Chaos. I thrive in chaos. It is the chaos that beckons me to the edges of the afterlife, and chaos that opens the portal between the worlds that allows me to pass through. It is chaos that I step into, that nasty grin painted across my features, those red eyes glinting with a twisted humor. The grin spreads until my teeth bear for all the world to see, pointed and gruesome to look upon. “Hello, again,” I breathe to the air around me but no one in particular, and the world seems to shiver in horror at the sound of my voice.

I move away from the Beach where I had crossed back to the world of the living, my gait a kind of slither, my black hooves sliding through the sand, leaving an odd kind of trail behind me, not unlike that of a snake. It is fitting, because that is what I am, a snake.

Though my movements are slow and methodical, I seem to move through the world much quicker than one would expect. The scenery changes around me, not that I recognize any of it, anyway. Beqanna had changed since I had last set hoof here. The winds whisper new stories, telling me of the lands, now known by different names, littered with different faces. The breeze lifts new smells to my nostrils, though one familiar smell remains, haunting the shadows. She had changed. She seemed…empty. Unworthy. So I move on.

I wander until I reach a land in particular that breathes my name in the shadows, cursing me and welcoming me all at once, and there I stop among the poppy fields, examining the landscape before me. There is one here that still bears the resemblance to his forefathers–to me. I grin once more, and a scream wrenches itself from deep within. Once again, the world seems to shiver. The grasses and the flowers waver and turn away. The leaves on the trees shudder and shrivel. The animals run for cover.