When she'd taken her last breath, for only a moment, she wondered what it was that would be waiting for her. She'd heard many things about what dying was like from the tales told by survivors, those who had been able to cheat death just as those cold hands reached for them and brushed icy fingers against their skin only for them to be breathed back to life mere milliseconds before it would be too late. Before the night that her whole world ended by the touch of the obsidian blade, Beylani might have wondered to herself what really happens. Were the stories of those who had stepped just inside death's door only to step back out again and close the door true in any sense at all? Of course, they had sworn on their second chance at life that it was very much true, and yet she could not help but wonder why no one ever mentioned the figure draped in a tattered cloak of black standing there beside their body which was rapidly fading away. Most would claim to have seen a bright light at the end of a dark tunnel, but the young woman could not think of a moment where anyone spoke of reaching this light as they were walking - or perhaps drifting, maybe floating - towards it. They never told of what was in that light, and she wonders if that might be because stepping into it would mean there was no returning, no going back. They hadn't said anything about a field of endless gold and summer sky. There was never tale of pearly white gates opening up into a breathtaking place where loved ones departed would be waiting with loving smiles and warm embraces. None of this was ever spoken of from the stories that Beylani could remember hearing. They would say that their life flashed before their eyes, going as far back as those earliest memories and to that final moment where their life ended. But, that hadn't been the case for her. All that she could remember, in those final moments of her life as it had been, was agonizing pain that seized her body, those tears falling feeling from her baby blue eyes all before she felt herself falling... and the last thing she had seen as her last breath made one more weak attempt at clinging desperately to the life she had been far from ready to say goodbye to was the loving smiles of her parents. She remembers the fear that ebbed away, moving into the background until she could no longer feel it, finding comfort in the understanding which had washed over her. She remembers thinking that his was her last moment, and she had been certain that surviving the ritual would be impossible for her shattered heart so lost without the one who had been its compass once. But, even in her dying moment, it had been enough to console the young woman, knowing that the last ones she would see were her mother and father, the two beings who have always loved her more than anything in this world and whatever it was that waited beyond it for those who left their mortal existence behind - whether by old age, illness, or tragedy. In her final moment, she hadn't truly been alone, and for the young woman who'd only just begun to love, that had been enough.

Even before her life had been taken, before her gaze wide with terror rested upon the stone table marked by engraved words belonging to a language she did not know, her heart hammering frantically in her breast as that innate want to try and fight so she might survive though she knew there was no overpowering her captors in such a weakened and exhausted state, there had been a small part of her which had come to accept what fate had dealt her. She had defied it at first, refused to think that it would all end this way. And yet, there was that voice in the back of her mind, trying to tell her that it wasn't her choice anymore. She remembers thinking how she simply hoped that someone would find her when that missing persons report was broadcasted across Sacrosanct and Willowhaven. At least then, her family and friends would have some sort of closure, a fragment of hollowed comfort knowing she was not locked away somewhere alone and afraid... anymore. She had always thought of those she loved before ever really thinking of herself, but they had been everything to her. So, when Cass and his accomplice had come for her, led her down into that damp and dark cellar to serve as the young woman's final resting place, it had been her last wish, her dying wish buried beneath all her fears, that she would be found and her loved ones given that reassurance the young woman was no longer suffering as she surely would have had she lived. She hadn't dared to herself think of just how devastated her mother and father would be as law enforcement would identify her cold, lifeless, blood-covered body. She didn't let herself imagine the sadness in Ellie's glacier blue eyes, the younger woman having become her best friend in Beylani's short time spent within the city where she'd discovered so many things. And... Andras... Despite everything, the heartbreak that left her so shattered and subjected to an ache in her soul unlike anything she'd ever felt as he left behind a gaping hole where she'd once held him so very close, there had even been a fleeting moment at the end of her life for the fae man she loved. The young woman wanted to let him go, thinking that in doing so she might not feel the pain left behind in that last morning they'd shared, Beylani having hoped then that he might feel what she thought had been there between them. And yet, even as she was being taken to the place where she would die, she could not stop herself from thinking of him. Would he cry for her, suddenly realizing that he might just have loved her after all? Or, would he not even be there when those family and friends gathered to celebrate the short life she'd lived and what she meant to each of them? After all, she hadn't been anything to him save for some human, some trinket that perhaps made him curious or simply had him amused with just how easily he had been able to play with her heartstrings, enjoying how she'd fallen for him only for the man to never feel what lived in her every tender smile and quiet heartbeat. So, to even wonder if he might miss her at all, it was foolish. And yet, she had. Even with her final breath, her very last thought, her heart had called out his name only to echo into the silence of that black oblivion in what she'd thought to be melancholy silence as death beckoned her.

Beylani's mind reels as it is pulled from the darkness which had been a silent and still comfort the young woman believed she would wander for, well, until her soul made it to wherever those departed went. Unless there was neither a heaven, hell, or purgatory. She hadn't been afraid like she had as death came for her in those last living moments, if anything having accepted her fate and seeking the severance from her broken self in hopes of peace. A peace that it had indeed given her as pitch black surrounded her... only for the blue-eyed blonde to find herself here in Somnia. She tries to make sense of whether or not this was just an illusion, some strange middle-place like that field of endless swaying gold. But, it was far too familiar, and where there had only been the soft whisper of gentle zephyrs and rustling wheat, everything came crashing around her, crowding and assaulting the young woman's senses unlike anything she'd ever known before. She could hear the birds outside, flitting through the evergreens only just beginning to truly come into focus as her blurred vision sharpens. The softest sounds, they came to her as clear as the sun which filters into the large bedroom so full of memories that do not quite reach her in this very moment. She can hear the crackling of the fireplace, only it seemed so loud. These things, they had never been this strong to her before. What?... Why? And then, there was the sound of slow and tired breaths that did not belong to her, having been entirely aware of her own heartbeat and every breath that became easier and easier to take into her lungs as her body begins to realize what is happening. Beylani does not even need to see him to know that Andras is there, slowly turning her head within the embrace of his pillow to see the fae man where she remembers seeing him before in a circumstance much like this one... only, she'd been so certain she hadn't survived. His scent envelopes her senses completely, powerful and perhaps it might have even been comforting... but it was not alone. She could smell the metallic crimson that painted his chiseled chest, covered his hands, and she knew it to be hers. There was something else, something she hadn't realized before as it washes off the fae man in waves when he leans forward in his chair, offering a weak smile that might have touched the young woman somehow mere weeks ago. Before she had dared to test those waters, unable to keep herself from wanting to know if he felt for her as she did for him and disregarding what reality and logic so dictated. What was that? Relief? She hadn't smelled that before, this visible shift in Andras' demeanor and yet her mind latches on to this for a moment, that she was in fact sensing something the blue-eyed blonde had either never noticed there before or couldn't have. I'm... not dead. This is the thought that flickers through her thoughts with a finality Beylani knows she cannot refuse and yet, still she cannot quite fathom how - not yet. Maybe it wasn't so much how she was, but rather why she was. No, she had not wanted her life to end the way that it had simply for having lost a love which had never really been given to her in the first place even though she had given all of her heart to him, but Beylani had accepted it in the end, when she felt the blade cut into her skin and drained her of the very thing which kept her alive, as how things were meant to be.

Baby blues look to Andras, those depths asking the true question of why it was that she was here, the last place she wanted to be as she remembers how he'd scolded her for thinking of what they might have been able to have together if things had been different... if she had been born fae rather than human."I would never allow such a thing nor would I ever even picture it. Do not ever speak like that again". It is impossible for her to forget the anger behind his words, the way he had placed that distance between them which felt more like worlds than mere feet. And so, in place of happiness to see him that should have been there, she only feels the dull ache threatening her heart once more amidst the confusion as she tries to understand what her world has become in the time she hadn't quite been in it. Her lips speak his name and it has the fae man standing from his seat and moving towards the side of that been in which she lay, massive wings drooped and nearly dragging before Andras kneels there beside her. His hazel gazes does not waver from hers of warm summer sky, her hand almost flinching as his own reach for her, and yet they don't protest to the feeling as her smaller one is practically encased within that gentle hold. Andras is silent for a moment and she does not look away as she searched his hazel depths for the answer lingering there before finally tenor tones that once awoke some much within her touch on wildly sensitive ears, now hoarse and heavy. They hit her hard, even when she knew them to be true. Perhaps it was just in hearing those words that made them all the more real."How... How did you find me?", she asks quietly, the softest of whispers leaving her lips as though she wasn't sure if she wanted to know the answer as he confesses that it was his fault she'd perished there on that stone table. But... if I died... Only now does Andras' gaze waver, though still they do not abandon her baby blues as he very nearly falters in his next words, his thumb brushing softly against the back of her hand still lingering there in his own. It was then that she feels the breath stolen from her lungs, and for a moment, she doesn't believe him. He had told her that such things were forbidden in his realm, again his words from the night in the hot springs ringing through her mind. Why would he lie about something like that, though, Lani? Lifting that other hand to her ears, she feels those delicate points hidden there beneath her blonde hair. Baby blue eyes widen then, her heart almost stilling in her breast. Again, her mind is reeling, trying to grasp why it was that this was happening. Stricken in silence, trying to come to grips with knowing she'd died, that she was no longer human, what he dares to say next has her plunging into cold water and her stomach twisting into knots as every ounce of that heartache overwhelms her all over again. She pulls her hand away, brings it to her chest and over her heart as each new immortal beat starts to hurt, her vision beginning to blur beneath hot tears that gathered there."You couldn't lose me? Why? You made it clear how you feel after you said you wouldn't even bother to think about-", she says, her voice dangerously low and betraying the hurt masked in fury, breaking off as she chokes back the words you and me. She is shaking now, though out of hurt or anger even she does not know, that cold water turning to ice in her veins as she looks away from him, fighting the tears that so desperately wanted to roll down fair-skinned cheeks.