It was a story that Lotte wouldn't have been likely to tell to just anyone, not the way she told it to Alastor. No one else had ever been interested in it, in her, enough to care, to be fair. But knowing what she did of Alastor now, she knew he would understand it. The way it had felt, how that had carried her through to this very moment, perched on the edge of her bed next to him. These moments together were a direct result of what her parents had created that day in the river.

Lotte looked at him through the smokey haze of the cigar. Lotte had spent a lot of time living out spite, living just to prove to others that they couldn't do away with her so easily, that she was worth something whether they chose to acknowledge it or not. To force them to acknowledge it.

"Oh, yes. More than ever, as a matter of fact." Even if they never knew it, she knew she'd slipped their grasp, their attempts to snuff her out.

"And she plans," Lotte inhaled the smoke, blew it out slow in front of her, "to keep living - and burning up anything that tries to get in the way of it."

Her fingers reached out to brush over the shadow draped around his shoulders.

"Can't give them the satisfaction of anything less."