we are not truly immortal

[dark_light]

After Glass's party is over with, Amariah and Kas go home.

Amariah fetches down their alethiometers.

"It's about time I took care of Alethia's afterlife, whatever it may be," she says quietly. "What can the alethiometer tell you about what I'll find?"

Comments

[sicaria]

Show me everything you know about where she might have gone.

[pythbox]

Ghosty gives up keeping tabs on everyone else and focuses on Shell Bell's location, getting as wide a 'view' as she can with her not-very-visual perceptions and sending it on to Sherlock. She can't manifest properly, though, with part of her attention caught on the other side of the river.

[dark_light]

Amariah pushes what she saw of Shell Bell's initial trajectory.

[lifes_sake]

Cam tries assorted phrasings to get answers out of the alethiometer that might help find her.

[truthwright]

The alethiometer gives Cam directions, but they are cryptic and unhelpful-sounding.

Kas tries, too, and he just pushes the meanings directly to Sherlock through the link.

[sicaria]

Every available piece of information settles into her mind, and she turns and flies and turns and flies and dives and flies and turns and flies.

There.

That is Shell Bell, and that is a harpy. She gives the harpy a telekinetic shove as she comes to a stop just beside Shell Bell.

[arenaria]

Shell Bell looks up just long enough to identify Sherlock's face and then she flinches away.

[alicornucopia]

The harpy banks with vast black wings and screams at Sherlock, and in the scream is not so much words as the distilled essence of shame.

Don't leave me, no, please, I missed you, not yet, please -

No wonder the smew wouldn't let Sherlock hold him, she was always going to leave -

[sicaria]

She scoops up Shell Bell and teleports them both back to the dock.

[pythbox]

Ghosty tracks the harpy.

[alicornucopia]

The harpy is confused. Also, all the shades nearby took advantage of her preoccupation with her live victim to flee the area. She takes off and departs in a random direction.

[arenaria]

Shell Bell struggles in Sherlock's arms, crying; she wouldn't be hard to restrain, but if Sherlock's going to let her wrench out of her arms, there is some risk of her falling near enough their daemons to come into contact with the gyrfalcon, unless he moves out of the way (and the smew wouldn't follow).

The smew has quieted, but he's still shivering.

[sicaria]

"Talk to me," Sherlock says softly. "Tell me what's wrong."

She doesn't let go.

[arenaria]

"Shouldn't - shouldn't -" Shell Bell whimpers, scrunching her eyes shut.

[sicaria]

"Shouldn't what."

[arenaria]

"You shouldn't care, you should hate me," sobs Shell Bell.

The smew whines agreement.

[sicaria]

"That is nonsense," Sherlock says flatly. "I love you."

[arenaria]

"Last time," sobs Shell Bell, "I wanted you to."

[sicaria]

"I don't understand."

[arenaria]

"It doesn't matter," mumbles Shell Bell.

"Put her down, let us go," says the smew, "forget about us."

[sicaria]

"Absolutely not. It is obvious that you intend this abandonment to benefit me. It will not. I refuse to allow you to make that choice on my behalf. Tell me what happened."

[arenaria]

"She screamed," Shell Bell whispers, "and I remembered, everything bad I ever did, ever thought, and I felt it, and I still do, and it's terrible, and I'm - so - selfish I still don't know what to do -"

[sicaria]

"The harpy hurt you," says Sherlock. "Understand what she did, and then fix it."

[arenaria]

"She didn't lie."

[sicaria]

"If she made you think that leaving me was some kind of moral duty, then she told one of the worst lies I can imagine, whether or not she did it using the selective application of individual truths."