Oh.

[she supposes that makes sense, most of her theories had been strewn together before she even knew of its existence.] I thought maybe it was the gorilla paw coming back to haunt us.

Why? For fun? Or were you trying to find a way out?

... [quiet staring as that sinks in. she thought it was trapped in the Nothing, feeding upon the other souls, but not... the full (dis)embodiment of it. yet isn't that how it was described. the engine and the fuel.]

So now when people vanish. There's nowhere for them to go, huh. [just... thinking of Clarke and Jade and...]

I know such a change can't be easy. But I hoped this would be better for you.

That's okay, I didn't come here to get answers out of you.

[holds up the pumpkin she's been cradling]

You don't have to be Nothing anymore, though.

You are. It's confusing, figuring yourself out. Because there's so many choices. What you can do and who you can become. Those are your choices now. That's why it's good to try different things. See what feels right, what you like. What you don't...

Do you want to carve this pumpkin with me?

It's another Halloween tradition. You cut open the pumpkin's top, pull out all of its nasty innards. And carve a scary face into it. Then you put it outside your door.

It's fun.

Do you mean giving it x's for eyes? Or the pulling out the innards bit?

So for some reason it's more taboo to mess about with a corpse than all the things you can do to make someone dead in the first place. People [darcy] get real upset about it.

But nobody gets sensitive about pumpkins, can stab at it all you want.

... you won't go on a stabbing spree if I give you a knife, right?

Good enough. But if anyone asks, I didn't give it to you.

[slices the top of the pumpkin clean off.]

[reaches in and pulls out a goopy stringy handful] Ew, like this. You want to try?

Yeah, it's pretty gross and slimy. [scoops as much out as she can]

Sometimes I miss when messes would clean themselves up, but once I learned why it seemed a bit... unfair.

Because cleaning things up myself might be inconvenient and annoying, but... the suffering derived from somebody else's soul isn't worth something so petty. Not to me. I can make my own bed, it really isn't that much a hassle.

[wipes her hands off on her sweatpants]

... Okay, so sometimes I make my husband do it.

Isn't it you that told Fio that as long as somebody remembers, it's like you're not really gone?

[offers the knife over to Sparkles, blade turned toward her direction so it doesn't come off as a threat]

[sets the knife down and watches the poor pumpkin burn.] I thought it was a nice sentiment. But alright, I didn't mean to upset you. I know it's hard.