[This smile is thin. On another, weaker man, it might be frail. On the marquis, it just looks out of place.]
Good thing.
[Life is always a good thing, except when stolen unceremoniously and without warrant. The marquis has always borrowed time from uncertain futures, until he ran out of lives. He doesn't know how he'll approach - anything, now; not even bare existence. He will survive, he knows. It's just a matter of how.]
[He isn't dead, but he's not alive yet either. He's on a choppy reverse-film journey with a terribly confused psychopomp, back to the underworld, the only place he can truly live. Who could blame him for not being sure what to make of that?]
[Him. He can.]
[Something sallow in his cheeks fills out at the gesture. Subtle, small. You're welcome.]
Then what am I? Flatter me.
[But really: do. The water is cold, and he's forgotten how to swim upriver.]
[ Spam ]
Good thing.
[Life is always a good thing, except when stolen unceremoniously and without warrant. The marquis has always borrowed time from uncertain futures, until he ran out of lives. He doesn't know how he'll approach - anything, now; not even bare existence. He will survive, he knows. It's just a matter of how.]
[He isn't dead, but he's not alive yet either. He's on a choppy reverse-film journey with a terribly confused psychopomp, back to the underworld, the only place he can truly live. Who could blame him for not being sure what to make of that?]
[Him. He can.]
[Something sallow in his cheeks fills out at the gesture. Subtle, small. You're welcome.]
Then what am I? Flatter me.
[But really: do. The water is cold, and he's forgotten how to swim upriver.]