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In the Olden Days, the Dark Days, the Times of Prophecy, it came to pass that a young girl by the name of H'rleen Q'inzel – known as Harley to her friends – was born under auspicious circumstances and ordained by Fate to become the Chosen One to defeat the Dark Knight Lord whose name must not be spoken, thus saving the World from his Gloom.
Now, neither she nor the Village she grew up in were aware at first of the special destiny that awaited her when she was a woman grown. Indeed, even the Strangers traveling through her Village in search of the Chosen One, so that they may tutor and guide him on his journey, found themselves hard-pressed to believe that it was her they had been seeking all along. After all, it was customary for the Chosen One to be male. However, the Strangers conceded that the girl was tomboyish enough for their purpose, for she clad herself in breeches and linen shirts, climbed the tallest trees and beat the boys in her Village with her fists and sticks, all of which was unbecoming for a lady.
So the Strangers bore the girl away from her friends and family, which was not her real family, for she had been found an orphan and taken in by goodly people. This was not known to her, although her appearance, with her skin the fairest ivory and her hair the color of spun gold, was unlike that of her fellow Villagers, who were dark-haired and ruddy-faced, and had been much commented upon in her infant days.
For a time, the girl traveled with the Strangers, who were determined to have her follow the Prophecies to the letter, even though the Prophecies spoke of Him instead of Her – although Scholars would point out that this might have resulted from carelessness in the translation from the Ancient Tongue, which did not distinguish between gender and which was so different from the tongue spoken today that few people could hazard a guess at its meaning. The Prophecies themselves were not complete and that which had survived throughout the Ages had been composed in cryptic language which baffled even those well-versed in the lore. Soothsayers and Foretellers would have done everyone involved a great favor had they recorded their predictions in coherent language, yet unclear had been the message even to them.
(In another Age, these same Oracles would have been deemed mentally ill or high on substances that altered their perception. Luckily for them, they had lived in a time of Magic, when the the Visions they had seen had been accepted as Gifts from the Creator and not a chemical imbalance in the brain.)
Harley, unknowledgeable in the ways of Prophecy, wondered whether this strict adherence to the events as outlined in the stanzas was necessary – if her destiny really was that of the long-awaited Chosen One, should not the Foretellings come true regardless of where she went and what she did first, especially since the lore was incomplete? Now that she was beyond the boundaries of the commune she had known all her life, a sense of adventure gripped her and she had a mind to see the farthest reaches of the land before this was all over. The Strangers, however, who became less strange as the days passed, told her that time was of the essence and dallying not an option.
They traveled through the lands where skin color and mannerisms dictated nationality, and variation of speech only changed with the crossing of borders. Every territory in the Great Kingdom had its own style of dress and hair that made it recognizable. Harley marveled at the mansions and palaces with their tall spires that shimmered in the sunlight and reached for the heavens. Before leaving her Village she would not have deemed such masonry possible. The tallest building at home, the Mayor's office, was two storeys high and thatched with straw, which proved unfortunate in bad weather, for it burst aflame when lightning struck.
On her journeys, Harley got to know many strange folk. There was the dwarf by the name of Tony, who shod her horse and who was in love with the Giantess Queenie. She crossed paths with the One-eyed Marksman, famed throughout the land for his skill with firearms. She met the Emerald Archer and his companion the Dark Songbird. She fought with the one who traveled on the Wings of Night, and who was a henchman of the Dark Knight Lord whose name must not be spoken. She was invited to the court of the Mad Prince, who liked to torture his own Knights by flaying them or boiling them alive in their own armor and whom she – you guessed it, dear reader – fell madly in love with.
Until he slayed her companions and locked her up in his dungeons.
But even that was according to Prophecy, so she endured it.
Yet all of these encounters are not pertinent to this story and shall be told another time.
There came a day, when she, weary from her long travels, entered the Great Woodlands at the edge of the Great Kingdom, which was the only way by which to enter the land of the Dark Knight Lord whose name must not be spoken. The wood elves of the Forest welcomed her heartily for they had Foreseen her coming. There was a great banquet at which the food items were described at great lengths.
When it was time for Harley to continue on her journey, the wood elves packed her food for three days, consisting of apples and bread and some sort of cheese which was not made of the milk of animals but of beans, because wood elves owned no cattle nor consumed anything that originated not from the Forest itself.
They gave her directions to the Enchanted Forest, which lay at the heart of the Great Woodlands, where she must go according to Prophecy, and where she might find the Lady of the Green, who had been tending to the Trees of Life for millennia and who knew all about the ways of the world, or at least that world which was covered in verdant life. The wood elves also cautioned her that the purity of her intentions would be tested, for none whose Heart was clouded ever made it out of the Enchanted Forest alive.
Harley imagined a wizened old hag from the description the wood elves had provided and was not little surprised to find a woman young in years and exceptional in beauty to greet her at the mouth of the Enchanted Forest. She took her for a disciple of the Lady of the Green at first, although the wood elves had mentioned the Lady was a lone creature.
"As the tree reneweth its leaves, so doth the Forest renew me," explained the woman as though she had read the question on Harley's mind. "The Green hath told me of your coming, stranger. What is it that thou seekest?"
"The Wisdom of the Ancients," quoth Harley, like her hosts the wood elves had advised.
"I have seen it through the Green. Throughout thy journey, thou hast been faced with many a temptation, great riches, sumptuous food and drink, the promise of True Love, yet thou hast withstood the beckoning of them all. Thy intentions seem pure, yet there is a speck of darkness on this Heart of thine."
"What, oh Lady of the Green, does this speck mean?"
"It is a touch of evil as left by the Mad Prince whom thou hast encountered and fallen in love with. Such cannot be if thou intendest to continue on thy journey."
"How, oh Lady of the Green, may I rid myself of this speck?"
"'Tis simple: stay with me, and I may cure thee of it."
So drawn in was she by this enchanting Lady, whose flame-red hair was a stark contrast to the luscious green leaves she clad herself with, that Harley wanted nothing more than to stay with her forever. Yet she was reminded of the advice the wood elves had given her.
"Wait but a moment, oh Lady of the Green – as much as I am prepared to give up the world for you, I cannot but wonder: is this another test?"
Harley was becoming weary of those. Had she known what hardships and occasional boredom lay in front of her, she might not have gone on this journey after all.
"If it is, please allow us to be brief, for I am told there is but little time." Doomsday Clock was ticking. She ought not to be dallying
The Lady of the Green smiled a secretive smile and caressed Harley's cheek with her fingers and the green tendrils entwining them. "Observant thou art, traveler, yet I have told thee I cannot let thee go until this speck hath been cleansed from thy heart."
The Lady of the Green touched her grass-colored lips to Harley's red ones and the wish to stay grew ever more pronounced. Harley muttered something which might translate to the modern reader as "Screw the world." If this was indeed what she had to do, the Dark Knight Lord whose name must not be spoken was going to have to wait until Harley was ready to face him.