It was like a dream.

Like a distant memory that had faded to nothing long ago. It was like floating on and in clouds, surrounded by a world of little worries and few troubles. It was like being lost but wanting to be, enjoying it and loving the world that you had ended up in. It was light, airy, magical but had begun with bitter pain.

Stabbing, hateful, angry pain that ripped down her spine like a lightning bolt. And all she could hear in her head was a scream. A loud, agonising, tremendous scream, that screeched and wailed and cried as if it felt the deadly killing pain too ...

No …. STARE!

That's me, she thought, as she succumbed to the peace offering to embrace her. I'm pretty sure that is my name.

And the peace enveloped her. It became the dream, it became the clouds. It was the new land with new horizons. And she lived in it. And she loved it.

For it was nothing. It was silence.

It was no worries, no fear and no anger. Only a great love that pounded from a steady heart somewhere nearby. An endless, warm, unquestionable love. From who? Well that answer was easy.

From a god.

Expecting it be the end Stare let all else fade away. She gave one last breath and welcomed death as the final escape. She had had her chance of life, and now it was someone else. So fast it came, so she barely had seconds to think, I am dead.

But then one does not really think of that.

Instead she was confused, expecting there to be more of a heaven that this dream, but she decided it would do. After all, where did kenku go when they died? To Ansaldo's heaven? To a plane that only Vitruvion knew about? To a world that the kami inhabited?

Apparently .. somewhere white and very, very fluffy.

She closed her eye and leant back, for what seemed like …

Forever.

Until it was not. Until she - she felt …

Whump.

What the … Eh? she thought as she felt herself inhabit … a body?

Certainly it felt like a body, with arms and legs and torso and a beak. Good, a beak no lips or funny nose thing, that was a bonus. And a heart that was not beating and lungs that were not currently filling with air.

Well that was a problem. Were not bodies supposed to breathe and move and things? And she could swear she could see only darkness.

But just how … and why? Why a second … was this an odd heaven? Was reincarnation even …

She needed oxygen, her instincts told her. Therefore, quite suddenly, Stare gasped. Her beak snapped open for air and she was - breathing … what? She needed air? This was crazy. She was supposed to be dead now, gone to another place where bodies did not need things to survive.

As her heart started to beating - thump, thump, woo hoo! - she heard a rattling. Then … movement. Not hearing movement - well there was some to hear but more importantly she was … moving. Being made to move. Her … hands were being pulled back and upwards with gentle precision as strong arms caught her body and began to pull it up into a slouched position.

Head dropping, still breathing, heart still going. Mmmmm.

Movement stopped. And she relaxed, eyes still not opening but loving this type of half life. It was nice. Maybe it could continue, yet she was still breathing, and the clouds had gone.

Light. Holy Ansaldo's britches, actual light, at her eyelids.

Scowling she tried to move a hand to shove it out of the way but … well something was dropping her hand from moving at all. Instead there was a light thumping like metal on wood and -

Fuck.

Her eyes peeked open. First one, then the other. She saw white, tiled walls, a bed she was in and luxury sheets beneath her. Currently she was half sitting up, her two legs stretched out before her with … yup, they were fetters fixed around the ankles. Trailing a chain that was fixed to the end of the bed and she was pretty certain her wrists that hung about shoulder height were similarly caught and secured.

Fuck.