There was a time, once, when Mercymorn would lay her hands on the living bodies of her fellow necromancers' cavaliers. In her recollection, they were all jealous of her around their closest beloveds, fretful over what she might do to them - but does she remember correctly? Or does a shadow lie across all of those memories, cast backwards by the terrible detonation at their end?

She does not (let herself) remember how the cavaliers felt about the brush of her fingers at their elbows, at the lips of their wounds. She was always so curious about flesh, even then.

Even now. She extracts the foreign bodies to perfect purgation, not a speck of the invader left, and at the brushing thrum of regeneration in their absence she withdraws, stepping back as quickly as she intruded. The residue of Pyrrha's blood ashes and vanishes on her hand, visibly, as close to an assurance as Mercymorn is prone to give.

She ought to fill the space between them with words. Vent spleen into the air, or ask a question. She has so rarely done anything she ought to. She looks at Pyrrha with eyes that are wide, unsoftened, as blank as lens.