Longing (Skulduggery Pleasant, Darquesse)

Darquesse missed Lord Vile.

She hated that she missed him. She thought about this as she looked through a hole in the rock. She hated a lot of things. A bad mood, that's what Valkyrie had called her. Now Darquesse was all bad mood.

She hated this place, for one. When the Faceless Ones weren't tearing her ligament from ligament, she was stuck with nothing to do but heal herself and gaze upwards at the sky.

When she had been back on Earth, she had thought blood was so pretty. Sometimes, the way it caught the light reminded her of a sunset, or one of those abstract paintings, and sometimes it was just pretty.

The sky here was always red. Even at night, when the sun sank, the sky was still a sticky red, like a giant beast's blood was cooling and congealing in the sky. There weren't even any stars.

She had tried to make it rain once. Covered in dust, with a Faceless One trailing after her like a shadow, Darquesse had held up her hand and tried to drag the clouds together to get something, anything.

The Faceless One had snapped her spine vertebrae by vertebrae, but still she had stood there, trying before the pain burst through.

And Vile. Or Skulduggery. She missed them both.

She pushed them from her mind.

Darquesse was broken. She almost didn't want to repair herself. It was so, so nice to just lay here and let her blood drain away. The pain tingled away into a comforting kind of cold. If she died, well, then she'd be dead, but as soon as she repaired herself, the Faceless Ones would be back.

One time, they had been too late, and Darquesse had tried to escape into the sky, away, away, but they had dragged her back and she had screamed.

Now, as soon as she was in one piece, they would be back.

Lord Vile had popped her eyeball once. She had relished the experience. Maybe if he had been here, laying in pieces next to her, she might have repaired herself a little quicker.

Let's see who can outlast the Faceless Ones, she'd whisper.

And Vile would just look back and drag himself together bone and armor.

Or if it was Skulduggery, he would say something witty. Maybe he'd sing to her. She remembered his singing voice. Darquesse opened her mouth but her vocal cords had been frayed. She would have liked a song.

Darquesse hoped Vile missed her. In some other world or dimension, she hoped a little bit of Skulduggery missed her. Missed the fights they used to get into. Missed the little bit of Valkyrie that could fight the little bit of him.

Her mind stitched her throat together.

Darquesse's ears popped, and she groaned, repairing her lungs to do so.

She wondered if Skulduggery ever had dreams about her. Or maybe it would be Vile dreaming about her, the girl cloaked in shadows who could fly and crash with him. Who could bring the universe to its knees with him.

Darquesse missed the sound wood made when it broke. She missed the sounds of seas boiling and of atmospheres crashing down. She missed the sounds of suns imploding and she missed dancing around black holes.

She missed blue skies and rain and Valkyrie's annoying voice at the back of her mind. She missed bombs and explosions. God, Darquesse missed the sea. Any sea, all the seas she had drank in.

She missed skeletons in armor.