Toku awoke with a start. The last thing he remembered was one of the king's soldiers pulling open the door to Sakura's closet. Now, as the fog cleared from his head, he looked around and found himself—not in the cluttered confines of Sakura's closet, surrounded by shoes and coats—nor was he in one of the deep, dark cells of the royal prison. Instead, he found himself in the midst of a wide meadow, full of wildflowers of every different sort of color you could imagine and surrounded by a dense forest. Of course, Toku did not know that he was looking at a meadow full of wildflowers. No, Toku's mind jumped to a very different conclusion.

“I'm dead,” Toku said out loud to himself. “That's the only explanation. The soldiers threw open the door and killed me. I'm dead.”

As if trying to cling on to life a little longer, Toku's stomach growled.

“Okay. I'm dead...and I'm hungry. I'm dead and hungry.”

Unable to think of anything better to do, Toku set about exploring—and hoping to find something to eat. At first he didn't get very far. Every step he took, Toku found some new, fascinating plant he had never seen before. The red and purple and yellow wildflowers were the most beautiful plants he had ever seen—so different from the mushrooms and ferns they could grow in the farming corridor of the lower kingdom.

It was probably because he was spending so much time looking down at all the flowers that Toku did not notice it until the moon rose above the trees...the sky. It happened very suddenly. As Toku was hunched over, examining a particularly stunning yellow-and-white flower, beautiful in its simplicity, all at once it was as if a hundred torches had been lit above him. The world around him seemed to glow with light and energy—a beautiful, silver light that made everything shine in even more brilliant colors. As Toku looked up, beyond the horizon, over the trees, his mouth went agape, and he was struck with awe. His sensitive eyes couldnot even stand to stare, so radiant was this glowing body in the heavens. In Toku's mind, this beautiful giver of light could be only one thing.

“The sun!” Toku exclaimed in a hushed breath.

Of course, you and I know much better than he that this glowing ball was not the sun, but a brilliant full moon. However, the reader must be patient and understanding of Toku's misjudgment. Having ever only heard myths and legends and children's fairy tales about the sun and its great light, it is quite reasonable that Toku should mistake a spectacular full moon (For it was quite spectacular that night, even by our standards) for the sun.

“I'm not dead.” Even upon saying this to himself, a certain amount of relief swept through Toku's mind. And, instinctively, having said it, he knew it to be true.

“I'm not dead,” Toku repeated. “I'm in the Upper Kingdom.”

A thrill of excitement shot through him. The Upper Kingdom! The place of his peoples' past—now only a place of legend and news of the eternal war. But how did he get here?

As if to answer that very question, two things quickly happened to Toku. First, the strange stone that Toku had entirely forgotten about in his pocket started to glow and to get hot. It got so hot, in fact, that Toku quickly felt it burning his leg, and with a yell he grabbed the glowing rock from his pocket and dropped it on the ground. And this was when the second thing happened—out of nowhere, a door sprung out from the glowing ball lying on the ground. Right there in front of him. A door simply appeared!

But, even stranger than the glowing stone and the door appearing out of nowhere was what happened next. The door started to open, and through it stepped a small girl carrying a backpack and a flashlight, and acting for all the world like it was the most normal thing in the world to step through a magical door and into a moon-lit meadow.

“Oh, hello. I wondered what I would find here,” said Theodora.

There is a sense in which our minds have and easier time accepting the absolutely fantastic and impossible than those things that are merely improbable. For example, you would have a much easier time accepting the fact that you were staring at a unicorn than believing that the President of the United States was coming to your house to visit. In the case of the President's visit, while it is extremely far-fetched and improbable, it is still within the realm of possibility. Yet, exactly because your mind is able to comprehend such a thing, it raises all the more objection to the idea of it actually occurring. In the case of the unicorn, however, the mind raises no such objections. Your mind would see the unicorn and even understand what it was. The sheer impossibility of the thing allows the mind to ignore the oddity of it.

A very similar thing happened in Toku's mind now. What surprised him was not the absolute impossible fact that a doorway and a girl had appeared out of nowhere. This, of course, was impossible and so his mind chose to ignore it. What startled him, rather, was the fact that the girl spoke to him. He was struck dumbfounded. He did not know how to respond. So, following the advice of his mother, he chose to say nothing. Instead, he stared at the girl, mouth agape, in a way that one could have taken as being quite rude. Thankfully, Theodora was understanding and forgiving by nature and did not take Toku's rude stare as an insult.

“Um...hello? Do you speak English?” asked Theodora patiently.

Toku was still having trouble finding his voice, so he continued to stare.

“My name is Theodora. What's your name?” Theodora stuck out her hand, hoping that the dazed boy in front of her might shake it. When he did not respond, Theodora became concerned. “Are you okay?” she asked in a very worried tone.

Something about the compassion that showed on her face finally snapped Toku's brain off of “pause.” Shaking his head as if to wake it up, he finally answered her.

“Sorry. I guess I was a little surprised. My name is Toku.”

Theodora giggled at Toku's reply, mostly out of relief that the boy was not ill or hurt. He did have a rather disheveled look about him, after all.

The sweet giggle from the girl made Toku blush a bit, and it also made him really look at the person standing in front of him. She was short, younger than he by maybe a few years. Her clothes were strange—blue pants of some fabric he had never seen before, a jacket that seemed to be neither cloth nor leather, a bag on her back. Her faced was flushed, as if she had been working in the cold. Aside from her strange attire she seemed rather ordinary—thin, but not overly so; pretty, but not exceptionally. Except that she was not ordinary. Her skin was pale, and while she certainly did not seem fragile, she carried with her a sense of far-off elegance, as if she looked down from above at everything around her. If one was not careful, it would be easy to mistake Theodora as delicate—feeble and helpless. But as Toku looked into her bright green eyes, he saw otherwise. Her eyes shown with the light of a star and revealed a wisdom and alertness that seemed somehow otherworldly.

Toku took all these characteristics in with his own sharp eyes. His alchemy training served him well, for it had taught him to see the essence of a thing, and not just its outward appearance. He did not know Theodora, but he immediately knew her as a friend.

“I'm sorry I startled you, Toku. I guess I probably would have been pretty started myself. I wonder if you could help me. Could you tell me where I am?” asked Theodora politely.

Toku laughed with a friendly chuckled, “No, I'm afraid I can't. In fact, you might be able to help me more than I can help you. You see, I just got here, myself—and at least you know how you got here whereas I have no idea!”

“What do you mean?—no, wait. I can already tell this might take some time to explain. I'm a little hungry. I have a little food with me, so why don't we sit here in this meadow and figure ourselves out. Here...I have a little water and some granola we can share while we talk.”

So, just like two friends chatting over lunch, the new acquaintances sat down in the soft grass and flowers and told each other their stories.

After an hour or so, each traveler had taken a turn at telling the other the story of his or her journey to that moon-lit glade. They both agreed that Toku was in quite a pinch. And now, in addition to the drama of Aleric's arrest and his near-miss at being arrested, he had the greater problem of being lost in a strange world. Theodora felt quite certain after listening to Toku's story that the doors had brought her here to help Toku as best she could.

While Toku was telling her about the Philosopher's Stone and the strange rock he had found in the new shaft, Theodora became very interested and asked several very particular questions.

“Does anyone know what the Philosopher's Stone looks like?” Theodora asked.

“Not as far as I know. From what I've read, no one even knows if the stone even actually exists. It's all theory. But, if it does exist, because of its name, I would guess that it looks like a stone. That's why I thought the stone that I found might have something to do with it. I've even wondered it actually isn't the Philosopher's Stone.”

“Yes, that is true. Still, it's called the Philosopher's Stone, and from what you've told me, it doesn't seem to have very much to do with philosophy. I don't know if we can assume that it looks like an ordinary stone. Still, as you say, the stone you found certainly does seem peculiar. Do you mind if I look at it?”

“No, not at all. Here it is.” Toku took the stone from out of his pocket and handed it to Theodora. She turned it over in her hands. She pressed it, looked closely at it in the moonlight. However, to her it just looked like an ordinary grayish rock. If it had been lying on the side of a road, she never would have even given it a second glance.

“Hmm. Well, it just looks like a rock to me,” Theodora said, handing the stone back to Toku. “Please, finish your story. You were just talking about the soldiers coming into your friends home.”

“Oh, right. Well, there's not much more than that. I was hiding in a closet, and as the guard started opening the door, this rock started to glow. The light became so bright that I couldn't see. I fell back, and the next thing I know, I found myself here.”

“Wait a minute!” said Theodora. “You mean you really don't have any idea where we are or how you got here?”

“No, not at all,” said Toku, shaking his head. “And it doesn't sound like you're much better off now that the door you came through is gone.”

“What!?” Theodora jumped up and looked in the direction of her magical door. It was gone. “When did that happen?!”

“I'm not sure,” said Toku. “I just noticed it, myself.”
“So now we both don't have any way to get home...”

The new friends remained in silence, letting the truth of that statement sink in. Theodora was beginning to question whether stepping through the doors had been such a good idea after all.

Suddenly, and at the same moment, Toku and Theodora experienced the same thing in quite different ways. Something about the meadow had changed. Theodora felt it as a slowly rising feeling of hope and even courage. It was as if the world was calling to her, saying, “Let's go! It's time to go! Everything will be alright, as long as you go!”

For Toku, though, the change came in the form of fear. It was as if some horrible, unseen threat was coming. A weight pressed upon him. He felt the desire to run, but he was paralyzed by the feeling of danger everywhere. There was nowhere he could escape.

And then, it happened. The sun broke over the horizon of trees on the far edge of the meadow, spilling its clear, clean early morning light over the grass and flowers. Theodora's heart lept for joy at seeing the glory of the sunrise. The darkness was past, and though she did not know where this strange adventure might lead, she nonetheless felt the excitement of beginning a new journey.

Toku cried out in pain. He covered his face with his hands and smashed his body, writhing, into the ground. But there was no safety from the piercing, burning gaze of the sun. He could not think for the pain. His sensitive eyes were overwhelmed, and for the second time in his life, Toku was blinded.