[b]Redana...[/b]

has no more tears. Those ducts were squeezed dry. Wrung out and licked clean.

Her tongue is too large in her mouth. Her body is not her body. She is aware of the throb in the temples, the leaden weight of the limbs, the burning ache in the chest, but after a body has been disassembled and reassembled enough times, it ceases to be a singular unit. It is a collection of sensations, all of them desperate and panicked and alien.

She stares up at the flute, hollow-eyed. Her arms are too long. She is desperate for water. And the Bella she remembers has died a hundred times, after killing her a hundred times. She can still feel the pinprick of those needy claws on every inch of her skin. Enough pain makes an animal of the body, and those words are pain enough for an ocean.

less cruel. less cruel. less cruel.

Bella's Creature stands up on legs that are not her own and shambles forward to kill the final person in the room so she can make the words stop.

[hr]
[b]Dany...[/b]

applies pressure to the wound like she can press blood back into her dearest friend. Her hair hangs about her head and mixes with the tears and snot. There is nothing random about her desperation not to lose Bella, to do something with her hands that can make everything better. Can take something out of this awful, hellish moment and make it not the end of the story.

"I don't see," she admits through wet lips. "I never saw. She should have punished me, not you, me, not you... it's [i]my fault,[/i] Bella..."

Her fault. All of this is her fault. From the box to the monster to the queen. She didn't know the right things to do. She didn't know the right things to feel. She never has. But Bella's always known. Hasn't she?

"Don't leave me, Bella," she begs. "I want you to stay forever and [i]ever.[/i]"

[hr]
[b]Ember...[/b]

has no one to show off to. But she still does the most pathetic little hair toss and smiles like she's going to throw up. Her body is so heavy it feels like she should be cracking through the floor. Even if there's no one here, though, she's still competing. Competing to impress the pack. Competing to impress [i]Mosaic[/i].

It is too hot and heavy for her to make a joke about silly puppies. It keeps looping in her head, bouncing off the sides of her skull, nonsense syllables: si-ly pu-si-lly pi sill-py sillee puppee siply puply. Of course a silly puppy won't give uppupupupyy. On the hill, head down, eyes looking up Mosaic's stomach to her hungry grin above twin mountains and a valley. Silly puppy doesn't silly up puppy. Not disapuppyment. Not for her. Not for the pack. Not for Berrypuberry. siplipuppbly.

[i]On a moonlit hill, among white flowers, nails capable of breaking mountains digging into her scalp: "Silly puppy. Don't you ever give up?"[/i]

nevergibsuppy.