Cora continuously tried to revive the unresponsive girl in her arms.

She gently shook Little Cora and murmured words of encouragement for the child to open her eyes, to wake up, to not be scared... Cora wet her hand in the fountain and pressed a cool palm against Little Cora's forehead and cheeks. However, Little Cora's eyes remained closed. With no heartbeat or breath or any sign of consciousness to note, the undead girl looked eerily... dead.

Cora clutched the small, limp body to her chest and sighed. "Look at what your thoughtlessness has caused, Cerberus. How are we to help the child when she does not even possess the ability to speak or think anymore?"

"Do not blame me, Cora dear," he protested with a smile of innocence. "You were the one who kept prattling on and on and on about expiring plants and flowers. Can you fault me for growing weary of such dull conversation?"

Cora glowered. "I regret that our discussion was boring you, Cerberus. Unlike you, however, I was trying to ease the child into accepting a most difficult truth about her own, ah... conflicted and unnatural state of being. I had hoped to deliver the gloomy news to her with the utmost care and compassion, but then you shoved her straight in front of the fire—quite literally, might I add—without any warning! I am most upset with you."

Her ire seemed to strike a chord in Cerberus. His handsome features pulled into a petulant expression. "I do not understand why it matters. The girl is undead because she is unaware of the fact that she died. You were doing her a disservice by delaying the inevitable. The sooner you tell her the truth, the better off she will be!"

"This is where you and I differ in opinion because I certainly do not see my efforts as a disservice to the child," Cora argued seriously. "In fact, I consider the entire process to be very necessary. The wretched thing was so frightened that she fainted at the very sight of her own death. Is it not my duty to help the child overcome this fear so that she might find peace in the afterlife?"

This seemed to give Cerberus some pause. He frowned. "I have never thought of death in this way. For hell-born creatures such as my brothers and I, the deaths of mortals have always been akin to power. We feed off their souls and grow stronger from each and every consumption."

His words also gave Cora pause. Until this very moment, she had never felt any curiosity about the hellhound's past or his relationship to his brothers or what life might have been like for him in hell. Cora's temper quieted to a standstill as she considered how vastly dissimilar his underworldly experience probably had been from the time she spent among humans in the mortal realm. To expect him to think like her would simply be foolish.

Cerberus surprised her again when he continued on to say, "You raise a fair point, though. Mortals are quite feckless and cowardly when it comes to death. Perhaps they do require an easing of sorts... into the unknown."

Cora replied grudgingly, "Your words are crudely chosen, Cerberus, but I appreciate the sentiment you mean to express."

Her demeanor softened even more when he grinned charmingly at her. Not unlike a puppy attempting to wriggle his way back into his mistress' good graces.

"Please do not be cross with me anymore, my little gatekeeper," he wheedled and whined. "I vow to do better next time. I will take care to act more considerately in the future."

A smile tugged at Cora's lips. "I suppose I cannot fault you for acting on instincts that have been bred into you for ages."

"I sense that I am being forgiven," he murmured with a knowing gleam in his eyes. "This pleases me."

"Do not look so smug! Nothing will be forgiven until you right your wrongs."

She gestured worriedly at Little Cora's flaccid, unmoving form. "This poor child is still unconscious because of your troublesome meddling."

He inched closer to them and plucked the child easily from Cora's arms and hoisted her limp body onto his back as though she weighed little more than a bag of feathers.

"Say no more, my sweet little gatekeeper!" Cerberus announced in a spectacular fashion, "I shall carry this little undead bag of bones until we find a way to awaken her senses and give her a proper send off to a better place! Lead the way, Cora dear, and I shall follow wherever you go!"

Cora blinked rapidly. "Your enthusiasm is most welcome, however..."

Cerberus turned to her with a curious look. "What is it?"

"I hate to be the bearer of bad news..."

"Out with it, my sweet!"

Cora shot him a sheepish grimace. "Alas, I have no idea what to do or where to go next. I am at a complete loss."

"Well," he grunted, "that is rather unfortunate."