In Arcadia it was custom that each year from every town and city in the land the people would send the most beautiful eighteen year old maiden to the Temple. They would go dressed in a white linen gown, tied at the waist with a linen sash. They were to wear no jewelry or adornment. At the temple, the priests would arrange a feast of the finest fruits and breads for the maidens, and in the morning the women would bathe them and prepare them, and put them before a council to decide which of them was the most comely of all.
In that year the chosen maiden was named Vassia, and she was small and soft, with a full womanly body but a youthful face, and though inexperience shone in her walk and her talk, her gaze pierced the soul of whomever she looked up with a keen intelligence, and an almost haughty judgment of her peers. Right was she to judge if so she did, for though she was smaller and quieter than the other maidens, and everyone seemed to loom over her, her beauty made her like a precious gem, and even her peers shied unconsciously from her, as if to give her space to glow.
Now Vassia herself was torn in her feelings at being chosen out of all the maidens. On the one hand, it was a great honor, and she would now go and experience something that few others had ever experienced before death: the joys of Elysium. For that night, the chosen maiden was to take a sacred draught in the innermost chamber of the temple, and it would send her into sleep upon the altar, and in her dreams she would enter Elysium and commune with the gods there. It was a sacrifice demanded by the gods to send the most beautiful eighteen year old woman to them each year, to commune with them, but to the maidens who awoke after their night in Elysium, it did not seem so great a sacrifice, for they always seemed transformed after, as if their soul had aged a thousand years, while their body shone all the more with youth and vigor. And no maiden ever spoke of what she experienced there.
So Vassia was awed and greatly honored that she should be chosen for such a thing. But also she was afraid, for even coming to the temple had terrified her, and she feared strangers and strange places. Her family had escorted her to the temple, but no mortal could escort her in her dream that night to Elysium. But she admonished herself to be strong, and to face bravely whatever it was in the sacred dream that seemed to transform each maiden so.
After a day of tiring ritual, night fell, and the women priests led her into the innermost chamber, still wearing a simple linen gown. They gave her a cup of silver, and in it a spiced drink, not unpleasant to taste. Immediately her body filled with warmth and she fell drowsy. The women laid her down upon the altar and in a moment she dropped deep into slumber.
Some time later she seemed to awake. She lay still upon the altar, but it was not in a dark chamber. It stood atop a hill in a bright countryside of green fields and vibrant groves of trees whose leaves seemed to dance and laugh in the warm sun. For a moment Vassia wondered at her own calm. Should she not be afraid? She had been expecting a dream, but this was no dream. She sat upon the cool stone in full flesh, fully awake. But was she not still sleeping in the temple? Yet she wondered such things only briefly, for the air was so gentle and the sunlight so pleasantly warm that she could think of nothing but her great satisfaction at having come to this lovely land.
Nearby, a joyous grove called out to her with the sound of a playing stream from within its boughs. Vassia slid down from the altar and walked only a few steps in the tender grass before kicking off her sandals and walking barefoot. The grass was as soft as fur, and smelled of spring and recent rain. She soon reached the trees and wandered among them, feeling the mosses and fertile soils that gathered among the roots. The woods were full of birdsong and watersong, and soon she came to a clear, cold stream of purest water, which she drank.
So sweet and cool was the water that she felt impelled to follow the stream upward, to find what path it took and linger with it. For it was so vibrant it seemed almost a living creature, full of delight. So Vassia walked near it for some time, listening to its song.