A wing that had been melting reformed and held its shape for two full heartbeats. A jaw that had been splitting too wide closed properly, neatly, like a healthy thing.
Two heartbeats.
Then the stabilisation collapsed.
The pulse had not been enough. The pulse was never enough. The Unfinished cannot be finished, and her substance was the only thing that came close, and the closeness was both the gift and the cruelty — the small dilated taste of being whole before the cycle pulled them back into becoming.
They crawled back hungrier.
They always did.
She raised her hand again.
She would feed them again.
She always would.
But she was still too weak even stay in her body much less satiate they're hunger.
Sienna walked off, but her bare feet did not touch the ground.
The rotting air carried her — she moved across the bone-shore at the slow patient pace of a being for whom motion was decorative.
