“Bella, then.” Do you hear that, Bella? This must really be your princess come back to you from across the impossible gulfs of memory, saying words like that: as if she’d simply chosen how the future would be, and pivoted herself accordingly. Bella is the name that makes you happy; Bella you will be. That’s what she owes to Mosaic lying naked with her in the moonlit flowers of Beri.

The timing is, naturally, wrong. Bella looks up; Ember is looking down, arms up to the elbow in the basket, unearthing the Rex Carcis buried underneath the purple crab tins. Some crabs gain space by having overly long, singularly unnerving limbs; the Rex simply grew a shell the size of the Shield.

Have you asked her about what happened? Will you ever ask her? Do you suspect that she allowed herself to be shot in the hopes of finding her way to you? But that would be as foolish as diving into the Lethe and hoping to find your heart on the other shore.

“Do you think we’ll actually be hungry enough for this?” Ember lifts the Rex, holds it before her, and if you took away the roughness underlying the voice, ignored the small strong claws, and just listened…

It’s like you never left, and it’s just the two of you back in the garden, that small room attempting to be as large as possible, that playplace of farce and arena for assassins. Except the ceiling’s been opened up, and the prim and proper outfit is gone, and the princess on the other side has been devoured by a wolf.

She lowers the crab and meets your eyes, on accident[1]. She sees the tears.

“…I’m doing it wrong. Am I supposed to sit like this?”

And she tucks her legs in and straightens up and curls her tail in, managing to look incredibly unlike Redana Claudius, who was never able to achieve even half of this. And she looks at Bella, the demigoddess of Beri, for approval: hands in her lap, chin lifted regally, ears cocked hopefully.

[hr]

[1]: [i]naturally.[/i]