Mood Swing
The sisters are playing dice for a soul again. This is not an uncommon occurrence – they share so many souls between them, and have to portion out who belongs to whom and for how long.
Delirium laughs, and the dice turn into little rainbow fish. They scutter about the chessboard the sisters like to throw the dice on, claws making little scraping noises and odd cilia waving as the fish – no matter what they look like, the mind labels them "fish" (ceci n'est pas un poisson) – settle in and completely fail to turn back into dice.
Despair examines them carefully, as she examines everything. She knows what they say. "My turn," she says, and her heavy hand lifts the fish-not-fish and throws, hard. The fish lie there flattened and dead for a moment and then turn to lumps of black stone. Two small depressions on one, three on the other. She frowns.
"I WIN!!!" squeals Delirium. "Mine mine mine mine mine!!" The lumps of rock change shape and flutter away, leaving a trail of not-quite-purple. She impulsively hugs her sister, squeezing her tight with her little half-shaven blonde head squished between Despair's heavy, pallid, clammy breasts, which are covered in black scabs from the snags of Despair's own heart-hook sigil. Despair does not mind. Her sister's hair feels like crumpled newspaper and shards of old Formica from a long-demolished diner counter. They have a lot in common, the two of them.
"We throw again in half a month," Despair reminds her.
Delirium pouts, but there's a bluish glint in the green eye. "If there's anything left by then!" She laughs with wild delight – what a beauty she used to be! Despair thinks, the eons-long regret of her sister's transformation cutting hard and deep. Delirium wavers and unravels through one of Despair's windows – they'd been playing in her domain, this time. The window fogs and grows dim.
"Soon," she says. Settling down, she gazes through another window. She absently feeds a bit of her left pinky finger to one of her rats. The pain is sharp and gnawing and slow and utterly right.