you should see me in a crown

[deface]

She looked different these days, she knew, but she didn't look that different. And when the swinging lantern brought her face into the erratic circle of light, she knew she was right: she was a very recognizable woman.

The man jolted back in alarm as soon as her features registered. Pale, these days, pale as a bone years past use to anyone. Her face was more gaunt, her eye sockets shadowed, a whisper of the grinning skull she assumed it would one day be. And in low lighting like this, she knew her eyes carried a very faint red gleam. She'd caught it in a mirror once, after turning off the room's lamp. Very disconcerting.

Sir Danth agreed. His jolt back turned into a stumble away as she stepped forward.

"You!" he gasped, and what could Delilah do but sigh? Not very original of him. He was practically writing the bards' musical rendition of this historic day himself.

"Yes," she agreed, "Me."

"You're dead," he said, and took another stumbling step backward. His back met the cabin's door with a loud thud.

"And meanwhile you've done well for yourself, haven't you?" She took a step to match his, and stood close. "Captain of an entire fleet, Sir Danth. It's been a long time since you were just an aide-de-camp."

She could hear the pulse below his skin, she thought. Maybe it was the beat of waves against the hull, but she licked her lips regardless.

"What do you want?" he demanded, fear doing well to restore some of his senses. At least he wasn't spouting obvious facts anymore. Delilah lifted a hand, and was rewarded by the sight of his flinch.

"Oh, be easy, Danth. I just want a chat," Delilah said, a smile slashing across her lips like a knife. Her teeth glinted in that still-swinging lamp light.

"I have nothing to say," Danth said, standing himself a little straighter. He set his shoulders, looking determined to keep this encounter dignified. "You got what was coming to you, Delilah. You'd more than earned it."

"Uh huh," she said; she wasn't listening. It was definitely his pulse; she was no sailor, but she knew the sea didn't flutter nervously like that. She took another step nearer.

"I'd do it again," Sir Danth said. "And maybe it will take this time."

He moved suddenly, a hand at his waist jerking forward. Delilah saw too late a blade, a dagger drawn while she'd been distracted by that even swish-swish of blood pumping into veins. It drove into her stomach, the hard point lodging somewhere under a rib. Delilah grunted, driven back a step, and Danth smiled triumphantly.

"Whatever you are, you can still bleed," he said. But he hadn't looked very closely. The blood that had washed down the dagger's blade and hilt and over his hands didn't merely look black in the dim lighting; it was black. Delilah straightened, dropping her hands from where she'd instinctively clutched at the wound.

"I was going to ask a few questions about that day," she said, "You know, the day I died. But you've really killed the mood."

She was on him in an instant. The dagger jarred rudely loose and skittered across the floor as Danth screamed — a scream that ended in a wet gurgle. Delilah's teeth had changed, too. They'd sharpened, lengthened, they tore through meat like it was paper. And she was so, so hungry these days.