A Salamander, but Mighty

Tamara didn't expect that her life would end like that, I mean, she was just seventeen and she had made big plans for the future, she wanted to become a famous chef, get married and start a large family which she would have never made her feel alone.

And instead she found herself inside an ambulance with the siren sounding at maximum volume, the jolts made it clear that she was going very quickly and next to her there were a man and a woman with white coats stained with blood who were communicating in an emotionally charged but clear manner between them.

“The bleeding doesn't stop, we need more blood,” she heard the man say.

“We're losing her,” the woman replied.

Am I dying? Tamara wondered to herself as she couldn't speak and her body wasn't responding to her commands. The sound of the cardiogram became erratic. I don’t want it! I don’t want it!

But the protests couldn't stop such an event: her consciousness slipped away like sand between her fingers, she sank into a sort of pleasant torpor in which she felt no pain and had the bizarre reassurance that everything was going well...

Now, Tamara wasn't a particularly religious girl in life, perhaps because she was still young, but she had never pondered the question of the afterlife for too long.

So…

Why did she feel the cold marble of a flat floor pressing against her chest and one cheek? And not only that: she was feeling her whole body, with no issue whatsoever. She felt her fingers and toes move on that floor, the blinding light of the place penetrated through her eyelids making her squint for a few seconds before forcing herself to open them.

The large room was mostly white, with large windows so spacious that Tamara would not have been able to touch the edges from right to left even when lying down and not touch the upper edge even when standing on tiptoe. The stained glass windows were made of colored mosaics representing figures and scenes that Tamara could not trace back to any religion she knew, and at the end of the room there was a splendid white gold throne studded with precious gems.

But where was the owner of that throne?

Tamara rubbed her eyes a few times and pressed her elbows and forearms on the ground to at least partially raise her torso.

Her brown eyes met with the green ones of a figure of surprising beauty, a woman dressed in scanty clothes, with trinkets, jewels and precious bracelets on her ankles, wrists and neck. Some necklaces were long and went down almost to the hollow of the breasts, left visible due to the thin silk dresses which allowed us to perfectly guess the elegant dancer's body they covered.

"Hi!" The splendid figure exclaimed, giving Tamara a radiant smile, "you've finally arrived, you can't imagine how long I've been waiting for you!"

Tamara's memory was confused: she remembered that something bad had happened to her, that she was in what looked like an ambulance... were they giving her up for dead? Was she dead? Yet she felt good, certainly not like a person who was dead or dying!

It must also be said that dying is not something that happens often in someone's life and therefore Tamara was not equipped with the adequate knowledge to understand her situation in such a context.

“I suppose you have some questions,” the pretty girl surmised, sitting up on her knees and holding out a hand, “come on, come with me. I'll explain everything to you."

Tamara pursed her lips, “y-yeah, I don't understand what's going on…” she whispered, raising her hand and taking the mysterious woman's hand. The handshake of the other was ethereal, delicate and yet conveyed a great sense of power; her gentle strength was such that she managed to put Tamara on her feet. "What place is this? Who are you? Am I dead?" The third question came out with obvious hesitation.

“Mhm…” The gorgeous girl seemed to think about it, “I'm Lyndvrath, and I'm one of the many goddesses who oversee the world of Tala, this is one of the halls of the Divine Court.”

“Wait a minute… are you that Lyndvrath? And is Tala that Tala?” Tamara interrupted her, the reason was obvious: Tala was the world of a series of adventure books that Tamara had read when she was little, and in that world there was a divinity called Lyndvrath, and an entire court of lesser and greater deities who allied or fought with each other help each others or to put a spoke in the wheels of other deities and things like that. Not that there were deities in those books who didn't do things like that, if anything, the book presented them as very human entities, with strengths and weaknesses.

Lyndvrath winked while still smiling, “sometimes people with a sensitive spirit are able to unconsciously see beyond the veil that separates our realities.”

The next question that arose to Tamara was spontaneous, “but could this mean that…” she swallowed, “that I'm dead, that I'm dreaming about the whole thing and that I'm not really here.”

Lyndvrath rolled her eyes, “I didn't mean to tell you so directly, but yes, you're dead. The fact that you're here means that you're in the veil between worlds, and I have been waiting for a soul like yours to become my champion,” the goddess shook her head, her earrings and long locks of blonde hair swaying, “ it's not a dream. Everything you see is real.”

“That's what someone in my dream might say, too,” Tamara objected.

Lyndvrath stared hard at the girl with an annoyed expression, as if she couldn't fathom why those small and limited mortals weren't able to move past their demise so easily. “Can something like this happen to you in your dreams?”

The goddess grabbed Tamara by the arm, digging her light blue nails into the girl's white skin, the nails then began to lengthen like five icy knife blades that sank a few inches into the flesh at the same time.

Tamara screamed in surprise and pain, no, that wasn't a dream.