"Welcome back, my son." The voice was soft, warm, and dripping with a kind of affectionate charm that could melt the frost from anyone's heart... except perhaps Rex's.
It reached him the very instant he closed his eyes to begin drawing in planetary energy, a sound he recognized instantly. He had heard it before, in other times and other places, and it always carried the same strange mix of tenderness and mischief.
Rex opened his eyes slowly, already knowing where he was. "So… you've called my soul here again." He let out a long, controlled sigh; his shoulders loosened as he studied the familiar white expanse around him. "Well then, are you going to tell me why you keep doing this?"
"Oh my," the voice teased him, rich with false drama. "When will you speak to your mother with the sweetness you once had? In your tenth and twenty-fourth reincarnations, you were simply adorable. Now you have turned into such a rebel."
