There's a double edge to finding yourself in a void of white. On one end, devoid of literally anything, you're aren't exactly being shoved down the throat with options as to how you're supposed to leave your limbo. Then on the other side of the spectrum - you don't have many options, full stop.

You'll be doing your best staving away from a mental breakdown from the sensory deprivation long before you get to think of something ingenious. It's the ultimate escape room, really. Disregarding human rights, don't really see why more escape rooms don't go for the same tactic used here.

So far, it's been pretty fucking effective.

"Maybe you can try bargaining your way to my memories, hmm?" Mused the cross-legged, crossed-arm, yawning, body-lying-on-the-ground phoenix. "Did well for you with the Matriarchs, maybe, you'll be second time lucky."

Unhelpful, unwanted advice number #14. So far that's an average of two words of wisdom every five minutes - or what felt like five minutes anyway. The passage of time's a little harder to keep track of asleep.

Bargaining, huh? Well, summoning hasn't worked out for me… subjugation either, not that there was much to subjugate around here.

Kept switching between the two ad nauseam to no avail, the only thing worth noting from those failures was that magic was apparently a lot easier to wield in dreamland. Then again, so was everything else. Here, my body was at peak functionality. So it's really no wonder.

"Maybe, maybe you can try... hmm…" half-heartedly went the lounging phoenix again.

Must have been five minutes already.

"Immortal magical being..." muttered I to no one in particular. "Knows absolute jack shit about using magic herself."

"Hey… you're talking about me there, aren't you?" Ria lifted a finger and jauntily jutted it at me with a half-smirk. "Ya sneaky little…"

"Your memories, Ria!" I bellowed out, her plain amusement going unshared. "Unlike you, I can't stay sleeping forever. You gotta give me something to work with here."

"I'm a bird that can roast marshmallows with a single touch," She replied, sweet and polite, "Aside from not being able to die, that's like the only magical thing about me. What makes you think I know more about any other type of magic?"

"Uhh…" Lips open, eyes wide, disbelief-ridden, I flung all ten of my fingers to her. "You're immortal!"

"Long-living doesn't mean all-knowing. Think you might be confusing the two. I'm just your average everyday phoenix, not your once-in-a-century magic genius."

"Oh my God…"

"But you do have a genius, you silly!" She piped up, sitting herself up. "The sensual, the sexy, the spicy - whatever else word that starts with 'S', you have her, ask her! Irene can definitely tell you everything easy."

"Oh my God," I heard the optimism in my voice, momentarily. Saw bright sparks flashing in my eyes, briefly. Then both, in unison, shortly after fizzled. "Mmm, I can try."

Ria must have heard and seen them both too.

"Try?" She asked, eyeing me there with blatant suspicion in her crimson eyes. "Why try?"

"I think she might be avoiding me."

"Avoiding you?" Rousing suspicion, with one impish look, turned into giddy curiosity. "Oh-ho? What did you do?"

"Good question."

"Alright, well, it seems things have been awfully busy up there while I was awfully not-busy being down here," She crept closer, a raging fire ablaze in both her eyes and smile. "I would like to know more, if you'd be so awfully kind. Please?"

I turned that smile right back at her, adding just a touch of cynicism to it. "Your memories, please?"

"Argh - I don't know!" She exclaimed, hands up in the air, while also flopping herself again to the floor like a fish. "Search me, why don't you?"

"What the hell do you think I've been trying to do this past- " I looked back at her, every lingering thought, every ongoing action, halted. "Say that again?"

"What? Search me," She scoffed at first, as aloof as she always was, then her eyes suddenly went as wide as mine, shooting herself up upright again, slowly finishing her sentence, this time with profound realization. "Why... don't... you…"

Seeing eye to eye. Thinking what I was thinking. The phoenix nodded her head, very much impressed. "Not bad, non-genius human-you, not bad at all..."

Honestly, I'm completely amazed how I let this elude me for so long. The answer was staring at me, pestering me, smoldering leisurely away, literally in my face.

Guess I was thinking too in the void, and not out of it. Thankfully, Ria and her five-minute wisdom were here to save the day.

If I wanna get out of her, then I have to get even deeper inside.

Deeper inside of her.

Time to dream again.

I started to walk up to her, a brisk step at a time, thinking up the process as I went along. Of course, the usual questions were present, the ones that always come arising when you have absolutely no clue what the hell you're doing.

What do I do to search her? How easy was it to delve into memories? What do I touch? What do I say?

I noticed this time though, that I wasn't asking my usual standard affair.

Can I do it? What if I fail? What if I couldn't? Shouldn't someone else be doing this? Why was I the one doing this?

The fact that not a single one of those thoughts crossed my mind in even the slightest was nice. It felt nice. Self-confidence was a powerful thing.

For some reason, I didn't feel like I was stumbling through the dark like before - when I reached for Ria's hands, when I took them into my own - it was like clockwork, like I've done it millions of times before.

In a way, could say it was like second nature to me.

Dreaming memories...

"You look like you know what you're doing this time," Ria remarked, going along with it all. "Do you?"

"No," I simply said, gently laying her down onto the ground, our fingers still intertwined. "This is just me trying a 'maybe'..."

"Think it's gonna work?"

I shrugged. "Maybe."

"Alright then, Mr. Maybe," She said, looking up at me with amusement. "What would you like me to 'maybe' do now?"

"Close your eyes," I told her, shutting my own. "Give me a memory."

"Ooh," Realization struck her for the second time. "I think I see what you're doing now."

"Are your eyes closed?"

I heard her quietly giggle a little. "They are now."

Focus. Focus... no different back then. This is you doing the same thing, the same way. Just do it again.

Remember Sera. Remember what it took to bring her here. You didn't just bring her, you brought what made her, her over too.

Her memories.

You made them your own. You made yourself feel like they were your own. You saw what she saw, felt what she felt.

Now, just do that but do it with Ria. You got through the first time, what's a second to you?

Easy-peasy.

"Now..." I breathed in, focused. "A memory."

Could practically hear the smirk in her voice, as she spoke, "What memory?"

"Any memory..." I paused, took a moment to rephrase. "Any memory that you think might help."

"That doesn't exactly help narrow it," She said. "You've any idea how many of those there are to choose from?"

"Then choose one."

There was quiet for a moment, just deafening silence in the darkness. I didn't dare open my eyes, didn't dare break my concentration.

Whatever happens next, whatever it is I'll see next... it all entirely depended on her now.

The long-living sleeping phoenix.

"Alright..." She said softly. "I think I got you something perfect."

I didn't say anything, I just let my mind gradually wander, hoping it'll manage to wander its way into her own.

And I think it was.

I was feeling drowsy.

"Might give you the answer to the age-old question too..."

She was echoing - not her voice, her echo... an echo of an echo... it sounded so...weird. Does that mean it's working?

Every word fluctuated, every syllable faded in and out. Was it just me? Was it also her? I don't… I don't…

The only constant there was, the only thing I could cling on to... It was there… it was always there.

"What came first?" asked whimsically the smile in her voice. "The Phoenix or the egg?"