Penthesilea took a long breath of her homeworld's air, joy rushing through her at the feel of it on her skin. There was a light breeze, today, and it was the first weather she had yet experienced. She liked that, a lot.

Once again, she was at the end of the main road, the one with the buildings that refused to open their doors to her. She hoped that today, that would be different. That after performing and succeeding at the Trial of First Blood, she would be able to get into them.

So she started walking, and turned towards the hospital -

"Hey! Hang on, soldier!" Evadne pleaded, pressing her hands to a bleeding wound on a woman laying in her lap. She was older now, perhaps twenty-eight, and the sounds of battle raged all around her. There was war in her city, in its heart, where no enemy had breached before.

She was on the steps of the hospital, and she reached beneath them, into a hole, pulling out a roll of bandages. "You'll make it, I promise. I won't let you die."

"I know you'll do your best," the woman said, and then coughed. "You fixed worse than this in your Trial of Second Life, right? And you were just a little girl, then."

Evadne smiled shakily. "Right."

The vision faded, and Penthesilea raced to the steps, kneeling next to them. The hollow she had reached into was still there, and...she reached in herself, and her hand wrapped aorund a jar. She pulled it out, and stared. 'Painkiller ointment,' she thought, and wasn't sure how she knew. More reaches produced bandages, disinfectant, and a sewing kit. Medical supplies, hidden in easy reach, all glowing softly with magic - clearly what had kept them clean and preserved for a thousand years. She grinned, and tucked them back in. Those would be useful later, she knew.

Particularly since now she had heard about this "Trial of Second life." Another step in becoming the full Senshi of Penthesilea, perhaps?

She tried the door of the hospital, and was still blocked. She let out a yell of frustration, and smacked it, but it did nothing, so she kept moving.

It was almost a compulsion - she walked past the temple, and to the library, where she pushed the door open.

It was incredibly grand, with towering shelves and tables all around. There were dozens and dozens of books. Her heart started to race.

Most people would be surprised, she supposed, that Penthe was an avid reader. But books were cheap, often free, and they made for good entertainment for a poor girl in New Orleans.

Evadne reached for a book, pulling it off the shelf, and flipped it open.

The memory faded, and Penthe jogged forward to the shelf her past self had used, reaching for the book. She started pulling, but none of them came out - she was almost ready to give up until her fingers curled around one, and she pulled, and it came off the shelf.

Her heart started to race, and she turned to one of the tables. As soon as she set the book down, it flipped open to a specific page - and she recognized the images there, even if the text was totally alien. (Perhaps unsurprisingly. She was on a differnet planet, and she couldn't exactly expect her people to have written in English, a thousand years before. Still, she was a little disappointed that she couldn't read it.)

There, on the page, were the two knives she had used in her ritual, elegantly illustrated. She sat down, and flipped the page. An illustration, here, of a young girl in a familiar uniform facing a shadowy opponent, both of them holding the knives. Her eyes went wide, and she flipped again.

The Senshi, standing triumphant over her opponent.

This was the Trial of First Blood, illustrated before her eyes. She flipped the page, and this time the illustration depicted the Senshi and an older Penthesilean standing over a bed, the woman holding up a roll of bandages. The next picture was the Senshi carefully bandaging an injury, then one of her setting a broken bone, so on and so forth - all supervised by her teacher.

Medical training, she realized - a critical skill in a war. She thought of Gunn's boot camp, where she had learned first aid. It was lucky, she supposed - she had accidentally completed a portion of her "training."

"Perfect," she said to herself, flipping the page.

This time, it depicted the Senshi carefully bandaging someone who, based on the blood illustrated, was seriously injured, even dying.

The Trial of Second Life.

She tried to turn the page, and it simply refused to flip. Penthesilea groaned, standing up and closing the book.

"Gettin' real tired of yer s**t, planet," she said, to the air.

But now, she had her next step. Taking a life had opened the library. Would saving one open the hospital?

She had] to find out.