[ Numinous yellow eyes meet dead flower dark ones, the hazy subtlety of their shade lost in the dimness of this gore-filled tower.
Mercymorn stands before God's first beloved as a pallid impression in the doorway, wan as one sickened unto their deathbed. The pastels have been drained from her flesh, her listless tangle of hair fit to match the womanthing in the tower, and she may barely be distinguished from the swathes of loose fabric about her body. The only vivid stain on her is blood, a virulent hue that soaks her slippered feet and splashes up to her knees, that slicks her hanging palms.
She is dressed like a sick child or a mad adult, bereft of button or fastening to snag the skin or frustrate the fingers. No long, thin ties for her feet, or pins in her unbound hair. She is dressed like someone else has done it for her. She hates this, among the many things she hates, in dull and distant fashion.
As if this horror cares one bit about fashion. ]
There you are, First.
[ She says, with a quiet and terrible satisfaction, her heart stuttering dumbly in her chest next to a hollow where only the faintest gleam of anything burns. She holds herself together at the fingernails, at the mouth, at the creases of her knees. ]
2.
Mercymorn stands before God's first beloved as a pallid impression in the doorway, wan as one sickened unto their deathbed. The pastels have been drained from her flesh, her listless tangle of hair fit to match the womanthing in the tower, and she may barely be distinguished from the swathes of loose fabric about her body. The only vivid stain on her is blood, a virulent hue that soaks her slippered feet and splashes up to her knees, that slicks her hanging palms.
She is dressed like a sick child or a mad adult, bereft of button or fastening to snag the skin or frustrate the fingers. No long, thin ties for her feet, or pins in her unbound hair. She is dressed like someone else has done it for her. She hates this, among the many things she hates, in dull and distant fashion.
As if this horror cares one bit about fashion. ]
There you are, First.
[ She says, with a quiet and terrible satisfaction, her heart stuttering dumbly in her chest next to a hollow where only the faintest gleam of anything burns. She holds herself together at the fingernails, at the mouth, at the creases of her knees. ]
At the end of all things.