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

[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."

[arenaria]

"She didn't say that. I figured it out."

[sicaria]

"It is false."

[arenaria]

"I wished you dead, I did, I wished you dead - and hurt and away from Tony - just because I wanted you where I was," sobs Shell Bell. "And when I told you before all I said was please still love me like that made any sense -"

[sicaria]

"But I do still love you," she says. "And if I had known where you were I would have wished the same."

[arenaria]

Shell Bell sobs, and shivers, and mumbles something unintelligible.

[sicaria]

"What is it?"

[arenaria]

"I don't know what to do," murmurs Shell Bell, "I always just do whatever makes me feel better but I shouldn't feel better and I want to do something that - but then it's about what I want again - I don't know how to do anything else, I'm so, so self-centered, I can't even be guilty right."

[sicaria]

"I want you to feel better," says Sherlock. "Your suffering helps no one but that harpy."

[arenaria]

"No," whimpers the smew, and Shell Bell is silent.

[sicaria]

"Does it then have some practical benefit which I fail to understand?"

[arenaria]

Shell Bell shakes her head, slowly.

[sicaria]

"So you are in pain, and I am in pain, and nothing good is coming of either," she says. "This is not optimal."

[arenaria]

"But," says Shell Bell, "I should be and you shouldn't care."