Pull the other one

"Sure. This isn't a dream. I sure that there won't be a talking zebra calling me Kevin in the next room. If you'll excuse me ma'am, I'm going to wake rejoin reality now." With a flourish I bowed before the strange woman before me and with my right hand I pinched my left bicep. And felt nothing. So I tried again. Nothing.

Then my left arm separated from my shoulder and slapped me in the face. I still felt nothing, but I was shocked nonetheless.

"I told you. While you're in here with me, I'm in control of just about everything." Grabbing my arm out of the air she handed it back to me. "Now please, pull yourself together and have a seat." At that, my legs were cut out from under me as a a sofa slammed into my calves. Across from me this strange entity daintily took a seat on her own couch.

"Now, as you may be able to tell, but I'm not exactly human."

"The way that you're sitting, I don't know if anyone would accuse you of being a 'lady,' either."

The entity in front of me smiled wickedly. "A gentleman wouldn't say something like that to a lady. Especially if he were so bold as to be naked in front of her."

"But I'm not..." a breeze ran across my skin, and I knew before I even looked down, the clothes that I had been wearing when this...dream...started were gone. "Well played."

"As I said, I am in control here. Now, I know a great deal about you Luke, but I believe you've yet to have the pleasure of my introduction. My name is Xarira. I've been around for a long time, and I've had a great deal of fun playing with you humans."

"When you say you have fun with humans, do you mean with them, or at the expense of them?"

"Little from column A, little from column B. For example, there was the Celtic peasant who interested me, so I gave her a little bobble that changed her life so much that she became viewed as a goddess. I imagine that the name 'Ceridwen' might ring a bell."

"Are you saying you created the Eye of Ceridwen?" I was astounded. I still wasn't sure if this was "real" or not, but was beginning to believe that it might be.

"I don't know when it started getting called that. I know it wasn't her doing. Some historian thought they were being clever, I suppose. But yes, the thing that has brought you so much good fortune as of late."

"...thank you?"

"You're welcome! But that's not why I brought you here. I came to give you a bit of a warning about using the Eye."