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[volkarin]

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[multiverse]

Emmrich,

I expect by the time this letter is in your hands, you will be among the living again. Regardless, I'm starting it on the night I killed you, which I imagine you can use as written confession if things ever go tits up for us. In any case, I won't lie to you and say its been easy. You stayed warm for a good while after I strangled you, but there is a draft in your room, so you might've stayed warmer longer somewhere else. I was with you, in that time, if you're curious. Most wouldn't name my word as a particularly powerful thing, but you asked, and so I was there through the night, the room so quiet no one could mistake you as simply sleeping. There was still a little heat to your body as they took you away, but it'd been totally lifeless, and not especially appealing to touch. That said, I don't find gravel particularly appealing to touch, but you still cup it when you fall and scrape your knee, so I held your hand, even if you couldn't hold mine back. I like when you wear fine things of gold, with dainty chains and rich stones, timeless like everything you own has a prolific history — my fingerprints around your throat were not a particularly good accessory, and I don't think I'd care to see it again. Not for a long while, at least.

They tried to dress you in this hideous black suit to be buried in. Imagine the monstrosity. Pinstripes? I told them it'd be a cold day in hell that I let someone I care about be buried in such terrible fashion. I think I upset the mortician quite a bit. Ultimately, I picked your clothes and I dressed you, under the natural presumption it's what you would've wanted, although writing it now I think you'll actually disapprove of my involvement. Still, it's a weird thing to look back on, as I'm writing it out — I couldn't let anyone else handle any small portion of your burial, almost as if I was possessive of your death. I don't think it was that I was bothered by someone knowing what I had done to you, because I own every action I've ever made. More, I think it's that I have an obsession with understanding the whole meat and bones of you, which your death left incomplete. Seeing you dead is awful, but at the same time, being apart from your corpse is worse. If someone else looked at you, what would I do? So selfish, to be so needful of you when you're not even here to tell me to fuck off. Even if you begged me, hand in heart and bowed on knee, to remove myself from you, I don't think I could do it. Rather, I wouldn't want to.

Anyway, I chose the green. It's a nice suit. You look handsome in it, even if it washes you out a little. There's a very interesting balancing act between wanting you to look your best and also knowing you'll need to burn this suit after you wake up, because I'll never want to see it again. But then, I'm not precious with clothes and our manor hosts are generous with the wardrobe, and you look excellent in most things. So. It's really a non issue. I hope you found the underwear funny.

I think Dorian is a lovely man. He's very charming, and very handsome, and very generous with his time given the whole state of affairs, which I believe have impacted him in a very predictable way. I think he's a bit soft on you. I don't really blame him. You ought to be kind to him once you return, as he's been kind to me. He came with me to your burial because I asked him to. I don't know what emotion crossed over his face when they lowered you down, but it felt a little crafted, like someone with a talent for marble and chisel. Artist hands, he's been careful for a very long time. Unfortunately, I felt the hunger pangs from my own lingering effects of death tonight, which was especially poor timing, all things considered. Nevertheless, Armand and I went to Otherworld and it was business as usual — he bit them, drained them, and I flayed them, ate them. I don't usually talk to you about these things, because they're not particularly attractive, but I wonder now if I should've, if that might've dissuaded you from your death. I went to be sick in your bathroom because I forgot you were dead in the whole mess of things, which was a little silly of me. Very fun, that remembering weight. Your bed still smells like you, but then, you haven't really been gone long, all things considered.

I'm not predestined towards hope, so I accepted you might die for good the night that I killed you, and that could be the end of it. You promised you'd come back. It feels fragile, like wishing on a star, or pulling petals off of flowers. Do you have that belief in Nevarra? You pluck petals from whatever flower you have, announcing opposing statements to each. "He loves me/He loves me not" is traditional. The last petal is meant to represent the truth. I found a purple rose not far from your grave and played the game myself. He'll come back, he'll stay dead. The last petal told me you'd stay dead, but then, there's a stupid little trick where you pretend to stem is the final phrase — and I had already resorted to seeking answers in flowers, so I wasn't above the cheat. I'll get my answer one way or another. You should probably remember that.

I think you'll wonder why I haven't immediately given you your stone, particularly after reading this letter. I know Daisy is curious, and not exactly happy about my decision, because she misses you too. I think the answer to that is that I know you, and I know you aren't against other deaths, a multitude of them, to further your research. I will take your death by its own devastating neck and wring out every fraction of information I can from it, to keep the thought of doing it again from your mind. We will both sit here, suffering, and I will learn whatever it is your death has to tell me. So — you're an angel, I suppose. When people rise they have aspects of different folklore and fairytale creatures that effect them. I know of one other person who suffered from this ailment, our old friend Matt, but we know vampire at least is another one. Why that? I couldn't say, but they both have elements of death already baked into their well known folklore. Mermaids, less so. You're responsive like you're alive, perfectly conscious and adjacent to your usual self, if not for all the glowing and the feathers. But it doesn't feel like you, not exactly. It's like I'm looking at your mind on a diagonal, like you're italicized in some way. I have your stone in my hand, pressed against my heart, and that feels more like you than the body you're in. You want it, I can tell. I'm some kind of evil for keeping it from you. I've done the research I can, taken notes to the best of my ability, and tried to be the enterprising student you believe me to be. But I'm done now, I've decided. I'm giving you your stone, and that had better be the end of it for a good, long while.

Your beloved murderess,
Parisa