[hr][hr][centre][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/548578836321796099/580391380086423587/ef0a19a7618e6c8b443ce5c61528de8b.png[/img][/centre][hr]

The grass was dry and dead beneath Nia’s toes as she let herself drown in the sun that poured across the front of the scrapyard, and a few feet away, Loch picked at the ground. From where Nia lay, flannel shirt bundled beneath her head, he looked about a thousand feet tall. More like he was ravaging towns and villages and farmland than enjoying a nice lunch with teetering stacks of rusted out cars and chainlink fence in the background. Although then again, the two weren’t exactly mutually exclusive. 

 In the yard, there was a metallic crash, and Nia winced. She craned her neck to see two men, one, large and sweltering in a stained wife beater, the other slightly younger, late teens at best, the first man’s son, perhaps? Either way, the larger was yelling now, something with a lot of words that started with an ‘F’ or a ‘C’, and even more flying spittle, and even Loch paused his pecking to get an eyeful. 

 The younger looked upset, or rather, like he was trying really hard not to be, and Nia felt something stir in her gut. Yelling, screaming, humiliation - all had been par for the course on the inside. You were nothing. Any attempt to be not-nothing was met with… well, Nia didn’t like to think about that. 

She wasn’t nothing now though. 

 She sucked on her bottom lip. Her neck was stiff from staring so long, and she reached up to massage it, just as Loch waddled over. He butted her hand with his beak expectantly, and she smiled, scratching softly down the back of his neck. 

 A loud crack echoed across the yard, and Nia’s gaze snapped back to the two men, Loch withdrawing from her touch almost immediately. 

Her eyes widened.

The older man had the younger by the scruff of his sweat-stained grey T-shirt, screaming in his face, now, face like port. Nia didn’t need to think too hard to guess what had happened, not when younger’s cheek was a pink stain on dusty skin and he’d stopped trying not to look upset. Just looked scared. Nia had been scared like that before, a lot of times. And now. 

She wasn’t [i]nothing[/i] now. 

 Nia heaved herself to her feet, pausing only to tell Loch to wait there (he didn’t), and marched towards the drama playing out before her.

[hr][hr]