The song for this...not-chapter is "Worn" by Tenth Avenue North. Yes, there are going to be 3 epilogues (not necessarily because they'll be long, but because I want to stick with 1 POV per epilogue like I did with the chapters). I think you'll all like this one. ;)

*Donella's POV*

Pain, soul-rending and white hot. I pulled away from it as any wounded creature would. Whatever bound me to that torture weakened as I struggled. I was going to be free! I gave another sharp tug and felt the connection strain to snapping.

I prepared to make one last attempt when something else laid hold of me. It ached with a different pain than that which I tried to escape. It startled me enough that I dropped the tenuous connection I was about to rip apart. I instinctively knew that pain wasn't mine, and I wondered where it came from. As if in answer to my question, this "other" wrapped around me and pulled me. There was no direction here, yet I knew we were going somewhere in particular.

I didn't realize I had been somewhere dark until red light blinded me. I didn't know how cold I was until that same light warmed me. I had never missed sound so much as when I heard a familiar voice. "Come back to me," it urged. The voice had power behind it, but it beseeched rather than commanded. In all its strength it sounded broken. It sounded strange but familiar.

Familiar. A familiar? Akatena? No, Tena was gone. That remembering added a new dimension to the pain I wished to escape. I tried to turn away from the memory, but the voice held me fast, wrapped around me more, tried to comfort me. "Please..." It tugged ever so gently.

This voice wanted me to go somewhere with it. I had the feeling I would inflict similar hurt on it if I continued to wallow in my own pain and refused to go back. Back? Where was I going back to? Why had I left? With that, we were in motion again.

I started remembering more as I was tugged along. Whenever I fought against a memory, the voice was there. Its urgency increased each time it called me forward. This was definitely forward, and yet back at the same time. It didn't make any sense, but I trusted the voice. I remembered that I trusted it at some point. I tried to resist the urge to struggle from then on, and we moved faster.

Soon, I remembered all but a few pieces and almost felt like myself—except for the pain still radiating from that connection I'd never broken. I looked down at it, wondering how it had not snapped with how far I must have been dragged. It still lay right where I'd dropped it. Had we not moved at all then? I couldn't be sure. The red light was still blinding.

It surprised me when I started seeing shapes emerge from that brilliance. These shapes sparked more memories that triggered others and so on. I remembered who the voice belonged to. I could feel him grinning, his magic still wrapped tightly around me. "I was worried you'd never remember," Dianite said.

I couldn't see him. I looked around the Nether, for that was where I'd found myself (was led back to myself would be more accurate). What seemed like aimless wandering eventually brought me to Dianite's temple. Finally, I spotted my friend. He was kneeling on the netherbrick floor near his throne, facing away from the entrance. What was he so intent on? I moved to see, and felt afresh the pain. He was holding...me.

I knew what my pain was instantly. It wasn't the physical wounds, though those were bad enough. However I'd gotten back to the Realm, my landing had not been pretty. Blood and feathers decorated the ground. I still had my wings; I felt some inexplicable joy at that. It faded when I saw the blistered burn on my hand where the angel ring had melted. Scorched, bloodied, and broken as I was, those injuries might have been livable.

The soul-shattering pain I'd tried so desperately to get away from was just that. My aura had been shredded by all that magic I couldn't hold on to. It reminded me of a popped balloon. Pieces hung on in tatters, but too many were missing to make the whole again. Such an injury was undoubtedly fatal.

"Don't be so sure," Dianite said. For the first time since my "arrival", he lifted his head from my body to look at me where I floated, now off to one side. His white eyes held an intensity that burned like lava. There was a hint of pain in his voice that I felt as much as heard when he continued. "I can't repair the damage to your quintessence, but there is something I can do. I need your permission though."

I gave him an odd look. "You aren't my follower," He reminded me. "And the ceremony I have in mind is rather strict in its requirements, one of which being consent." I could still feel a few holes in my memory, and I couldn't think of what ceremony he meant. I trusted him. If he thought he could save me, I'd give him the chance. I wondered how he could see my aura though; I definitely didn't recall him having that ability. (Um, remember how S2 Dianite kept a bit of Steve after the revival? Yeah...)

"I consent," I said with a grin, hoping to put him at ease. Whatever emotion his white eyes indicated, I wanted to banish it. "Just don't take any risks I wouldn't."

Dianite scowled at me for a moment before shaking his head, chuckling. "This isn't a laughing matter," He insisted, despite his grin, his eyes now holding a hint of coral. "This will hurt, but I'll try not to change you."

That worried me a bit, and thoughts of humor left me. He noticed and gave me a reassuring grin. "The making of an acolyte is a serious business."

An acolyte? I was dumbstruck. Of course, I had heard Dianite talk about Furia, his head guardian for the last century or so. (He'd insisted on using "guardian" rather than the "stuffy old term" that his brother had invented.) I had caught a glimpse of Furia once, and he'd looked surprisingly like Matt post-athar. Was that what Dianite meant by "change"? "Don't I have to be a follower?" I finally asked, picking the simplest of the questions flying around my mind.

Dianite had been muttering the beginnings of some incantation while I got over my initial shock, and he answered me mentally to avoid interrupting his work, No. Think of Declan, called "The Priest". He is Mianite's acolyte, but technically belongs to no one, allowing him to act as a voice for any of the gods. However, if he later decides he wants to formally follow a god, he could only choose Mianite. My and Ianite's quintessence would not mix well with what Mianite already gave him. He stopped his explanation there, and I decided not to distract him further.

Dianite gently folded my wings against my back and stood, lifting my body with him. I followed as he walked behind the throne heading for the same room I'd revived him in. He laid my body on the stone pedestal there and brushed hair away from my pale face. His eyes had settled into a fine ruby glow as he finished his incantation. He summoned a dagger to hand and carefully nicked the skin of my right palm, causing blood to slowly flow. Then he switched the blade to his left hand and cut the palm of his right. The dagger vanished, and he clasped my hand in his. He said a few more words in a language I couldn't recall ever hearing before and closed his eyes. As I watched, Dianite's scarlet aura grew around my hand in his. Then it began to spread along my arm, fixing scrapes and burns as it went. When that aura reached scraps of my maroon aura, it incorporated and stabilized them.

I felt the pain Dianite had warned me about when the mass reached my chest. For a moment I was thrown from Dianite's temple back into that place where I could see my fragile connection to life. The red aura was there too. It had spread toward me along that connection, strengthening it and making connections of its own. Then I was pulled back to the temple, now lying on that pedestal. A world of pain met me, for most of my aura was still severely damaged at this point. I tightened my grip on Dianite's hand and tried to hold back a scream. After an eternity, the searing pain I'd awoken with had diminished to echoes, and only the pins and needles of Dianite's aura growing roots into my being remained.

This process had attached a portion of Dianite's quintessence to me in a way that it would continue growing and replenishing as if it were my own, though it remained separate and distinct from my original aura. My aura was a patchwork of maroon and scarlet now if anyone had eyes to see it.

I let out a shaky breath that I had been holding for some time now and tried to blink spots from my vision. I was drenched in sweat and felt a little feverish, but I was alive. I was as weak as a newborn kitten when Dianite released my hand, and I let it fall to the cold stone beside me. He examined me from head to toe, his eyes coral with concern. After convincing himself that all was well, his eyes returned to their usual scarlet, and he grinned softly at me. He brushed a few beads of sweat off my face with a surprisingly gentle hand. It lingered almost in a caress at one point.

There was so much I wanted to ask him. Unfortunately, I felt my eyelids drifting closed of their own accord. I blinked and tried to hold my eyes open. Dianite's grin broadened, and he scooped me up as if I weighed no more than the feathers my wings boasted. He held me so my head rested against his warm chest and started walking—where I wasn't sure. Was he going to send me back to Laenadur to heal and regain my strength? Certainly the Nether's heat wouldn't help if I was running a high temperature, but I didn't want to go. I tried to make a sound of protest. "Hush," He whispered. "You need to rest. I'll still be here when you wake up." Thus mollified, I allowed myself to relax against Dianite's comforting warmth. I stopped trying to fight the healing sleep that called to me. The last thing I was aware of was a feather light touch on my forehead and Dianite's deep voice wishing me sweet dreams.

 ScruDonka made a fanart of Donella and Dianite! ^.^