you’re not bulletproof

She’d take permanent determination and resolution, the desire to rebel, the instinct of insurrection and iniquity, with a beam, a flash of a smile. [say]“Of course,”[/say] and her eyes glinted with obvious, outright calamity and upheaval, ghosts in the port and storm. They’d keep one another to it – because at least she had more than occasional friends and their distinctions, he was laden within the insurgency now too – not alone in the havoc, in the wreckage. [say]“Likewise.”[/say]

Then it was only the potential of the Bone Bridge thereafter, screaming into the void, loosening all the frustrations, all the wild, cooped-up, savage frustrations out into the ether, with only the fog and potential monsters to hear. [say]“Yes!”[/say] It was a savage grin wrapped along her mouth, but she didn’t care any longer, not really, unwinding all the burdens of clustered niceties and ambivalence for the sake of nefarious sanctuaries, for releasing toxins and venom and vitriol into some other world, where it really didn’t matter, where they’d already been scorched and bled dry. She grabbed her things, the collection of fragments and weapons, the satchel tossed over her shoulder, eager to race off into the abyss; Fangorn at her heels. [say]“Ready when you are!”[/say]