The dawn pointed to the horizon, brightening the sky, and beginning to dissolve with moving slowness the dark and surprising spots of the immortal night. From the top of the White Mountain in the west, Ivyne contemplated this daily spectacle, but still as magical, full of hope and serenity. Her white dress painted with blue flowers twirled in the wind and her long silvery hair, glittering like that of the light fairies, danced around her face in a pure and astonishing oval. The deep, magical forest that laid at her feet, populated by all the unimaginable and fantastic creatures, waking up to the light of day. The young emerald-colored leaves, covered with morning drops, shimmered under the sun’s rays, while the trunks of dying trees and the golden leaves harmonized with the gilding of the sun.

Even as a stranger, Ivyne felt a distant and nostalgic echo that inexorably linked her to this vast and enchanting place, awakening a wonderful feeling in her troubled and painful soul. And this incomparable feeling was intensified even more when a delicate but firm hand slipped into hers and held her tightly.

Shocked by an unknown and new emotion, and wondering again who was able to give her such fullness that no words could ever define, the girl turned to the newcomer with light fingers, which aroused so many feelings as confused as well as striking just by his touch.

But something soon dulled her radiant joy because the stranger’s face was blurred and tormented. Despite all Ivyne’s efforts to pierce the abstract veils that hid him from her eyes and her heart, nothing could reveal him. He remained indefinitely trapped in a world of dust clouds that had isolated him from the rest of the universe.

“My world is fabulous, isn’t it Azura?”

The girl frowned. “Yes, it is”. She admitted, confused. “But you’re wrong. My name is not Azura.”

“It isn’t?” he asked only for the form.

“Yes, it isn’t.” she reinforced, stung to the heart. “I think I remember hearing you use that name before. But no matter how many times you call me that, I’m not Azura. And I never will be.”

Then the stranger made a strange sound.

“I see..." So you really have forgotten." She guessed his shrug, "I guess forgetting is as good a way as any to heal."

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. But as you said, your kingdom is fantastic.”

“As always, even for things so awful they shouldn't exist.” The unknown noted sardonically. “But it’s too bad you didn’t feel that way about me. You swore so many things to me like an everlasting love, but in the end, it all burnt.”

Ivyne shook her head, hurt.

“And I do think you should explain yourself, since apparently that's what you want to do so badly, before giving you the right to insult me like that."

"I tried to do it. I’ve done it so many times, I’ve lost the number. But you never agreed to listen."

"I didn’t hear your voice!" Ivyne defended herself, furious.

"No, you just didn’t want to!" The stranger replied in the same way. "That is a big difference. Just because you guessed that it would disturb your life."

"Maybe," Ivyne said, upset. "But now I’m here, in front of you. I have no chance of running away. Then start your story."

"That’s what I was going to do."

"But first of all, I would prefer that the judger sovereign that you are does not hide behind this veil of untearable mist. Show yourself in the light of day, and reveal what you want me to know so much."

But the sovereign, without answering, remained in darkness.

"I told you to show yourself and talk!" Ivyne insisted angrily.

"You were there when I was asked to do it," the sovereign ended up saying, “but unfortunately we were both…too powerless.”

“I certainly don’t understand any of the treacherous words that come out of your mouth.”

“Oh, really?” he sneered unbearably.

“Yes,” she replied savagely. “But finally, tell me clearly what you want! What you expect from me!”

"If it depended on my only choice, nothing."

Then Ivyne felt the hand she was holding cool and become as cold as the polar breeze.

“Oh, the time for us to be together is over again.” The stranger declared as if nothing mattered anymore.

Instinctively, Ivyne tried to restrain him, but the ruler’s hand became so blue and icy that Ivyne had to release him screaming in pain, and the clouds of dust around him became suffocating, violent, and reddened with blood.

Ivyne screamed helplessly, desperately trying to do something to save the unknown ruler. But all her attempts ended in dreadful failure. Then, just as suddenly, the earth beneath her feet shook and cracked everywhere. The blue sky became covered with black clouds and the shining sun disappeared into the darkness. The creatures, the flourishing nature cried out in agony before falling into a terrible sleep.

The kingdom that this secret stranger said he loved so much died slowly and tears filled the air. Everything had become dark, even darker than the night.

Ivyne stretched out her hands, desperate and lost, towards the imposing glowing red mass which spread strongly and became the sovereign’s envelope of ashes.

“What’s going on? What’s happening to you?” she shouted desperately to the unknown prisoner, who presented himself relentlessly as an endearing and so torn memory. “Everything dies and disappears, even you!”

“You know, if you want things to change, you have to make sure you remember. We knew each other so well. We wished that the time would never end.”

“But I’m not Azura!” she repeated in her broken voice. “How many times do I have to tell you that? I don’t know this place and I don’t know you!”

But the answer that came back tirelessly was as clear as it was certain.

“Of course you do. You’re Azura, you liked that name very much.” he sighed. “We were there, living peacefully, and then the darkness came. It took everything away.”

He stopped for a moment, his breath weakening.

“It was sad and inevitable. You just forgot, that’s all. Azura, please stop being like that and pull yourself together, it's very important.”

Ivyne shook her head again, backing away.

“I wonder what I’m doing? I’m talking to you when everything here may be just a dream! And you never existed!”

“In a way, it would have been better for you, Azura.” he acquiesced to Ivyne’s confusion. “But please remember otherwise we'd never be able to free ourselves.”

Blood spurted out of the huge red mass and flowed from everywhere. Rales of agony broke out from his ashen prison and tore the whole kingdom apart. Then his blood darkened and mixed with the torrential rain that eventually poured out of the raging sky and slowly plunged all around into a black sea.

“See you later, Azura.”

Ivyne shouted the name of the stranger, but he had already returned to a world she could no longer reach. She believed that her heart would die out and thought that she never knew as in those moments, even if everything had to be defined only as a dream, more pain.

And when the mists of Ivyne’s dream finally faded and she woke up on her bed with purple sheets, like the long curtains of the door window that hid the morning light, tears that seemed inexhaustible ran down her face.

“I’m sorry, I’m really sorry.” the girl whispered again against him even though he had long since dissipated, under the veil of morning light. “But you’re wrong, I’m not Azura.”

***

Ivyne Raot remained prostrate on the black wooden chair of her balcony, her orange satin dress in light veil, floating in the light morning breeze, she contemplated the big lively and colorful city that stretched straight ahead of her. Her long blonde hair almost white, always stunningly catching the rays of the sun, swirled around her pure face, she relived her last vision, that dream so intense and so horrible that had shaken her to the very depths of her being and yet she was unable to push it back.

Again and again, she thought tirelessly of those terrible and incomprehensible dreams that had appeared to her one evening on her way home from a party with friends and which have since never ceased to haunt her. Although she had never believed in such incredible fantasies, she finally had to agree that magical things really do exist.

That day, she went to a friend’s birthday party who had always made advances to her, to which she would only respond at her whim, while her heart remained as cold as winter nights. She wanted to meet her friends and have fun with them. Alas, her suitor, if one can call him that, had thought the opposite, and had almost harassed her all evening, praising her for her wonderful beauty, accentuated even more by her short trapezoidal dress of a light blue, thickened with a shiny veil.

Whatever it was, and no matter how much she flirted and played cruel games to escape better, she always hated the touch or the boys’ interests in her person. Her friends were always aware of this despicable part of her, just like her mother. They have all tried to understand this because it has not always been part of her nature. But somewhere, for some inexplicable reason, it had become hers. As she returned from that feast where Ivyne had once again broken the heart of a desperate boy, she felt something strange on the way, the caress of the cold wind, the smell of the earth or the beauty of the starry night were more pronounced than usual, and something grabbed her and opened a door inside her.

She stopped in the middle of the road and saw a boy squatting in front of her, wearing a long golden coat, an intense rain of bright and transparent feathers falling all around him. He was bleeding profusely. His large body was bending in pain, and then straightening up as he approached the girl, his hands stretched out towards her.

Then the wounded blond boy looked at her and his tormented smile was the only thing she could detect.

“I finally found you.”

The deep, magical voice and the terrible aura that surrounded him shocked Ivyne thoroughly and made her back away in horror.

“Please, help me. Please! I beg you, Azura! I finally got to you.”

But Ivyne, not listening to him, not understanding anything, backed away even more.

“No,” she whispered, terrified, shaking her head.

“Azura!”

“No,” she replied tirelessly.

“Azura, help me, I beg you, help us.”

The stranger’s voice became even more shaken and desperate as he tried to touch it. But the girl didn’t want to know anything.

“No, don’t come any closer, go away!” she was finally able to scream.

The sounds of furious horns woke her from that terrible dream and without the help of her friends, she would have been violently hit by a drunk driver, zigzagging on both sides of the road and spitting out all the existing insults to express his fury.

“Honey, what happened to you?” asked her friends who were furious at both her and the immoral driver. “You could have killed yourself, you know that at least!”

But Ivyne was having trouble getting back to reality. She kept looking at the place where the damn boy was standing for just a moment.

“But the boy was there, wounded, asking me for help, and I, I...” she tried to explain, still all turned upside down from that mysterious apparition.

“What are you talking about?”

They all looked at the place Ivyne showed them.

“You saw him too, didn’t you? Did you all see him kneeling there?”

But her friends only looked at each other without understanding and replied kindly.

“There was no boy Ivyne. There were only you, far away, standing in the middle of the road, visualizing something, with a deadly pallor.”

“And you still are.”

Ivyne shook her head. She didn’t want to believe in a vision. More like a dream, no doubt. A very clear dream, swept away by a pathetic man’s car.

“But he was there!” she still insisted, her throat sore, tightened by emotion.

“You only dreamt about, Ivyne. Probably sleepwalking.”

“You should really consult,” exclaimed one of her friends, joking happily. It’s very dangerous.”

“Not as much as you,” replied the young girl, indignant, behaving in such a way as to make the problem disappear. “That’s why I had this “seizure”.”

Then the friends continued on their way, chatting like a broken music box, the incident already forgotten, except for Ivyne of course. But she kept her secret. A secret that seemed to be understood only by her.

And since that day, the boy has never left her again.

***

The next morning, the morning before her birthday, tired after another night when the boy almost tore off her skin, as his embrace was so intense, Ivyne smoothed her silky hair, looking up to let the morning rays of light caress her face and skin, then decided to leave the bed no longer knowing what to do.

She felt so wearied because of the dreams, so incomprehensible and heartbreaking, which continued unceasingly to suffocate her and invade her entire existence, even to kill her internally. Openly mocking her powerlessness, they tirelessly poured from obscure and inexhaustible sources. They had appeared without reason and without any certainty only to destroy her person. Ivyne’s optimism had first led her to believe that this “phenomenon” would only last for a breath, that it was only the result of her imagination too rich in tales and fantasy stories, her fault for loving them so much. But now, knowing that it had nothing to do with her overly fertile dream mind, the girl had gradually lost her mind. Thus, countless questions began to haunt her, and to blacken her existence, slowly extinguishing her cheerfulness. But who wouldn’t have asked these questions she noted? Always wondering what one really was? A normal being or a person destined for great things that should be revealed to you at some point, and probably in a very hurtful way. This frightened her greatly.

Nothing but questions, so annoying and completely ridiculous that would sound as false to other people’s ears as they did to her own. And the answers were inconceivable. Besides, who should Ivyne ask them to ? And how should she do it? She thought ironically, completely lost.

She didn’t even dare to imagine how her mother and her friends would react if she finally decided to talk to them about it. In fact, she didn’t know how to approach the problem, And finally, she doubted that any one of them, no matter how clairvoyant or open-minded, could ever help her discover the truth. At worst, they will believe that she had lost her way and pretended to draw attention to herself.

A deep and unknown place somewhere in Ivyne’s soul was painful and the suffering spread slowly, mercilessly. But that wasn't all, there was also fear. Fear of the unknown and of the total lack of control over something's existence. And whether it’s a good thing or not, it will be unstoppable.”

And the girl was right. Over time, the boy’s presence intensified and deepened. It had even become so strong that the girl finally forgot about life as she understood it. These fantastic visions had totally invaded her life, to the point of taking everything away from her even her smile. From that moment on, she could neither escape nor forget herself. It was impossible from the beginning. And one evening, her visions so harassing began to take shape in her body and became a curse.

This night was different from all the others. It was the night of Ivyne's eighteenth birthday. It waas special. She felt special. The smell of the night was incredible.

Ivyne had decided to spend this evening with her beloved mother. She loved her friends, but she'd seen them during the day. The evening was for Lyre Raot.

She'd changed from her short candy-pink veil dress to a jumpsuit that left her back bare. She'd pulled her hair up into a sophisticated bun on her head then picked up the bag her friends gave her, and she was ready.

"Are you ready, darling?"

"Yes, I'm coming, Mom!"

After one last look in her mirror, which took up half the bathroom wall, the young woman left her room and went downstairs to join her mother in the living room.

She felt agitated, because a few seconds earlier, she had seen him reflected in the mirror for a brief moment through the mists he seemed so fond of, then whispered to her how beautiful she looked, just like the last time.

What last time, Ivyne wondered as she walked towards her mother, who had opted for a denim ensemble that looked good on her. She had decided to let her hair down.

The two women looked at each other and admired each other, a tender smile on their lips.

"Beautiful, darling!"

"You don't look bad yourself, Mom!"

Ivyne looked around and exclaimed in astonishment.

"And Dad, he told me this morning that he was finally going to go out with us!"

"And finally, he decided to stay home and fix the circuit breaker. Anyway, he understood perfectly well that he understood nothing about women and therefore nothing about what we desire for tonight."

"Poor Daddy," was the only remark the young girl made with an adorable little grimace. "Well, if we're ready, then let's go, dear Mom."

"No, wait." said her mother, picking up two tiaras from the table that her daughter hadn't noticed.