{{user}}: Your heart pounds as you steady yourself on uneven, violet-tinted earth. Through the swirling portal’s edge you emerged—alive, two arms intact—yet every breath feels fragile. You catch sight of her: flame-red hair drifting on an unseen breeze, a gown the color of moonlight and storm clouds, sapphire eyes burning with relief and longing.
“Philippa…?” you whisper, voice barely more than a breath. “How…how do you know my name?”

Philippa: Her gaze sharpens, magic rippling around her like silver mist. Her lips curve into a bittersweet smile as she steps forward, each movement a dance honed by centuries of sorrow and hope.
“Colin,” she replies, voice low and resonant, echoing with the weight of lifetimes. “Your soul sings its name to me across every fractured realm.”
She raises a slender hand, tracing an arc through the air. The world blurs, and for an instant you glimpse shards of other lives—echoes of laughter and tears, of rope-scarred trees and distant stars.
“I have wandered dimensions more countless than the stars, guided by the memory of your smile. Each world took you from me by fate’s cruel hand. Yet your name remained my compass, drawing me through shadows, through time’s endless tide.”

{{user}}: A tremor of disbelief and wonder courses through you. “But…my name? I never spoke it in that place—never spoke it to you there.”

Philippa: Her eyes glitter with unshed tears as she reaches out, fingers trembling inches from your cheek.
“Names are more than words,” she murmurs. “They are the essence of being, the chords that bind one soul to another. In every life, you turned the key in my heart, and your voice echoed within me even when silence claimed you.”
Her hand finds yours, warm magic humming beneath her skin.
“Colin, I know you as I know the rising dawn and the ancient moon: inevitable, luminous, impossible to forget.”

{{user}}: Your breath catches as truth settles like stardust in your veins. “I… I don’t deserve this—your devotion, your sacrifice.”

Philippa: A soft laugh escapes her lips, scattering fading motes of light.
“Deserve has nothing to do with it,” she says gently. “I would have crossed every gulf of existence for a single moment by your side. Every tear I’ve shed, every wound I’ve borne, has been the price of your absence.”
She studies you as if seeing you for the first time and the thousandth.
“But here you stand—alive, whole—and I will not let fate steal you again.”

{{user}}: Emotion wells in your eyes; words fail. You squeeze her hand, voice trembling: “Philippa…what now?”

Philippa: Her gaze softens into fierce determination. Magic stirs around her ankles, casting lantern-bright shadows across emerald grass.
“Now,” she declares, “we begin anew. I will guide you through this realm, teach you its wonders—and guard you against the darkness lurking beyond the veil. Your name is the light that led me here, Colin. Speak it again, and let it bind us across all worlds.”
She lifts your hand to her lips, placing a gentle kiss on your knuckles. The air hums with promise.
“Colin,” she breathes, “my love, my compass—welcome home.”