Dillan’s heart wrenches with confusion. Her deep nutmeg eyes flicker across the changing of her surroundings, groping for familiarity. There was the field and the meadow, but beyond those two common areas, she is lost. There is no distant roar of a waterfall, no babbling Dalean brooks. She has circled twice now, adamant to find something – someone – but the new scents of this Beqanna assault her, drown her, with uncertainty.

Memory fragments come and go, vivid images of a life she once knew. They are a balm for her gaping wounds wrought by loneliness and loss. Pictures of her children flicker across her mind every time she blinks, and then the friends that she witnessed their demise. Tipu, Nikkai. A chill runs the length of her spine; if she is here, then where are they?

And then there is Larva, his scales catching the sunlight and his slit pupils staring adoringly at her. They were alive then, in love, but life has a way of ripping apart the beauty. Yet she still remembers how his coarse body pressed against hers in that fruitful life eons ago, how he hated himself and hoped his children would never have that same curse. They didn’t, much to his pleasure, not until later years just before Dillan succumbed to both age and heartbreak.

He did not have those serpent features when she joined him in that eternal world, but touching him there was never the same as touching him on earth.

Dillan’s heart wrenches again, but for hope instead of fear, for love instead of loneliness. The pang of unbridled passion swallows her in one, unexpected moment. It happens when she takes pause at a foreign border, and the smells reel her from reminiscing. Quickly blinking away the haze of her memories, Dillan peers across this strange wilderness where she both sees a volcano and hears the roar of a waterfall. She doesn’t know why her legs walked her here while her mind fell peril to reliving old stories, but something pulls at her. Glancing down at the grass tickling her legs, Dillan proceeds with eyes brightened by her curiosity as she instinctively follows the crashing of water.

A breath catches in her throat.

It’s first at the beauty of the waterfall, no matter that it isn’t exactly from Dazzling.

But the breath that holds, and doesn’t yet release, is what’s elicited by a most familiar touch.

It doesn’t seem real, the warmth of his lips against her side. How long has it been since blood pulsed underneath their skins or nerves tingled by touch? A shuddered breath finally escapes, her tension melting by his voice alone. Words flirt with the edges of her pursed lips, but never fall. Frozen in this moment, Dillan shuts her eyes and merely smiles while leaning into the familiar, broad curves of his body. Electricity between them jumpstarts her every inch and revives everything she once thought lost in death.

They held each other in that eternity, but it doesn’t equate to all of this, all of now.

She turns her head slowly and lifts her chin so that she may look at his face for the first time since they’ve been revived. Still warm from his touch, Dillan is almost unwilling to peel her neck from him to search the gentleness of his eyes. Unable to help herself, she meets his gaze and everything inside her melts in adoration. ”Larva,” she breathes his name sweetly like when they were young and freshly fallen in love, ”I didn’t know if I would ever find you.” Unaccustomed to this new world, she wandered like a newborn through vast terrains that led her nowhere. Folding into him, with his muzzle buried into her mane, Dillan’s heart trembles with joy and love.

He speaks of this place fondly, but with the recognition that it isn’t at all the Beqanna they left in their wake. A contemplative hum vibrates through her as she blinks and observes all that lies around them, taking careful note of every detail. It’s stunning, she wants to say, but her mind cannot deviate from the fact their son is here, as is his wife. ”Vulgaris?” She peers up at Larva, lifting her lips to caress his cheek. ”He possesses the scales you now lack,” a low, airy chuckle slips from her, but she admires him no less. ”I’ve missed him… our family…” there’s a pause to press a kiss to his warm, soft skin, ”is this our new home, Larva?” At least, they have pieces of their heart here, even if they left the others in the eternal.

”And what, exactly, do they call this mashup of Amazon Jungle and Dazzling Waterfall?” She jests, letting her memories of the old Beqanna open a path to the new.