It wasn't peaceful. It wasn't pleasant. Dying slowly when you were supposed to have abilities that kept you from death was never something she'd put on her top ten must do list.

She didn't know how long she'd been dead to the world as her body made its attempts to heal itself, as her mind made such poor willing nudges to heal the broken ruins of the experience.

Karma and Taboo had killed her sent by her mother to end it all. Ariahn knew that but yet her mind wouldn't let go of the fact that it had been Theodore.

Never had Ariahn feared anything. But now... no matter how much she would never confess it, she feared the man she loved. The fact that the man could take her life and then coming back to it all they played the charade that nothing had happened.

Could it be repaired? Could it be fixed? Ariahn didn't know.

Unspoken things had happened when she had died... after she died. Sometimes she wanted to believe it was the totems of her mother's heritage to haunt her as nightmares, but othertimes she wondered if they unspoken desires and wants of Ariahn's own past.

All she knew in those long lost hours of darkness and nothingness there had been a faceless, nameless companion whose attention left her body smoldering with warmth and pleasantly sore.

She remembered the feathers of black. Omen marked totems of her mother's past.

Maybe Ariahn had a guardian angel.

The notion was laughable but yet...here she was... resurrected.

Hardly such a holy moment.

Restless in the night after making connections with long lost friends, she had found herself in the tea house, playing games with minds and hearts ... bodies and thoughts until her own want was sated.

For once she just wanted to have someone feel like she did, for there to be one that understood. The gods knew that Ariahn wasn't going to talk about her feelings.

By Midnight she had left that tea house that had left her heart and mind more unsettled then before. Wearing the skin of another she had spoken words that were truth on her tongue.

Love and loss.

Two things Ariahn was learning well, over and over again.

Ariahn couldn't shake the feeling... did she have a guardian angel? It was laughable... but even that feeling of being watched over had remained.

Love hadn't brought her back... but someone had.

Ariahn didn't know until she got there where she was at. She heard the place was different now that Taboo and Karma had been killed.

Rumor had it that she had one helluva fan club. That savage grin found its way home on her lips as she nudged the door open to the Crymson Tryst.

Gods but it felt good to be home.

When she was on the stage there was no way to tame her. She was unleashed and it felt good to have that freedom.

It felt like she was singing her life ...or was that her song of death? The growling sensual smoke of her voice purred out into that microphone as her body pressed and worked around it like a lover's serpentine coil.

Tell me something, tell me stupid, will I die, will I die on a rope?
Tell me something, tell me stupid, will I die, will I die?

I wish that you didn't love me no more, I've been dead for years,
I wish that you didn't own me no more, I've been here before.

Her eyes narrowed into slits, the face of the woman taking on that savage beauty as the ferine way of her was present again. The words hit home and none of it mattered. It had to be told. The lyrics all but snarled out and screamed. This was what it was to feel alive.

Tell me something, tell me stupid, will I die, will I die on a rope?
Tell me something, tell me stupid, will I die, will I die? No, I won't!
Tell me something, tell me stupid, will I die, will I die on a rope?
Tell me something, tell me stupid, will I die, will I die?

I want to draw the blood from your neck, spill the lies in your bed.
I will give you a holy white rose, cut the tongue from your head.

It was about death and desire. Blood and sin. Hunter and hunted. So much she wanted and found was never hers. Within her soul raged and snarled, the woman becoming more beast then woman.

Tell me something, tell me stupid, will I die, will I die on a rope?
Tell me something, tell me stupid, will I die, will I die? No, I won't!
Tell me something, tell me stupid, will I die, will I die on a rope?
Tell me something, tell me stupid, will I die, will I die?

I belong to a line of red scent, teach the heart to reflect.
The wound is wise for primal black eyes, there's a scarlet letter in my chest.

She didn't wait as the song faded out, just dropped the microphone and walked away. If anything she heard that song in her spirit. So dark and wicked.

Restless want.

It haunted her to the point she had to question... was she still dead inside... or had she found a way to be alive?

She craved the calm. Yearned for the moment where everything would seem so much better and reasonable within her spirit. She wanted to love Theodore again, did love him... maybe it was more so she wished to trust him again.

In the thick of the night she was wide awake as he slept beside her. Ariahn if anything was torn. Part of her wanted nothing more then to curl up against him and feel the cold of his presence seep through her skin and leave her frozen on the inside.

To be frozen, maybe it would fix everything. Numb the pain and freeze permanently the memories of all she had been through. The torment, the torture, the nightmares.

She couldn't speak of it, wouldn't speak of it in full detail because it only made her feel weak and vulnerable. Ariahn would never be vulnerable in the eyes of anyone. To reveal a weakness was to offer yourself up as prey, and it wasn't in her blood to be prey.

Ariahn wished for the Hunt, something that would make her feel alive again. That wildfire of her energy had gone out leaving nothing more then the smoke, the embers that would still be born of her soul's natural flame.

Her eyes closed when she realized she had been staring at the ceiling for far too long. A flash glimpse of her old companions and friends.

There would always be Rona and Theodore.

There would always be the unspoken boss man... Alain.

Kaleb and Lupinius those she would hunt with in the dark streets.

Horam, one that she shared an understanding... if not a... tempestuous bond with.

Then there was T-Ray. The one who had brought her calm as her fingers would prowl through the blood river of his hair, sharing whiskey as the repetition of actions would soothe the Huntress.

Those were the images she would recall that brought her peace. Glimpses of the beginning of her time arriving again to Rhy'din when she had led Alper and another gentleman to her table and to find a place to belong again. At least for the thought of friendship and belonging.

So tired...

A close of eyes as she willed herself to sleep. Shutting her eyes tightly from the image of Taboo and Karma that became Theodore.

Always became him.

The sound became strangled in her throat as she curled up in the bed, her skin so cold even as found her back pressing to Thedore's chest. Subtle reaching out to find again what had been lost.

Seeking solace as her fingers curled to her temples,gripping in the thick of black-gold as she willed the pain to stop.

Was this what it was to be alive?

It felt so much like dying inside.

Death perhaps had to happen in order for one to be brought back to life to learn how to appreciate everything they almost lost. There in the dark of night she curled at Theodore's side fingers tracing patterns along his skin as everything about him was memorized.

So much had changed, from her becoming the owner now of the Crymson Tryst rather then just the singer, to moving out of the fetish club to end up living with Theodore.

The possibility of the unimagined for the Huntress and that protective voice in her head, the one she had heard ever since she had been brought back to life seemed not to have any protests.

Ariahn drifted half in and half out of sleep as the heated warmth of her flesh molded to his figure, tangle of limbs as she closed her eyes.

It all seemed to feel right, it all seemed to make sense. Everything finally made its purpose and point so blissfully known for her.

She had those that she looked out for and was the protective Bodyguard of, and then she had Theodore.

Rona was safe, those she looked after were safe and well, things for once... were alright.

Maybe she hugged him just a bit tighter in that moment, native tongue breathing out the words of love against his skin before she succumbed to the first night of peaceful rest.

She was Home.