The Mortician's Daughter (open)

Link walked through the cemetary. He didn't know if he had ever 'lost' anyone but himself in the course of his life. He was still very much alive, but didn't feel like it. His heart was stone cold. It would nver let him feel or love. It was all the fault of his mother. She ruined him. Ripped his spirit from him, along with so many other things. Finally something happened inside him that allowed silent tears to flow down the young man's face. It felt unreal, but made no difference. He slid his knife from his pocket and proceded to slide it across his arms. The blood didn't faze him at all.

"Death is the last enemy: once we've got past that I think everything will be alright," the girls blank voice, called out in english, her easiest language to use, as she stared at the boy, "Alice Thomas Ellis."

She sat sprawled across one of the larger tombstones. Her body facing the side so she could actually balance across her perch wich was longer than it was wide; one leg as croocked on the surface, her arm wrapped around it, and the other dangled over the side, swining lazily. She supposed her choice of sitting may have been disrespectful, but she figured old Florianne Delcriox would get over it.

"That statement makes it almost seem worth letting death win, doesn't it? The allure of alright."

Ashleen let her blue gaze stroll slowly over the boy, finally landing on the blood coming from her arms.

"You know I almost did that once; honestly I'm not really sure what stopped me," she frowned, "Not sure it would have actually solved my problems had I done it anyway."

She lingered on that spot for a moment before shrugging, her voice going airy and almost carefree.

"And you probably can't understand any of this can you? Me being in French land and all. Parlez-vous Francais? The only french I know."

Link looked at the girl. She was commenting on this that and the other thing. Telling him his motives would never solve his problems, nothing would so she was wasting her time. He had no idea what language this girl spoke, so he'd stick to english

"the quote means nothing to me. i am here because i feel its a good place to be when you need to reassure yourself"

Ashleen shrugged, "I don't know if the quote does anything for me either; I just thought I'd share it. This place makes me think of death... so death is what comes out of my mouth."

She looked around at the surroundings.

"I am become death, destroy of worlds - J. Robert Oppenhiemer."

Ashleen paused as that quote crossed her lips, always feeling oddly... touched by that quote; though she never understood why.

Her gaze flicked back to the boy in front of her.

"Are we reassuring ourselves that we are alive? Or that we are dead?"

"I have no faith in human perfectability. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active - not more happy - nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago.-Edgar Allan Poe" Link murmered "and to answer your question, i have no idea. am i as dead on the outside as i am inside? thats the question ive asked myself for 11 years"

"Maybe we're all dead," she stated with a raised eyebrow, turning herself on the stone, so that both her legs dangled over the front, obscuring poor departed Floianne's name, and leaned forward closer to the boy. "Maybe, when we die... we actually learn to live."

"Poe - a good choice, wise man," she nodded her head and hummed slightly. "No one can confidently say that he will still be living tomorrow. - Euripides."