Theo, short for Theophilus, Brendovin, stood on the edge of a gorgeous valley in the Appalachian range, soaking in the view. It was a beautiful, if slightly nippy, mid-spring afternoon, mostly clear blue skies with a cloud floating by now and then.

Theo was 5'11, 165 lbs., 19 years old, with strawberry blond hair just touching the tops of his shoulders. He had been born on Midsummer's Eve almost twenty years before, and lived with his mother; Daddy went MIA on his second army tour in Iraq three years ago.

Nine days before, he had felt the need to get away from things for a while. The recent death of his mother's mother, Theodora Bretowitz, had affected him more than he had expected; it wasn't her death that was the issue, but what she had said to him just hours before she died.

You see, Theodora had a bit of the gift, now and then, she could see strong glimpses of what might be the future. She had said three things:

1) Theo had a VERY significant amount of the gift, as the seventh child of a seventh child... if he had only been a girl was her first comment;

2) Somehow, Theo was about to start a whole new adventure. She could not see where, exactly, but it WOULD happen, and soon; and

3) She had quoted a verse of an old prophecy from the family's beginnings in the twelfth century, it went something like this:

Seventh daughter of a seventh daughter,
She shall hold all the worlds in her hands.
She will wield power such as none have seen,
And the justice of the lands is hers to give.

Theo shook his head, there was no way that verse could be about him, his mother Avenita was a seventh daughter, but he was a boy; even though he was a child of a seventh child, it clearly stated the person would be female.

He looked out over the beautiful valley again, then turned and continued walking up the mountain trail.

After another four or five hours of hiking, and a small meal of trail rations and water from a nearby stream, he looked further up the trail. It appeared to be much steeper ahead than what he had already climbed to this point. He knew he would be smart to go slowly now.

Just as he was about to start up the trail again, he had a very strong hunch; he'd grown to trust his hunches over the years, and this one was telling him that he would need the helmet his great-grandfather Alexandrov had worn in the Second World War.

He pulled out the helmet, looked at it for a moment, then put it on and made sure the strap was snug beneath his chin.

He resumed his walk up the mountain; a little over an hour later, the mountain trembled, a minor earthquake, or a warning of one?

He wasn't sure, and nothing happened for several minutes, so he kept going until he was about to pass by a huge boulder on his right.

That was when the world, or his view of it at least, went completely upside down; the mountain HEAVED, his feet literally were a foot or more off the ground as the big quake hit, then he was falling, and his head, in the helmet, struck the huge boulder quite hard on the way down.

**********

Some time had passed, he thought; he winced as he tried to sit up, feeling the helmet, he gasped as his fingers discovered the deep split in it. He appeared to have been quite lucky; thanks to the helmet, he was still alive, and he couldn't feel any blood on his head.

Things, though, were not quite the same, colours were different somewhat, such as the grass having a faint purplish hue, the rock nearby being a darker grey-blue than it had been before that godawful quake had struck from nowhere, and he himself felt a bit odd.

He decided to just sit and relax, maybe he would feel a bit better in a little while.

He wasn't sure how much time had passed, but he could see that the sky was darkening toward evening when he heard sounds coming from farther up the mountain. Strange, it sounded like a wagon, he didn't think the paths here were big enough for wagons.

He decided that it would cost him nothing to wait, so wait he did. A short while later, the sounds became clearer, and looking up, he saw a large wagon coming down a path on the other flank of the mountain that he could have sworn was not there earlier. The wagon was being pulled by six large horses, well, they looked like horses, but they were huge, easily bigger than the biggest Clydesdale he'd seen at the county fairs as a child years ago. Not only that, but they were a purplish blue in colour, with two rather long straight horns on their heads.

Now he knew that he must be hallucinating, bicorns just didn't exist. Nosirree, Bob!

**********

The man driving the wagon looked ahead as he steered the heavy wagon around the corner near the huge rock. Just as the wagon started to go by the rock, he looked down and saw a girl sitting there beside it. On her head was a strange head cover, split nearly in half.

He had looked away, ready to continue down the trail towards the towns below, when his head snapped back around to the girl.

Could she be the one foretold, he wondered? The prophecy said she would have odd things on or with her, that head cover sure was one. That same prophecy said that the girl in question would come from another world, a completely unknown world to his people.

He pulled back on the heavy reins. "Hai!, Hold, you scurvy krants, HOLD!" He looked down at the girl again as the wagon stopped.

"Lass, are you well? Your head cover looks to have taken horrible grief. Lass? Lass?"

**********

What had this man just called him? Lass? Why? Theo lifted his hands to his chest, and discovered WHY he had felt so odd.

Theo stood shakily, reached between his legs, discovered THAT particular new fact of life, and his tenuous grip on reality shattered.

He screamed, again and again and again, his/her voice rising higher and higher, the screams turning to earsplitting shrieks. At one point, the extremely high pitch of the screams brought a new reaction: the huge rock shattered, sending thousands of tiny knives through the air.

Many of the sharp bits of the rock hit Theo, who was still shrieking at the top of his/her lungs. The wagon driver cowered, covering his ears; he himself was lucky, the wagon was between him and the now shattered rock, he'd find some shredded items in the wagon later.

Several minutes later, Theo stopped screaming; she looked around briefly (seeking something?), then crumpled bonelessly to the ground.