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[Lars]

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Lars rises from his bed, uncomfortable and sweating profusely, feeling quite flushed and full in the face. His neck and shoulders are throbbing. He thinks to himself, "Too much exertion, you and Branwen aren't spring chickens anymore, ya know...acting like a couple of kids." His lover is not there, and he senses that he is alone in the house. Hot, thirsty, and oddly struggling to catch his breath, he decides to go downstairs to fetch some cool water. He feels a bit dizzy as he slowly gathers his feet, but again, shrugs it off to overexertion and fatigue. He makes it down the first two or three steps, but no further. His mild dizziness has been replaced by the room spinning, as if some unknown force or giant beastly creature had upended the room and spun it like a child's toy top. Lars' vision blurs, as the single, long staircase appears to him to have split in twain from the bottom up and he feels as if he will be sick. Then, all at once, it hits, an unholy pain in the middle of his chest as his once strong, nine-pound hammer of a heart, seizes, bringing the six-foot four-inch man to his knees in the middle of the staircase. He instinctively clutches his chest in his right hand, the wild flailing motion of his arm bringing an assortment of pictures and decorative ceramics clattering and crashing down beside his right knee. Only the grip of a weakened left hand upon the railing stops a complete tumble down the stairs. He tries with all of the fainting breath within him to call for help, "Bran...Rodr....!" His words are stuck like marbles caught in his throat and he chokes on them, with only enough air to eek out a sound barely audible above a whisper. Finally, his weakened hand gives way and he collapses, face first, and hard into the stone stairs. The weight of his body carries him headlong down three or four more stone steps, until friction brings the large man to a stop, face down. There he lies, unconscious, but breathing...although shallow, and barely so.

[Ari]

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Branwen arrives home at the Casteson Hall in fire Isle after her short morning visit to Moonglow, Finances and trade have never been so dismal.. with a sigh she opens the heavy white marble door and immediately finds Lars face down on the bottom of the steps. " Lars" she screams! running to his side. She kneels down next to him and places two fingers on his neck checking for a pulse. "whats happened?" she gently strokes his long brown locks. She supports his neck and rolls him onto his side then kisses his cheek. Branwen then covers Lars with a warm blanket.

"I've got to get help"

[Lars]

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Lars suddenly finds himself seemingly awake, but doesn't understand how this is possible. He realizes that he is floating in mid-air, and looking down at his own body, collapsed in the stairway. His beloved Branwen is kneeling by his side weeping, and apparently praying. He reaches for her, calling her name, but to no avail, no sound escapes his lips. He is carried ever upward, further out of reach of his loved one, and out of reach of his body. Smaller and smaller they become, until they disappear from sight. "I must be dreaming!" He thinks to himself. He passes through a grey mist, like a heavy fog. From within the mist, he can glimpse a world devoid of color, the abode of all the souls of Sosaria that are caught in limbo between the world of the living and the world of the dead, and yet, still further upward he is carried...

All at once he is consumed in a flash of brilliant white light, and finds himself in an idyllic garden, and standing erect, on his feet. He feels a soft hand caress his shoulder from behind, and the soft voice of one he never thought to hear again, calls to him. "Dad?!" He turns to find himself staring directly into the face of his departed daughter, Grace.

"Father", she nods with a smile. "Grace!", he exclaims in a moment of sheer ecstasy. "My dear darling Grace!", he said. "I never thought to glimpse your lovely face again in this life!", he continued. "Why, I thought you were...", his words trailed off in a moment of confusion. "Dead?", she interjected with a laugh, "Why yes Father, I AM." "Then how...?", he began. "That must mean I'm...", he started again. "Nearly", she interrupted. "But you must go back Father, it is not yet your time." "But my dear one," he protested, "Can I not stay here with you? This place, this paradise, is so lovely, and I do not wish to lose you ever again.", he said. "But what of mother and my brother Michael?", Grace questioned sternly. Lars lowers his head, nodding sadly, if such an emotion were possible in such a place. She places a hand on his shoulder and he looks up into her eyes, swearing for a brief moment that he glimpses the shadow of her mother's face reflected there. "Worry not, my beloved Father, we shall all be together here in time, never our family to suffer parting again.", she says, smiling once more. "I shall be watching all of you carefully, and waiting.", she said.

With that, she kisses him gently on the cheek, and instantly, he finds himself back in his body. His eyes open slowly, lacrimal fluid streaming down his temples from their corners. "Lars, you're alive, oh thank God!", a worried Branwen shrieks as she falls upon his chest with low, heaving sobs. Only one weak word escapes his lips as his eyes close again...."Grace!"