She loved to dance. Among her clan, she had learned to move gracefully and erotically to the music since she had learned to walk. The dips and swirls and bends of her legs and back, the sky darkening under her onyx gaze. She was touched, they would whisper when she walked past. She was touched and beloved.

Until her thirteenth year, she stayed with her clan. Later, she would leave and move into a world of high technology, a world of lies and secrets and a place where passion was forbidden. She always knew she would leave someday, she had been spoken over and prophesied about. She had even seen herself, because she had a touch of foresight. She knew that she alone would be responsible for fulfilling the curse, making sure that one who still lived would suffer.

But that didn't matter to her, not until much, much later. Because at that time, she was happy dancing.

Her relatives and friends would watch her as she danced, and sometimes she loved being stared at and appreciated, even at her tender age. Had she been staying with her family, she might have been married before her sixteenth year, but that was also not the case. She would dance for them in front of the nightly fire and proclaim in song her intentions and love of nature and they would applaud her and she adored the attention. They always gave her attention.

Because she was the Chosen.

But sometimes, just sometimes, she liked being alone as well. She would awake in the middle of the night from a dream of a man with green eyes-- always green eyes-- and she would slide past the sleeping form of her mother into the forest. She would walk and walk until she reached the small clearing, a small meadow that she had played in when she was just a child, when she didn't understand what "responsibility" meant. And there was so much responsibility then.

And she would reach the meadow and she would stand in the middle of it in her bare feet and loose white gown and she would look up at the stars for a long time. She was once told that the stars loved her, and she returned the emotion. For wherever she was, the stars followed; Wherever she went, they would come. She loved them with all the passion in her young and tender heart, and she would sing to them, spinning around until they were dizzy from watching her.

She had other dreams, too. Dreams of girls with red hair and blond, of a man who she wept for who had dark eyes. Dreams of laughing with a dark haired boy and smiling with the red haired girl and redeeming life for the girl with blond hair. She dreamed of listening to music, dancing close, dining on a blanket in summer. She dreamed of faraway lands and terrifying chances and the beauty of souls. She dreamed of the wonder of friendship.

But one summer of her life, everything changed. She had just crossed the threshold of womanhood, she begot her thirteenth year and was leaving in a fortnights time. The dreams of green eyes came to her much more often, every night since the anniversary of her birth, and every night she would go to the meadow to meet with him, to see him. And every night she would walk back, her heart empty and pining for the touch of this man whom she had not met.

Until the last.

She walked into the clearing, her hair shining and falling down her back in soft curls, her eyes glittery by the light of the moon. She walked and stood and began spinning, singing to the stars that loved her for the last time. And then she stopped, because she sensed him, sensed the one who had been haunting her dreams since... forever.

She turned, and smiled. He was standing there, watching her hotly, taking in her state of dress with a fevered glance. He was perhaps twenty-one years, but that didn't bother her. Her sister had married a man twenty years her senior when she turned fifteen.

The man began walking forward, hushed, stealthily, and laid a hand on her shoulder. "What's your name?" he asked huskily, with a voice from another country.

"Janna," she replied, her own voice mildly accented but clear and strong and open. "Who are you, who has been in my dreams?"

He seemed startled and licked his lips thoughtfully. "I- I.. I am... What do you mean that I've been in your dreams?"

She tried to answer honestly, knowing that after that night, no honesty would ever be allowed again. "Because you have been, many nights over the years of my life. Your lips," she traced her fingertips over his lips and then let them travel to his brow, "and your eyes... My heart has waited for you. A man from afar. Where are you from?"

His eyes twinkled merrily, his teeth flashing in a quick grin. " England," he responded warmly. "You are a beautiful dancer, Janna," he murmured, his eyes wandering over her face in a way that gave her chills. "You look at home in this playground that nature has presented you."

She nodded solemnly. "I am. It is my home. As you are my home, in so many ways." And then she gave him her smile, and he seemed startled yet again, bringing his hand up over his heart.

His eyes watched her. "Would you dance for me?"

She lifted her head. "I would die for you, England," she said quietly, honesty astounding in that simple, open declaration. Janna moved to the center of the field and locked her eyes on his as she began moving her body, a lithe, sinuous body firmed by years of dances upon dances. She lifted her arms and dipped them, danced around him in a circle, and could feel the stars smile, could feel England's heart beat. After barely moments, she moved quietly into his embrace, and tried not to think that tomorrow she would be leaving him and all she loved.

As if sensing her hidden sadness, he enclosed her in his arms and kissed her temple tenderly, wondering at this young girl who moved him so quickly, who touched his heart in so many ways after he had sworn that as one who was running from duty, he would never love. She lifted her head and pinned him with a gaze that was shimmering with new tears.

"How did you come to be here?"

He was surprised, but nodded, conceding that she should know of him. "I was... Running from my life. I am sleeping near the stream, and working on some.. Developments with some friends of mine," he answered delicately, trying not to pull her into a world of so many evils. She shook her head, raven hair falling over her face.

"No. How did you come to be *here*? With me... In our... Playground?" Janna clarified.

Rupert smiled gently as they swayed together with the wind and the treetops and the long grass and lowers swaying beside them. "I woke up... I was dreaming of a girl with black eyes, your eyes, and I walked until I found what I had dreamed."

Janna nodded and lifted her mouth to his in a fiercely sweet kiss, a warm and tender kiss that hurt her heart even before she pulled away from it. "I love you, England. I'll never forget you."

He was shaken by the intensity of both the kiss and the responsive feelings he felt towards her. Thinking only a moment, he answered, "I love you too, Janna." He brushed away a tear that spilled down her cheek and smiled. "And why would you forget me? I plan to take you with me where ever I go."

She shook her head, tugging feebly to get out of his arms, arms that were as dangerous as they were safe. "I... I am not Janna," she murmured, choking on the words that had to leave her mouth. "I am to leave here, and cannot take you with me. I have a destiny, a duty."

His voice was gravely serious. "Duty doesn't matter. And what if your destiny is with me? I love..."

His protests were lost; by that time she finally scrambled out of his arms. She only looked back at him once as she disappeared into the forest, only let her eyes linger on his face, a face that she knew so well, once more lest her will fail her and she followed her heart.

When she left the following morning, she began her life anew. It was almost easy, comforting to forget her other life, a life of secrets and untold desires for normalcy and love. She would never be normal, she would never have love. The dreams stopped coming, and she began to forget the red hair and the blond, the dark, twinkling eyes and the deep, sad ones. Later, the memories faded entirely, and all she was left with was an empty feeling of lingering sadness for having to give up love for duty and wept for those who had to endure the same. In time, all she remembered were small pieces of the love she once felt.

Like green eyes and stars and lonely playgrounds.