every time i caught you leaving

[nepetaleijon]

Make it count, Captain. We're only gonna get one shot at this.

There's a field of bizarrely horned ships, cruising with silent menace through interstellar space. And there's a much smaller ship carrying the elite infiltration rebel team, ready to slip through the fleet's defenses in the first moment of distaction.

The decoy team should be reaching the flagship and starting the diversion any moment now.

Comments

[stridersgonnastride]

And just as she focuses on him properly, he's gone again.

Like a dream right after you wake up. It makes sense for a minute, but then you start wondering where you got the Cheez Wiz to begin with, or why they were trying to fill the submarine with horses, and you give up, turn over, and go back to sleep.

Usually, anyway.

[nepetaleijon]

For another few unbelieving seconds, she stares at the place where he stood, as though trying by sheer force of will to make him unvanish.

But it doesn't happen, of course, and she lets out a noise of frustration and loss that falls somewhere between a snarl and a wail, and slams both fists into the floor.

And then yelps, because one fist lands rather more heavily than it should --

Because there's a broken-off half-sword weighing down that fist. Hilt and spiked crossguard and maybe a handspan of blade jaggedly snapped off, gleaming solidly in the red glow of the firepit embers, heavy and sharp in more than one sense of the word.

Slowly she sits back, blinking at the broken sword in her hand.



It doesn't vanish.