[The sleeve draped over Mercy's arm draws her hurricane gaze away from the butterfly. She does not hit him, or tear at it, or even pick it up again to dab at the slow roll of fat tears through the drying filth on her face. Her lips compress to the pale bloodless hardening of scar tissue once more.

But her voice, when she speaks, is cloud-soft and diffuse.]

She always did say I sulked too much.

[It's more than she's said about her in years. Decades, centuries. Not about the motive force of her that burns still, will always burn, so long as Mercy exists in a form that can house it, but her. A real woman, who lived and breathed and loved and died, and who is not here, or anywhere, and never will be again.

Her rage is barely outside the reach of her fingertips. She cannot quite get a hold of it, however she tries, on this wide scythe of sand next to a creature so distinctly inhuman and humane. This is one of the bad moods, perhaps the worst, and she has so many awful ones to fill the interminable forever.]

You have a great deal to say for a figment of the imagination. [She says, an attempt at waspishness that struggles to take flight.] I'm as bad as that mad little bone conjurer.