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Post by Ladorak on Oct 30, 2010 0:18:26 GMT -5
The duck didn't seem to be having half as good a time as Steep was, but Saumarez wasn't too concerned about it. He didn't mind pets, so long as they were generally docile. A duck was an odd choice...but he'd seen stranger.
And then she was approaching him...walking slowly towards him, and reaching a paw out. Oh blimey...was she going to kiss him?! Already!? She wasn't that drunk was she? Or did she really want to simply get intimate tonight?
The least weasel Knight felt his heart pounding in his chest, and his thoughts raced. He couldn't form any coherent idea, and just let her run her pawpads over his whiskers, smiling at her in a lazy fashion, almost dreamy in a way. Exhaling, he watched her pry her mouth open a tad...but then shut it. What? What was going on? He blinked when she blinked.
Bed? Really? She was suggesting sleep? He got shakily to his footpaws, and nodded. "I suppose I should." he said, beginning to remove his jacket and waistcoat. He had a white undershirt on underneath, revealed slowly as button after button came undone. "Um...are you sure I can't persuade you to take the bed?" he asked, moving over to some coat hooks on the wall near her door and hanging his garments upon them. "I don't take up much space...but then again most weasels rarely ever do." he said, shaking his head to try and clear it a tad as he began working on his belt.
He felt strangely comfortable undressing in front of her, as it wasn't like he was going to get completely naked anyway. He still had on long johns and his undershirt. And he intended to keep those on, as he was a gentlemammal and most certainly didn't want to make her feel uncomfortable. The belt finally slid out of the brass loop, but he paused, wanting to hear her response first before he continued. He wasn't looking at her, more down at the floor than anything in particular within her room.
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Post by spender on Oct 30, 2010 23:21:00 GMT -5
"I'll be fine," she assured him, procuring a towel from somewhere to pad the armchair with. She didn't plan on falling asleep, not with him in the room, but if it should happen... Maybe she should tell him. Was it too early? Her soldiers had already figured it out...
The weasel jill turned around to say something, and then kept turning until she was facing back the way she'd came.
Steep gasped, although she was so breathless it was impossible to hear. She whirled around, paws held up to the sides of her face like the flaps on a knight's horse's hood; she stared straight ahead at the opposite wall, grinning like a maniac and yet appalled out of her mind. Welkinites!
She wanted to giggle, to laugh and watch with her chin resting on her paws, to just soak it all in. It had been so long since she'd seen, well, anything of this sort. She was certainly no stranger to it—running away from a life of a princess to join the army introduced one to certain aspects of life that one had to come to terms with if one was to survive, after all. But on the other paw...
For starters, he's not Pylaris...
"Oh," she wheezed, "oh, God. What are you doing. Can you... can you not do that?" She lowered a paw and glanced in the mirror, unable to help her curiosity. Okay, so he still had his underthings on. But. Just.
In her bed.
No.
"Keep the trousers on?" she squeaked.
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Post by Ladorak on Oct 30, 2010 23:50:02 GMT -5
"Not do what?" he asked her, raising a brow, just about to drop his trousers. "I don't understand." he said simply, noticing that she was turned away and cupping her paws around her eyes. Was she embarrassed...but by what? They were going to be married after all.
Keep his pants on? Well it wasn't like he intended to remove his undergarments after all. "I've got something on underneath...I feel it too impromptu to remove those after all...but you know...Priscilla." he said, unable to help a smile from forming on his features as he held his pants around their waistline and prevented them from falling.
"You may as well get used to this. I mean...we're getting married in a few months after all...you can't expect to remain a stranger to this forever." he said, shaking his head, the smile still on his features. "I'm just...going to sleep after all. Nothing major. And it's not like the bed is yours. It might go back to being the Rosferians' if they retake this place...though not saying I hope they do. You weren't the first to sleep here, and you won't be the last. Though..."
Here he paused, looking down at the ground thoughtfully. "If it's that big of a deal...I suppose I could leave them on. It's just...I normally sleep with them off...as they're my only pair and would hate to wear them out...but fine." he said, redoing the button on the front of them to keep them on.
Before she could respond, he moved swiftly up behind her, having seen her gaze in the mirror for the briefest of moments. Oh she'd been watching him alright...though he hadn't caught on at first. Wrapping his right forearm about her, he gently pulled her into him, and buried his snout into the left side of her brown and white neck, the brown being so uneven and jagged as it ran down her flank. Breathing in deeply and kissing her at the base of her jaw, right on that brown spike, he gave her a comforting squeeze before letting go and speaking softly into her ear. "Goodnight dear."
He wondered if that had perhaps been a bit too intimate, but he didn't care. He rolled into her bed, his back to her, his eyes searching the cold stone wall of the fort. It had been a long time since he'd been in one of these...and one needed covers, as the insulation was normally non-existent. Pulling them up around him, the weasel immediately felt the cold of the room begin to subside as he rested his head on the pillow. He wondered just how well he would sleep like this...as he always tossed and turned in new locations on his first night...but maybe it would be OK thanks to the alcohol...who knew?
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Post by spender on Nov 2, 2010 6:24:56 GMT -5
Steep thought about ducks. The shape of them, the colour of them, the soft feathers, the delightful quack—anything to keep her mind off of what had just happened.
She didn't even know where to begin.
So, the simplest thing was to just... not. She let it slide. It had happened, and now it was over with.
She turned off the lamp. In the darkness, she stood silent, a sentinel of thought. Saumarez's breathing began to slow. She took that as her cue, and quickly slipped her uniform skirt off, wrapping another towel around her waist in its stead. She eased into the armchair and clucked quietly until Pip came and settled on her lap. She stroked his feathers and let her eyes close, although they would not stay so. She kept staring at the darkness, letting it fade slowly to a dull white fog before blinking it away.
Could she sleep? With him in the room, taunting her? If she fell asleep, would she wake up to find him trying something... funny? He was a sailor, after all. She'd heard... stories. Ordered to wed or not, some things just had to wait, and from his actions so far, it didn't seem he was the patient kind.
As for her... well, she'd gotten a taste for it, now...
That was how it began. A few kind words here, a whisker-brush there, a drunken laugh ending up with noses touching, then lips, then buttons were being discarded and you just didn't care what was right or wrong, not when it was so warm, not after what you'd been through for the past several months...
The pain flared at the memory. Or was it always there, and she'd simply acknowledged it for the first time tonight? That was the beauty of alcohol—drink enough, and she could pretend she had a choice, that there were ups and downs. She drank for the downs, of course. But the problem was she often didn't notice the downs until there was an up to grab her attention. Every bit of relief was a memory of the past.
And had she drank enough tonight? Would the effect last, or would she find herself being roused in the early morning to fumble for another bottle, in the hopes that smashing herself silly would result in some kind of rest? Or had she drank too much, and would she find herself in such deep slumber that her mind and muscles gave in and let the pain flood her body and have its way with her? It was either-or. Either the towels would be necessary, or tomorrow would be finding her worn-out and irate.
Either Saumarez found out, or he suffered the wrath of her every-day demeanor.
Steep sighed. There was no way to win. The only victory in sight was Ferlusan and Welkin's over Rosferia. And so far, the war was as distant to her here as it had been when she'd been sulking in the bathtub at home...
An hour or so later, her eyes drooped. Her paws, long since stilled from petting Pip, relaxed. Her tail dipped just a little lower, no longer tensed up. Her chin tilted to the side, resting on her shoulder.
At last she began to snore. Not a regular snorer, the odd position of the armchair was the cause of this. But the sounds in-between the snoring—those happened wherever she slept.
They first came in grunts, irritable little shocks here and there, as if she were disappointed in paperwork she was doing. Then gasps, as if tiny ducklings were nibbling at her arms, too soft to scold them, but once in a while one of them getting in and really nipping and pinching.
As the minutes rolled on, Steep began twitching, moving about irritably. Pip woke from his doze and left her for his tray of dirt. The weasel kept moaning, now a light keening in her throat. Her body, no longer under stern control of her mind's iron will, was left to its own devices to deal with the horrors coursing through her nerves.
Her dreams were fevered puzzles. Each lasted a mere ten minutes, and each began with a simple problem: She'd dropped her cigar case, and was picking them up from the ground. The more she tried to fit them back in, the more they would not fit, and the more spilled out. Her soldiers, lined up—there were gaps in the line. She arranged them, calling their names to move them to make the line straight and full from end to end, but they would not move to the right positions, until at last they were in a full-out riot around her. She had one of Pylaris's letters in her paw, and someone was knocking. She opened a drawer to hide it, but it was stuck. Another drawer was full of knickers. Another drawer had more letters in it, so overstuffed that they began spilling out, and she was trying to hide them under the bed when the door opened and Saumarez began reading them aloud...
"No," she said aloud now, still asleep in the armchair. "Démelo, démelo. No! Ésos son los míos! Démelo!"
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Post by Ladorak on Nov 2, 2010 12:27:52 GMT -5
There was no sleep for the least weasel...not tonight. It just wasn't possible. Try as he might, he was exhausted, and felt as if his entire body was being paralyzed by lead weights placed at strategic spots all over him, but despite his, he simply could not drift off. He sighed, tossing and turning a bit, causing the bed to groan under him...or more correctly, the metal frame to groan.
He'd catch sight of Priscilla every so often, resting with her duck in her lap, but he knew she wasn't asleep. He would abashedly turn away without another word, simply trying his best to block out everything running in his mind, and drift off into sleep.
Steep didn't outlast him. He watched her every twenty minutes or so, and gradually, by the third or fourth time he had rolled over, she was asleep. Or appeared to be. He watched her chest rising in and out, and he tried to do the same. Come on James...come on...just...fall...asleep...
He wasn't sure how long he had lain there, telling himself over and over again to fall asleep, as if the word itself had some hypnagogic property, but that was the problem itself...he was in a hypnagogic state, but unable to progress beyond it into actual sleep. He hated nights like this...and it always occurred his first night in any bed...it didn't matter where it was. If he returned home after months of being at sea, he would always pass at least one sleepless night.
His eyes were closed, but no sleep came. Just an exhaustion...an exhaustion greater than he'd ever known. And the light...that damned light flashing over his eyes...
A sound like thunder rolled off in the distance...and then another...and another...
Saumarez snapped his eyes open, flashes of lightning streaming into the window...except it wasn't lightning...and it wasn't thunder, and he was pretty sure it wasn't a dream.
Steep was murmuring fitfully in her sleep, turning about and convulsing in the chair, crying things out in Ferlusanian. Something about things being for her...It was then that he noticed she had a towel about her, but the sleeping common weasel was wriggling out of it, and Saumarez quickly averted his eyes, gulping in a breath of air. He was far too much of a gentlemammal for something as petty as that.
Another crash, so distant...it must be UP on the mountain...the mountain was being attacked?! Glancing hurriedly back over at Priscilla, who didn't seem to be waking up, the least weasel Knight tentatively reached his claws out toward her, spindly in the dark, and pulled her towel up back about her waist as best he could.
"Priscilla..." he whispered. "Priscilla...I think something's..." and then a loud knocking...a pounding at her door. "Dammit..." he muttered, rolling out of bed and rushing over to the door in order to silence the knocks and avoid any further disturbance to her.
Cracking the entry port, Saumarez figured she had to be waking up now...those knocks were too loud...splitting into his skull as he peered out into the dark corridor, looking into two golden orbs...the bewildered look on the face of the genet garrison commander as he stared into Saumarez's eyes betrayed incomprehension, and then...a slow realization.
He quickly said something in a low voice in Ferlusanian, until Saumarez stopped him, and rubbed his head. "Please...Common tongue if you please..."
"Oh...right...you're the Welkinite beast. Right...her fiance...I'm sorry I interrupted your uh...good...night...with..."
Saumarez silenced him with an icy stare. "Just...what is it?" Saumarez interjected the awkward attempt at the commander's explanation.
"Sorry...please tell Captain Steep that Fort Croix Faron has fallen...and the Rosferians have taken the summit of Mount Faron...the garrison is to assemble at once and reinforce Fort Faron...and lead a counterattack." Saumarez nodded, hearing the hallway starting to come to life as the garrison was roused, and beasts started tumbling out of beds.
"Thank you...now...the Captain needs a moment." Saumarez said, and shut the door in the genet's face.
"Tell her...we move out in twenty minutes!" the commander called to within before departing.
"Priscilla? Did you get all of that?" he asked, looking over his shoulder at her. "The Rosferians have apparently launched a large attack...you're needed." He said, hoping she was at least half-awake by now.
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Post by spender on Nov 6, 2010 21:52:31 GMT -5
She'd been fully awake since the first knock--and entirely unsettled to find Saumarez so close and awake. She clung to her towel like a kit hiding from the boogeybeast behind their blankie. How could she have let him come so near? She hadn't been that deep out, had she?
"I heard," she managed to choke out. Damn Rosferians... no sense of timing. Couldn't they take the mountain in the morning? It'd be freezing out, and at least everyone would be rested...
Well, this was awkward. Steep waggled her footpaws, unsure what to say. She yawned politely into her paw, hitched her towel up a little further. It wasn't soiled... thankfully. But she really had to go now. And get dressed and ready. And...
He was still shirtless.
When was the wedding? Whose idea was it to make them wait? It was destined to happen eventually, so what was the purpose? To be allowed to rub that tuft of white bib peeking out over his undershirt... He'd done as much to her, but--well, she had Standards. She wasn't about to go sticking her nose into necks where it didn't yet belong.
"'hem," she said, pointing her nose towards the door. "If you don't mind... putting your jacket back on." And leaving. So I can put my skirt back on...
As Saumarez complied, Steep woozily rose from the armchair. Doing well, so far. The pain was ... intolerable. Which meant, on her scale, she had two more levels to go before she'd consider using her head as a battering ram to take back the fort from the Rosferians. What was past "intolerable"? "Driving me insane"? Or was it "sticking my legs in a giant meat grinder might be more fun"? Hm.
She dressed herself up again, buckling her belt on over her skirt, and her pistol and sabre. She gave her beret a dust-off and checked all her badges and buttons were in order before tugging her boots on. Pip came over and nosed her ankle.
Steep paused. She'd "found" him not long ago. Not long enough to have made plans regarding what to do with him if it came to something like this. Leave him in the fort? Send him back to the village? Bring him along to the fight? Have her servants package him up with the rest of her belongings? ... probably that one, yes. She'd have to talk to somebeast about it before leaving.
Well... time to go, then.
She opened the door and stepped out into the hall.
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Post by Ladorak on Nov 6, 2010 23:45:19 GMT -5
"Of course." he murmured softly, taking the jacket off the hook. He wasn't sure why he was being quiet. The dark atmosphere of the room...permeated only by those flashes of light that indicated cannon were being fired...maybe that had something to do with it. He assumed it was a dismissal, so he quickly let himself out.
He stood dutifully by the door, wrapping his jacket up snugly about himself. He shivered in the cold confines of the fort. Stone made for poor insulation, and the cold crept in from outside. It was best to have lots of blankets when one slept in one of these things. Ether that or well...someone to share your warmth with...
But he quickly brushed those thoughts away. He wasn't that type of jack. Sure, he was a sucker for romantic stories, and imagined himself getting cozy with the jill of his dreams...and of course there was the sin he had committed, but so far...he'd never been able to live that romance novel. Was Priscilla Steep his romance novel? She didn't seem like it...but in a way she did. She laughed, had a good time, and seemed to enjoy getting inebriated with him. So maybe partly?
He scratched his arm, the wool coat feeling itchy over his fur. The door opened behind him. Priscilla, he felt like asking. Are you my romance novel? That wouldn't make any sense to her, so her turned around, a slight frown on his features. "This is really your fight. The Welkinite ground troops will be assisting of course...but I mean, I'd be little more than an observer.I can fight sure...just haven't ever really experienced too many land battles before. I could just...stay in the room and...read or whatever until you got back. I brought a few books with me..." except I'd worry too much about you, he didn't add.
"It's your call I guess." he said with a shrug. There were a few blurs of white and crimson uniforms out in the hallway, indicating some last minute soldiers who were scrambling out to get into formation. Outside, the troops were gathering, forming up into a column and awaiting the arrival of their Captain.
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Post by spender on Nov 9, 2010 10:26:13 GMT -5
Steep was of three minds.
One mind was going, "Oh'gatesOh'gatesOh'gatesOh'gatesSOEXCITEDweeBATTLE!"
One was going, "Ugh, where's the coffee, or better yet, where's the rum? How'm I supposed to fight in this state? This is ridiculous!"
And still the third was going, "Just breathe, just breathe, you're a Captain now, you've got to lead them, this is your duty and you WILL do it as proudly as you can, experience be damned, they won't know when you mess up if you make it look like you're perfectly aware of what you're doing!"
She had to, somehow, juggle in a fourth mind to deal with Saumarez.
Books. He wouldn't be reading books. Not the whole time, anyway... She suppressed a shudder, thinking of her letters hidden away. She needed a better spot, somewhere no one would ever think to go. But when you had someone ordered to rifle through your laundry to make sure you had clean underthings, privacy of that particular breed was in short supply.
"No," she said. "You're coming with me. The only way you're going to get any experience is by watching. I don't expect you to fight..." But if it comes to it, we could use someone who isn't fresher than the cabbage in our soup... "But you came all the way out here to be with me, to see me... Sinos! You'll see me."
Something tugged at her mouth; the predator's grin, incisors and drool, ready to bite. Her scab bunched up, turning from a shimmering scarlet jewel into a festering, popping deformity. In the shadows of the hallway, the flickering torchlight playing unevenly across her narrow face, Steep was a nightmare.
It was gone in an instant.
"Maybe," she added distantly, "you will get your wish... your chance to... 'help' me."
She marched past him, following the hallway out into the open night air. Her soldiers, arrayed in lines, turned their gaze to follow the pair of weasels. Steep marched up to the front of the congregation, pausing to whisper instructions to a servant still in their nightgown; the creature nodded and rushed off, confusion spread on their face like jam on toast. Someone had to look after Pip...
Straightening her shoulders and neck, Steep drew herself up and faced the soldiers. She allowed herself a few seconds of silence to glare a few of them in the eyes, before bellowing a set of orders in Ferlusanian and whirling around to lead the march to the gates of the fort—and to the mountain road beyond, towards the delicate sound of thunder.
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Post by Ladorak on Nov 10, 2010 10:57:46 GMT -5
Saumarez was caught by surprise by her insistence on coming with her. Really? He expected her to be all "sure! I'll see you maybe tomorrow" or some such thing. It seemed as if the brush off would be waiting though, much to his suppressed delight. He wanted to spend time with her, just as she had said, and see her in combat. In time, he hoped he could show her his world as well, and a combat as good as his taking of the Réunion.
He headed out of the fort into the night air, the gun fire beginning to diminish from the summit...so someone was winning...and he was willing to bet it wasn't their side, judging by the straggling white and red uniforms he could see streaming down toward them from the mountaintop. It must have been a surprise attack...caught them off guard.
They were marching now...marching up a small mountain road that wended its way upward, up to that summit. Suamarez watched the peak, catching sight of a surreal burst of shellfire every now and then, but it was dying down, becoming almost nonexistent. The initial stage of the attack was probably drawing to a close. The Rosferians had won the first round...otherwise Steep wouldn't be needed right now.
They were joined by a galloping horse from the rear, its hooves clopping on the stones and kicking up dust as it reached them. Much to Saumarez's surprise, he recognized the riding figure as Admiral Federico Gravina, the zorilla admiral from their dinner in Crittenden. What was an admiral doing here? Shouldn't he be well...on a ship?
Unknown to him, (but known to Steep), Admiral Gravina was commandant of the ground forces at Toulon, and thus had authority to direct this operation, and was the "head cheese" so to speak of the Ferlusanian forces at the moment. His flagship was the impressive 112 gun Saint Hermenegild, but he was currently serving on shore. "Captain Steep!" the admiral spoke as he began riding along next to her. "They struck at around 2 AM. About a thousand Rosferians came out of the fog and scattered the sixty or so Welkinite pickets. Once the Welkinites fell back, the 300 troops we have at Fort Croix Faron didn't offer much resistance...they couldn't. The gunfire you all saw was Fort Faron firing on the captured Croix Faron. We still have Fort Faron in our paws...and we'll be using it as a staging post. The plan is this...from the reports we're receiving, the Rosferians are arraying themselves in a triangular formation" he demonstrated briefly with his paws before quickly regaining his grip on the reins.
"Colonel Mulgrave, the Welkinite ground commander, is leading a column in atop the mountain from the west. Captain Elphinstone is leading another Welkinite column from the east, from Fort LaMalgue. They'll hit the right and left flanks of the Rosferians respectively. We...and you in particular, as you're part of my column, are going to be attacking them head on at their center. There's a valley we can exploit that leads almost all the way up to their position...it'll provide a defilade for you and your troops, until we practically explode on top of them. Engage in paw to paw combat and drive them off this mountain...is that understood?" the zorilla admiral asked.
He made for a surprisingly good ground commander, despite his lack of experience in the field. It was a little strange, seeing a naval officer conducting affairs like this, but they were short pawed, and the Allies were pressing into service whoever they could get. "I'll be waiting up ahead, at the rendezvous point around Fort Faron. We'll assemble and move in from there along the valley."
Saumarez remained silent throughout this, glancing at Steep every so often, keeping his face rather level. He was in fact greatly looking forward to this. Paw to paw combat suited him...as it was really the only thing he needed to know, in the event his ship was ever boarded. But here it was...they would be going into paw to paw combat...and that suited him just fine. He had been awarded a rather expensive sword for his services in capturing the Rosferian frigate bloodlessly, and was eager to use it, even if it was more for his personal collection than anything else. Blades existed to be used after all.
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Post by spender on Nov 17, 2010 9:03:54 GMT -5
"Yes, sir," she said, saluting. She turned to her lieutenants behind her, and rambled off another quick set of orders to explain the situation to the troops in the rear, who might not have heard the Admiral.
The words "head on" never really sat well with Steep. A weasel's natural instinct for attack was from behind—the back of the head, base of the neck. Valley or not, she couldn't shake the feeling that this was a bad idea, and her natural distrust of being commanded by an Admiral instead of a Commander or General was only heightened by the entire situation.
Climb a mountain. Attack head on. Hope that a bit of land she was unfamiliar with would be able to keep her and her soldiers safe until they could get close enough to use blades.
In the dark.
Lovely.
On top of that, a deep dread was festering in her gut. Ten years... Every time she turned her head a little and saw the soldiers behind her, the dread fell deeper. She wasn't entirely sure her bowels had that many levels, but every glimpse proved her more and more wrong. What was she doing in charge of so many beasts? A pawful, at most. That was all she wanted. Five. Just five. It was a good number. Enough room for some interesting personalities and experiences and skills. For some reason, it felt like five would be a lot more effective against an army than, say, five hundred...
Was she in the wrong line of work? She was good at sneaking. That, and fighting. But she was only good at fighting for herself. How was she supposed to make sure her soldiers stayed alive, if she was busy engaging in combat on her own terms?
Was she even supposed to be at the front, or should she be leading from the rear, where she could see what everyone was up to?
She couldn't ask now. She couldn't be seen to be ignorant, or week. But she was. All her training, all her re-training, all her experiences flew out the window the moment she'd left the fort. Her heart was so far up her throat she felt like she was chewing arteries (it was just her tongue, though.)
Steep found herself reaching out, groping blindly in the dark to the figure beside her. Upon finding his arm, her paw slipped down into his, grasping it, squeezing it. If she didn't look at his face, she could almost imagine...
The dirt, the mud, the hunger, the fear, the waiting, and most of all, the warmth...
She shook her head, but didn't yet let go.
"What's the estimated time of our arrival?" she asked, hoping she wasn't supposed to already know the distance between forts. She'd tried to study the maps, but the only way she could do that was by drowning her brain in two bottles before she could even begin to dream of reading words without them cracking her skull open... and then the lines on the map just turned into worms, writhing all over the paper, skewing the topography and diagrams into some expression of Pip's artwork.
She just hoped she had time to check her pistol before the fight. As a general good idea, she kept it unloaded. It was too easy a way out. Too easy to imagine herself using it if it was full.
Because the simple fact of the matter was, she most definitely did use it when it was empty. The clack of it in her ear was one of the most calming things she'd ever discovered. It wasn't just the hammer striking—it was the click of a door opening, a door into a fantasy of non-existence. For a minute, or two if she was lucky, she could let herself fall into her pillows and pretend with such fervor that the ringing in her ears was from an actual explosion...
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