Title: First Breath
Fandom: Highlander
Rating: G
Length: 200
Content notes: N/A
Author notes: Thanks go to Zana, Morgynleri & Icka for encouragement & sanity-checking.
Summary: Revival is never easy


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The first breath of air was agony. It was always agony, no matter how often it happened. The dying was never pleasant either, but the first breath of revival was a special pain compounded of ice and fire, the push of cold blood into pathways no longer numb, the knife-rush of air into aching, empty lungs, the claw and clamor of nerves reawakened at the height of sensitivity. And at the same time as the body was clamoring for air and movement and sustenance, the mind was grappling with renewal as well: was it safe, where was one, who was one (what name, what history, what relationships …), how much time had passed, and a dozen, a hundred other things. Not to mention the little voice shouting over and over: "Alive! Alive! I live! I live!" to the distraction of establishing all those pressing and immediate questions of safety, time, place and identity.

The older one got, the more practiced at the peculiar art of revival from transitory death, as one became more practiced at taking Quickenings, but it never became easy, or simple, or less than distressing. And the first breath on awakening to life again was always, always agony.