"I'm not asking you to stop! I'm, I don't!"

Bella thrashes for a moment, old tensions and even older arguments flaring up and pouring new strength into her body. But like a breath on the wind it passes, and she sags again until all she can do is keep walking. Left leg forward, press weight, flinch when the heat lances through her knee. Right leg lurches forward to compensate. It sucks. But there's nothing else for her to occupy the moment with.

"...Gods. If it's gonna be like this, just fucking drop me here. I'll drag myself the rest of the way back. I'm so sick and tired of hearing that voice tell me how wrong I am. I have never given a single shit about this journey, ok? It's only ever been about you."

Her mismatched eyes are slightly crossed when she forces her head back up to look the Princess head on again. All the trembling effort in the world can't make them focus, can't make the person in front of her unblur. She's slipping into sleep even now. Only one last chance to say it.

"It's fine" Bella's voice cracks, "I just want... one last chance. To give you anything else to be before I die. That's why you have... to..."

And then she is sliding, slurring into the arms of the Oneiroi. Her ear twitches to catch half a sentence in reply to carry down into her dreams.

**************

Grim faced and ashen, Bella watches a parade of ghosts. Here is the town she is meant to love. Here are the warriors of Ceron who have learned not to spit ashes at the sound of her name. Her name. Her name. What they [i]tell[/i] her is her name. 

She is able to walk again. She can stand up straight under her own power, if little else. Her arm is still a twisted lump, though it is growing back together with prickling waves of discomfort that make it through the nerves she deadened to protect herself. She tried to stuff herself into one of Mosaic's suits before she answered the summons, but it was ill fitting garbage despite being made for the same body, supposedly.

She tore the shirt off her body in disgust, and left only the jacket hanging open to cover her torso. There's nothing left of her old softness but even so it took this level of display to make her not feel fat. Her muscles twitch with every step, and she is constantly reaching toward the shorter end of this obnoxious, uneven jacket to keep it from flapping open and exposing her to everyone. Her glare withers everyone who tries to look.

But now she walks. She sniffs at every offered food, and holds it in her hands to stare at it until she's pulled apart the secrets of its creation in case she needs or wants to make it herself in the future. She eats almost none of it but just hands it off to someone else before she's off again to the next sight. The next sound. The next smell. 

She knows that crumbling building. She knows this patch of flowers. She knows every little shred of the town of Beri that has been gathered on the [i]Plousios[/i], and it galls her. These are stolen memories that belong to someone better. Someone who was brave enough to at least try to be a hero. But all Bella could be is herself. Her tail thrashes behind her as she walks.

It wasn't meant to be like this; the Lethe betrayed her. Now there are fireworks that burst in fantastic colors so bright they almost blind her still-adjusting eyes, but quiet enough that the gesture moves her to tears anyway. Bella watches Ember watching her right back, and for the first time her expression softens. She sniffs at the air once in caution, and once in curiosity. The various honeyed scents of besotted love are obvious, but there's a waft of something beneath them that escapes her. Bella shakes her head.

She doesn't deserve this. She cannot be Mosaic. But do any of these people deserve to lose her, even so?

"...You know, someone told me once that fireworks are something you can't truly enjoy without a glass of wine. What've we got for," she clears her throat, "That is, uh. Did you find treasure enough for this as well?"

Fuck.