Lost Creek Hollow my father took one hundred and thirty-two minutes to die

in some other distant time, caiaphas might have caught the hardened edge in his gaze, and delighted in toying with it. perhaps she would have held her full attention to it, grappling it back and forth the way a daredevil might handle a keen blade in delight. yet this was not that time; survival, and the brutal toll it had exacted upon her, had frayed away that manipulative cunning until at last all that was left was the tattered thread of a tired, dogged wariness.

kavos' answer was not an answer she could glean anything from. disappointment settled in her chest, not so dissimilar from the discouragement that haunted a wolf after a failed hunt. she worried the corner of her lip, studying the immense brute; so familiar, and yet, wholly alien.

"i knew him, but he's dead now."  her voice cracked; not out of affection, mind, but out of the instinctual fear that she too would soon follow in his footsteps, and be lead to her grave. "so he is of little consequence."