Work Text:
Bao hated being dead because Meringue hated that she was dead. To both of Bao's brothers, and her mother, death — and subsequently, rebirth — is a thing of pride. That was Bao's stance on it too, of course, until she died for the first time.
Bao hated the permanently sticky blood all over her face and neck. Bao hated the weird floaty X hovering where mind-controlled-cat-dragon-Meringue bit her. Bao did not hate floating. Floating was fun, she had decided. Or was she flying? It doesn't matter, though, Lumi would argue that she was, in fact, flying, and not floating. Maybe if she had a way to clean up the blood, or get rid of the X, being a ghost wouldn't be as bad, she concluded.
Meringue said she still would've hated it, though, so she abandoned that conclusion rather quickly.
Up until Lumi and River finished Bao's vessel, Meringue was absolutely devastated, and Bao, who didn't quite get certain trivial human emotions, couldn't understand why. She attempted to comfort her anyway.
"Don't be sad," she would say, floating around from behind to appear in Meringue's field of view. "It's only rebirth. It was bound to happen eventually," she would say. But Meringue would never find comfort in her words.
No matter how many times Meringue had said that she was sad because she herself had killed her, Bao couldn't grasp the concept of feeling remorse — sadness — over taking a life, yet pretended to, for her sake.
Bao resorted to asking her friends, minus Sikuna, what was wrong with Meringue. Lumi said he didn't understand either, despite being her 'smart' sibling. River, who was raised by his human parent, seemed to have more of a grasp on it than she ever would.
"It's because when humans die, they die forever," River explained to her during a break from working on her vessel. "I think she views you as more of a human than you do. That could explain it."
"But I am obviously not human—"
"But you choose to stay in your humanoid form most of the time. It's only natural to be regarded as such, if you look like one, and act like one."
Bao couldn't argue with that logic. She nodded, and River stood up, stretched, and went back to helping Lumi with her vessel. Bao went back to hanging around Meringue.
And so continues a vicious cycle of questions and answers and quite a few more questions. After all, what's life — or death, so to speak — without learning a few new things?
As if she had anything better to do.