MABEL
This LongNight would be unique – no more hiding and continuing on normal precision within shelter, fighting off the temptation or urgency to open doors. This one would be tainted and corroded and corrupted by the need to fight, and she swallowed down every other nuance of anxiety, of apprehension in her body. Mabel collected the necessities from the farmhouse, including the knives (and maybe the hairbrush for sentimental purposes) from Aamu, the shift from Henry embedded in her form. Her eyes ghosted and trailed over other familiar, phantom objects in the threshold, gaze barely glancing over Evelyn’s adornments and trinkets left behind. And when she was done envisioning a time where they’d be able to return to the homestead, she released a habitual breath, and threaded her way towards the Barracks.
Her march wasn’t any kind of dutiful stride. It was hesitant and apprehensive; the routines of past LongNights no longer permissible. It’d be new. It’d be dangerous. It’d be deadly. It’d be treacherous.
But she was here, all the same. There weren’t any other options.
Her march wasn’t any kind of dutiful stride. It was hesitant and apprehensive; the routines of past LongNights no longer permissible. It’d be new. It’d be dangerous. It’d be deadly. It’d be treacherous.
But she was here, all the same. There weren’t any other options.
I bare my teeth
and stretch my claws out
and stretch my claws out
