Hideaway Strath Synapses Snap Back in Blissful Anguish

Machiavelli’s eyes opened slowly, their opalescent depths hardening as he turned Zitari's question over in his mind. For a long, still moment, he merely watched her, letting the echoes of Juno’s laughter play between his muddy ears.

Finally, he exhaled, the breath slipping free like a sigh he hadn’t meant to release. He's no longer with us, I'm afraid. The words came measured, quiet, but even his practiced calm couldn’t smother the weight beneath them. His gaze drifted, drawn to some distant point beyond her shoulder.

Still, I hear him sometimes, he continued, voice almost a murmur as though he spoke to air rather than listening ears. A word here, a laugh there. He blinked, opal eyes catching the light, yet remaining unfocused, cast toward the past rather than the present. Since returning to Godsmouth, those faint murmurs, that ghost of Juno’s laughter, had only grown louder, more insistent, and in some small part, the halfbreed knew Juno would no doubt be horrified by the man he had become.

The dog winced, shaking his head as though it ached. But enough of my ghosts, he said softly, turning his gaze back to her with a faint warmth in his eyes, a glimmer of deflection in his tone. Your turn to share, dear.