Stumbling over twigs and rocks in the pathway -- obstacles he'd not noticed before -- his eyes reeled from the sudden  assault of sunshine. It had been dark only an instant before. Looking wildly, almost blindly around as he struggled to keep his footing, he saw the sunlight explode off the stream bed in the valley below, illuminating the trees and grasslands which had appeared so menacing before.

And then he heard the voice. Impossibly, it called him by name.

"Ander!" It was a woman's voice, loud and insistant, but not shrill. "Do not run! You are in no danger!"

Whirling around now, in mid stride as though his legs continued on the momentum of terror, he stumbled and fell hard against the ground. His head buzzed from the impact as he slowly inched his body up on his hands.

"Ander," he heard again, quietly this time. "Please. Don't be frightened. It was I who brought you here, and just in time, too, from what I can see."

Sitting now in the pathway he'd traveled through an impossibly long night, he saw her approach -- almost tentatively -- from amid the trees just beyond.

She was slight in stature, with pixie-short dark hair and a roundish, well punctuated face. She wore a long dress of a greenish color in a material he couldn't recognize, which caught and threw back the sunlight so that he was forced to momentarily shield his eyes.

"What...?" was all he managed to say, as he backed up and struggled to his feet.

"It was I who called you here," she said again, stopping now a few feet in front of him on the path.

"Where, exactly, is here?" He asked, looking at her more directly now and then casting a sidelong glance at his surroundings.

"No where," she said, "but when.  Actually, you are on the same path you've walked for so long. Almost the same footfall, in fact. I called you to a time before. A time long before. When I saw the creature start to attack you, it was all I could think to do. Hopefully that rashness will not cost us too dearly, but I had to do something before...." She stopped, sensing his confusion and readiness to run again. She held out her hand in a gesture that strangely calmed him.

"Come," she offered. "Rest and food will do much to make this easier for you. Come, Ander."

Looking around again, he brushed dirt from his legs, raked his fingers through his hair, and he shrugged in a decision to follow her. He could think of nothing else to do.