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Puppet Strings - Chapter 5
By Kudara
Disclaimer: All the characters appearing in Gargoyles are
copyright Buena Vista Television/The Walt Disney Company. No
infringement of these copyrights is intended, and is not
authorized by the copyright holder. All original characters are
the property of the author.
Warning: none
Rating: Teen
Feedback: Always welcome, feedback is what encourages me to keep
writing. Please let me know what you like and what you dislike
about the story.
Revision History: 1/14/05; 02/07/08
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Kendra tried to banish the memories of her dream as she walked
into the gym Wednesday night. She tried not to stare
speculatively at Demona’s tail. Tried not to figure out whether
or not what she had dreamed about was even possible, and when
she decided that it was she desperately tried to ignore the
quick flash of heated arousal the realization brought.
When Demona paused during a break to examine her tail
frowningly, Kendra knew she had failed. As soon as they began
sparring again, Demona whipped around, her tail sweeping in low
and fast and knocked Kendra off her feet. Kendra’s breath left
in an abrupt exhale as her back slammed into the mat, and it was
a second before she could breathe in again.
She looked up meeting the gargoyles irritated glare, “You need
to concentrate on your fighting or I’ll keep dumping you there,”
the redhead snapped.
Kendra felt a heated flush spread across her face and dropped
her eyes, “Sorry,” she apologized.
An annoyed sigh drew her attention back to the gargoyles green
eyes, “Get up,” Demona ordered, “And focus on sparring.” She
emphasized the last word harshly.
“Yes ma’am,” Kendra responded automatically to the tone then
growled under her breath in annoyance. She rolled to her feet
and glanced warily at Demona, the gargoyle’s scowl had been
replaced by a smirk. She sighed; at least the redhead seemed to
be over her annoyance.
One hour later Demona exchanged good nights with Kendra and
watched the black haired woman leave her office. She wasn’t
certain why she wasn’t more annoyed at the woman. The blushing,
furtive glances at her tail had made it only too obvious that
Kendra’s thoughts were definitely not focused on how Demona
might use the appendage as a weapon. At least it had only taken
the one hard fall for the human to focus her thoughts where they
were supposed to be, sparring.
Friday’s sparring session was much easier for Kendra as she had
not dreamed of Demona after that one time. When the redheaded
gargoyle tried to knock her off her feet using the same attack,
Kendra was able to avoid the sweep of the tail and even scored a
hit on Demona. The gargoyle even complemented her for spotting
the attack and turning it to her advantage.
Monday night Kendra entered the gymnasium, but did not see
Demona anywhere. Curious she walked up stairs and called out
Demona’s name.
The reply came from Demona’s office, “In my office. Sorry I
didn’t cancel our session, I forgot about it.”
Kendra paused, noticing the obvious pain in the gargoyles tone,
and she stepped tentatively into the office. Demona was standing
by the windows, looking out over the city. Kendra walked up
beside her and asked softly, “What’s wrong?”
Demona snapped, “I didn’t ask you to come in here, just leave,”
despite the words, there was little actual fire in the
gargoyle’s tone.
Kendra looked at the gargoyles face and realized with
astonishment that she had been crying. She questioned sharply,
“What’s happened, whose hurt you?” Unaware of how protective she
suddenly sounded.
Demona glanced at her, surprised out of her misery for a moment
at Kendra’s tone and her protectively bristling form. She shook
her head, “Nothing that you can fight, just some problems in my
personal life.”
Kendra was surprised by the admission, she offered, “If you want
to talk about it, nothing you say will go out of this office.
I’m a good listener.”
Demona grimaced at the thought; Kendra would not sympathize with
her if the human knew the reason for her current difficulty,
“Thank you, but no.”
Kendra nodded, “I guess I’ll be going then, give me a phone call
when you’re ready to spar again or if you just want to talk.”
She was moving to leave the office when a helicopter swept
around the building. The windows shattered in a spray of glass
and instinctively Kendra protected her face with her arms. She
felt her head spinning, and barely had time to notice the device
spewing out gas into the office before she passed out. When she
came to, she was lying in a cage. She looked around; Demona
occupied the cage next to hers. They exchanged glances and
Kendra asked, “Quarrymen?”
Demona nodded, “Your cousin was none to happy to see you in my
company.”
Kendra shrugged, “He doesn’t dictate the company I keep,” she
looked at the very small room that held the cages. The walls
were made of metal and their edges were riveted to the room’s
structure. She could feel the floor vibrating and hear a loud
droning sound. She frowned, she didn’t like the conclusion she
was drawing about what they might be inside, “Any idea where we
are?”
Demona replied, “In the hold of a plane flying north. He
mentioned it as he was frothing about cutting me to pieces and
burying them in permafrost to make sure I die this time.”
Kendra raised an incredulous eyebrow, “Good grief, isn’t that a
bit of overkill?”
Demona chuckled at the reply, “Just last week I would have been
raging about this, but now I find I really don’t care. I was
seriously thinking of finding Macbeth and ending this once and
for all anyway. I am sorry that you got caught up in this
though.”
“Macbeth,” Kendra repeated uncertainly, “The Macbeth?”
The redheaded gargoyle snorted, “Yes the Macbeth,” she answered
sardonically. “The sorcery that gives me immortality also gives
him immortality, we are bound together and only if we kill each
other can we actually die.”
Kendra took a few moments to absorb this surprising information,
fitting it in with the history she already knew. “Well,” she
finally responded, “The play isn’t over till the fat lady sings;
still a lot of time to see what happens.”
Demona shook her head at this baseless optimism, leaned back
against the bars of her cell and closed her eyes. Kendra took
the opportunity to start stretching the kinks out of her
muscles. She braced herself against one side of the cage and
tried shoving at the bars, try as she might she was unable to
bend them. That failing she took a good look at the lock, it
didn’t take her long to give it up as a lost cause. She didn’t
know enough about electronics to figure out how to break it.
Finally bored she started yelling for someone to come down and
talk to her, as Demona wasn’t in a conversational mood. The
immortal gargoyle stared at her as if she was crazed; Kendra
paused and asked, “You’re not in a conversational mood right?”
Demona shook her head so Kendra resumed, “I’m bloody bored and
she won’t talk, so someone come down here and either feed or
amuse me!”
Demona murmured, “Points for novelty, I don’t think I’ve ever
heard of anyone wanting to be amused when they were a prisoner.”
Finally, the hatch to the cargo hold opened and Jon stepped thru
it. Kendra cordially greeted him, “Hello Jon, how are you doing.
Don’t suppose you have some food or anything? I’m starving.”
Jon glared at her angrily, “What were you doing with the demon?”
Kendra replied, “At the time of your attack? Leaving.”
Jon cocked his head to the side at the answer, “Why were you
there?”
Kendra grinned at him, “Martial arts workout, she’s quite good
as a sparring partner you know,” she confided blithely.
Jon shook his head, “I would think you were lying, but I suspect
you aren’t. Sparring with the Demon sounds just crazy enough for
you think it was a challenge. Tell me that you were there to spy
on the monster and I’ll believe you.”
Kendra shook her head, “I can’t say that Jon, I was there to
find out more about her yes, but mostly because she’s a great
sparring partner.”
Jon asked, “Were you planning on telling me what you found out?”
Kendra shook her head, “Nope.”
Jon slumped, “Why did you even ask for information from me
then.”
Kendra looked at him, “Because I knew you had information about
her that I didn’t, and I wanted to know what it was.”
Jon looked at Kendra curiously, “Why?”
Kendra stared at him, she didn’t like tipping her hand like this
but she didn’t see much of a choice at this point. She replied,
“Because she’s as intelligent as you or I, yet some of her
actions make no rational sense.”
Demona glared at Kendra after that comment, but Jon and Kendra
ignored her. Jon asked, “What do you mean? She’s a demon of
course she doesn’t make sense.”
Kendra shrugged, “That computer file she made, why even bother?
It’s not as if she couldn’t remember the details, they weren’t
that complicated. I certainly would not have left anything like
that lying around explaining in exact detail what I planned to
do. And leaving it out where Robyn could easily find it…hell you
and I know she called Robyn while she was down there stealing it
, revealing that she knew full well where Robyn was, and then
she practically told her she only had days to live.”
Kendra paused for emphasis, “How much more obvious can you get,
she did everything short of drawing a map and making step by
step directions to make sure you guys knew where you were
supposed to be and when you were supposed to be there. As I said
her actions make no rational sense, why go through all that
effort, all those centuries of collecting mystical artifacts,
only to sabotage yourself in the end?” she asked. Kendra paused
thoughtfully, “Unless perhaps you are insane and have an
irrational reason,” she turned and asked the redheaded gargoyle,
“Are you insane?”
Demona studied Kendra intently before replying, “Perhaps, after
listening to you I’m starting to wonder, I never really thought
about why I made that file.”
“No irrational rational reasons?” Kendra asked in a hopeful
tone.
The redheaded gargoyle blinked once, “No.” Demona hadn’t
recognized what Kendra was doing at first; she had almost been
convinced the gas was still affecting her. Now she could see
that Kendra was treating Jon Canmore in the same way she had
treated Detective Maza when Demona first overheard them.
Kendra’s tone was consistently light and blithely unconcerned as
if what were being discussed really didn’t matter at all to her
at all. She was toying with her cousin, and Demona could tell he
thought Kendra was just being stupidly flippant. Demona couldn’t
really see what advantage it gave them except perhaps that
Kendra was getting information from Jon that she wouldn’t have
if she had been more confrontational. The game Kendra was
playing with him certainly didn’t seem to be getting them any
closer to freedom.
“Ah well,” Kendra responded as if disappointed, then her
expression brightened, “By the way I loved the statistical data
at the end, perfect touch,” she commented confidingly to the
gargoyle.
Demona nodded, amused by the woman’s performance despite the
seriousness of the situation, “Thank you.”
Jon was staring at the two of them with a bewildered expression,
he shook his head, “Let me guess you have some big psychological
reason why she did that.”
Kendra shrugged, “I have no clue why she did that, it’s one of
the things I was curious about.”
Jon stared at her for a long moment, obviously confused, and
then he started yelling, “I don’t care what you think, she’s a
demon and I’m going to make sure she’s finally dead! She killed
my father and laughed at us as she left, and she’s the reason
Jason is paralyzed! She must die for all the Canmore’s she’s
killed.”
Kendra stared at him, when he was finished she asked, “So does
that mean I’m not getting any food?”
Jon paused, open mouthed at the non sequitur, “Food? Ah sure I
think I have some food bars.”
Kendra nodded, “I would appreciate that if you wouldn’t mind.”
Jon stared hard at Kendra’s cheerful face and then went back
out.
Demona stared at Kendra, “Are you sure you’re not related to
Broadway?”
Kendra replied, “Who?” she sounded honestly puzzled.
Demona shook her head, “Never mind, and you were asking if I was
insane.”
Jon stepped through the hatch, tossed Kendra several food bars
and some water. He turned without speaking and left, sealing the
hatch behind him.
Kendra asked, holding up one of the bars, “You want one?”
Demona straightened, nodding. Kendra checked the covering for
tampering both visually and by smell then tossed the gargoyle
two of the bars while she began eating the others. “Let me know
if you need some water we can toss the container back and
forth,” she mumbled through a mouthful. They ate the food bars
and passed the water back and forth as needed. Kendra noted that
Demona seemed to have come out of her funk somewhat even though
she was still very quiet.
The hatch opened once again and Jon stepped inside. “I won’t be
going with you to your final destination; we will be landing
soon and transferring you to another plane. Kendra you still
have a chance to avoid sharing the Demon’s fate, promise me that
you will stay quiet about this and I will spare you,” he said.
Kendra shook her head sadly, “Sorry Jon, I can’t make that
promise.”
Jon pulled a gun and pointed it at her, “Kendra don’t force me
to kill you along with the Demon just say that you won’t fight
me and I’ll make sure you get back alive.”
Demona shouted, “You fool, take what he’s offering and go back
to New York! You barely know me. I am a demon, I destroy
everything I touch. Please, don’t add yourself to the list.”
Kendra glanced at her once before turning back to her cousin,
“Just put me on the same plane with Demona, Jon.” With that she
sat down and took a swig of water and proceeded to ignore her
cousin who stood there pistol extended. Finally, he cursed,
lowered his weapon and stomped out.
Demona hissed angrily, “Why are you doing this?”
Kendra replied evenly, “Because I don’t know why you made that
recording yet.”
Demona stared at her, certain now that between the two of them,
it wasn’t she that was the insane one. “This is all because you
don’t understand why I did something!”
Kendra nodded, “It’s been driving me crazy with curiosity, I
can’t stand not understanding and you’re the only one who can
give me an answer.”
“Well it doesn’t have to drive you any further your already
there,” Demona snapped. “Your curiosity is going to get you
killed you silly fool.”
Kendra smirked at her, “My choice.”
Demona snarled at Kendra completely frustrated with her. She
slumped down into the corner of the cage and was silent.
Kendra commented softly, “Besides I would have never forgiven
myself if I had agreed to what he said and left you with them.
I… care about what happens to you.”
Demona turned and stared at her for a moment then shook her head
and sighed, but said nothing in response. Kendra’s desire not to
leave her would not change anything except getting the human
killed; something the woman seemed stubbornly unwilling to
accept.
Finally, the plane landed and the two cages were unloaded. The
smaller plane they were being loaded into did not have enough
room for two cages so the Quarrymen tranquilized their two
captives and put in the same cage. The two were still sedated
when a sudden storm forced the plane down an about ninety
minutes after takeoff and caused it to crash. Everyone on the
plane died instantly.
Demona revived first, groaning and frozen, she looked dazedly at
the interior of the wrecked plane. It took her a minute to
regain her senses enough to realize that she was lying on top of
Kendra; she pulled herself up off the woman and inspected the
cage that held them. It had been damaged in the crash; on one
side the hinges had been snapped. It only took her a few tries
to widen the opening enough to pull herself out and then pull
Kendra out as well.
Examining the woman she realized that Kendra was dead, there was
no pulse and her body was cool to the touch. Cursing Demona
leaned over and listened for a heartbeat, there was none. She
held Kendra’s body for a moment trying to ignore the sharp pangs
of regret she felt over the woman’s death. After a minute she
slowly released Kendra’s body and forced herself to start
exploring the plane.
The three Quarrymen in the cockpit were crushed in the wreckage,
the front of the plane having borne the brunt of the damage,
only the rear of the plane where their cage had been was
relatively undamaged. It was bitterly cold and the wind howled
around the crashed plane swirling up ice and snow, it would be
near impossible for her to fly in this she reluctantly decided,
she would have to wait for the storm to end.
She returned to the rear of the plane, her gaze drawn
unwillingly drawn to the body there. Foolish human, why hadn’t
Kendra listened to her when she told the woman to leave, she
hadn’t wanted this human to die. Movement drew her attention,
and she stared unbelievingly. Kendra’s hand twitched again,
confused Demona knelt by the woman and felt for a pulse. She was
certain there hadn’t been one earlier, but now there was a
pulse. It was weak, but it was definitely there.
Demona frantically began looking for blankets or anything she
could use to warm the woman. Ripping through the storage
compartments on either side of the hold she finally found a box
of survival gear that had several of the silver survival
blankets in it. She opened one and laid it on the floor then
placed one against the wall. She sat down on the blanket and
pulled Kendra into her arms then wrapped the other blankets
around the both of them warming Kendra’s body with her own.
Demona was confused by the evidence that Kendra had the same
ability to heal that she did, and elated to find out that Kendra
was not actually dead. Slowly the woman warmed up, Demona
finally saw her eyelashes flutter and her chest rise as she drew
in a deeper breath.
Kendra started coughing and coughed up some blood then leaned
back against Demona commenting hoarsely, “Ok dying sucks a lot,
I can avoid doing that again.” She shivered, and huddled
gratefully against the warm body of the gargoyle and asked, “Did
you die too?”
Demona replied, “Yes, however I recovered quicker than you did.
I think you must have cushioned me so I wasn’t as damaged as
you.” The immortal gargoyle paused, and then added, “I guess
this was one of the things you weren’t mentioning to me.”
Kendra shrugged, “More like it was one of the things I
suspected, I’ve never died before.”
Demona said, “I gathered as much from your comment, and your
right it does ‘suck’, each and every time.”
Kendra said, “Thanks for warming me up, I don’t suppose you
found any food with the survival blankets?”
Demona chuckled, relieved, “Yes I found some more food bars.”
She asked, “Did you eat as much before or is it just something
about planes that makes you hungry?”
“I always ate before I came over to spar,” Kendra admitted. She
added, “I have a high metabolism, it has something to do with my
strength and ability to heal. After I eat we can figure out
where we are and work on getting out of here.” Kendra wrapped
one of the blankets around her and went to raid the emergency
rations.
While she was eating, she started searching the back of the
plane for anything they could use, making a pile of the items
she found in the middle of the floor. After a few moments of
watching what she was doing, Demona joined her in the search.
The hold wasn’t very big, so it didn’t take the two of them very
long to search every corner, when they finished the pile of
useful items was distressingly small.
Kendra had found her gym bag and her wallet during the search,
as well as of all things Dominique’s purse. “They wanted it to
look like a theft?” she offered hesitantly as she handed the
purse over to Demona.
The gargoyle opened the purse, drew out her wallet and opened
it, she growled, “The vermin stole the cash I was carrying. At
least they didn’t take my IDs or credit cards.” She dropped the
purse next to the pile, “I’ll see what I can find up front,”
Demona snarled before turning and leaving the hold.
Kendra stared after her for a moment, then grabbing a backpack;
she started packing the items they wouldn’t need immediately.
They had found one complete set of winter survival gear that
Kendra thought would fit Dominique. She set them to the side
along with the cargo webbing and restraining straps she had
found. While the Demona was searching the front of the plane she
began working on putting the webbing and straps together to make
a harness.
Demona returned holding what looked like folded maps, cash, and
three handguns. The gargoyle placed the weapons by the backpack,
put the cash in her wallet with a satisfied look, and then
unfolded the maps and laid them side by side on the floor. “I
found the flight map and a topographical map; between the two
hopefully we can figure out where we are. I also found these on
the Quarrymen,” she indicated the handguns. “They should prove
useful; unfortunately I didn’t find any extra ammunition for
them.”
Kendra nodded, the weapons would help, but right now she was
more interested in figuring out exactly where they were, and
where they needed to go. “Quebec,” She muttered in surprise,
following the flight path out of New York and all the way to the
very tip of the Canadian providence almost to the ocean. She
blinked, “I guess he wasn’t kidding about the permafrost.” She
pointed at a small marked town on the map, “This must be where
we changed planes.”
“Alma,” Demona read, the gargoyle shook her head, “I don’t know
anything about that town. I’ve been to Canada several times for
business, but never in this area.”
Kendra glanced at the watch on her wrist, “Its three fifteen am,
this is the same night, right? You don’t think we lost a day?”
Kendra asked staring at the map.
Demona answered, “No, we weren’t out for that long.” The
gargoyle stared at the flight map as well, understanding now why
Kendra was asking. “It would take a prop airplane three hours to
fly from New York to Alma, and it probably took them an hour or
so to get us to an airport from my office. We didn’t spar so it
would have been around six thirty when we were taken, so we
arrived in Alma around ten or eleven perhaps.”
“And this plane is smaller than that one was, so it’s probably
slower as well,” Kendra said thoughtfully. “How long do you
think we were…dead.”
The redhead frowned, “I don’t know, I don’t know how injured we
were. At least an hour I would think, more likely two hours.”
Kendra reached into a pocket of the backpack and pulled out a
pencil she had found, “So if the plane went down an hour or two
after we left,” she made two marks on the flight path, “Between
here and here?” she questioned.
Demona reluctantly nodded. She watched as Kendra folded the
flight map and laid it on top of the topographical map and then
made matching marks upon it. Between those two marks was where
they thought they were located. It depended however on whether
or not the storm that had downed the plane had also pushed them
off the marked flight path. “It will take us a week or more to
walk to the nearest town,” her talon trailed down the map to the
nearest marked city. “We will have to travel at night when I can
withstand the cold in my true form, and find shelter during the
day to keep warm. We were lucky they had that survival gear for
you to wear.”
Kendra shook her head, “It will be better if we wait a few hours
and give the storm time to pass. We can travel during the day,
Dominique can wear the winter clothes, hopefully with those and
some blankets you will be ok out in the wind.” Kendra was
working on a complicated looking set of straps and webbing as
she spoke.
Demona stared at Kendra, disbelievingly, “And what will you
wear? Your leather outfit is quite nice, but not suited to this
environment.”
Kendra chuckled, “I still have one surprise left and I’m not
revealing it till after you switch into your day form.” Kendra
put down the makeshift harness she had been working on and
crawled back into the nest of blankets the gargoyle had made
while trying to warm her. She closed her eyes wanting to get
some rest before starting the long cold trek. She could feel the
gargoyles stare and half expected the redhead to insist that she
explain herself, so she was surprised when she felt the blankets
around her move. When Demona settled in next to her she finally
opened her eyes and looked over at the gargoyle sitting next to
her. She knew the redhead wasn’t cold, the gargoyle had said she
didn’t feel the cold earlier.
“It will be easier for you to stay warm,” was all Demona offered
as an explanation.
Kendra scooted closer to the warm body next to her, “Thanks.”
Demona shifted slowly into a more comfortable position so as not
to wake the woman who slept so soundly against her. She really
didn’t know why she hadn’t insisted that Kendra stop playing
games and tell her exactly why the woman thought they could
travel during the day. What was this last secret that Kendra so
gleefully kept to herself, and why was she indulging the woman
by allowing it? Noticing the Kendra’s hair had fallen onto the
woman’s face she reached over and gently combed it back. In
sleep Kendra’s expression was softer than Demona had ever seen
it; she stared for a moment taking in the dusky skin, the long
sweep of eyelashes. She is beautiful for a human, her mind
whispered. After a moment the immortal gargoyle rested her head
back against the side of the plane, she might as well try to get
some sleep too.
Kendra jerked abruptly awake upon hearing Demona scream in pain
as she changed into Dominique. As soon as the change was
complete, Kendra handed her the cold weather gear and insisted
she put it on before she lost too much body heat. Dominique
looked at her curiously and didn’t argue with her. Whatever
Kendra was keeping secret that she believed would allow them
both to escape this frozen wasteland during the day would
doubtless be revealed very soon.
Kendra handed Dominique the harness she had made, “Ok this is a
harness to hold you on my back, make sure its snug around my
chest and waist so you won’t slip. You should be able to hang
your legs through these loops and hold on here. I still can’t
figure out how to get a blanket wrapped around you at the same
time, but maybe that will become clear once this is on me.”
Immediately after finishing these strange directions, Kendra
took off her jacket and began to undress, packing her clothes in
the backpack as she removed them. Dominique blinked, “What are
you doing, it’s below freezing,” she asked astonished.
Kendra grinned, “Getting my own fur coat.” With that strange
comment, she cried out in her own pain as her skin darkened and
her body size increased, within a minute a huge stocky black cat
shook itself and looked at Dominique with sapphire blue eyes.
Dominique whispered, “Kendra?” questioningly, her mind unable
for a second or two to accept what she had just seen.
The cat nodded then pawed the harness that Dominique had dropped
in her shock.
Dominique recovered quickly, “Well this explains a few things,”
she murmured as she stared at the huge black cat that was more
than half as tall as she was. No wonder I felt something the
first time we met, she thought, somehow I knew this was in my
office, she thought. She picked up the webbing and straps that
Kendra had put together, it hadn’t made sense to her when the
woman had been making it, but now it did. She laid the webbing
across the cats back and adjusted it so that it hung evenly on
either side of her torso, and then began tightened the straps
until the harness was snug. “Is this too tight?” she asked.
Kendra shook her head. “Pinch or bind?” Again another shake.
“Good,” Demona murmured focusing now on the problem of how to
keep the survival blanket around her while upon her unexpected
mount.
She picked up one of the blankets and cut four slits along two
of its sides and placed it over the webbing, she would slip her
hands and legs thru these. Dominique picked up the backpack and
swung it onto her back. Kendra crouched down making it easier
for the redhead to get upon her back, once there Dominique
adjusted the blanket and grasped the webbing firmly. Feeling the
woman settle into place, Kendra trotted out of the plane. The
two halted once they were outside, eyes squinting in the bright
glare of sun on snow.
There was nothing in sight except the snow and ice covered plain
they had crashed upon as far as either could see. Dominique
pulled out the compass and pointed south, she shouted over the
wind, “That way is south.” Kendra dipped her head in
acknowledgement and started trotting at a ground-eating lope.
Dominique concentrated on pulling the blanket closer around her
to block out the wind. She stared at the ground passing rapidly
underneath Kendra’s paws and began to think that they would
actually make it out of this mess. Relaxing into the movement of
the cat beneath her she buried her face into the thick black
coat and let herself sink into a light sleep.
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