Ana felt a soft light touching her face. She instantly opened her eyes to see a clear blue sky above her. She tried moving her body, making herself up. What she noticed was a vast field of grass which was covered with some small variety of multicolored flowers. Still seated on the comfy grass she rubbed her eyes trying to remember what had happened. Mnmh…where am I? What happened to me? She muttered to herself, when Ana suddenly noticed her body wasn’t that of a 5year old anymore. And her dress. It was the kind of dress she had worn to school in her previous life. A dark blue sailor uniform. She felt her hair, which seemed to be black again and tied in a small ponytail with a red ribbon. What’s going on here? The last thing I remember was me running after that strange light and entering some strange room of the royal library. Yes, that’s it. The strange light. That might be what brought me here.

Ana- no, Rukia stood up. She took a better look around her. The place was so vast it felt as if she was in an ocean of flowers. Now she could see a clearer view of the blue sky, which made her think she was in some sort of other dimension. There were distant planets visible all over the sky, some far away. Some so close, Rukia could feel their mass. It was as if you’d see many daytime moons, but what was different was that all these planetary objects looked like, no they were, huge cubes. Instead of being round spheres.

Her nose caught a whiff of a sweet aroma. It was the smell of macaroons and biscuits. She has always had a knack for sweets which is why she recognized the smell. It seemed close. By scanning the surrounding a bit more she saw what looked like a little hut in the distance. Rukia headed that way.

The sweet aroma grew stronger and stronger as she got close to the strange hut. It was a blue hut which you could also call a shade because it only had a roof, a blue cloth standing on four poles. Underneath it was a round table. On it were nicely arranged courses of sweets and savories placed orderly on round racks. Three teacups were placed in front of each chair, and a glass teapot which had a yellow flower floating in its contents. Floral tea? So, it was the smell of this tea I got earlier. Quite the strong smell it has. Wonder how it tastes…

Rukia, without her knowing, was drooling over the sweets laid orderly on the table. Without thinking twice, she grabbed a fine macaroon and took a small bite as if not sure it was real. It was the tastiest macaroon she ever had. She took another larger bite. And before she took the third bite, she heard three distinct voices from behind her.

“Well, well looks like we have a guest today.”

“An uninvited guest.”

“A guest with bad manners.”

Rukia turned around with surprise, almost choking herself, to see three beautiful women standing in front of her. Each one of them wore a frock which looked like each other but in a different colour each, red, green, and blue.

“Let us have a seat.”

Saying, the lady in blue snapped her fingers and suddenly Rukia was seated on a chair. The other three ladies were seated on chairs both beside her and across her. They were calmly sipping tea as if they were not surprised by their sudden guest.

“Oh, please have a cup of tea”, the lady in green offered her a cup filled with some kind of fragrant tea. “Would you like some honey in it?”, she asked. Then, poured in some honey on Rukia’s request, and produced it to her with a lovely smile on her face.

Rukia, thinking this might be some weird dream, decided to go along with whatever happened. She took the teacup close to her and started steering the tea and honey.

“Rukia, or might I say Annastasia…” the lady in blue said, making Rukia stop what she was doing, “Are you harboring on your previous life?”

Rukia sipped some tea.

“Can you make me forget my previous life?”, Rukia asked almost hesitantly.

“I fear that can’t be done”, said the lady in green.

“You see kiddo”, said the lady in red who was silent all this time, “You were given a second chance and was brought to this world by the principles. They decided for some reason to keep your memories.”, she continued.

“Principles?”, Rukiya asked.

“Beings whose existence is a mystery to us as well.”, said the lady in green.

Rukia was confused.

“Well, they can’t be called beings either, they are mere existences moderating us.”, said the lady in blue.

“Uh…. Okay okay, so the principles you say.”

“Yes?”, answered all three in unison.

“As Anastasia, I have a faint memory of seeing some odd looking faceless being when I was a baby. I thought it was a dream, same as right now, I think this is a dream. But that thing I saw is it the principles you mention here?”

“Well, it’s fine of you to think of this as a dream as well, anyways answering your question the faceless being you saw was most definitely not the principles.”, Replied the lady in blue.

“I see…”

“But we know what they were. They were the elements of this world formed as one being. They granted you the power to control all elements of this world,” said the lady in green.

“But isn’t it useless? I can’t use magic. As I read in a book, don’t we need at least one variant of magic to channel the power of elements?”, asked Rukia.

“Oh, you know your stuff cutie. That is exactly why you are here.”, answered the lady in blue.    

“Huh?”

“We have been instructed by the principles to grant you the ability to control all variants of magic.”, said the lady in red.

“All variants? Wait wait wait, first of all who exactly are you three and where am I? This isn’t a dream, is it?”, asked Rukia.

“My apologies dear, we didn’t properly introduce ourselves, did we? “Well, we don’t have any given name in specific, but you could call us THE COLOURS OF MAGIC.”, said the lady in green.

Rukia was speechless, unable to compute the whole situation.

“Back to the topic, we have a small problem in giving you access to all variants.”, said the lady in red.

“And what would that be?”, said Rukia giving up on trying to understand the situation.

“Now normally in this world there are ones that are only able to use three variants of magic, combining them with three types of elements which is also very rare. Normally you’d have one variant and one element randomly assigned upon birth.”, said the lady in blue.

“But in your case.” continued the lady in green “It’s quite the anomaly. Due to you having access to all the elements, as soon as youre given access to magic your mana veins shall start combining with each other and mutating to channel the power of all elements at once.”

“With Anastasia’s current frail body, you won’t be able to hold that enormous amount of energy in. Eventually you’d explode.”, said the lady in red.

“So, just don’t give it to me.”, Rukia replied with the most obvious answer she could give.

“No can-do sweetie if the principles say so, you do it.”, said the lady in blue.

She then came closer to Rukia, making her a bit awkward. Rukia moved backwards, but the lady in blue with her wide blue eyes softly ran her hands through Rukia’s ponytail.

“You look like him, black hair…”, she muttered.

“Huh?”

“Ahh, it’s nothing! Your hair looks pretty.”, saying, the lady in blue backed up.

Rukia touched the tip of her ponytail as if fearing the lady had done something strange to it.

“Okay back to topic”, the lady in red said. “As we are unable to go against the principles, the three of us discussed a strategy in which we would grant you access to all variants. You would be able to use one element and one variant at a time, and to use the other you should completely stop using the one in use. So, no simultaneous use of elements.”

“This is just a temporary ban, till your body gets stronger. So don’t even think of using two elements at once.”

“You’ll hurt yourself.”

Rukia just nodded to everything thy said. What was she even supposed to say?

“And one more thing”

“Theres more?”

“We would like to help you with your memories.”

“And how would that be?”, Rukia asked after a great amount of silence.

“Well. We shall keep the specific portion of your memory here with us. You would only have a faint memory of your previous life.”

“But this is temporary as well, remember we can’t go against the principles. One day that you regain all those memories, be prepared.”

The atmosphere became a bit tense for a split second. Rukia stood up from her chair as if ready to leave for her own world.

“Well, if it works then, why not.”, she replied with a faint smile on her face. She was still doubting this.

The three ladies looked a bit surprised for a moment, then looked at each other, smiled and nodded their heads as in agreement.

“Okay then, it is done.”

“You may leave through that door”, said the lady in green pointing towards an old white door that had suddenly appeared behind Rukia.

Placing her hand on the doorknob, Rukia looked back once more. The three ladies were there seated at the tea table, looking in her direction.

“The tea was sweet, thank you.”, Rukia thanked them for the treat.

“Will we meet again?”, she asked one last question.

“The principles shall decide.”, answered the lady in blue.

Rukia turned the knob and opened the door. A sudden bright light engulfed her. She felt herself as being dragged in and her whole body being reduced to some form of energy.

.

.

.

[Nine years later]

In the deepest depths of a cave, a blond elf lay unconscious. Bruises all over her body. By the looks of her tattered and torn armor, she seemed to be of the sixth knights brigade. It seemed she was in a fierce battle a moment ago and had mistakenly fallen into this place.

Gazing upon her from the dark depths of the abyss were a pair of large blue eyes.