Wrap your teeth around the pavement

M  A   E    A I talked to God to no avail Said, "If you won't save me, please don't waste my time." The voice was different enough that she didn't know who it was at first. Maybe a new hire, someone standing in for a sick regular, maybe... but there was only one person who would ever think to call her 'sweetheart', and it gave Sunjata up right away. Lowering the hands just enough to peer over the fingertips at him, with elbows leaned against the counter top, she watched him, not saying anything for a while. He looked... less worn. No bags under the eyes, no sagging face, and the gray tint to his skin was gone, along with the blueness of the lips. Any other day she would leap at the change, ask what happened, who it was that finally got him to agree to be healed. Not today though. "It's done," she replied, her voice as dull and flat as his had become vibrant. Rich and deep and full of inflection she never noticed before... She wonder if he might be a good singer. "I've sold the farm. This bag," she gestured at one of them with a flick of a finger, "is everything I own now." Two sets of clothes, both of which he'd already seen - she was wearing one now, the leather breeches and shirt normally reserved for training - along with the bow he'd given her, as well as a few chosen memorabilia from her family members. Blankets, books and writing equipment, and of course the bags themselves. The rest? Gifts for the Midnight Gathering, trade goods for going back and forth to Halo, for what she needed to get by beyond the food and bed she still had here... which in all honesty was more than he probably could afford at the moment, given the blow to the stock from Phoebe's madness. It was a lifetime crammed into a middle-sized canvas bag. Looking down at it, Maea thought it rather pitiful. Reaching for the glass he sent her, she knocked back her head and drained it in one, grateful for the burn of the liquour as it sizzled down her throat. Maybe if she had a few more, it would do something to ease the hollow ache in her chest.