He stares at it, seeming mesmerized by the structure of its luminescent appearance. Standing on the dark background to the scene, the ground visually indistinguishable from many of the other directions in this part of the Dream, he makes his first movements. His arms move, slowly, and he brings one hand up to stretch out to the surface with the moon in front of him.

Alehkia, he thinks just moments later, tasting the name in his head as one might taste any new word, spoken for the first time on one's tongue. It does feel his, known with his entire fibre, his entire being, yet he also knows that this was not so just moments ago.

In the next seconds, he pays attention as the knowledge trickles in; he finds connections, from the few concepts he's already discovered, stretching outwards like roots or tendrils, to ideas that have literally never been through his mind before.

He is sylvari, and his life will be as he makes it.

The surface is too far to be—touched, that's the thing he was trying to do. He'll maybe have to... reach it... somehow...

The idea of walking occurs to him – memories of people walking long distances come to him, as well as memories of people running, people traversing different landscapes. Not long after that, Alehkia takes his first steps.

Taking steps works—the surface is hard and even and as colourless as the rest of the environment. He approaches the surface, and the moonlight allows him to identify it: a shield, a hard object to protect against harm.

Harm...

He visualizes himself with the shield: holding onto the shield in a battle, with metal hitting against metal; the jolt as the shield is struck, and the later, lithe movement; the close-quarters, with shield used to catch foe off-guard – even moments that the sword fails to protect against, the pain felt from glancing blows, of projectiles ricocheting off the surface.

Maybe he will need this defense, in the coming time.

The shield is not his. It disappears, and the place remains dark and silent for a few more seconds. But in the distance, light starts coming into his world, slowly at first, but building in speed and intensity until it floods his vision and he can see.

He's in a forest, a grove—or the idea of one. Surrounded by ill-defined trees, and the idea of a path ahead of him. A voice calls to him, too far for him to hear, from up ahead.

He looks at the landscape around him, not realizing a need for urgency. It doesn't occur to him, at first, that he might need it. Only long moments after, to him – but shortly after, to the surrounding world – it crosses his mind that the sights around him are not a limited resource. He'll have forever to look around, at them – but later – and so he turns towards the source of the voice.

The path becomes more defined the farther along it he walks. "Valiant!" the voice can be heard calling, and a different flood—this one of memories, of thoughts, of ideas—translates the word to him: he's a Valiant of the Dream of Dreams, a sylvari who was created with a mission. What his mission is... is not yet wholly clear. But he knows it will be.