When the grip released, I opened my eyes and found myself in a different place in broad daylight. I was sitting beside a pond and I wasn’t in my stiff pyjamas anymore, but rather in a flowing gown made of a soft material--and watching in horror at Ike and Ivan wrestling on the ground…No, not Ivan.

Suddenly I realised the truth. Ivan was Luke, I was Anista and we had both gone into the bottom of the pond and entered the life of two siblings. Ike had sought his bride out. Sought me out. I looked at myself and realised I looked very much old - wait, I was very much older. So did both Ike and Luke.

I looked at the fight again. They were hurling magic at each other.

I bit my lips. I feared for Luke’s life. I had lost him once and I couldn’t bear to lose him again. Luke was clearly going to lose. Ike was, after all, the prince of wizardry. Ike will kill Luke, I told myself. I must save him. I closed my eyes. The only way I could save Luke was to be a greater sorceress than Ike or…I could push Ike down the abyss.

"Stop!" I shouted. Oddly enough, they stopped, and they turned to me, looks of surprise on their faces.

I did not hesitate as I hurled myself at Ike. toppling him into the pond. I fell with him. I tried to struggle upwards against the pull of the abyss. When I could struggle no longer, I went limp and left myself to drown. I wondered whose life I was going to intercept this time. Darkness closed over me again…

Completed on 3rd September 1999. Edited 14th August 2008

A/N I used to quote poems at the beginning of my stories to indicate the kind of emotions I wanted the stories to have a gist of. The following is for this story:

My love is like a red red rose
That’s newly sprung in June:
My love is like the melodie
That’s sweetly play’d in tune.

Robert Burns (1759–96) Scottish poet. A Red, Red Rose

As I've mentioned on my profile page, this story was written way back in 1999, when I was still in my teenage years. For those who like my newer stories, like The Other Prince or Die With Me, I'm sorry, but you might have/be disappointed by the simplicity of this story. The number of words that make up this story would only make for 1.5 chapters of either of my new stories!

On a personal level, I still like this story for being simple (yes, I do get tired of describing actions, dramatic scenes and deep characters) and besides the light spelling/grammatical editing I did before putting up this story, I doubt I will ever edit or rewrite this story.

I hope you guys enjoy this story as much as I have (perhaps not quite the ending!). And I really really thank you for reading it, response has been much better than I've expected!