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| Tweet Topic Started: Sat Oct 14, 2017 3:59 pm (630 Views) | |
| Marion | Fri Oct 20, 2017 4:06 pm Post #31 |
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While Tinker scurried along the catwalk excitedly, rushing under every gear and cog, Marion plopped down to sit cross-legged and watched him. It was sort of sweet, the way he bounded about the platform to admire the various pieces of metalwork. She couldn't think of a single thing in this life that excited her the same way. You were born without a heart, I swear it, her mother had said over and over again as she grew. Maybe a person needed a heart to be so interested in something. Even after another swig from the bottle, Marion kept her eye on him, watching. A small, bitter smile rested naturally on her features. Stewing in envy, Marion's thoughts turned darker and darker until Tinker spoke again. The silence broken, Marion's eyes focused into clarity, as if before she had been in some kind of trance. "Your family did a number on you, huh?" she asked. "[removed]ed you up real good, didn't they?" She took another long drink from the bottle, then set it down on the floor. The glass rattled against the wood as she placed it down unevenly, but she quickly righted it. "No wonder you wanna know about mine. You wanna know your family wasn't the only terrible one, right? Am I close?" Her arms felt loose as she gestured them. All inside her limbs, a dull warmth spread. A faint trace of pink rose into her cheeks. What little blood there was in the alcohol worked its way through her, giving her a little color, while the alcohol began its job of getting her drunk. "Listen. Okay. What is it your family even wants you to do? Why can't you do what you want and also have a family?" Marion rubbed at her temples, trying to understand. What little she knew required some mental leaps, for Tinker seemed to approach family with far more loyalty than she did. "Gods, I wouldn't call it failure to go out in the world and be what you want to be. That's success. Getting away from your family and being what you want, that's—that's the ultimate victory. I'd do anything to get out of Balefire. Away from these stupid guys, away from my family. Just away from all these people who don't even—" She gestured vaguely, struggling to find the correct word. "Care." |
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| Tinker | Fri Oct 20, 2017 6:08 pm Post #32 |
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He didn't respond to the questions, guessing they were meant more as a statement than looking for an actual response. He watched her drink, surpassing his own state pretty quickly. He'd only had so much to drink, and even inexperienced he felt those swallows wearing down. "My family wants me to interact with people. I can't help them if I can't even talk to anyone. This conversation is more than I've spoken in the last three months, and I'm not even sober to do it." "Why don't you leave? What do you want from these people that makes you stay here with them? Do you just want respect? Acceptance?" He didn't say it, but it was clear he was asking for both of them, still unable to meet her eyes. "My mother used to visit sometimes, but my dad didn't know. Back when I lived in the tavern. She liked to listen when I told her about my ideas, and always smiled when I showed her my plans. She promised to take me here someday." Standing, he approached a short ladder and climbed up, approaching the ledge inside the clock face. Sitting with his back to the wall, he fiddled with a small metal latch and opened a small window to look out over Balefire. His arms turned to gooseflesh when the small breeze ran over him, but he didn't seem to mind. "You can see the whole city from up here." |
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| Marion | Fri Oct 20, 2017 7:53 pm Post #33 |
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Marion pulled her legs to her chest and rested her chin on her knees. Fiddling with the laces on her worn boots, she contemplated his question with an ever-deepening frown. The metallic creak of the cogs filled the clocktower, along with the softer clangs of the golems working to ensure its function. “My dad broke my nose once because he thought I was going to bite him,” she said. Marion placed her finger on the small crook in her nose where the bone wasn’t quite smooth or straight. Then, planting both palms on the floor, Marion staggered up to her feet and brushed herself off. Little bits of dust clung to her clothes. Without her coat on, it was easy to see, as it had been before, just how small she was. Even the baggy shirt and trousers couldn’t hide everything. “I guess I… don’t know what I want from them. Sometimes I want to be a monster. And make people afraid of me. Because that fear feels good. Powerful. And when I’m with them, thieving and stuff? I feel powerful, like I’m… like, if I have to be a monster—if everyone already thinks I am one—I might as well be one on my terms, right? But then sometimes I just want to… be…” Marion gestured vaguely. Normal? Liked? Wanted? Crestfallen and embarrassed to have said anything, Marion grunted and kicked at the platform floor as if none of this even mattered to her or affected her. The movement sent her stumbling, but she caught her balance before she fell over. For a moment the world spun. Then it came back into focus. When it did, she made her way over to the window to stand next to Tinker, looking out on the whole glowing city. Lanterns dotted every doorway. A breeze whipped her hair into her face. She tucked it behind her ears, but still it came loose. “Let me guess. Your dad found out about your mom visiting you.” She turned her head to look at him. A sad but knowing smile came to her mouth. “And that was the end of that?” Edited by Marion, Fri Oct 20, 2017 7:53 pm.
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| Tinker | Fri Oct 20, 2017 8:15 pm Post #34 |
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Resting his folded arms on the window's iron setting, he rested his chin on them and looked out at the manors not so far away. His eyes flicked from home to home, eventually drifting on to the busier city center. "I don't think you're a monster." He said when he heard her come to a stop next to him. "You're rude and kind of mean, but that's not that strange here. Lots of people are rude. Most people here are mean, but they're not all bad. Sometimes you have to act differently than you want to to survive." He turned his head to face her. His eyes were shut, but after a moment he found the courage to open them and look at her face. He took in her features. Blue eyes, the ivory skin of a balefire native. The little crook where her nose had healed. His gaze inevitably floated up to the lock of white hair. "You don't have to act differently with me. I think I like you." He turned slowly back to look at the city with an unreadable expression. "When he found out, he was going to come after me himself. She tried to stop him and I guess they fought. He hit her and she tripped. Broke the back of her skull on the base of a coatrack. She's buried in the garden, but I'm not allowed to visit." His voice held the same tone he'd spoken with all night. Factual and detached. "They used to fight a lot. Usually about me. It's my fault she's dead." He closed his eyes against a breeze, seeming to visibly relax a little at the night air as it gently caressed his bare arms and face. "Do you have any siblings?" |
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| Marion | Fri Oct 20, 2017 8:48 pm Post #35 |
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She’s buried in the garden, but I’m not allowed to visit. “Oh.” The sad, knowing smile disappeared at once. Marion ran her tongue over her lips. She set her folded hands on the window’s iron sill, far enough away from Tinker’s arms that she wouldn’t have to touch him. Turning her eyes away from him swiftly, she looked out over Balefire. The news of his mother’s death made her feel as though she’d been reprimanded—and a deeper sense that she had deserved it. Tinker spoke in a factual, detached tone, which made it worse. “I’m…” Sorry. Surprised. Confused. Uncertain what to say, or how to even look at him now, Marion opened her mouth a couple different times. She even started to speak, but didn’t know how to finish the sentence without making the situation worse. “I don’t have any siblings,” she said. “My parents are both human. I came out a monster. You think they’d make the same mistake twice? ” She laughed, but it was hollow and sad. “Dad couldn’t even blame my mom cheating, or something. They both know what they did to deserve me. I’m a punishment.” She couldn’t stop thinking about Tinker’s father and the rest of his family. What they’d done to his mother. What they’d done to him. Frowning with anger, Marion huffed and let whatever came into her mind come out of her mouth. “It’s your dad’s fault. He’s the one who killed her. He should be in jail. You could put him there. Get justice for her. You know, there’s no reason you can’t go visit her—I’ll help you sneak into that garden. It shouldn’t be like that. You shouldn’t care about your family this much. Bastard kills your mom and doesn’t even let you see her. You shouldn’t give two shits what he or anyone else thinks. Let them think you failed. You should go to Cascadia. They don’t deserve you.” |
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| Tinker | Fri Oct 20, 2017 9:17 pm Post #36 |
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He didn't seem to notice her discomfort, looking perfectly content to watch the streets below. He slightly to hear her better and gave the feeling he was listening, if no visual indication. "Oh, that's too bad. I don't have any siblings either. My mom got pregnant again when I was younger, but something happened and she lost it. They never said why." He kept speaking as if he were just throwing some small sympathetic comment. He wondered what kind of game her parents had been playing that cheating had made Marion a vampire. There were stories about commoners playing games with the Ethereal or demons and the like, but he'd always thought those were just fairy stories. "Maybe we can visit after the job. I'd appreciate that." He turned to smile weakly at her. "But I can't just run off to Cascadia. Maybe some day. But I need to take care of my family first. Show them I have what it takes to live in Balefire." Turning fully away from the window to face her, he crossed his arms nervously. "You could come with me. We could be be like siblings. Then we don't have to be friends. Some of the people my age near my house had siblings who didn't even like each other, but they helped each other." His smile grew a little stronger, but his eyes were unsure. "Maybe we could even be friends someday." |
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| Marion | Fri Oct 20, 2017 9:36 pm Post #37 |
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His offer made her uncomfortable. Shrinking into herself, Marion turned not just to look outward, but to turn the back of her head to him. Swallowing roughly, Marion tried to focus on the people walking so far down below that the distance obscured their features. It wasn’t just the distance—there was a stinging wetness in her eyes that she didn’t understand. “I’m drunk,” she said. Her voice wobbled over a growing knot in her throat. Stepping away from the window, Marion put a little distance between herself and Tinker, but there wasn’t anywhere to go. Her choices were limited: either she fled downstairs, or up to the bell. Downstairs provided escape in the form of the sewer or the street, and she could pursue neither option given their current situation. The bell seemed more appealing. Right now she wanted to lay under it, close her eyes, and wait a full hour for that deafening ring to vibrate through her whole body and deafen her. She wanted to feel ruined. “Why would you want me as family? You just met me.” The knot in her throat grew larger, painful. “I’ll hurt you one day. I always do. I suck. I’m the worst. You should—you should go to Cascadia with someone who’s really nice, or, gods, someone who—someone who won’t—kill you or something. Why would you—me—friends—?” It was too much. Marion burst out crying in one loud, awful sob. Tossing her hands over her face, she melted into her palms, doubling over at the stomach and weeping. “I’m—I’m just drunk,” she said. “I’m just really drunk.” |
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| Tinker | Fri Oct 20, 2017 10:00 pm Post #38 |
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Her moving away from him felt like a rejection, his smile turning into confusion. Had he done something innapropriate? Was this one of those things you think but don't say? His shoulders burned, suddenly having a feeling like his guts had knotted up around a bit of metal that was left out in the snow. "I don't know anyone nice. And everyone I ever met hurt me. I don't think that means they can't be friends too." He was frowning now, hands twisting each other nervously. He'd done it again. He'd said something and upset someone. He had to Learn. His back already burned in expectation of his punishment later. Another twenty? Thirty? She burst into tears then. Thirty. "I'm sorry you're drunk. And I didn't mean to offend you." He offered, attention fully distracted from the clocktower and the sights below now. He looked at her back with some distress. "Um." He offered, voice quavering. "I think I'm supposed to hug you or something now, but I don't think I know what to say and the idea of touching you makes me feel like I'm getting ready to jump off the tower." He splayed his hands, but kept them held close to his body in a very poor compromise, a look of distress on his face. "It's not you, I... just don't do well with touching people in general and..." He clenched his hands close and clamped his eyes closed, approaching her hunched form. Reaching to her, he snapped his hand back as if burned before getting an arm's length away. Swallowing against the knot in his throat, he forced himself to ignore the instincts screaming at him that touching was Bad. Hand shaking, he squatted down and patted her on the shoulder, the look on his face a mix of forced sympathy and staring into a bright light as he tried to keep from looking away. |
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| Marion | Fri Oct 20, 2017 10:18 pm Post #39 |
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“Noo-oo-oo,” Marion groaned, her weeping lengthening and disjointing the single word into three mournful syllables. It wasn’t Tinker’s fault that she was broken—it wasn’t his fault that her entire existence was a punishment, and that her parents had treated her with the precise vengeance a child-consequence deserved. He patted her shoulder. Marion swatted him away. Taking a step back from him, she forced herself to stand up as straight as she could, and lowered her hands from her face. Her cheeks were streaked with tears, and a faint pink coloration blotched her entire face. With the back of her wrist, she wiped snot from her nose, and began vigorously shaking her head. “You don’t—have to—touch me,” Marion said, barely able to get the words out. “I don’t like—all that hug stuff either. You don’t—have to—” What had he said before? “—Act differently with me.” Marion wiped roughly at her eyes. She began to pant, trying desperately to catch her breath. If she could catch her breath, she could calm herself down and keep herself from crying anymore. “I’m not—offended,” she said. Her voice was weak, breathy. Tears still trickled from her eyes and she was struggling to talk in her deep, gruff voice. “Any normal person would be so—so happy that you—even wanted a sibling. I should be—I should be so happy that you want someone like mee-ee-e—” The weeping returned. Marion tried to smother it. She looked so weak. She was so drunk. She was so hungry. And he was too sweet. She would ruin him. “I’m sorry you had to meet me,” she said. “I’m sorry I’m a disaster. I’m sorry I—ruined the clock tower. I think—I think it’s really nice how much you love this place. I’m actually—jealous that you have—a place you love. I don’t have that.” Coughing over phlegm, Marion tried again to reign herself in. Stop crying. Just stop it. He’s going to hate you. You should be grateful he doesn’t hate you already. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Eshan, o-okay? I’m just—a monster. I ruin everything.” |
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| Tinker | Fri Oct 20, 2017 10:53 pm Post #40 |
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He hid a slightly hurt look as she brushed his hand off. She most likely hadn't understood how much effort it had taken for him to attempt that gesture. Pushing it aside, he nodded and relaxed a little at her explanation. They didn't have to pretend with each other. "It's not acting if I really do want to help, is it? I'm not sure how to make it better." He crossed his arms, hiding his hands under them and hunching his shoulders. "You're pretty normal, I think. The Marquis is a werewolf. The Sheriffs are led by a vampire last I checked. This is a city that never sees the sun, full of werecreatures, vampires, and all kinds of much worse things. I think it's weirder to be a normal human here." He watched her, looking sorry she was hurting so much and still quite distressed at being the object and sole witness to this unveiled emotion. If there was anywhere that was not Eshan's natural habitat, this was it. "This is somewhere I never thought I'd see when my mom died. I couldn't make myself come here." He looked around the interior of the clocktower, taking in the mechanisms and the grand bell above them. "If you hadn't come with me tonight, I'd probably never have made it. I wouldn't have seen all of this. So it's okay to be real here. It's a big tower, I can share it with someone." He latched the window closed, attention fully on her. There wasn't nearly as much focus in his expression as there had been a moment before. Studying her features, how much of a messy cryer she was, the expression itself. "I don't think you've called me by my name before." He said quietly. Looking with a thoughtful frown, he shook his head. "You didn't ruin anything. I wish it wasn't so hard for you to eat. If you start going hungry and can't find food, you can come find me. I'll help however I can, okay?" |
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| Marion | Sat Oct 21, 2017 1:50 am Post #41 |
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Marion grew up learning three things: 1. She didn’t deserve to eat. 2. She didn’t deserve to exist in public. 3. She didn’t deserve anyone’s understanding. Now he offered her help eating. Reassured her that the clocktower was big enough to share it with someone. Offered her compassion. Three things her family refused to do for eighteen years, yet this stranger did easily over the course of one night. They’d known each other for mere hours, during which she hadn’t even been nice to him. Wiping at her eyes for the final time, Marion gave him a watery smile and tried to slip back into her old self. After crying like this, her tough-girl demeanor didn’t fit so well, like trying to force oneself into a pair of pants that were just too small. “Yeah, okay, I’ll come find you. How are you gonna help, huh, give me your wrist?” The sarcastic tone returned, but her voice still wobbled on the edge of tears. Sniffing one last time, she wiped dribble from her nose and cleared her throat. Not far from where she stood, the uncapped bottle of bloodgin sat waiting. The smell of it made her nose tingle. Stepping over to it, Marion leaned down and screwed its top back on. The bottle wasn’t fully empty, but drinking more tonight would prove unwise. It had already done enough to her. “If you tell anyone I cried tonight, I’ll beat you,” she said. “Dangle you right out that window over there and—and—shake you.” It wasn’t her most convincing threat. “The guys would never let me live it down. I need to survive them a little longer so I have enough money to leave Balefire. And then I’ll never have to think about anyone here ever again.” She could go to school. Apprentice with an apothecary. Open her own little shop. Make her own life for herself. She just had to get the money together to do it first. “I kinda wanna go see the bell,” she said, pointing to the narrow stairway that lead upwards. “Will you come with me?” |
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| Hearne | Sat Oct 21, 2017 7:11 pm Post #42 |
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Furrowing his brow, the young mechanic pulled at an earlobe as he looked away, looking as if he were watching fireflies. "I was thinking we could figure something out together. But if we were desperate, maybe." He said, concealing his approval while she put the cap on her drink. He gave her a quick once-over at her threat. "I'm not sure you could pick me up, but I can hold on or something if it helped." he smiled weakly, the attempt at a joke somewhat dulled by his uncertainty if hmshe was serious about dangling him out the window. He double checked the latch was closed for good measure. "Don't worry," he said while pressing on the iron lock nonchalantly. "I won't tell anyone you have normal feelings." He turned back, jammin his hands in his pockets. The lightheadedness was gone for the most part, brandy just leaving tired muscles behind in its wake. "I'd love to see the bell! I used to wait up for hours to hear twelfth bell at night, staring out my window. The window in the room next to mine was a little loose. If you listened closely, it would shake in the frame a little when it went off. I used to worry it would break my window." Though, he would have been worried for an entirely different reason about a broken window. It seemed anything that went wrong in the house was chalked up to him. "Do you ever think about just going?" He asked as they climbed upward. He was smiling, but kept giving the bell nervous looks, as if it was going to go off at any second and he was on the edge of his seat. He spoke quickly, trying to distract himself from the impending crushing nerves being to close to it was bringing him. "How do you know when you have enough to make it out?" |
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| Marion | Sat Oct 21, 2017 7:52 pm Post #43 |
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Above the clock’s gears hung a large, iron bell. Like the rest of the clocktower, it was tended to by golems, but the tiny circular creatures almost seemed asleep once Marion reached the top. They had one singular function, and that was to ring the bell on every hour. Now that midnight had passed, the golems could rest until one, and they seemed unbothered by the two newcomers. “I could never hear the bell, where I live,” whispered Marion. When confronted by the magnitude of such an incredible feat of design, she couldn’t talk at normal volume. Sometimes in her bedroom she could hear Balefire’s bell ringing distantly, but never from the basement. In the basement there was no time; she laid in the corner, unable to perceive the difference between a minute and an entire night. Both felt the same in that wet blackness. “I’d try to hear it, though. It reminded me there was a city out there. Other places to live. I grew up on the border of the swamps…” She held a reverant hand over the bell’s edge, but couldn’t bring herself to touch it. Gaze flicking to the resting golems, she wondered if touching the bell might wake them, and lowered her hand. The windows here had no glass—just arches open to the city and its breezes. From up here Marion could see a little bit farther, maybe to the edge of Balefire’s border. Maybe what she was looking at wasn’t her native nationstate, but the first mile into Norwood. “I don’t know,” she said. “I want to be able to leave and… be different. I don’t mind stealing. I don’t feel bad about taking rich people’s necklaces. They’ve got so much and the rest of us have got so little. But when I leave Balefire, I want to… shed myself, the way snakes do. I want to leave my thief-skin behind and put on my apothecary-skin. That’s what I want to be, eventually. An apothecary.” Stepping away from the open slit in the wall, Marion gave Tinker a little smile. “I think about just going every day.” Then, stooping over, Marion leaned under the bell’s edge to crawl into its belly. For a moment she stood under it, taking in its majesty, before she laid down on the floor right under it and spread her arms and legs out wide like a star. “I guess I’m a coward. There’s no reason I can’t just leave tomorrow. Or tonight. Right this second. Except for the fact that I don’t know if I’d make it out there.” |
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| Tinker | Tue Oct 24, 2017 5:19 pm Post #44 |
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Eshan leaned on one of the openings, keeping the bell to his back. Somehow the anxiety wasn't as keen when he couldn't see the offending object. Inhaling deeply in the breeze, he leaned out to hang over the rail, looking far down. 'Skins.' he wondered to himself, suddenly stuck with the image of Marion peeling her skin away to show a very similar woman, but somehow different. More certain. Confident in herself. Pulling himself up, he sat on the rail and hooked a foot around one of the bars to steady himself. "For what it's worth, I think you could make it out there." He looked at the bottom of her shoes he could see under the bell, noting how worn they were. "A lot of people make it out there. And not many of them can be as rude as you are." His face screwed up after speaking, frowning as he reassessed. "I mean you seem so confident. It's different. You say whatever comes into your head and you say it. Maybe rude is the wrong word." Looking out ocer the city, he leaned back, counterbalancing with his hooked foot to feel the breeze against his back. "You're brave. I admire that about you." The railing began to creak under him. Righting himself, he turned around to sit facing the city. Hunching to rest his elbows on his knees, he looked directly down at the streets. "If you ever make it out, let me know. I'd like to visit." Lifting his arms to embrace the winds, he could almost feel the tingle of static on the air. His head swam with eyes closed, swaying gently on his precarious perch. "I think the guards have calmed down. The streets should be safer now." |
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| Marion | Tue Oct 24, 2017 9:53 pm Post #45 |
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“Rude is probably the right word,” Marion said. Her voice echoed inside the bell’s hull like a dream. Closing her eyes, Marion listened to him talk and wondered if maybe he was right. On the cusp of womanhood, she was a lot tougher than most people out there—even people who were older than her. Maybe she could make it out there based on attitude alone. “You could come with me, you know,” she said. “You can make clocks in Cascadia and I can make the stuff to grease them. Tinker-n-Fangs, or… something better than that.” It was just a silly idea. Grease wasn’t what she wanted to make. And she doubted he’d want to run a business with her, even if he did offer to be her family. Remembering that, tears welled up under Marion’s eyelids again, but this time she didn’t start crying. Her felt like it was being sliced open, but she let it open quietly. Crawling out from under the bell, Marion got to her feet. She was still drunk, but not in the messy way—now she felt scraped out, as if whatever good and solid things existed inside her had been wrung out. Bordering on exhausted, but not quite ready for the adventure to end. “I kinda wanted to sleep under the bell,” she said. But that wouldn’t be a good idea. She’d wake up when the next hour struck, and the chime would likely be the last thing she heard. Tilting her neck to make it crack, she then cracked each of her knuckles and rolled her shoulders, trying to wake herself up by making her body move. “Let’s go, Tink.” She headed down the narrow passageway to the clock face’s platform, and paused, waiting for him. “Should I just… leave the jewelry here? You really don’t think anyone would want it?” She reached into a pocket, taking out an amethyst necklace. Her brows came together as she frowned. “Not even in Norwood, or something? What if I like… pretended to be noble, or something, would someone buy it then? I do that sometimes, I have one really nice dress and sometimes I sneak into their parties. No one even realizes. I can clean up pretty good.” |
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8:39 AM Jul 11

