Sue sat drained, upon the floor of the small bedroom in the largely vacant apartment, gingerly cradling the jar of ashes between her hands, gazing into the last mortal remains of the Euthanatos Mage known as Evangeline. They stirred beneath her quiet breaths, forming patterns of dunes which change again with the next breath.

However, her duty was not yet done. A presence enveloped her, a dark hand upon her own guided her finger to trace upon the surface of the ash, a rough map bisected by a wandering line. A single word whispered into her mind's ear "Ganga...." and the Goddess retreated back into her shadowy nitch. Tiredly, Sue nodded assent, a shiver running down her spine at the absence of the familiar brush of her once long hair. The ashes must be desposited in the sacred river Gangus...

With a sigh, she stirred enough to take mental stock of her resources. A dagger, some odd bones, a monkey's skull, a rattle, a tiny doll, and the clothing on her back. Her Magick.... but that thought she dismissed. It was far too dangerous to simply teleport, both because of the watchful Technocracy and her own current exhaustion. She had no money and she was so tired... so very tired...

Within moments, she was asleep where she sat.

The ancient train clattered noisily along its tracks, rails laid down long before India's independence. It was crowded as well, children running and playing through the aisles. Men and women talked among themselves while others stared out of the open windows at the passing countryside, and still others slept, but all a part of the whole, a little microcosm of community except for one.

Sue adjusted the drape of her shawl over her shorn hair, becoming grateful for its lack of length in this hanging heat. She peered around herself, smiling faintly at the children... she must have fallen asleep again. Her other hand wound more tightly around the jar concealed beneath a fold of her long head-covering, a convulsive action to asure herself of its presence.

In the horizon, a ramshackle station appeared, one of the few serving the rural areas. Not long after, the train jolted to an unceremonial stop, and passengers and cargo shifted, loading and unloading, yet Sue remained unnoticed at her window, watching. This is not her stop, or so she thought.

Involved with her thoughts, she looked up with a startled gasp as a darkly tanned and wrinkled hand descended to her shoulder. The face her gaze fell upon was masculine, kindly... and familiar. She nearly dropped her precious cargo, the jar of ashes, in an attempt to show her respect, but the older man neatly caught it, and presented it back to her. His dark eyes gazed into her own as he spoke quietly "From here, Siddah, you must fast and continue on foot."

A confused expression crossed Sue's brow, questions surfacing to the fore of her thoughts... how had he known she was making this journey? Why had he come, himself? Why must she fast... walk? Then all became clear with a whispered thought "Purification". Not just for her 'sister's' remains, but herself as well. Rising, she nodded once, then gave the old man a reverent bow "Yes, Rimposhe" and departed from the train, drifting through the mass of humanity as if no more than a breeze, or a dream.

The countryside turned from field into field, the monotonous landscape leaving Sue in isolation with her thoughts, her feet taking her towards her destination almost of their own accord. Occasionally the farmers would pause to stare at the fair-fleshed stranger. A few even called out to her, but she heard them not. Sadly, they would shake their heads and return to their work.

Sue let her mind wonder as she walked, placidly accepting the heat, her body's cry for water, and dismissing them from her consciousness. A doubt began to gnaw on her mind, something she had not let herself consider since she witnessed the death of the one whose ashes she now bore. That passing had shown her something, something that she had not seen for herself, how soul and psyche parted with each other at the moment in which one life ended and another waited to begin. It had happened for this Chakrivanti... quite clearly, in fact. But, the doubt nagged at her, does it happen for all?

She stumbled suddenly as if jerked back, a thought coming to her "Would you so dishonor the one you bear?" Sue recoiled as if struck, whispering softly "No, Mahadevi...."

"Good" and all was silent.

Day turned into night before the insidious doubt rose up again. Sue's eyes trained upwards towards the crescent of the moon, calling softly "Maha... it is true?" as a tormenting image of how that young man's shade had screamed and melted beneath her Magick. Hearing no answer, she pulled her shawl tighter and continued to walk.

Her steps wore on through the night, until she found herself approaching a small dwelling at the edge of a village. Modest in its means, it appeared to slumber for the night and she moved to circumvent it, and the village... but found that her feet kept her on a path to its door. The command was simple "Enter."

With a thought of protest quickly quelled, Sue pressed upon the light door, and found that it freely gave her admittance. The main room was quiet and still, several children of various ages sleeping in one corner. It was the occupant of another that drew her attention as her Avatar admonished "Watch".

The old woman... grandmother, no doubt, of the brood that slept nearby, gave half a cough, then let the rest of her breath release with that all-to-familiar rattle. A few more moments as the heart stilled, the brain quieted, and Sue opened her eyes to the Shadowlands. Quietly, and without remark, the elderly matron's Atman, long Asleep in this life, parted from the figure, amorphious and indesinguishable as it returned to the Wheel. The other essence, that which was the woman, the sum of her mind and persona, lingered for a moment over the heads of the sleeping grandchildren before she too departed, slipping into what could only be described as light with a soft sigh seemingly so imbedded with relief and satisfaction.

Sue's Avatar's only comment as she stepped from the hut back into the night was "Is it true?"

Coming upon the sacred river Ganges was particularly... uneventful. This section of the muddy waters was between bustling villages and cities, left to itself to meander quietly and free of other devotees seeking its blessing. Having no legend, lore, or myth of any particular god or ascetic associated with this particular segment, no temples resided here, only gently sloping banks.

Sue was almost relunctant to disturb its tranquility, murmuring a soft apology to the river for her disturbance in Hindi as she slipped the dusty, travel-worn sandels from her feet. Sandals??? She didn't have any shoes... she was barefoot in...

Her perception of reality wavered, almost becoming once again the bedroom of a far distant apartment before it snapped back to the moment before crisis.

Sue was almost relunctant to disturb its tranquility, murmuring a soft apology to the river for her disturbance in Hindi as she slipped the dusty, travel-worn sandels from her feet. Her wrap, the dusty shawl, she drug from her head and let that slip as well to the ground, approaching the bank in slow, reverent steps, slipping the lid from the jar in her hand and letting that fall as well.

The water lapped cooly at her bare toes, rising up past her ankles, then her knees as she waded in, waiting until it was waist-deep before she cast the ashes upon the waters in a wide arc, whispering softly "Be at peace, be reborn..."

Again to her startlement, in that next moment, the man she had called Rimposhe was there beside her in the river. Gently he placed one hand at her back, the palm of his other upon her forehead and pushed her backwards into the water without time for protest, uttering only "And you, Daughter..."

Sue panicked, tried to struggle... the water was too dark, too muddy to let sunlight filter through, making it impossible to tell which way was up. Fear born of instinct flooded the Chakravanti's mind before a serenity over-took her, slacking her limbs as her lungs filled with the sacred water. Something seemed to be holding her, though, but something that she could not see, her oxygen-deprived body still screaming at her in the back of her consciousness.

The voice of her Goddess came to her again, in that instant that she stopped struggling... it must be she who held her...that must be it. "Daughter, you are at Coumatha. You must choose. Do you believe?"

Sue's thoughts spun... "Do I?" she thought, searching within herself for the answer. Her Avatar, though, seemed to have no patience for hesitation.

"Do you, Daughter, or do you not?" Sue felt her limbs... or rather, began to fail to feel her limbs at all as her body began to fail her under the lack of air. She understood now. She would find her belief, or she would experience the truth, herself, with her own death. What she had been shown, once she knew to -look- for it... that was the truth. It had to be the truth. What, after all, did a vampire know of what transpired after a true death? They never had one. Acceptance flooded through her, the disjointed peice of the puzzle knocked loose by her madness shifting back into place with radiant relief. Her answer was simple.

"I do, Mahadevi."

With those words, she was buoyed up to the surface of the river, with barely time to remark on the long, torpedo-like shapes that pressed beneath her arms, carrying her towards the shore as she coughed and sputtered up mouthfuls of muddy water. With a final nudge, the blind river dolphins pushed her towards the shore, having come as close as they dared, or risk beaching. On hands and knees, Sue struggled for dry land, then collapsed.

With a gasp and a start, Sue awoke, still sitting in Evangline's bedroom, in the bare apartment she died in. She shook her head, trying to clear it of the disorientation, and looked down at herself... most noticably at the new length of hair that skittered across her cheek... and to her further surprise, beneath a sari of subtly blended shades of saffron with a delicate floral print upon the edges. Further still, the jar within her hands no longer contained ashes.... but the muddy water of the Ganges.