nine lives. tune, day 4.

Tune hates de-ja vu. The radio humming soft tunes, the fire flickering, Carly and Andrew mere meters away. She's been here before, recently. But that girl feels like a stranger. As though she's replaying out a story she heard long ago, not her own.

Tune, before. Tune, hands clean.

A shudder rolls through her bones. The great beast they'd slain hangs slumped in the window, one wing bent awkwardly over the sill. Tune catches herself looking at it more than once, double-take; she doesn't trust its lack of a pulse. Part of her is convinced it will swarm back to life when they least expect it, catch them off-guard. She's too tired to fight it again, the past week's fighting catching up to her in waves of exhaustion.

Her stomach rumbles, an uncomfortable distraction - and then she thinks of her Năinai, long gone, but the echo of her hand-made meals made with every last grain and drop of water she could procure lingers like a ghost in Tune's mouth. How horrified her grandmother would be of her, using her hands to take instead of give. Satiated, a swig of water nor ale can cure Tune's cravings or wash away the sour taste of guilt in the back of her throat.

"Anyone hungry?" she asks the group, Andrew's pet Cookie included, and sets her lethal hands to work. Food had always made the old Tune feel better. The new Tune hopes she hasn't left that part of her behind.

[ coding by griffin ]

small game trap!
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