---

First there had been everything. Then, nothing. No weight. No warmth or cold. No silence. Not even knowing.

Was this, Athella thought, what it was like not to exist?

Surely not, for if so, such an echo wouldn't even have formed in this dormant part of her mind.
Warm air beckoned her, sucked into her lungs and spat out in a hacking of blood.

Her fractured form slowly pieced itself back together. Reformed on new soil, under new sky. Baptized by a cold, skin pricking rain.

An entrance as unremarkable as she was. No great cries to non- existent gods. No grand display or rush of out pouring emotion.
She simply accepted her new reality for what it was. Squinting against the rain that beat against her eyelids, she peered into the fading light. Tried to find any clue of anything vaguely familiar. But there was none. Her valley was gone.