There isn't any one moment when she wakes up and discovers that there's somewhere to wake up in. There's just a long, hazy dream, and the gradual realization that she's dreaming it.

It's a very nice dream. Quiet. Peaceful. Oddly... familiar? Has she had this dream before?

More felt than heard, and more dreamed than felt, soft voices whisper of the comfort of eternal rest.

She feels like she's wrapped up in a cozy blanket, in that sort of half-awake way where you know you could move but can't quite find your way to actually moving. She is distant from herself, distant from her body, distant from her pain. Is this what being okay feels like? She's not sure; she doesn't have much to compare it to. It's nice, though.

Bones shift slowly through dark, warm soil.

She can't quite place the sensation at first, because, once again, she's never felt it before.

It comes clear with time, though. The reason she feels so distant from her body is that she doesn't entirely have one. The reason she feels like she's trickling together out of bones and dirt is because she is.

This is... maybe kind of concerning? As situations go, it's among the spookier ones?

It doesn't feel concerning, though. It just feels... calm, and peaceful. Even beautiful, in its own way.

She could stay here.

She could be at peace like this forever.

She could let her body lie in the ground until it rots, peacefully, and rise from it as a beautiful tree, and the forest would watch over her, and she would get to rest here forever.

—it's not that she's not tempted. She is tempted.

She is so, so tempted.

But—

There are things she misses about life.

Not many.

Books, though? She misses books. She misses... looking at herself in the mirror and feeling pretty, though she still flinches from the thought, trying not to remember the consequences. She misses brushing her hair. She misses swishy skirts, and listening to music even though her taste in music embarrasses her, and watching movies. Being a tree would be nice, but she couldn't read books anymore, or swish skirts. And maybe trees have tree things they can do that are just as good, but... they won't be those things.

She takes a long time thinking about it.

Her body finishes forming, cradled in the warm earth.

The feeling that she could move anytime she felt like it if it weren't for this wonderfully cozy blanket becomes a feeling that she really could move, really, right now, no dreamy haze or lack of muscles to prevent it, just her and her very real body lying in the dirt.

The only thing stopping her is... the fact that she doesn't want to. It's such a powerful temptation, the idea of being a tree, of never having to move or speak again. Being safe and okay and at peace forever. She wants that.

There are other things she wants more, though.

She sits up. The soil releases her without protest, crumbling softly away from her brand-new body.

She opens her eyes, looks up, and drinks in the starlight.

"This was probably a mistake," she says wryly.

It was her mistake, though. And she thinks... maybe... she thinks she feels good about making it.

Okay. Right. Taking stock.

She doesn't have any clothes, which is embarrassing and inconvenient. She doesn't have any food, or know where to get it. She doesn't know where she is. The sky suggests it isn't real. Her dreams suggest it's home.

...her dreams might have a few more suggestions, actually. She tries to sort through the fragments of memory. Now that she thinks of it, the starlight does feel oddly satisfying, and the warmth of the forest feels more than just comfortable. If she can't find food then she supposes she'll find out whether her dreams are right that she can live on starlight now.

Her dreams think she can coax bark from the trees to clothe herself. She doesn't quite feel like she knows how, and also asking someone to give you their skin just seems appallingly rude. It's probably the objectively correct next step, though. For one thing, if she confirms this specific bizarre dream power, she'll feel a lot better about the likelihood that she's now an autotroph.

For a long moment, she stares up at the painted sky, wondering how any of this is possible, and if perhaps she might still be dreaming. The rainbow of stars holds no answers.

Then she stands up, and steps tentatively toward the nearest tree, a grand old thing whose spreading branches rustle softly in the wind. It looks happy. She doesn't know how she knows it looks happy, but it does.

"Excuse me," she says, feeling extremely foolish. "May I have some bark, please?"

A shallow slice opens up in the gnarled, scaly bark, revealing a wine-red inner layer that peels up invitingly like the next page of a book. She gives it a hesitant tug, and it comes away with no more resistance than a sheet off a freshly made bed. The size is about right, too. Rough scales of outer bark litter the ground like confetti.

"Thank you very much," she says, and the tree seems to indicate that it was no trouble at all, really. New growth is already creeping along the trunk.

She brushes the dirt off herself as best she can (what she wouldn't give for a bath) and then starts trying to wrap herself in the sheet of bark. This turns out to be more of a production than she expected; she's flustered, and it's large and unwieldy, and after half a very long minute she feels about ready to burst into tears of helpless frustration.

No. Stop. Deep breath.

Like everything else in this world, there's a sense of presence in the bark. Not consciousness, exactly, but a sort of lingering aura. It was a gift from this very nice tree, and she should be treating it like something friendly and kind, something worth being kind to, not like a recalcitrant bedsheet.

She tries again, this time moving slowly and deliberately. If she wraps it up like so and like so... and lets the rest of it trail off for now... yes, that's almost like a dress. She makes a wordless, apologetic request, and the excess bark tears away in her hand; when she murmurs "could you close up here, please?" the edges seal together, and she has a dress made of bark. A few more quiet negotiations, and she has a pair of rather silly-looking slippers. The colour is still beautiful, though. If she ever dares ask for more bark, maybe eventually she'll get better at working with it.

She sits down again, smoothing out her new skirt underneath her. It's warm and pleasant to touch. With a quiet word, she tugs a stray scrap of bark off the top of a shoe, and after a moment starts twisting it into a bracelet. It would seem so ungrateful to just throw it away, considering it where it came from.

The humid air is as comforting as a blanket. She's always had trouble with summers, so she isn't sure why this weather is treating her so nicely, but it's a welcome bit of strangeness. Maybe her body is better-adapted to this forest, having been made out of its dirt. It's as good a theory as any.

Now. The forest isn't the only dream she's been having that in retrospect feels more like an omen.

She takes a deep, calming breath, and thinks back. The dreams seemed so inconsequential at the time, just a lot of nonsense her brain was scribbling on itself, but there's clearly more to them than that. So, what has she dreamed of, and what can she learn from it?

The forest is definitely clearest in her memory. She dreamed of walking among whispering leaves, breathing warmth and drinking starlight. She dreamed of health and strength, climbing cliffs and swinging through branches. She dreamed of tending gardens and listening to the flowers. She dreamed of picking up handfuls of dirt, studying it, understanding its essence. She dreamed of thanking the trees for their bark. (It hadn't felt rude at the time, to ask for it.)

And she dreamed that if she died, she would wake beneath the earth.

That part definitely happened.

Moving on, though. There were other places, other environments, she's sure of it.

She thinks she remembers... a cold, dim plane of white stone, dotted with ominous black trees. It's not comforting or inviting like this place; it's stark, blank, lifeless, faintly menacing. She does not want to go there. (The thought of going there produces a faint sense of direction, which she steadfastly ignores.)

A bright, happy college campus bustling with cheerful girls. She doesn't want to go there either—except—it does look nice, in her dream of a memory. She wouldn't necessarily have to talk to anyone. And she feels like there's something there she really wanted, even if she can't remember what it was. Maybe she was hoping there'd be books there. Actually, the thought that there might be books there is doing a lot to change her mind about visiting. (The sense of direction is stronger now, and feels closer.) But wait, speaking of books—