[ It is a strange irony that despite her longevity the world beyond the gates of Christmasland is yet a novelty to the young officer. She was born into it and for a time had been its denizen, but these memories were made elusive by her second home, like the figments of a half-remembered dream, less real than the unreality she otherwise occupies, and so she feels an alien in the very place of her origin. She moves with cold vigilance, her sword sheathed but palm on pommel, ready to produce the blade on the first nuisance to intercept her path before even the possibility of an ambush by her acquaintance enters the calculation, such is her propensity for violence.

The green of the fog draws her eye, and though an eerie phenomenon among the graves might frighten another, Millie is excited by the anomaly; so much so that her hand forgets her blade and she marches straight towards it from sheer inquisitiveness. She stops playing soldier and becomes a child.

She greets the figure of Mordrake with an awful grin, a jagged shark's maw that closer resembles uncontrolled mutation than ordered design. ]

You're different, I knew it. It's no parlour trick!

[ She waves a black lace-up combat boot through the fog as if to test it. Her expression suddenly darkens and smile fades, her voice a whisper. ]

But how different are you, Edward? Inside. That is the question.