Prologue

Sometimes, it seemed as if she'd only been dreaming. Sometimes, when the shadows danced under summer leaves and the sun kissed her skin as she walked, it seemed as if the notions she had labeled as fact and the ones she had labeled as fiction were, in truth, reversed.

Sometimes, she looked back on her memories and was sharply reminded of the times a person dreamed of being awake. Of when the dream was just strong enough, just detailed enough, that when the dreamer actually awoke, they were left disorientated as to which was which.

Perhaps the many years she remembered before becoming Wren were all just the dark conjuring of a fragile mind and had never actually happened. Perhaps this existence; this world, this life, these people, had always been hers and she'd just never realized it.

But then Wren would reach up a hand and finger her scar, a permanent testimony of spilled blood, foolishness, the loss of so much, and the feeling that it had all been a dream would evaporate like drops of water on summer pavement.

No, those years had happened and that world had truly existed. Those people had truly lived, and those hopes and ambitions had really been hers.

And now they were gone forever.

It was at that point in her musings that she would turn away, force herself to stop thinking about the past and look instead to the present. She would run, or pick a fight, or do anything that made her blood sing and the present moment fill her until it had pushed out thoughts of her lost past and locked them carefully away in the most secret parts of her heart. Her past had existed, but it also could not be returned to or changed, so there was no point in dwelling on it.

Especially since if she dwelled on it long enough, that disorientated feeling, like that of a dreamer who could not remember which was reality and which was the dream, would inevitably creep up on her again and force her to wonder over and over one single thing.

If both worlds were real, yet wholly separate and convinced of the fictionality of the other, then which, exactly, was she?

So! Here's the start to my brand new story, Amongst Untrodden Ways! There is only one main OC character in this one, because as much as I love Starwish and Co. and Mira and Co., having an entire main cast of OCs can be a little overwhelming at times. Also, I know the Prologue is really, really short. But I didn't want to place it in the same chapter as Chapter One. Chapter One is longer, don't worry!