Work Text
How does one write an invitation to someone they might love? It’s a worry for Hope as she sits, quill in hand, desperate for words to spring for from her mind like a geyser, like ripe fruit cleaved in two.She’s dreamed of such an opportunity now for weeks. Before the star she was turned supernova and burned out, Hope received… hope. An interloper, an intruder, a luminous moon of a woman that shrouded Raphael in a cloudless night and made him no more. And her destruction of the devil gave Hope the means to wrought her own destruction: the foyer demolished, the boudoir made rubble, each room reduced to dust and cinders and charcoal all so Hope can raise it up in the image of her own desires, in glory of her liberation. And Korilla, spared… like a birthday and a new puppy and the last slice of cake all at once.Hope could grow used to this part of the Hells, could adapt to her clearly malformed appearance… to be touched would be a torment imagined too often but if her visitor arrived, Hope could accept a hand over hers. Fingers laced together. The barely felt pulse beneath thin skin. Yes, that would be acceptable, no, it would be lovely. The little things in life always brought her more pleasure than the grand things anyway, crackers and cheese over a decadent feast. And maybe she would look past the scarring, the things Hope can’t see but she knows are there… or maybe she would embrace it, the bruised part of fruit still being sweet.“My dear friend…”