Just as the sun is coming up, Sarena makes her way 'downstairs' in her haven.  Reinforced cement, myriad layers of security, electronic, mundane and mystical, and nestled in the midst of suburbia with a thousand similar homes; hers the only one with a full 'basement', though it doesn't show on the blueprints.<br/><br/>She casually tosses her weapon and bag onto a small stand by the door, glancing around to make certain no alarms are running, no alerts or flashes...nothing has happened while she was out, nothing that requires her attention before her daily death.  She picks up a remote and presses a well worn button, turning the projector on and running a live feed from TV Tokyo.  She wouldn't hear it while she 'slept', but it was part of her little ritual.  She could feel the sun rising slowly, the rays beginning to touch her house as she felt death claiming her for another day.  Feeling the lethargy in her bones she makes her way to the wide pit of bean bag chairs, pillows and other bits of fluff gathered around a ball pit in the center.  With a soft Shinto prayer, she lays on her favorite bean bag and closes her eyes, body going deathly still and temperature falling as her breathing stops, heart slows to a standstill and death takes her again.<br/><br/>For centuries, that had been the end of it.  She would simply awaken again, unaware of the day that had past, taking several moments for everything to orient, waiting for her body to warm, for muscles to return to their normal litheness.  Each year it seemed to take just a little longer for her to wake.  A little harder to convince herself to go out.  Today...something changed.<br/><br/>Sarena sits suddenly, heart racing suddenly and panting, a cold bloodsweat broken across her brow the moment the light of the sun is gone from the sky.  She closes her eyes again, seeing the images again, flit as fast as thought through her mind again.<br/><br/>Sitting atop a carriage, racing through the night, drawn by four black stallions...a look back and seeing the sky an even darker black save for a bright light over a city and the crackle of lightning.  A sword in hand, covered in blood.<br/><br/>A mountain, on a trail, the moon obscured by alpine wood, rain slick stones beneath feet, running from place to place, knowing something is in the darkness.  Something Else.<br/><br/>A large room in a castle.  A ballroom?  Kindred all about, wearing myriad styles...hard to place...indistinct...court, perhaps?  The prince is irate...something I'd done?  A prank gone awry...the sheriff and scourge died the final death...and laughter?<br/><br/>A ship...a vessel on the sea... a long voyage...again, everything is indistinct...unclear...rampant disease, mortals looking wan and pale...<br/><br/>Another...vague shape in the darkness.  Everything in shades of black, not even grey.  An impression less than a vision, of something there.  Of age and power.  Of something terribly old.  Older than she can comprehend.  Something...smiling?<br/><br/>She shakes her head, cursing softly in ancient tongues, massaging her temples for a moment as she goes over and over the images, feeling them dissipate even as she tries to focus on them.  What was that about?  Were they her memories, trying to resurface?  Were they someone else's?  It didn't...feel right about them being her memories...they were...foreign.  Wrong.  Different.  They weren't hers...but why?<br/><br/>She stumbled out of the mess of pillows and bean bags, stopping in front of a large specialized freezer unit and presses a series of buttons, opening to expose frozen blood.  She pulls one out with tongs and seals the unit again, putting the blood into sink to run warm water over.  After a few moments she collapses into the chair by her computer array, arranged into a Beowulf cluster, and sips on her blood, thinned with concentrated "Hawaiian Punch".  She twirls about in the chair a few times, thinking and getting her blood moving before setting down the mug of blood juice, cracking her knuckles and typing on the elvish keyboard, trying to comment about everything she could remember.  It may not be important, but...one could never be certain.