That one, little drop of water nearly sent her crumbling down.

It hurt. Oh, stars and moons, it hurt. A gaping, raw hole in her chest...no, an impossibly heavy stone she could barely hold, her knees ready to buckle...no, an uneasy tension running through her whole body, over her fur, and it wouldn’t go away no matter how tightly she hugged herself or how fiercely she rubbed at her arms...no.

No.

Cold. Soaking, freezing to her heart. Icing it over. Icing [i]her[/i] over. Until even her thoughts could hardly move. And Jackdaw - lost, little Jackdaw - stood alone in a market crowded with unfamiliar faces, and wept from the familiar cold.

But. Ah. Wouldn’t you know it? Somewhere in the midst of all that, her clever paws got a hold of one of those precious, little slips of...of loneliness. (No, that’s not it at all. Too weak, much too weak.) And. Well. Her clever paws did what clever paws were wont to do when they had caught hold of something special; tuck it away in one of the countless pockets lining her cloak.