No one lets her forget it.

Estranged glances, impatient hurrying, communicated silently through one’s body language. She knows. She knows that she talks slowly, slurring her words as if dizzied by wine. That her speech is foreign as a Nature dragon to a Plague clan. That she is unlike the others, even her own kind. Yes -- Empress knows -- and no one lets her outlive it. Not that she’s lived longer than… oh, how long has it been? The pieces are there. But with such obscurity, she cannot hope to interconnect them. It’s on the tip of her tongue, as the crowd nowadays would call it.

Empress knows. There is little else beyond her present. The future is unforeseeable.

The past? It ceases to exist. In the stead of technicality, she will admit that isn’t true.

Just because one cannot perceive it does not mean it isn’t real. Like the magic that rebirthed her, the necromancer that breathed life into her empty lungs, she must believe.

With little choice, she pursues what lies ahead. No one asks to be born. But with zest for new life, a thirst for knowledge, Empress grabs destiny by the horns. She searches, desperate for some semblance of a clawhold at what once was. Memory eludes her, but knowledge is power.

At night, she dreams. A long, endless walk through a faceless crowd. Whispering, gawking.

A creeping, frigid trepidation, something. She doesn’t know what. But she knows it is coming.

All-consuming darkness. Eating away at her peripherals, devouring light.

Tightness at her throat. She wakes up flailing. Benevive tells her it's nothing.

Go back to sleep.