Life Lived Again

[placeholder text here, i was going to type up a note but my brain 404'd, have this filler text instead]
=Prologue=
==Part 1==
Queen Peregrine shot up from her sleep in a cold sweat, her head whipping around the sleeping quarters as if someone had scared her awake. Perfectly clean, as usual. Not a single thing was out of place, no window was broken, not a single thing had changed in the 8 hours of sleep she usually got.. but something still felt as though it was off. She got up from the blankets that made up her sleeping space, yawning and taking another look around just to make sure.
Taking a torch off of the doorway and setting it ablaze, Peregrine opened the doors to the throne room. Every tapestry in the room was either about her or something depicting her "zero to hero" story, woven in bright gold and red that was just a bit too saturated for her eyes, even in the dim light of the sunrise outside. Not a single soul was there. save for the bugs that- wait, why did she even have to know that bugs had souls? When did she get that power again.. oh, right, from the time she had to fight an immensely powerful animus that emerged from one of the moons and gained the ability to know where the weak spots of dragons were by just looking at their soul. That was.. strange. Why would she ever need that again? Anyways, she continued on, walking out towards the rest of the Sky Kingdom.
As usual, the ones who were still awake or had just woken up were the remains of a party in honor of her latest return, just staying up and playing party games and admiring others' art pieces. This was beginning to chill even her, the impossibly strong and fearsome, yet beautiful and cunning Animus Queen Peregrine. What has gotten into me? she thought to herself with a shiver as she spread her wings and flew down to the party.
Both the partygoers and almost every nearby neighbor were immediately overjoyed to see their returning Queen appear once again, immediately forming a small crowd in front of her and waiting patiently, like obedient dragonets around a caretaker waiting for them to tell a story. "May someone explain how many times these parties have been held?" she inquired for the crowd.
"277, if my memory is correct. You've kept the entirety of Pyhrria safe from destruction time and time again, so what's not to keep us from celebrating every time, Your Majesty?"
Two hundred- What?! Peregrine almost recoiled back as if that number was any surprise to her before. The air she breathed began to feel like it was burning, all around her and in her lungs, but she was used to it.. somehow. She had triggered the natural Firescales defense that a fellow animus had given to her before they died of their injuries. Her head was beginning to feel like it was being hit by a boulder, with every memory of what she had done in order to keep the perfection from being destroyed.
"Your queen will be back in a few moments," Peregrine said hurriedly, taking off back towards the sleeping quarters and watching them all go back to what they were doing, but not without a salutatory blast of fire her way or something along the lines of that.
Peregrine slammed the door of her quarters shut, tossing the torch against the floor so that it went out immediately and sending a mass of scrolls to shut out any light from the spacious windows that felt like they were blinding her at this rate. Complete darkness, save for a crack of light from the door, now completely engulfed her.
She'd slain gods. Anything that threatened the safety of the dragon world, the continents or even the unfathomably large universes, she could flick away with relative ease. Two hundred seventy-seven times she'd done this, with her only becoming more powerful and beautiful and perfect each time, like she'd been given completely indestructible plot armor in the story of her life. Why was she perfect? What was there in fighting powerful foes if there was no risk? Was she perfect just to be perfect..? The questions suddenly just wouldn't stop flowing from her head like the waterfalls that had sprung up and suddenly began to provide the kingdom with clean, clear, perfect water.
After a few minutes, suddenly, silence made itself present. Then, something came to her mind that could bring her realization to an ultimate end.
"I know what I need to do, I need to start fresh. And I know just which of these 200-odd powers can help me with imperfection."
==Part 2==
What could only be described as the void of space surrounded the singular Skywing as she walked forward almost aimlessly. Stars and planets she knew she'd never visit passed at almost glacial rates as she searched for the one entity she knew would help with her sudden problem, coming ever closer yet going farther away from them at the same time.
"Hello? Are you here?" Peregrine called out to seemingly nothing, and nothing spoke back. It was space, after all. Almost nothing could hear her. Almost.
At once, a booming voice seemed to materialize all around her and in her head at the same time, causing the SkyWing to yelp and jump.
"What do you seek?" the voice began to speak, "It's.. interesting of you, to come back after turning me and my powers, into nothing more than the space dust around us."
"I'm here to ask for a way out," she spoke back, "I've realized that something might be.. wrong, with the dragon world. With me."
That prompted what could only be described as a long, scratchy chuckle from the voice before it continued on, "Well, that's a surprise. Coming from you, of course. Anyways, your will is my command. What would you want done? Do you want everyone to forget who you are, perhaps your powers stripped of you- wait, that would just make you die out here, heheh.. Maybe even.."
A long pause followed the voice, leaving an unsettling silence, even for the void that was outer space. "A way to start completely new?"
Both of them knew exactly what they meant by that. For a few moments, Peregrine thought of all the things she'd lose. Everyone she knew, everything and every ability she gained, and every last shred of power, would disappear.
The voice seemed to almost prod her in the side of the head with a nonexistent talon, looking for her to make the decision more quickly. "Fine," she said in response, "I'll do it."
They laughed, then ending up coughing for a few seconds. "Ha, now that's the spirit," they said.
Before either of them even knew it, her vision began to go completely white, blinding Peregrine completely as the voice spoke, and for the final time she'd hear the voices of this universe:
"There you go. Gone are the powers that have displeased you so. See you sometime again, Peregrine."
----
=Chapter 1: Awakening=
The first thing the SkyWing saw was clouds rushing past her face. A few moments later, the feeling of certain death set in as she tried to orient herself, looking down to see almost the entire continent below her and suddenly realizing that she was falling. She struggled to put herself in a position where she could begin to take control of herself, just awkwardly turning around in the air like a turtle on its back.
That was all she could remember before she suddenly blacked out.
== Part 1 ==
Some indeterminate amount of time later, she woke up in what looked like a hut, on a hammock during nighttime. Everything hurt, but she also couldn't move because she was covered head to talon in bandages. The only thing that still could move freely was her mouth, letting out a hoarse, scratchy cough and a small puff of flame as she blinked a small bug out of her eyes. She could.. probably get used to this, but all of the blanks in her memory began to scare her a bit.
Just when she thought it was just her and her thoughts, a deep blue dragon that could barely be seen against the dark everything walked in, coming over to her with a curious look on their face, speaking softly and seeming to try not to spook her, "Hey, are you awake? Not dead at the very least?"
"I feel like I'm dead," she spoke back slowly, "where am I?"
The other dragon looked around the room for a few moments before answering that question. "The Rainforest Kingdom. Honestly, me and the other two healers have no idea how you're even alive right now."
Explains a lot, her thoughts began, but eventually focused a bit more on the question Elderberry prompted: how was she alive? Despite the apparent fall from outer space into the Rainforest Kingdom, she couldn't feel any broken bones or exceptionally messed up limbs underneath the bandages, just pain. She probably wouldn't know until she knew how long she'd have to stay in here. "What's your name?" she asked, coughing and beginning to reach for her mouth, but remembering that she could still barely move.
"Elderberry. Everyone forgets my name, so it wouldn't make much of a difference to remind others." Their tone began to shift to being more casual, shifting to a much more visible blue-green and sitting down inside of her limited point of view.
"I'm.." she trailed off, pausing and looking uneasy for a second. She couldn't remember her name, but that ultimately wouldn't stop her for too long. "Crow. My name is Crow."
"It would probably sound cooler if you had a bunch of scars or dealt with war, but your red doesn't really contrast well with any.. darker reds from my experience today." Elderberry laughed a bit, to the Skywing's own surprise. Apparently, dark humor was a thing among some Rainwings.
Elderberry spoke a bit more, lowering her voice, "I'll see you later today, try to get some sleep. You won't heal if you don't give your body the energy to." And with that, the Rainwing suddenly got up and left without time for Crow to complain or ask any more questions. She was alone.. again. At this rate, the best thing to do was to listen to what Elderberry said and at least make an attempt to sleep through the rest of the night.
"Oh well," she said to herself, "guess I'll have to wait until then for more questions."
== Part 2 ==
The next few days seemed to drag on and on for Crow, only broken up by visits from younger Rainwings, the healers, and occasionally, Elderberry. She still couldn't move too much thanks to her still being covered in bandages, but the healers said that she was recovering well. She couldn't say the same about her memory, unfortunately.
The oldest thing that she could remember was someone speaking to her, saying "See you sometime again, Peregrine," but the one thing about it was that her name wasn't Peregrine.. which was odd, to say the least. Maybe she could just find her memories later, somewhere along the line.
Her thoughts were interrupted by Elderberry speaking something in her ear, causing her to shoot up from the hammock (well, as far as she could with bandages on) and then fall right back down, groaning in pain.
From what she could see, Elderberry had turned a shade of purple and green, but hadn't backed away from the sudden motion on Crow's end. "Are you okay?" the Rainwing asked quietly, trying her best to get the colors of her scales under control but ultimately failing, "That.. really looked like it hurt."
After a few seconds of wincing and groaning, Crow spoke back, "It did. That probably set me back a few days as well."
That probably wasn't the best thing for Crow to say, because a few silent moments after, Elderberry suddenly left. That left her with just her thoughts as the healers came in to begin tending to her again. She'd probably have to search for Elderberry herself when she eventually got out of the healer's hut.
== Part 3 ==
At the very least, learning to walk again was going swimmingly. The next week before the healers decided Crow was good enough to let out was mind-numbingly boring with the usual routine they had set in place, and was even a bit lonely at times without Elderberry. Spending those weeks doing literally nothing for every day had made her body forget that using her legs and wings were vital to survival, and so that was the next thing the healers decided to have her do.
Crow had stumbled and fallen into the muddy rainforest floor at least six times so far, or seven now that it had happened again. If the other healer (called Quetzal) wasn't keeping a constant eye on her she would've probably disappeared within the obscene amount of foliage on the forest floor. He helped the Skywing pick herself up again, seeming a little surprised with how little progress she'd made so far, but continuing on regardless.
As she looked up towards the kingdom in the trees, a blue head belonging to what she assumed to be Elderberry poked out from a platform not very far from a tree that was staring in her direction caught her attention. The head in question proceeded to turn invisible as both of them noticed they were looking at each other, which both calmed and made Crow a bit more nervous.
Elderberry was still keeping an eye on her in some capacity, but she still wanted to tell her that she didn't mean what she said back in the healer's hut. She sighed as she continued on with trying to keep up with Quetzal, which earned an understandably confused glance from him. "It's nothing," Crow said, watching her steps and making sure she wouldn't fall.. which she still did, but it was progress regardless.
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