I’d snapped once before, and that was right after Big Toto had died. I remember--it felt like I had risen out of my body, like my whole soul had been slapped out my bones, like I was a ghost with a corpse that could still walk and talk even if I wasn’t the one walking and talking.

I was losing it again--right here, right now, but it was a different kind of freak out. The one before was like...a suffocation, anything and everything throwing itself down my throat too quick for me to swallow, so that I lost my breathing and then I lost my mind. But this was different--I was too old to be overwhelmed like that anymore; I knew how to chew my food. This right here felt like a bar I’d been holding onto had finally slipped from my fingers--after spending so much of my life gripping it (because my life depended on it, cuz it was the stake my life had bid on--) it was finally yanked from me, or maybe it was disintegrated, I dunno (demigod, General, protector of this realm from all that would harm it-- poof poof poof, clouds of ashes--) I don’t really fucking care about semantics about it. All I knew was that it was all gone and I--

--shit--


“Hey, Cheek,” I said, my voice watery and neon-bright, thick rivers of tears streaming down my cheeks, a chuckle woven throughout my voice, “Hey Cheek, hey. Hey, Cheek. Check this out.”

I’d never actually tried to activate the defenses before--even after all the members had did their lil’ monkey-dance for their patron Goddess who killed a whole bunch o’ folk but don’t worry about it cuz she also protects the herd and grants her willing and devoted subjects safety and boons for their devoted services--a doubled over for a sec, overcome by laughter or tears, I wasn’t sure but whatever it was was leaving me breathless--but I’d never tried it out for myself. I had the power to do it-- I was the General, wasn’t I? (WASN’T I?)

I reared up with a shrill giggle, stomping down hard against the loamy ground. There was a bit of a rumble (it stroked my ego a bit--) but then a huge glass spike, dazzling in the moonlight, emerged off to my right side, a lot more quieter than I expected. I watched it ascend; it was clear the bastard was huge with a thick base, cuz several seconds passed and you could tell it wasn’t quite done raising up. “Hey, yo, watch--” I didn’t wait for it to finish rising; I cocked my horn and aimed for the tip.

pkPA!!

The whole thing didn’t shatter, but just enough of the tip of the spike did to soothe whatever thing I was trying to make happen, happen. An explosion of shimmering glass shards rained down, and I twirled and laughed at it and the tears rolled down my face and I stumbled to the ground and Chico didn’t know what to do, he was stuck watching it all, torn between his delight at the destruction and the horror of my unraveling--he didn’t know what to do, he didn’t know--so he darted forward, grabbing a longish-shard of glass, wielding it in his mouth like it was a sword, charging me so that I’d have to draw Sparkmarrow--zpkA!!-- and happily engage him in a fevered sword dance even as the world was tumbling around us like so many shards of glass.

"talk"