Deep in the night you think everything’s right--
Characters: specificities and pasfolle
Setting/Location: The docking area for the canoes in Sintala
Date & Time: Day 16, whenever the boats arrive
Warnings: Obviously spoilers for Inception, and also depressing triggers.
Summary: For the first time in two years, Arthur meets up with the Mal he once knew and loved.
The very second Mal floated from her canoe, she felt a bizarre sensation tingle through each of her limbs, all the way down to her fingertips. She tested their movement by curling her fingers into her palms, unsure of why they felt so strange as her nails dug into supple flesh. It didn't feel like real pain. Neurons fired inside of her mind, explaining that yes, the hurt was real, that she could bleed if she pressed too hard, but it seemed like more of a phantom pain. Like the ache of a limb one had lost, even when it had long been separated from the body.
Instinctively, Mal slid both arms around her slender waist, though hardly as a display of protectiveness. She felt cold watching people filter past her, her eyes slowly raking over the area. Had the sight been at all strange to her, she might have at least feigned surprise. But as it stood, even merpeople couldn't shock her. Few things could, now. Acceptance of strange, impossible things had become second nature to her, and as she floated toward the city with patient, feeling much like a ghost, it was becoming further evident that the closer she advanced, the less she felt inside.
She simply had no emotion to apply.
Her conversation with Arthur strayed at the back of her mind, festering there like an idea. He'd said she had already died. Of all the impossible things, that was certainly the most unheard of. Extraordinary sights were all that Mal was used to, but altering time? Being part of an event she had no recollection of? It was a difficult concept to grasp. But there was one thing that was certain -- she felt the hurt. The sort of hurt that ached in her chest like a fork had been plunged inside and twisted into her heart valves.
Dom didn't jump with her. He had probably watched her plummet to her death from the ledge, unable to follow her in a paralytic state of trauma. Maybe he had cried. Sat on the hotel room floor for hours, attempting to piece together the events in a way that made sense. Somehow, she could imagine this so clearly, it was as though the image was a memory. But one thing was for sure.
There was no greater betrayal than what he had done to her.
And whether or not Arthur could understand that was not Mal's problem.