She had written the letter. It lay sealed on the table by the bed, his name written in large letters across the front. She would give it to Sue when they met, with directions if she failed at this attempt.

Sophie pulled the meditation bench into the center of the room. She hadn't used it for a while, not since Thomas had distracted her from looking into herself. So much easier to look at him. She settled her self down on it and lit a candle, a candle in one of Mari's holders. There was but one thing left to do and that was to prepare to die....

... or to live...

and the latter would take more work than the former.

She must make piece with herself, with whatever served as the gods in her world, with her past, with a future. This she must do if she wanted any hope in succeeding. A few deep breaths and she settled into observing her respiration. She'd never named her gods, never practiced a belief system. What she had had been what Mari left her: memories of the Catholic church before the second council and a rather vaguely worded Wiccan structure. She couldn't quite grasp what Mari had believed. Perhaps that, like an Avatar, was too personal to share.

The candle burned. Time passed. Sophie watched the flame and didn't see it.

What did she believe? Even believing is nothing is something one can know. But she didn't believe in nothing. There was something, something that was truth to her. Something to define right and wrong, and what she wished to be and work for. She had no name for it. It was no more and no less than the power that resided in everything, living and labeled non-living, natural and man-made: blood, chlorophyll, electricity, air, nuclear fission. That power was one power: the power of Life.

Was it singular? Plural? Did it matter? Did words or labels matter? The power existed and in existing created all else that exists. And this power caused her to live. It was this power she would manipulate with her will in order to take a new shape... to be reborn... to Become.

If she had the Will and her will worked with the power.

Yes, the power could be used against life, against purpose, against the power's Will. But what came from that was not Accension, it was not Life. It was Death in all it's many forms. Not the death of the wheel of life, part of Life's ongoing process, but the End of All.

Staring into the candle flame, Sophie opened her heart to the power, offer her plans and dreams to this power.

"I am yours, first and finally. I seek to bend my reality and become. May it meet your purpose."

Hours had passed. Sophie put the remains of the candle out and rose to call Sue.