[There are no creatures living so capable of the perfect stillness of a Lyctor, their mausoleum bodies not subject to the necessity of breath or pulse. Mercy (and she is Mercy, in spite of all things) does not stir herself at anything the creature next to her says.
What stirs of her is the puff of smoke that forms above her heart and resolves into the delicate fluttering of a pinkish butterfly, one which captures the focus of Mercy's stricken gaze in a way that draws all of her to a single, intent point that, descending, catches itself on her bare knee.
She says nothing for a long while. She looks at the butterfly on her knee, which flaps its wings slowly, a drowsy seeming little thing. Her mouth thins to a sharp, awful line. It softens. It sharpens.]
...I thought...
[None of this matters. None of this is real. This is the last, twitching remnants of her, going mad, her ghost a shrieking, gnawed thing on the bank of the River. Her heart does not pulse on her knee, beautiful, constant, adored.]
I thought I might see her again. My-
[It does not matter. Nothing she says is real. None of this, in any part, exists. So she may say what she likes, and do as she pleases, while she likes and is pleased by nothing. Mercy wraps her arms around her shins. She sets the socket of one eye to the curve of her empty knee, leaving the butterfly undisturbed as she stares at it.]
no subject
What stirs of her is the puff of smoke that forms above her heart and resolves into the delicate fluttering of a pinkish butterfly, one which captures the focus of Mercy's stricken gaze in a way that draws all of her to a single, intent point that, descending, catches itself on her bare knee.
She says nothing for a long while. She looks at the butterfly on her knee, which flaps its wings slowly, a drowsy seeming little thing. Her mouth thins to a sharp, awful line. It softens. It sharpens.]
...I thought...
[None of this matters. None of this is real. This is the last, twitching remnants of her, going mad, her ghost a shrieking, gnawed thing on the bank of the River. Her heart does not pulse on her knee, beautiful, constant, adored.]
I thought I might see her again. My-
[It does not matter. Nothing she says is real. None of this, in any part, exists. So she may say what she likes, and do as she pleases, while she likes and is pleased by nothing. Mercy wraps her arms around her shins. She sets the socket of one eye to the curve of her empty knee, leaving the butterfly undisturbed as she stares at it.]
Ticket.