She had never understood the origins of a festival to celebrate fear, or its odd twisting into joy, but had always (or since _ and wasn't that close enough to always? no it was not it is not allowed to be) understood its purpose.
The Festival of the Lost, she wryly thought. How lovely, that there was a festival to celebrate her. She only really noticed it when once came wearing her face, her tears (no. she wept, but she could not cry. She shed her last tear when _, and it was still there, in that pit). And she thought: they wear the masks of mysteries, and horrors, and jokes. Which am I?
They asked for candy, worthless treasures sugar-spun. As a rule, she did not have sweets in her ship, avoided sugar at all costs. The Hive was an apt name; for, as insects, sweet syrup was their main repast, tinged with horrid bitterness she still hungered for. She didn't know what to give then, for _ had given her an inhuman appetite, so she gave what she had, and they went, laughing and crying. She envied them even as she saw their deaths written on the back of her eyes, but she did not cry. And she wondered: which am I?
She was a mystery, for as Oryx came and swept his horrid fingers across the worlds, she spoke his words and his weaknesses, and gave all she had to slay him. But she was a monster, for when his words echoed within her hollowed (hallowed) mind and brought searing agony, it was wonderful. It was right.
When the last of his echoes faded out and the voices went silent, she spent a day in her room sobbing (but not crying, never crying), and she didn't know why.
She looked out around over the plaza with her broken gaze, and saw fear and happiness as one, the first becoming the second, and catharsis echoing through beaten but unbroken forms. She remembered herself (mirrors were another thing she avoided), and wondered if perhaps she was just a joke, a woman (did that even apply anymore? of course it did) who didn't realize she died. She wondered what the punchline was.
She plucked a piece of candy from a nearby vendor, a worthless treasure of wonderful agony. She placed it upon her tongue, and laughed, and wept, and sobbed, and did not cry.