What colorful butterfly will fly next?

[waterfell]

Cold fog swirls, and makes the darkness even deeper, shrouding everything in a damp, cloying mist. There's a smell of ash in the air. To the side, a single golden pin impales a blue butterfly with black markings, just above the thorax. It struggles with a vain flurry of its tired wings, but for all the writhing desperation, there is little life left in the spasming body. It rests weakly between fits of frantic activity.

Beneath the butterfly, a picture of a blue-haired girl in a tiara and sailor-style collar has been clearly marked 'Mercury'. Nearby, similar displays bear the names of other planets. In some, the butterfly's wings have been pulled off or its body has been singed and scorched or bent to sickening angles; others are fresh and empty, but labeled in anticipation. They stretch into the distance as far as the eye can see in all directions.

Comments

[waterfell]

[The simple question injects logic into the scene, and Mercury falls quiet. That's right: What is this punishment for? The one responsible for her being here isn't likely to care about the things she's done.

Yet in a dream, the buried regrets are harder to let lie. The star graveyard, and this skewed form of it in her mind, might not be related to it, but she knows herself for someone cruel and terrible, and she's been caught between that and the part of herself that never wanted it to grow this overwhelming.]

If it's not, then how did you come here?

[sixthsefira]

I know not. I simply found myself here. [She finally kneels before the fallen girl. It feels wrong somehow to continue to tower over her.]

Why were you pinned like that? Do you know?