Vera is agonizingly quiet. Sheâs so still, in fact, that one might mistake her to have been replaced with one of the many statues sheâs so fond of making. Polly is, arguably, her first proper friend. One of the few people sheâd actually say is a real friend.
Itâs been some time since it happened, of course, but.. it was still agonizingly quieter than it used to be all the time.
âPolly,â she begins, voice level as she can make it. âYou being sorry was never in question. I canât pretend to understand, of course, but Iâm well-aware something was amiss. You donât have to apologize. I just⊠I needed time to decompress.â
That was the word for it, right. Decompress and.. deal with things. The spot where Hissy had once been is gone, of course, and itâs rather evident that, unlike hair or the heads of a Hydra, Veraâs snakes donât appear to grow back.
Finally, as if she had forgotten to, Vera manages a slight quirk of lips into a smile.
âReally, you donât have to worry about it. Weâre friends. Just because a mishap happened doesnât change that.â
They were friends, yes, and now that sheâs had time to process such, her scorn has dulled some. It would be a lie to say she wasnât angry or distraught in some regard, so she doesnât bring it up. Sheâs still happy to see Polly, after all. None of that has changed in the slightest.
              âRight, right, I know, itâs justââ
     The words come out more disjointed than Polly wants, slurred somewhere within her, deeper than where mouth or lungs are supposed to be, tucked away in a corner that she canât fully shine out. Like the tremble in her hands, flesh falling apart from and rotting from bone and then picking itself back up and reattaching itself to the tendons and then falling apart back again, has infected the whole of her being, the physical appearance of herself less of a measure of how well she was doing and moreso the whole of what she was.
   Itâs never something she gets used to. Pretty sure itâs impossible, anyways. Something about the nature of the way she was, of what she had become, that she would always be playing catchup, forgetting that she wasnât she thought herself to be.
    The clown outfit is at least a reassurance. Itâs funny, how it becomes one, that she can tuck something physical around herself, that she can touch herself with makeup and itâll hold. Itâs nice. Itâs something she took for granted, before. Itâs nice to touch her body and to have it respond to her, to have something to feel, to have fabric that she can hold.
    Her arms tuck tight around her chest, an odd half-hug thatâs made slightly more odd by how Polly is floating sideways, well above the ground. One hand lifts up, waving here and there as if trying to gesture out an idea that she couldnât get out with her mouth, almost a shrugging gesture if it werenât so desperate, bleeding at the edges with a shame and a want and all the things sheâs been stewing in since sheâs been afraid to talk to Vera again. Thatâs funny too. Never thought she would be afraid of Vera, even though she knows sheâs scary, but... She doesnât think thatâs true, not with this. Itâs more accurate to say the big bad wolf sheâs scared of is herself. Has been for a while.
     âItâs like... You know. You know how it gets, when any of us lose control. Itâs... Itâs not... Yeah. I mean. You know what itâs like, right? To lose control. You know how it feels. When someone gets hurt because... Well, because.â
   She paused again, silence hanging heavy in the air beside her. Slowly, Polly rotated around, her legs drifting up and towards the ceiling, her head falling back, as if she were sitting upside down on a couch instead of the air itself.
    â ...... Can I at least, like, honk my nose, and youâll laugh and say I look like as much of an idiot as Iâve been, lately?â
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