and this old world is a new world and a bold world

[malificence]

After Voldemort had fallen and been buried at sea, it had taken months for Lucius to figure out a way to deal with Bella's grief. He'd tried terrible ideas - locking her in the captain's quarters after she'd slashed Rodolphus' throat for exhibiting ambition too soon had only resulted in him dodging blades any time he opened the door - before realizing that, in the end, only one thing truly centered both of them. It was the thing that had brought him to this life. Perhaps it was the thing that had cause her to fall deep in obsessive love with the old captain.

They both wear black exclusively, so much of the evidence of their little adventure in Tortuga is hidden, but streaks of deep red mar Lucius' pale blond hair. Bella's skin is dotted wherever fabric doesn't cover her, and when he steadies her so that they can climb back onto the Nagini his hands come away with smears of red from where their little massacre had drenched her corset. This is hardly the first time they'd come to port for this reason, and he raises an eyebrow at her as their boots thumped quietly on the ship's deck.

"Better, darling?"

Comments

[scinlac]

It has been months, though she wouldn't say that the passage of time has done her any good. What good could it do, when each day is a testimony to her own failure? If He has fallen, He must be brought back to life, but no matter how many hours she sequesters herself away in the old captain's quarters – forcibly or out of her own will – the pieces have not yet fallen into place. Whatever plan for His immortality He might have had, it requires more time for her to figure out – and, were she honest with herself, a mind perhaps less addled by grief and shock and horror.

Her swift and complete claiming of the quarters is what ultimately lead to Dolph's downfall: he'd both questioned the future leadership, which seemed to lie with the old lieutenants both, and it had been so... unhelpful. Unproductive. Treacherous, really, to assume any one of them would lead for longer than it took to bring Him back. Arguably after Rodolphus, no one seemed to mind so openly that the most desirable quarters went to her.

Not that she indulges much in them. She barely rests these days, her mind too agitated to permit her more than a few hours sleep at a time.

She snorts at his question, instantly derisive. "He is still gone, isn't He?" So how could it be better? But she pulls herself over the railing and back onto deck, and she does feel... better, in some lateral sense. More grounded. The world is in less of a haze, and she can, for the first time in months, hear herself think. It's evident enough in her very eyes – she looks clear, focused.