Her smile hid around every corner. It was kept in dusty boxes. It showed up in shadow and reflection in equal measure.
Her smile was there on May Then My Name's face, there during that monologue. That wild laughter. That glint in her eye that spoke to something either mischievous or as though it were covering some hidden ache, and she could never tell which. Her smile and her proud defiance in the heat of the lamps, as though daring the world to take her as anything other than her true self.
Her smile was there on her little Dot's face, when the light hit just right or the skunklet had just gotten the perfect idea for a painting. Her smile and that look of concentration, the way her brow furrowed when hunting down just the right sound or just the right brush.
And her smile was there on her own face, whenever she presented as a skunk. That sad smile that spoke of weariness and devotion both as Motes once more begged to sleep in bed with her. Her smile and that look of utter wounding, utter despair that had shown itself so rarely, and yet which had still shown itself. She knew it had graced her own face when first she realized that Beholden simply was not there. Not anymore.
Her smile hid around every corner, flying in her face like so much spider-silk in autumn, leaving its presence known in the faint tingle of afterimages.
Her smile was tucked away into dusty boxes, exocortices devoted to their years together, their centuries, mere afterimages to be brought up and held like wrinkled photos, remembered with new context.
Her smile was in her reflection in the mirror when she wakes up and it was there on the face of so many of her cocladists, an afterimage as they stood in the dark backstage, waiting for their cue.
Afterimages were all she had left, and so it was her job, her duty to Motes — who had not been the same since — and to the troupe — still reeling — to be their custodian. It was her role to cherish every one of these afterimages of a smile, to remember her for them.