The inhalation of air actually hurts. It feels like dying.

No, wait, that's wrong. I'm dead.

But not anymore. Did I get better? Can I do that? Recover from death? Apparently, yes, yes I can do that, because here I am.

Take stock, Fanfiction Dot-Net. Where are you? I am floating above the ocean on the Land of Plot Holes and Leviathans. That's a good start. What are you wearing?

Whoa, wait, what am I wearing?

Did I get the tiger?

My hands go to my stomach, lifting the material of my shirt. My stomach's intact, and my thigh is too, hardly any scars. Or at least, I can't feel any through my new pants.

I'm flying. How am I flying? The raft is gone, and so is my quest bed. My sylladex is still with me, along with my gloves. The Mosh-Jot-Strife rapier is gone, not that I'd like it back.

Should probably message Homestuck General Forums, let him know of this recent development.

"Hello!" I call out across the water. Nothing answers me. Does that mean the Black Queen is gone, prancing on her merry murdering way?

A flash of movement catches the corner of my eye. Sweet, do I have a cape? I do!

I am a Knight! A Knight of Green Wave!

Letting myself drop, I catch myself, zipping along the water. Approaching a limestone cliff, I push off it with my foot. Moss blooms across the rocks, spiraling in green whorls.

I kick at the water, watching algae bloom in the water. I can do plant stuff! Man, Bananasprite's gonna flip!

Turning in a wide circle, I make my way back to the beach. "Intero! Dude, check it out!" I call, skidding to a stop on the beach. Each bump leaves a little burst of ferns and other green things in the sand. Man, this is beautiful.

"Dude! Where you at!" I call again, hoping that he'll show up. Where you at isn't good grammar, so my sister will probably find me soon to beat my butt about it.

There's something shiny in the sand, and I kneel to poke at it. It's viscous, like syrup, and blue iridescent. I rub it between my finger and thumb. What is that stuff? I notice more of it, spattering along the beach. Not to sound like Steve Urkel, but Did I do this? Is this part of being a Knight of Green Wave? Blue is green's complementary color, so maybe this is my fault?

I stand, and start walking along the beach, following the shiny blue stuff. More and more of it is spotting the beach, turning from dots to a snail trail, and from there to a solid line.

Interobanaraangsprite raises his head and greeting and lets it fall back to the sand.

"Dude!" I call, racing across the sand and sliding in. I send sand in his face with the slide, and man oh man. He doesn't look good. His throat works like he wants to say something. Deep slashes and stab wounds are still leaking dark blue shiny. One of his hands is gone, missing halfway up the forearm.

Blood, it's blood you useless illiterate. Don't call it shiny, you're not a child.

My hands hover over him. I want to move him, hold onto him but I don't want to hurt him or make him worse by moving him.

"You're okay, you're gonna be okay, you're my friend?" I say, but it curls up, a stillborn truth. I put my hand on his shoulder, and he shudders.

He tries talking again, and gets out, "sorry."

I shake my head. "No, no, you don't have to be, it's okay."

He's stopped bleeding, so I put my hands on his side. His sprite tail waves lazily in the sand, like the tail of a salamander.

My hands feel hot. Maybe he's heating up as he dies? Little plants and flowers are sprouting up around us, but it hardly seems to matter.

Interobanaraangsprite starts to cough, and pushes me off him. His wounds are shallower, the bloody scratches healed down to scars. I did that.

"I can heal you!" I shout, and pounce, wrapping my arms around him like an eel. "Get! Off! Me!" he spits, planting his stump in my face and trying to push me off.

"I can fix this!" I tell him, and I do. His wounds are gone. His wounds are totally sealed.

He rises up, glowing and dark blue, like a god. Then he wallops me in the face, which is so not godlike. It's not really a slap, like, I felt knuckles, but it stings like a slap.

"You. Idiot." He says it slowly.

"What was that for?" I ask, holding my stinging face. God, when my sister gets a grip on him, she'll tear him apart.

He doesn't respond verbally, he just points.

My sister's lying on her back like a sunbather. I can see the dark of the sand underneath her. I focus in on the purple sand. Who knew that the sand would turn that weird reddish purple?

The front of her shirt was red enough to match her pants, at one point. Now it's maroon in the middle and it clashes.

Just breathe. "I can fix this," I murmur. Did it once, can do it again.

I'm at her side, and I press my fingers to the hole in her chest. It feels like hamburger meat. My hands don't warm up. Nothing happens.

"Wake up. Work. Work!" I snap, pushing my fingers harder. Her flesh is cold, and my sister's eyes keep searching the sky.

"Shewowake," says Intero. "Wasteahtime."

Shut up. Shut up! It has to work. She's all I got for family.

"I can fix this! I can fix this!" I shout.

I push more and more green light energy stuff into her body, but nothing works. The sun starts to go down, cloaking the land in twilight. Why isn't this working? Don't panic. Just push the green out of you and into her.

Green bursts out of my hands, settling over my sister like chlorine gas. Grass sprouts around her, and then on her. It doesn't stop there, either. A tree sprouts out of her body, out of the hole that killed her, growing larger and thicker until my sister is swallowed up by the trunk.

"Hoshit," murmurs Interobanaraangsprite.

"Hey!" I shoot over my shoulder at him, and take my palms off the tree. What just happened? What? No, seriously, what? Did I seriously just turn my dead sister into a tree? The bark is scaly under my hands, and definitely real.

But the fact still stands that I turned my dead sister into a tree. Like, seriously, who does that?

I shake my head and message Ficwad to distance myself from the weirdness.

[Fanfiction Dot-Net (FFN) messaged Ficwad (FW)!]

FFN: You there? I'm okay. FP's dead and plus I sort of turned her into a tree.

{ERROR}

FFN: What?

{ERROR.}

So Ficwad's message system isn't working or something. Who else do I have? I don't want to push this on my space boyfriend yet, it's too heavy. Plus, I don't want our first couple conversation to be about dead relatives and trees.

[Fanfiction Dot-Net (FFN) messaged Pottermore (PM)!]

FFN: Hello?

PM: What? Who's this?

FFN: It's me, you doofus! Your best friend?

PM: That's sort of funny, you know.

PM: You never messaging me ever.

PM: Or being a team player.

PM: And you still thinking I'm going to be your best friend.

FFN: What the heck, dude?

PM: Let me guess! Your bloody patron player finally figured out you're totally shallow?

I stare at the palm of my hand. How long have I been dead for? Or, more accurately, how long did it take for Pottermore to become a colossal jerk? How do I even respond to this?

PM: Is the wavy door a normal part of SBURB?

FFN: The what? What's a wavy door?

PM: It's a door that's wavy.

PM: Youtube went through it and she hasn't come back yet, and I'm kind of wondering if there's a code glitch or something.

PM: Her dad's in there. She's Got Tiger and all, so she'll be okay, right?

FFN: I Got Tiger.

FFN: Plus I turned my sister into a tree and I'm sort of weirded out by it.

PM: So is she like a bowtruckle now or something?

FFN: No. She was dead and I tried to fix it. Might have overdone it a little.

PM: You don't say?

PM: Wait, your sister's DEAD?

PM: Like, DEAD dead?

FFN: Yup.

PM: Oh my! I'm so sorry! What happened?

FFN: I'm not sure. Black Queen got her, I think.

PM: Can I say something? In memory of your sister?

FFN: If you want to.

PM: Your sister looked after you for a really long time.

PM: Neither of you were really sure what happened to your parents,

so there's that.

PM: And despite all of that, despite all those hardships, your sister was actually very sexy.

FFN: DUDE!

FFN: NO!

PM: I'm only saying.

I'm laughing now, leaning against the trunk of my sister-who-is-now-a-tree. That conversation took an unexpected turn, and in spite of all of this, you sort of have to laugh at that.

FFN: Have you met up with FW yet?

PM: What? No? Wasn't she with you?

FFN: I told her to hightail it when the BQ hit. I stayed behind to slow the Queen down long enough for FW to get away.

FFN: Do you think she's okay?

PM: She is actually a very tough girl, so I wouldn't be surprised if she's camped out in a cave somewhere eating rats.

FFN: Good God. She'd totally do something like that.

FFN: Complete with Rat Snacks.

PM: Did you message her?

FFN: Yeah, it's not working.

PM: Ooh, no kidding. She's probably fine. If she was gone we'd probably, like, know somehow, right?

Pottermore's right, she's probably fine. She is probably either on a different Land or is hiding in mine somewhere. Ficwad is a big girl, and can handle herself.

Seeing as my only immediate family member is now dead and transmogrified into an arbor, I gotta look out for what I've got left. Rolling to my knees and getting to my feet from there, I stretch. "C'mon, Intero. Let's go look for Ficwad," I tell him, jumping a little bit. The God Tier kicks in, keeping me suspended. Okay, that's a little cool.

Intero whines, falling back on the sand. "Daaaaark!" he groans, and rolls over.

"Dude, you glow, what's the big deal?" I ask, floating over to where he's rolling around. The floating thing is harder to do than expected, with me just kind of moving squidlike in little fits and spurts. Grabbing onto his bad arm, I try to pull him up, but he drags along in the sand.

"Get up, you useless buttsprite."

"Nyurrrgh. Gomorrow."

"No! Today!"

I let him drop, and he curls up in the sand. "I'll go look, and you can too, later, if you want, okay?" I tell him, and then I burst away with herky-jerky flight patterns.