“See, Leelee? I got tough! Just like you wanted!” Evil Jackdaw cackles with your hands tight around her throat, and you are confronted with the terrible possibility that you have not hurt her in any way that matters. “Alllllllllllllllll your lessons worked! The long nights, the early mornings, the skipped classes, the missed opportunities, the [i]wasted[/i] years, it was allllll worth it in the end.” She says two words at once. She’s says the dumb boring words to you. She says a Name. It turns her coat’s collar into a hundred piercing spikes that only grow sharper the harder you squeeze, and she says it all in the same breath. “Aren’t you [i]proud?[/i] Come onnnn, let’s see that smile!” Her hands shoot for your face and she squishes your cheeks in the rough approximation of a grin and she is drowning in the deepest satisfaction you have ever seen her enjoy because the word is [i]cruel.[/i]

Did you think that Jackdaw could ever grow to be cruel, Ailee?

******************************************

Jackdaw let out a panicked yelp, gunshots and Angels and claws pressing into her all crashing in at once. She squirmed in Wolf’s arms, flailing with what little freedom she had, but for naught. She could breath. She could try not to whimper under Wolf’s claws. She could realize where they were.

It didn’t stop her from springing to the nearest wall as soon as she was let free. “Coleman? [i]Coleman![/i]” She hammered at the substance with both her scrawny arms, for all the good it did. This was all the world they had now. Dim light. No sound, past these unspeakable walls. And yet, they could be heard, the two of them. A listening ear was waiting, and would not wait for much longer, so would she be so kind as to carry on?

And the word was [i]ad-lib.[/i]

“What do you want me to say?” Jackdaw spoke, her forehead falling against the wall. “Is there something I’m supposed to say here? Please, genuinely, I know that sounds like I’m being difficult, but, I don’t know what my lines are. Honestly, I’m trying! I’ve been trying! I’ve always been trying, but it never comes out right! Or, no,” Now? Of all times, [i]now,[/i] Jackdaw?! “It’s not, the delivery isn’t the problem - well, it’s not [i]always[/i] the problem - it’s that I don’t say the right thing. I never pick the right one. I’ve spent all my years memorizing, and when the time comes there’s a hundred hundred choices and I never pick the right one, and if you could just tell me! Tell me, and I’ll say it! Please! There’s no time!”