I searched my mind for an answer to her question. None of what surfaced was a name however. A word did instead.

Legion.

Vague memories of years as a feared enforcer of the authority of Leiral, ruler of a city-state in the frozen south of the Anti-Crown. Years of my body and mind being molded to be identical to all others in the Legion with the arcane tradition of Leiralian Warping, and years of being taught that same craft to use on others. Years of no identity except the Legion and its Laws, and nothing before that.

The golden woman, Caris, must have noticed my distress. For she interrupts the memories with her healing words.

“You remember then? What you were, and what you were made to do.”

“Y-yes, I do.” I respond weakly. Part of me wondered why she asked who I was if she clearly already knew. Was she just toying with me? Was her soft demeanor just a facade?

“Don’t get too paranoid now, I am not here to harm you. Quite the opposite, in fact.” Caris says in her soothing voice. Clearly my face had given away my distrust of her.

“Why am I here then?” I ask her.

She shakes her head in response, the way a teacher would if her pupil answered a question incorrectly, “You are here to become yourself, my dear. That is why I asked, who are you? Not what you were, who are you now.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. All I could remember was service to Leiral, and the all-consuming homogeneity of the Legion. But then, as a searched my memories, there was a spark. A name. I wasn’t sure where it came from, whether it was mine or someone else’s or just a thought independent of any past.

“L-Lovaria.” I told her, stuttering at first but gaining more confidence as I speak again, “I am Lovaria.”

Caris smiles and claps her hands together, “A beautiful name! It is wonderful to meet you, Lovaria. Now, shall we see to getting you a body more representative of a free woman such as yourself?”

I felt the corners of my lips tug up into a smile for the first time in perhaps my whole existence at the thought of that.

“Yes, let’s see to that.”