Static
He stumbled off the stage, heady with adrenaline and the still ringing applause. They loved it. He loved it. He --. It didn't matter. Basic training started in a week. The people who truly mattered HADN'T loved it. He just wasn't good enough. Since he couldn't make himself happy, he figured that his family's happiness was second best. Wasn't war just another dance?
She violently ripped out the quilt's stitches. It was wrong, wrong, wrong. It was nothing like what it was supposed to be, nothing. It was meant to represent the unity of the two clans, but it’s design, like the negotiations, had all fallen apart. All that the clan leader had worked for had come undone. True, the diplomacy had failed before the pattern did, but oh, was she bitter. She had gathered scrap from every matron in the clan and spent long hours rubbing camp smoke out of her eyes with needle pricked fingers as she worked.