For the umpteenth time in the last twenty years – or at least, what passed for years in his Domain – Death regretted the choice to allow his daughter to grow sixteen years old. Alas, his previous encounters with teenagers, brief as they had been, had failed to impress upon him that no, they were not in any way more reasonable than toddlers.
Quite the opposite, in fact.
"I'm so lonely!" Ysabell sobbed, dark mascara streaming down her chubby face (her insistence on smearing paint on her face never ceased to baffle Death). "Nobody loves me! Nobody understands me!"
This, Death reflected, was likely true. Still, he made an attempt.
I, AS YOU KNOW, CANNOT LOVE, he intoned. BUT I KNOW FOR A FACT ALBERT IS QUITE FOND OF YOU—
Ysabell sobbed harder.
"A-an old man! Nearly dead himself—!"
AHEM.
"I am so unhappy!" Ysabell wailed, not to be stopped in her tracks. "My existence is pointless! I shall be alone and miserable forever, in this empty, black place!"
Death felt lost, but, unversed as he was in human ways, nevertheless recognised the danger of the multiple exclamation marks.
It was time to turn to proven methods.
DO NOT DESPAIR, DAUGHTER, he said. I HAVE BROUGHT YOU CHOCOLATE.
"Chocolate! Do you think I care for chocolate, when my life is a meaningless cycle of suffering? What kind?"
DARK WITH SPRINKLES. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE POINT OF THE SPRINKLES. WHY DO THEY PUT SPRINKLES ON IT?
Ysabell brightened up slightly.
Death's Domain might consist of pale copies of actual things, time might be flat and fake and life might be pointless, but chocolate was always real.