Yesterday was a memory. Today was a hope.

I always thought fainting showed an inherent weakness of character, but I understood it now. It was an act of self-preservation. Confronted by emotion too extreme to handle, the body shuts down to keep from running around like a chicken with its head cut off, potentially injuring itself.

I'm here. You're safe now. It's okay to remember. They can never hurt you again.

Mac." He said my name and laughed. "What a name for something like you. Mac.

The running pants were tolerable, Drustan decided, relieved. The blue trews had clearly been a torture device and would have strangled a man's seed. Mayhap men were fashioned differently in her time. He hadn't seen one other bulge out there on the street; mayhap they all had wee carrots in their trews.

He'd surely been spawned by some cataclysmic event of nature, not born.

Velvet looks horrified. “If you are fool enough to address King R’jan, you will do it thus and in no other manner! ‘My King, Liege, Lord, and Master, your servant begs you grant it leave to speak.’” “Wow. Totally delusionary there.” “Good luck with that,” Ryodan says. “She doesn't beg to speak, or do anything else. You can lock her up, down, and sideways and it’s never going to happen.” I beam at him. I had no idea he thought so highly of me.