She gazes at the view of trees, mountains and rivers. The sun is warm on her back and the wind is cool on her face.
She smiles, not knowing where she is or how she got there and not caring.
A bird flies by. She IDs it as a falcon.
So beautiful, so free, she thought, feeling completely at peace.
How strange. All these weird things happening and here, I feel so peaceful.
There's a presence by her side, and it has the feel of "friend" to it.
It's Splinter. She smiles at him.
"Hi, Splinter, isn't it nice here?" She greets him.
Splinter smiles at her and nods.
He's about to say something when a cold shadow falls across them both.
They both turn and see the dark figure of the evil Master.
They're all suddenly on flat ground, and the evil one laughs.
Splinter's suddenly in his foot uniform and Diana in a light armor. It reminds her of the armor that Elvin Warriors wear in the fantasy novels that she reads.
They both draw their swords and stand at the ready.
"Hello, Diana, I see you have the sword." the dark one says, totally ignoring Splinter.
Diana doesn't change her expression, she keeps it cold and cautious, saying, "Who are you?"
Splinter and Diana sense amusement from the form.
"I am a nightmare, the very embodiment of your fears. There is no name for me, I am simply The Master," he says, trying to be imposing.
Diana grins, wanting instead to scream and run away in terror, "Really. If you're so all powerful, why do you need me? And why haven't you been able to catch me yet?"
Keeping his expression the same, Splinter smiles internally and thinks, Di has excellent control over her emotions, I wonder if she can teach my sons.
The figure laughs, answering only her first question in a simple statement. "You will have my children."
Diana's eyes darken, and she projects her next thought without even meaning to, "NOT BLOODY LIKELY!!"
The dark one jumps in surprise. Then it sweeps down on Diana who cuts at it with her sword. Splinter cuts its back, and connects in a slice that would have killed, if the blade actually cut through the skin instead of just scraping against the surface.
When Diana's sword makes contact, though, a wicked slash across the chest made when the dark Master's guard was down, there's a scream, like one from a thousand souls in eternal torment, and the dark one disappears.
"Did I kill it?" Raph hears Di ask in a confused voice.
He looks at her again, thinking that she'd woken up, but sees that she's still asleep, though in the slow process of waking up.
Huh, weird, she never talked in her sleep before.
Just then, Splinter walks into the room and sits in a chair to watch Diana wake up.
After a few minutes more, Diana opens her eyes and sits up. She cringes a little when her back decides to pain her a bit.
Splinter and Raph look at her in concern.
She smiles at them, "I'm ok, just sore." She wants to stretch, but doesn't trust the stitches.
"Splinter, I had a dream with you in it, but I have a sneaking suspicion that you already know," she speaks to Splinter with a pensive look on her face.
He nods, "Yes, it seems that you were dream walking in a new realm without realizing it. Was this 'Dark Master' the same creature as in your other dream?"
Diana nods, "Now we know why he wants me, or at least one of the reasons." She shudders at the thought.
I'll kiss my elbow before I have THAT things' kids.
Raph, who had been looking back and forth between the two, finally speaks up, "Would one of you mind telling me what you're talking about? I'm totally lost here."
Diana and Splinter look at each other and can tell that they both think that the others should know.
"I will get the others, they will need to hear this, anyway, Diana needs to have her bandages changed," Splinter says as he was leaving.
Raph's suddenly nervous, he doesn't like doing this stuff.
Needing to do it to what he considered a very attractive young woman didn't help things any, either.
Diana sees his nervousness and slowly stands, being careful of the stitches. She walks over to him and takes his hand.
She looks into his eyes, "It's ok."
Funny how two words can calm a person down.
He softly says, "I believe you."
They slowly draw closer together, and as Raph is putting his arms around her, he accidentally touches her wound.
She sucks in a breath quickly and jerks back from the pain.
"Uh, go sit in that chair an' I'll get the stuff to change you bandages," Raph says apologetically.
"Ok," Di blushes.
Man, how dumb can you get?! Even if we were the same species, it wouldn't work, we're not even from the same reality! Talk about a long distance relationship! Still, he's still pretty cute...
She sighs and Raph comes in with fresh bandages and cleaning stuff.
She leans forward against the back of the chair and rests her head on her forearms as Raph pulls the back of her shirt up enough to take care of the bandages.
"This is gonna hurt," he tells her.
Diana chuckles, "You know, this is definitely a painful reality."
Raph grins, "You said it."
He then takes her bandages off as gently as he could, but can tell it still hurt her by the way she hissed and her muscles tensed.
As he watches, she deliberately relaxes them.
Damn, that's amazing. I knew she had to have a fair amount of muscle, but those just seemed to come out of nowhere!
"What?" Diana asks, "How's it look?"
"Uh? Oh!" Raph says, he must have muttered something before without realizing it. He looks at the wound he's just uncovered.
"Looks like it hurts," he says after a moment.
The wound is still very bruised and there is some dried blood around the stitches, there is also blood soaked into the bandage, but the swelling has gone down a little, there are no signs of infection and it isn't bleeding any more.
"Heh, then it looks like it feels," she says, and held back a yelp when Raph starts to clean it.
"Sorry," he says.
She nods, clenching her fists and doing her best to ignore the pain.
He finishes cleaning the wound, with a sigh of relief from both of them and re-bandages her.
Raph's just easing her shirt down when Splinter enters, followed by the rest of the turtles plus Casey and April.
Everybody settles down and Diana turns herself and her chair around. She sighs in annoyance when her back pains her.
Why couldn't they have shot me in one of my arms? Why the back? Where I can't avoid feeling it! Ug!
She then notices what time it is.
5:30? Great, there goes another day.
She realizes that Splinter is talking then, and she listenes in.
"...and I have found out a little more about our adversary," Splinter says, "though a dream that I joined her in," Splinter turns to Diana and she hears him say, in her head, "Tell them."
She looks at him with surprised eyes, and thinks to him, "Splinter, we have to have a talk."
He just chuckles and Diana grins at him.
She tells them what the dream was, from her point of view.
"When this demon swept down to attack, I tried to cut it with my sword. My blade would not cut, but when Diana's sword cut, it caused pain," Splinter put in when she's done.
Diana doesn't know this and looks at Splinter with wide eyes and then down at her sword.
"I have the feeling that there's a lot more to all of this than we first thought," she comments.
Chapter Nine
Chapter Eleven
Realities Index