Blood
She was queasy, as a child.
Now she is not.
She is steel clothed thinly with silk and velvets, her soul transformed into bloodstained-iron by the black fires of life around her, and she cares for nothing because all she cared for is long gone away.
She wonders, sometimes, on days when the sun shines and she watches it through the French doors, wonders where the child went, where her innocence was gone to. Now, she stands in the doorway with a wet cloth and a cold heart, watching. Waiting.
And patiently, silently, she scrubs at Lucius's clothes and skin until the blood and bits of flesh come off, floating away in her soapy bucket and tainting the surface with vivid stains of red.
--the blood is pretty, swirling, red, until there are bits of flesh along with it that stick to your skin and suck out your life--
A/N: Characters not mine. Second in the Black Sisters trilogy: Narcissa. This brought the rating up to an R.