<span style="font-style: italic">Cold.<br/><br/>Cold was the first thing she noticed as she opened her eyes, blinking dry crust from the corners.  She lay in a heap, legs tangled in her dress.  There was no recollection of what she had been before coming to this strange world, a world where magic was real and nightmares walked in the flesh.  She had always been as she was now; lost, forlorn, unable to understand a world that had gone made.<br/><br/>It took a small amount of effort for her to rise to a sitting position, and then she blinked again.  Black sand glittered beneath a dark sky studded with millions of gem-like stars, casting an eerie white glow across a dead landscape.  The sand was barely lighter black than the sky, and it rose in towering dune, outlined by starlight.  There was no moon in the sky.  There were no trees, no other signs of life...just endless sand stretching away in every direction, endless dunes dancing from horizon to horizon.  There wasn't even a breath of wind.  In fact, the air was thin and dry.<br/><br/>Dead.  The mist from her breath did not travel very far before vanishing, soaked up by the deadly deserts dry air before it could go far.  Deadly...no.  <span style="font-weight: bold">This place is dead.  It has been dead for tens of thousands of years.</span>  She shuddered where she sat, and slowly got to her feet, brushing sand from her unmemorable attire.  She slowly spun in place, looking every direction, hoping to find something.  There was nothing, anywhere.  Except...<br/><br/>...except there.  On a horizon.  A spire of black, piercing the heavens.  Its sides gleamed, as if it was made of glass, or perhaps obsidian.  She suddenly knew that that was the only structure on this entire world, knew it as if recalling a distant memory.  And within it...<br/><br/>...a presence.  A dire, dark presence filled with a yearning for freedom and a desire for conquest that made even the Overseer, made even Kefka, seem sane and approachable.  She knew this nameless entity, had dreamed of her many times before.  Only known as the Damned, and by another name that slipped her memory just then, flitting about amidst a cloud of broken glass floating in her mind.<br/><br/>And suddenly, that presence woke up.</span><br/><br/>She sat bolt upright, chest heaving with the memory of existential terror that had overpowered her senses quicker than she could ever have believed.  And blinked as she palmed sweat from her forehead, examining it as some curious oddity.<span style="font-style: italic">Where and the hell am I?</span>Naive wondered silently, looking about.  It appeared to be, well, some kind of medical facility of some sort.  All of the implements were familiar, in a way.  And, deeper in her head, she could feel another kind of terror, but it was something stemming from this room, as if recalling a memory buried deeply.  Taking deep, calming breaths, she looked about again.  There was no one here to greet her upon waking, and she had no idea how long she had been out, or why, or where everyone else had gone.<br/><br/>As she slowly flipped her legs out off of the table, an attendant came from a room that she had not seen, an unsmiling face, I-have-work-to-do sort of person.  Naive grimaced to herself upon seeing that unlovely face, and shook her head slowly.  That very same head pounded a little, but it was not enough that she was going to call attention to it.  Quite aside from the fact that some things were emerging from the shadows in her mind, twirling pieces coming together.  Finally.  She clasped a head against her forehead as knowledge bloomed there, and with it chaotic memories full of pain and suffering.  Some of it was recollections she herself had already lived through, albeit briefly.  Others were...well, they were<span style="font-style: italic">her</span>, but she had never done any of the things she was recalling.  Such as riding monstrous suits of powered armor, and slaughtering people with fire and brimstone.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">This....this is the power that I have at my fingers?</span>She could feel it, now.  Understand a part of it.  The power to warp reality, to create fire and death, or healing and life, from absolutely nothing was there, swirling in the veins of this borrowed body.  She tentatively touched it, and recoiled.  It was....bliss, in a way.<br/><br/>"Excuse me, miss."  She looked up, eyes focusing on the attendant.  "They left you here, but your companion has already left.  There isn't anything wrong with you that I can see, so kindly remove yourself from this facility.  There are people who do need me that you are keeping away."  He gestured (rudely) towards a door, and she looked at the way he was pointing, blinking.<br/><br/>"Um.  Ok, but where the hell am I supposed to be going?" she asked quietly.<br/><br/>"Anywhere but here.  The mess hall is where your companion is headed to.  Why don't you try there?"<br/><br/>"Mess...hall?  Where is that at?  Where am I at?"<br/><br/>He rolled his eyes, and relayed directions to get to where she needed to go.  As for where they were, he did not answer, turning away from her and busying himself with whatever else it was that needed doing in this strange laboratory.  She dropped lightly to her feet, and gave the tech a dirty look that, had it any power, would have left him smeared on the wall as bits and pieces of meat and bone.  It was, she realized, a stare that she had had used on her by women her entire life.  Interestingly, it felt oddly empowering.<br/><br/>"Well, screw you too, Chuckles," she muttered under her breath as she walked away, heading after where Katara had gone.  There wasn't a lot of heart in it thought.