Her calves are filled with fire. Her thighs ache. Her back is a constellation of little motes of pain, before even accounting for the fresh claw marks up and down the length of it where a pair of overeager morons worked her over in the middle of their... well, it didn't really matter. Those didn't hurt the same way everything else did. Her shoulders slump from the weight her own body. To see is to be forced to squint. To listen is to have a headache. 

In a word, Bella is exhausted. No convenient freezing of time for this act of love. Not that anyone expected the same miracle twice, but the chance to sleep without the fear of anything breaking forever would have been nice. Instead every choice she makes costs her three others, and already the feeling of awe and euphoria that came with seeing Mynx step into herself for the first time had faded. Faded into dread, faded into paranoia, faded into this gods-awful fatigue that permeated every muscle and pore on her body.

Never enough. Just never enough. And none of it ever good enough, no matter how hard she tries. Bella yawns, some weird ancient-coded behavior she did not understand the purpose of but could never stop herself from doing in moments like these. She slips the clean white robe over her head as she crosses the room. It's not how she would prefer to meet this moment, but it's soft and devoid of complex smells, and of all the things she had to wear it was by far the fastest to put on. 

She stands in front of the basin of water in silence. Her ears keep bending to catch the sounds of moonlight approaching, but she twists them back each time. In the clear surface of the water, her reflection shows her a version of herself she has not seen in years. For the first time since she learned she was dead, there is no adornment on her face. No touch of eyeshadow or painted lips or bold accents or even jewelry that would bring out some little part of herself worth marking. She is surprisingly plain. Not particularly beautiful after all. Or maybe she is simply tired. 

She dips her hands into the water, and splashes it across her face. It runs down her neck and drips on the collar of her robe, but she pays it no mind. She doesn't turn to watch when her clawtips splatter water on the floor as she resumes walking, either. Her bare feet pad across the room  in absolute silence, and she lets out not so much as a whisper or a sigh until she reaches the wall and turns to rest her back against it. 

Bella slumps down to the floor, and tilts her head up to look at the silver light streaming through the door frame. 

She smiles; time's up.

"Am I really," she asks, "That much of a disappointment?"