Nephilim's Wager: The Princess and the Witch

Entry 4 (Penelope)

Most of my dreams in the past few nights were normal until the last one, which I just woke up from.

Supposedly the way this works is that once you have some awareness of your past life, and your amnesia barrier from rebirth has been weakened, reminders of events or scenes from your past life can cause memories to start flooding back. A bit like when you've forgotten a dream after waking up, then something similar happens in your day that sparks a memory, and then you just keep remembering more and more as your mind follows the connections. And when you're in a dream, in a hallucination created by your mind to distract you as your body slumbers, the memories that flood back become your surrounding reality. So you get to actually relive the memory in detail. Unlike when I was reading the journals and merely got feelings of deja vu and a few fuzzy images.

It was a memory of a battle. I took part in them rather clandestinely, as I didn't want anyone to discover my powers that went beyond the dark magic I'd brought to enhance my army. And if an enemy did find out? I killed them so they couldn't tell anyone. I already knew that from reading it, but experiencing it in detail was... Strangely, when it happened, I felt nothing, but as soon as I woke I was overtaken by the danger of vomiting. I have not, but... Actually now with the image back in my mind after writing about it, I think I should go do that somewhere safer...

Before I go, I want to write something else down. The powers themselves. Fitting for a seraph, I could summon six wings of fire and fly, farther and faster than any winged being naturally can. I could shapeshift so that I wouldn't be recognized. I could bilocate to fight battles while on my throne or sneakily explore an enemy castle while in a diplomatic meeting where they thought they had me right where they wanted. I could see things far away from me, and I could see the true nature of things beyond what physical eyes can see. I could create fire in the palm of my hand and shape it into a sword or a projectile or a glowing orb of light depending on what was needed. I could heal myself and others when wounded.

Again, just, actually doing those was so different than reading about them. It felt so... empowering. Freeing. Right. Now I look at the sky outside my balcony and feel strange that I can't just jump into it and go wherever I want. It should be as natural as walking down a road or swimming in a lake. But I'm sure I can figure out how to. I already summoned fire accidentally, after all.

And now the mental images of mortal wounds I had to heal are sticking in my mind and I really must stop suppressing what my body naturally wants to do about that. Somewhere else.