How fitting was it, Lavender thought, that she would die at the bottom of some crummy lake most likely never to be found. She always hated that lake, far too dangerous for children to play in at day and far too scary at night. Lavender always believed there was a ghost living at the bottom of the murky lake, and she was partially right. She was sinking, her entire body made of lead. What came first, the bruises or the drowning? She couldn't remember, what was happening to her? She was dying, naturally, it was inevitable. Everyone dies, so the old adage said. However, Lavender was certain most people actually knew how they died. Her strength was slowly coming back to her, just as her lungs started to give up their fight. She weakly moved her body and a blue tinted hand appeared. It was swollen, water logged like an old sponge. She shut her eyes, she didn't want to die knowing that's what she looked like. She was disgusting, she was too late, and she was dead.

How anticlimactically typical.

Lavender's closed eyes twitched and her torso jerked violently. Lakes have bottoms, so why did she feel like she was still sinking? The water felt differently now, cleaner and warm. She felt her strength slowly come back to her, as if she were drowning in reverse. Her eyes opened and she held her hands out in front of herself tentatively. Lavender felt all of her muscles loosen as she realized her hand was no longer the blue tinted sponge she last saw. Still, her lungs screamed for air, and with her new found strength she pushed herself out of the calming lake. 

Her emergence was less than graceful. Gasping and sputtering, she forced herself to calm down. Each breath made her chest burn and her ears ring, but she couldn't say she didn't appreciate the fact that she could breathe. Eventually, her wits came back to her and her chest stopped stinging. Lavender silently gasped, she definitely wasn't in some grungy lake anymore. Lavender turned her head slightly and looked at the large silver moon that dipped into the lake's surface. Immediately, the dripping moon soothed her a bit and dulled the memory of the lake and her swollen hand. It reminded her of her mother, who had the best and warmest hugs this side of France. Lavender smiled momentarily, reviling in the clear feeling she hadn't quite felt in a long time. She wasn't on Earth anymore, there was no doubt about that. There was no way she could feel this at peace on Earth. This was some afterlife, and Lavender wasn't sure what good deed she did to get here, but she was satisfied. Just as she began to relax, her mind began wondering. Many people had probably rested in this lake at one point or another.

Her mother had probably been here.

Lavender almost jumped out of the lake, gasping as she had drowned again. She suddenly felt as if she had tainted the soothing waters. With a huff she turned away from the waters, and her eyes finally registered the other bodies around her. Her taut fingers combed through her messy braids as she joined the other bodies. This was the moment, Lavender knew soon she would be welcomed into the afterlife. She was nervous, but it didn't show through her stony expression. The people around her were odd looking, but even in death Lavender wouldn't let her guard down.

"Welcome, Pure Ones." A younger looking redhead began speaking. Lavender turned her attention to her, then looked towards the white haired being that could only be a deity of some sort. 

She looked on at the redhead with feigned interest. Lavender was honored that she was chosen to guard a Goddess, even if her expression didn't show it. However, the moment the younger girl stopped talking Lavender would have to break the bad news to her. She would much rather spend the rest of her life, or her afterlife, in the company of her mother and father. Finally, she could get the closure she wanted. Lavender could imagine how shocked her parent's would be to see her, her mother would even put her hand to her heart like she always did when she was surprised. No Goddess of any sort could stop her from finding her parents again.

Lavender was so caught up in her daydreaming she almost missed the next part of the redhead's speech. 

"Be warned that you will have no time in the Afterlife; Pure Souls, due to their rarity, are immediately reincarnated with lack of memory regarding previous life."

Suddenly, Lavender was alert. Her posture became even more rigid, she felt as if she had just been pulled up by a string. She gritted her teeth so hard her jaw began to hurt, this was no afterlife. Of course she would be cut off this close. Her parents were so close, behind some kind of invisible golden gate most likely. The anger she harbored was dulled, she had no strength to get truly frustrated anymore. Every event she ever experienced was just one hurdle after another. Even death was hard on her, and apparently unforgiving. She finally realized, she hadn't done any good deed. That's why she was here.

Her hazel eyes scanned the other poor souls gathered around her. None of them had any choice but to accept the Goddess' offer, she couldn't see why anyone wouldn't. There was no fun to be had tumbling around in yet another body. Lavender barely had any fun in the body she was currently in. Apparently most of the others thought the same way, she watched three others step up and take the oath. Each one looked different, each one seemed to have their own problems at the moment. Her stony facade softened for a moment when she watched the others take their oath. It returned, however, as soon as they stepped back. Life always threw her curve balls, and she always managed to go with the flow. She'd never get closure, that's the way it always had been, and she was shocked that she let herself think otherwise. Lavender walked up to the Goddess, seemingly full of the grace and elegance she had learned to fake a long time ago. She knelt carefully, afraid she might lose her composer, and looked up at the silver haired Goddess,

"Through bow or blade, through shield or fist, I vow to protect my Lady Goddess. Through blood and soul, through mind and heart, I vow to my Lady, to do my part." Lavender's voice was just as low and powerful as it had been when she was alive, and for this she was grateful.

Getting up from her position, Lavender looked down to find a rapier at her feet. She picked it up warily, as if she could break it simply by looking. It had been years since she actually held a rapier, she remembered the fencing lessons her mother taught her in their dusty house when the world was tearing itself apart. She turned towards the Healing Falls and wordlessly covered her weapon in the water. Turning the old sword around, as if inspecting it for approval, she thrust into the air in front of her once. She again remembered her fencing lessons for years ago, she could still hear her mother repeating every move she attempted. [i]Thrust, thrust, parry, thrust, feint, thrust.[/i]

Lavender looked towards the man trying to make conversation with the girl next to him. She turned towards the young girl farther away and nodded, as if accepting all of them. They were all chosen.