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Lady Macbeth approaches, distracted, weaving her fingers through her own dark hair and smiling. She is still flush with the victory of beguiling Richard Sharpe. The bright flash of leaves catches her eye, and appeals to her. "How pretty," she murmurs, pausing a few paces off.

"I think so."

Her voice is slightly slurred, and she dips her head without turning it at all.

Hel, it should be pointed out, is a good seven and a half feet tall; but looks like a teenage girl.

At least on the right.

Lady Macbeth creases her brow. She looks up.

The girl is very still, and very tall. "Did you pick these?"

She has not seen the left side yet.

"I did, yes."

She murmurs, looking at Lady M. from the corner of her dusky blue eye.

"I am fond of color."

"To do without it is a hard thing, yes."

She studies the blue iris, and licks her lips. I have died, I have gotten away, I will fear nothing! But something about this creature undoes her just a hair.

"Where did you come by them? I have seen no trees within."

"Out by the lake."

She says simply, pointing with her left hand. There is a brown leather glove, elaborately tooled, covering the skin. That arm moves oddly, stiffly. Her right hand, however, is being used to sort the leaves better.

"There is a lake?" She had not noticed. She tilts her head at the indicating hand. "Did... something happen to your arm?"

"There is. And a forest."

She pulls the arm back, and shakes her head. Even the headshake is odd: it moves toward the left and then back to center.

"No. I was born like this."

"God a' mercy," she whispers (old habits die harder than people). The girl must be from some other when: in the Lady's own time, she'd have been killed at birth.

She swallows. "Tell me, how does one get to the lake from here? I have not been attentive to the doors particularly."

"They have none."

She says, flatly, when Lady M invokes God. Then she turns her head and looks the Scottish woman full on.

From the center of her face to the left she is dead. Not deformed, not ugly, dead. Mummified. Skin stretched tightly over bone; dark brown and hard. Her slurred speech is explained.

"The back door leads to the lake, the woods, and all of that. The one to the side of the Bar leads to the restrooms."

At such a sight, who would not tremble? Even a Medea like the Lady cannot suppress a shudder that twists at her very guts. She exhales.

"Such was my own face sometimes when I looked in the mirror mad. Yet this is no working of a feverish brain. What mischief was done to mar you so from birth?" Her tone darkens. "Was it witchery?"

"Nothing. I am Hel, goddess of the unworthy dead."

And she is the equivalent of eighteen or nineteen years old, and the shudder hurts her deeply. The living side of her face goes grim and still, and she looks away from Lady Macbeth.

The attitude strikes the Lady, and she hugs her elbows, considering. She has never met a goddess before, if indeed goddess the girl is. Still, her title makes Lady Macbeth smile grimly herself.

"Perhaps this meeting was not incidental. I wonder, know you aught of me? You do not frighten me," she adds. "Not any longer."

"You're human. I do not know what you call yourself."

She says after a moment, and figures the better part of valor is not mentioning that she's probably one of Hel's.

There is a bitter, bitter expression in her single living eye when she looks at the Lady, and she says,

"No. I do not frighten you any more, but I disgust you. Mortals are always disgusted by the look of my face. Even the other gods are."

"Aye, and they are disgusted by the deeds of my hand, when they know of them. Their reactions are a petty thing. I am Lady Macbeth, who brought her husband to the throne with bloodshed. I am pleased to meet you, great lady." And she dips a respectful curtsy.

"Most thrones are won with bloodshed."

She points out, sounding like the goddess she is (as opposed to the teenager she also is. Hel is complicated).

"It is perhaps not a pleasure, but may become one Lady Macbeth."

And she dips her head in a graceful nod.

"This is a true thing. My throne and his were won by my own knifework, which becomes us both little." Her smile shows that she cares not a whit.

"Might you care to accompany me outside? I have not tasted air since I fell through it and came here."

"If you wish."

She says after thinking it over. Hel has had a long, long time to become quiet and slow.

She rises (and rises, and rises) before sweeping toward the lake door. Her left leg drags a bit, giving her a limp. Slight, but noticeable.

"I thank you for it," the Lady replies with another bow, and follows at her side.

[ooc: fade or slowtime? I have to sleep, unfortunately. but it's great fun, these two together. *g*]

She points out, in the same softly slurred voice, the various landmarks in the back.

She does not, however, mention the demon bunnies. They tend to scatter at the sound of her foot steps so she doesn't even know they exist.

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