A story of romance, drama, and politics which neither Trevelyan nor Cullen wish to be in.
Canon divergent fic in which Josephine solves the matter of post-Wicked Hearts attention by inviting four noblewomen to compete for Cullen's affections. In this chapter, Lady Samient escapes the banquet, to check on Trevelyan.
(Masterpost. Beginning. Previous entry. Next entry. Words: 2,780. Rating: all audiences. Warnings: swearing.)
Chapter 26: The Banquet - Part 3
Lady Samient of Samient, daughter of Duke Samient, was considering crime.
Specifically, she was considering whether the daughter of a Duke (you know which) would be able to, say, punch the mask clean off the face of a Comtesse, without hearing a peep from the Council of Heralds. It wasn’t as if she had anything to lose.
Fortunately for Comtesse Bervard, before Lady Samient could test such boundaries, the banquet came to an end.
Samient, freed from the constraints of her seat and the tyranny of the table, headed directly for the guest suites. But she was not a fool in this; an inconspicuous level of urgency (polite trotting, one could call it) was maintained all the way.
She did not know what to expect when she entered the corridor that housed her and the other Ladies’ rooms. Quiet, perhaps. Crying, maybe.
But what she heard, to her surprise and delight, was laughter. And it came from Lady Erridge’s room.
“This one, this one!” said the giddy voice of Erridge herself. “What does it look like to you!?”
“Lady Erridge!” replied a breathless Lady Trevelyan, scolding only in jest. “That is not polite!”
“We are not in polite company, Lady Trevelyan, and we may say what we like! And I think it looks like—”
Samient poked her head through the door. “Ladies?”
All foolery ceased at once; the startled Ladies had frozen where they lay. Yes, ‘lay’—for they were on their bellies, on the floor, poring over some large cooking tome. Lady Trevelyan used a teddy bear as a chinrest.
“Lady Samient!” Erridge greeted, struggling to speak with the latent giggles still echoing in her throat. “We are choosing a recipe to cook, and I think we should make a plum tart!”
“Lady Erridge, no!” Trevelyan protested.
“But we already have all the ingredients! For Lady Trevelyan’s dress is plum, and covered in sugar!”
They burst into laughter anew. Though Samient did not join them, she smiled to see it.
“Maker,” gasped Trevelyan, “I cannot believe that at the beginning of this night, that was my greatest concern.”
“Yes,” Samient said, “so I am glad you’re well, after all that’s happened.”
Lady Trevelyan pushed herself to sitting. “I am. Thanks to Lady Erridge.” She gave her an appreciative tip of the head.
Samient agreed—even if she was slightly jealous of how masterfully Lady Erridge had taken the reins. “You were quick with it.”
Erridge squirmed. “Well, I can’t take all the credit. Lady Trevelyan gave me the idea.”
Trevelyan seemed as much surprised by this as anyone. “I did?”
“Oh, yes! You said you wouldn’t move from your seat unless it was ‘life or death’! Hence I made it so!”
Samient laughed. “Clever.”
“Clever indeed,” Trevelyan concurred.
Lady Erridge—eager, it seemed, to move the conversation away from her cleverness—shuffled up onto her knees. “What happened after we were gone?” she asked Samient. “Did they talk about us?”
Samient’s mind reluctantly drifted back towards the sound of the music emanating from the floor below.
“Briefly,” she answered, for the Comtesse had obviously commented. ‘Convenient’, she’d called it. But Samient wasn’t going to tell them that. Nor would she tell them what she said in reply. “Fortunately, Lady Montilyet’s arrival disrupted them. She wished to know what had happened to Lady Erridge.”
“What did you tell her?” Trevelyan asked.
“That Lord Pavus explained. He said she was choking, and that you had taken her outside. Lady Montilyet said she would call for a healer, but the Commander offered to do it instead. He was off before she could stop him.”
And, by complete accident, as his hand had left the table, a napkin had slipped with it. One that looked strikingly similar to the little cloth Lady Trevelyan clutched in her hand now.
“Oh, yes,” said Erridge, “he came to see if we were quite all right.”
Samient nodded. “Once he was gone, Montilyet told us all to relax, had our goblets refilled, and then went back to her own table. Conversation moved on.”
“What about when the Commander returned?” asked Trevelyan.
Skipping ahead, but Lady Trevelyan wasn’t to know that. For while the Commander was gone, Samient had spied scattered whispers at the other table. Montilyet, to the Left Hand of the Divine; the Left Hand, to a guard; the guard, left the room.
“The Commander informed Lady Montilyet all was well,” she recounted, “and returned to his seat. He said you’d taken Lady Erridge to her room, to recover. Everyone bought it.”
“Good,” said Erridge.
“He disappeared again some minutes later. A guard came and whispered something about an urgent matter.” Coincidentally, the same guard who’d been sent away by the Left Hand. “The Commander departed. Whatever it was must’ve been important, because the guard returned for the Left Hand soon after.”
Lady Trevelyan nodded at this, quite solemnly—though that was hardly a revelation. Samient had already supposed it was something to do with Ostwick Circle.
“Neither returned before the feast ended. I came as soon as I was able, so I don’t know what has happened since.”
“Where is the Baroness?” wondered Lady Erridge.
Still downstairs, though they had briefly spoken before Samient left: “She stayed behind, to do the rounds. She didn’t want to raise suspicion. ‘Others’ would say it should only take one of us to check on you.”
Meaning Comtesse Bervard. And she needn’t suspect any more than she already did.
And yet, it seemed the banquet could not hold the Baroness for long. As if summoned by their mention of her, her voice resounded down the hall:
“Ladies!”
Samient backed out of the door frame, to glance at her coming. She wasn’t alone.
“Baroness, with a maid,” she whispered to the others.
They sprang to action. Erridge snapped her book shut and slid it under a chair. Trevelyan stuffed the teddy bear behind a cushion. Both took to proper seats: Erridge hunched over a little, rasping, whilst Trevelyan rubbed her back.
Their arrivals would be none the wiser.
“Baroness,” Samient greeted, as she and the maid came to the door. “Lady Erridge is doing well.”
“I am glad to hear it,” said the Baroness. “Lady Montilyet, of course, sends her regards—”
She gestured to the maid, who bore a small tray with two matching plates of food, and two matching drinks. Samient recognised them: the same dessert that had been served at the banquet. How thoughtful.
“Her Ladyship did not wish the Ladies to go hungry, and thought Lady Erridge might need something for her throat.”
“Perfect.” Samient indicated a console table nearby. “Set it down there, please.”
The maid did as told, curtsied to the room, and left. The moment she had vanished from the end of the hall, the Baroness shut the door.
“That fucking woman!” she spat in Orlesian.
Samient replied in the same tongue: “The Comtesse?”
“Who else?”
“Still entertaining down there, is she?”
“Not the word I would use,” the Baroness fumed.“You know, I almost had her former fiancé in bed once, but I decided against it, because it was not worth the trouble she would cause. But now—!”
“Which fiancé?” Samient interrupted to say, reminding the Baroness—with a sense of satisfaction—that more than one man had left the Comtesse at the altar. Unsurprisingly.
The Baroness replied proudly: “The first one.”
“The professor? Ha. You should’ve.”
“Is he particularly handsome?” asked Lady Erridge.
The Baroness turned to her in confusion. Samient’s eyes widened. “I forgot I taught you that,” she muttered.
“Sorry,” said Erridge. “I couldn’t help but overhear. Quite literally.”
“You know Orlesian?” Lady Trevelyan asked.
Erridge nodded. “Lady Samient has been teaching me. And chess, too! In return, I’ve been teaching her some of the more difficult stitches.”
Their little secret was out. Samient smirked. “What else were we supposed to do while you two are at work?”
“Oh, I do not blame you!” Trevelyan clarified. “I merely wish I had known myself before I procured a job. I could’ve enrolled in your schooling instead. And I would understand what was just said.”
“I was fantasising revenge,” admitted the Baroness. “And to answer your question, Lady Erridge: very handsome.”
The look on Lady Trevelyan’s face suggested she had, from context, put some of the mystery together. “Well, don’t do anything rash on my behalf.”
“Not rash. Long overdue.” Her plan settled, Touledy relaxed into herself a little more. “Are you all right? Dorian was concerned for you.”
“I’m quite all right. Lady Erridge has been good company.”
Lady Erridge shied again.
“I was just telling them what had happened after they left,” Samient informed Touledy. “All the comings and goings.”
“Indeed. They have a discreet little system for disseminating information,” the Baroness mused. “I’m not sure I quite understand it. No one said anything explicit. But—there was one thing I noticed.”
The other Ladies leant in, even Samient. It would be intriguing to hear the perspective of the other end of the table.
“After the Commander had taken his leave, before Lady Montilyet moved on, Dorian played with the cutlery on his plate. Fork towards the Comtesse, knife towards the former seat of our Lady Trevelyan. Montilyet glanced at it as she was telling us all to drink more.”
“Oh, that is tricky!” said Lady Erridge.
And it quite explained all the whispering Samient had observed at the other table, once Montilyet had returned to it.
“Anyway, I suppose you told them the Commander and Left Hand vanished afterwards?” the Baroness asked Samient, who nodded. “Neither came back. Either there has been some great coincidence, and another event has occurred elsewhere that requires their attention—or they are dealing with this one.”
“Good,” said Samient. “Saves hiring a bard.”
“Lady Samient!” Lady Trevelyan gasped.
“What? We are Orlesian, and she insulted us all. There are consequences.”
“And I am sure the Inquisition shall mete them out ably.”
“Indeed,” Baroness Touledy agreed. “But what is most important is that you are well. And having seen you are, I think I shall leave you to enjoy your dessert, and finish my rounds.”
The idea of going back nauseated Samient. “I think I shall head to bed,” she lied. “It’s been a long day.”
“Yes,” said Lady Trevelyan. “Once I have eaten, I shall do the same.”
Samient narrowed her eyes. She wasn’t the only liar.
She knew well enough that once they had all gone off to bed, Lady Trevelyan would not sleep. Not just for the evening she’d had, but for the fact that Samient knew Lady Trevelyan was often sneaking out after nightfall.
She’d heard the footsteps pass by her room on occasion, and on others, had glanced out to see whom it might be. Sometimes it was the Baroness. It was never Erridge.
The last of the evening light slipped away. Night came over the fortress in the form of a blanket of stars. Samient blew out the final candle in her room, and waited.
She did not have to wait for long.
Feet, with practiced quietness, snuck past her door. Samient would not have even heard them, were she not listening out. And given that they were not joined by the characteristic tap of a cane, she knew whose they were.
Of course, she let them pass. She did not wish to confront Trevelyan here. Instead, she waited just a few seconds more.
Silence. Peaceful dark. Disturbed only by the creak of Samient’s door, as she slipped out to follow.
The footsteps led her in the direction of the stairs, which she snuck down in turn. When she arrived at the Great Hall, she could see no Trevelyan—but the door on the opposite side, to the garden, swung shut.
Samient hurried through the candelit hall, making herself of little note to the night watch posted around. Unperturbed, she ventured on into the garden.
In the moonlight, Samient saw her: Lady Trevelyan, a bedcoat thrown over her shoulders and boots lazily pulled on, journeying over the stepping stone trail. Samient pursued from the shadows of the arcade, tracing her path between each column.
Trevelyan ascended; a flight of stairs at the far side of the garden took her up to the battlements. Samient found her way to the foot, but stopped.
Voices.
“Commander?” said Lady Trevelyan.
So that was what she was sneaking off to do? Interesting. Yet, she sounded surprised.
“Forgive me, I”—his voice was quieter, harder to hear—“disturbing you—sure you’re all right.”
Oh. Not a regular occurrence, then. From what Samient could tell, that is.
The Lady Trevelyan assured him she was well, her voice growing softer as her footsteps moved away. Samient crept a little higher up the staircase.
“—dealt with,” the Commander said, hopefully in reference to the Comtesse Bervard.
“Thank you,” Lady Trevelyan replied. “But let that be the last we speak of it, for now.”
“Of course. I am sorry for”—interrupting?—“your stargazing.”
“That is quite all right; it is usually I who disrupts your route.”
“Not at all,” he replied, “I find I have been… walking more often, of late.”
Samient’s eyes flared; she could listen to no more of this. As loud as could pierce the night air through, she cleared her throat:
“M-hm!”
Perhaps it would have been better to turn away, and leave them to talk longer. But the Commander would have other chances to speak to Lady Trevelyan—this was Samient’s last. There would not be another night.
The conversation halted. Samient rose up the last of the steps, and finally viewed what she had only heard. A startled Lady Trevelyan, bedcoat drawn tight against the cold, and a braced Commander, still in his banquet wear. Long night.
The glow of a nearby torch flickered in Trevelyan’s wide eyes. “Lady Samient, the Commander was—”
“Just passing by,” said Samient. “I know.”
The Commander took this allowance with grace, and nodded to her. “Good night,” he said, bowing.
He must have thought Samient would not notice his little glance at Trevelyan, whilst he was bent low. But she did. And she thought it terrible. Terrible and sweet.
Still, despite any apparent reluctance, he straightened, and turned, and withdrew towards the mage tower.
It was only once he had finally disappeared behind it, that either Lady spoke.
“Lady Samient, the Commander was just speaking to me about what happened today,” Trevelyan hurriedly said, “it relates to the Comtesse—what she said, and the mages who were—”
Samient held up a hand. “Lady Trevelyan, I am not the Comtesse Bervard. Whatever happened… I am sorry. And if you would prefer not to tell me about it, then it is none of my business.”
Trevelyan nodded. “Thank you.”
“Nor is it any of my business why you were speaking to the Commander. It shouldn’t be anyone’s but yours.”
“It wasn’t—we, we weren’t…”
Samient glared, until Trevelyan stopped her stammering. “Lady Trevelyan, whatever happens between you and the Commander is yours.” She stalked closer. “Do not let anyone else dictate it. Not the other Ladies, not Ambassador Montilyet—not even your parents.”
Lady Trevelyan’s brow, stuck high and in shock, slowly began to crease.
“Be with him if that is what you want. But only if it is what you want. Do not let them dictate your life.”
“Lady Samient, I—don’t understand. I appreciate the notion, but...”
“I simply wished to tell you.” Samient glanced away, as the determination that shielded her pain began to fall, and a familiar ache consumed her chest. “I have always seen you as a kindred spirit, Lady Trevelyan.”
“Are you all right?”
Samient shook her head, and opened her arms. Through her bewilderment, Trevelyan accepted them. An awkward, estranged embrace, perhaps—but the only thing, at that moment, holding Samient together.
“What’s happening?” Trevelyan asked, parting from her. “Why does this sound like farewell?”
“Didn’t the other Ladies tell you?” Samient said. “I have no hope of the Commander. I am to return home in a day’s time.”
“What?” Lady Trevelyan’s head shook. “No, no—why? Can’t you stay? If you planned for the full month, then...”
“There is little point in it. I must go.”
Trevelyan pulled her back in, embracing her entirely. Her grip around Samient tightened, unrelenting, in denial of the fact that she would, at some point, have to let go.
“I will miss you,” she whispered.
“And I you,” replied Samient, her eyes trailing to the view of Equinor above. “But my home calls.”
Which was the truth. She just did not clarify which home she was called to.
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Ficmas22: Day 2: Deaf Mary-Alice
Why is December always so busy and short? I feel like I haven't stopped today - The Baking Has Begun.
Today's offering is Deaf Mary-Alice. We hear so much about how perfect vampires are, and how the venom makes people perfect but I like the idea better that the venom repairs what it can, but life leaves its mark on you. It was supposed to be Alice but somehow turned into Mary-Alice; it was also supposed to be an exploration of the scars for all family members, but became kind of this romantic little piece about Jasper being reunited with his true love.
I don't have any urgent plans to finish it. I have other fics that I want done sooner. But it's a fun one to play around.
And no, this has 0 to do with STL. I hope you enjoy!
deaf mary-alice.
Perfection is in the eye of the beholder.
It’s easy to wave away small things (the starburst of scars down Esme’s chest where her ribs tore through; a matching one on her thigh for her femur; the missing hank of hair from Rosalie’s head, leaving behind a coin-sized patch of bald flesh behind her right ear and three broken nails gnawed short and smooth) or even the larger (the scars bisect Emmett’s chest, like overripe fruit that has split wide open; the inside of the scar is the same bloodless pale colour as the rest of him, and he laughs about his ‘war wounds’) and call themselves ‘perfect’.
Why bother mentioning that both Carlisle and Edward are at least ten pounds underweight - Edward closer to fifteen. They are rendered in porcelain, with glossy hair and pink lips; unblemished skin and symmetrical features. They belong in the pages of high-end magazines or art gallery catalogues.
//
It takes him less than a day to realise something about the gangly newborn he finds in the mud just outside of Mississippi.
She’s five foot nothing by his guess, with the biggest red eyes and black hair that curls around her cheeks and a filthy hospital gown with the name ‘009 MARY-ALICE SMITH’ written on it in bleeding ink.
And she does not say a word to him, just beams at him and scurries after him.
She has little concept of quiet and seems to ignore everything he says to her, transfixed by wildflowers and birds, by the night sky and the grass underfoot. It’s not until she flinches back from a swooping owl that it hits him.
She’s deaf.
She cannot hear a word.
//
He expects Maria to send her into battle and let her be cannon fodder because Mary-Alice is nigh on useless to them.
Except Maria doesn’t. She studies Mary-Alice and shrugs.
“Work out some way to communicate with her so you can train her.”
It is surprisingly intimate, cloistered in his quarters during the day, with chalk and some scraps of paper and Mary-Alice. She’s a fast learner when it comes to writing,
Lip-reading is harder, even with her heightened senses; he enunciates his name and hers, and she presses her fingers against his throat to feel the sound in something that makes him feel warm for a moment, her brow furrowed in concentration.
(He feels like a fool, using ‘Jasper’ and not ‘Major’.)
The signs start small - yes, no, north, south, east, west, Major, Maria (he places his left hand over his heart for lack of a better way to describe Maria as their leader and overlord and queen and god). One of the others finds an old manual for Lengua de Señas Mexicana, and that helps fill in a few gaps but mostly it becomes a blueprint for their own language, cobbled together from English and Spanish and their own short form over the first year of her life.
They are lucky she is quick on her feet, lighting-fast, and determined to please the Major. Maria is amused by her and calls her Sunshine in an almost mocking way, but allows her to stay, allows her to trot obediently after the Major in a too-long dress. Whilst the entire army are taught a set of signs to communicate with her, and Maria learns enough to converse with her, it is the Major who carries the responsibility of communicating with her, of translating everything - a habit that is ultimately so ingrained that he finds himself signing conversations Mary-Alice isn’t present for.
//
The day the Major leaves with Peter, she knows it’s coming. She knows he will leave her behind, and she is glad to see him go. He deserves only good things and the army is eating him alive.
But her heart is broken and her world is quiet and she is alone.
//
It takes him a moment to realise what - who - he is seeing trotting along behind Peter and Charlotte. She’s looking around curiously, without a hint of shame - a new green world for her to investigate. She’s wearing a dirty dress with a cardigan that has too-long sleeves, her knees and feet filthy.
Just like he remembers.
He cannot believe she’s alive. He always thought she’d be better in her home, safer in that world. That Maria would look after her and do right by her. To see her here and now, the familiar warmth of her anticipation and appreciation, is more than he can truly tolerate.
“You brought…” he half-croaks, and the family is looking at him bewildered, and Peter grins at him, and it’s then Charlotte gets Mary-Alice’s attention with snapping fingers (he wants to tell Charlotte she hates that, prefers waving or clapping, but he doesn’t. It’s not important.)
His eyes meet hers, and there is something absolutely humbling at the sheer delight and joy that she feels when she sees him. That suddenly she’s in his arms, her arms tight around his waist, burying her face in his chest.
He can’t hold her tight enough, not really. He tried to justify his choice to leave her, but the guilt was still so heavy upon him. There’s a new scar by her eye, and her wrist was snapped clean off at some point. She still smells the same, like the damp woods he found her in, and salt air.
She pulls back, half bouncing in her joy of seeing him, her hands already signing.
“Maria sent me, said I could come be with you now. You went north and I was lonely. No one spoke to me like you.” They never had a sign for ‘love’; he’d mouth the words against her skin and hope she understood it on some level. And he hates that they have an audience when she grabs his hand and presses it to her lips, her mouth making the shape of his name, and there is something exquisite and undeserved about that being her way of telling him she loved him.
“What is she doing?”
Emmett’s voice breaks the moment, the reunion, and when he looks up, she looks towards his family too. He knows they are seeing her red eyes first, noting her silence.
“Mary-Alice is deaf,” Peter says, grinning at Jasper in that knowing way.
You can say you were in love with her, Major. Everyone knew it. Hell, it was obvious she felt the same way.
“Deaf?” Carlisle is staring at her in a way that makes Mary-Alice frown and tuck herself against him. Like something to be investigated.
“Sign-language!” Esme is happy then; most of the family speak at least a small amount of ASL, and Esme is quick to introduce herself to Mary-Alice.
Except…
Charlotte snorts and Peter shakes his head, and Mary-Alice just looks bewildered.
“We didn’t…” he begins, wanting to explain the hurdles of having a deaf, illiterate vampire in camp. LSM was the foundation that propped up the language she speaks, but it is purely theirs. There is no manual for decades of shorthand, for their slang and shortcuts. For words their old manual did not have, for things that humans didn’t need to translate.
“Wasn’t any American Sign Language in Monterrey in the 1920s,” Peter says pointedly. “She learned from that old book, right?”
“We made it up,” he admits as Mary-Alice signs that he looks worried, is everything okay? “Most of it.”
“Maria said that,” Charlotte admits. “That she was the only one left that knew how to talk to her, and the new generations weren’t interested in learning. Mary-Alice deserved better.”
“How do we talk to her, then?” Emmett sounds indignant, that the greatest affront is that he cannot greet Mary-Alice properly.
“I’m sure it will take her no time at all to learn ASL,” Carlisle saids encouragingly, and that makes him frown more. She doesn’t need to learn a damn thing, they can learn… but it’s unfair of him to stop her from talking with other people, to keep her to himself. It was cruel of him to abandon her the first time, with no one to talk to.
“She lips reads a little,” Peter says. “Don’t you, squirt?” She flips Peter the finger.
//
They get to finish their moment later that night, in his darkened study. She climbs into his lap, perched like a queen and comfortable to boot, to finish her spiel of how much she missed him, and how pleased she was to see him in person, to see how happy and good he looked.
His hands fall into apologies, into half-spoken excuses for not grabbing her hand. But she shakes her head and silences those words, her hands cool against his before she speaks.
“I was safe. You were not. I missed you but I am glad you went north to heal.” It’s then she plants a kiss on him, one that is in no way tentative or subtle; answering another question. That time and distance has not eaten away at what they had, at the spark and flame of all they were to each other. Of the way she tastes and the way she feels against him, and he missed her so much. Neither of them are loud (if he tries hard enough, he can make her scream, and he loves that sound. It won’t be tonight, that is for his ears only.) He doesn’t want them to be on display, for the Cullens to make assumptions and accusations (how could he have left her behind? He asks himself that regularly, and has never found an answer beyond depression being acidic, eating away at logic and reason and priorities. But to hear the accusation from another would be too much, would condemn him irreversibly.)
She hums in joy as they lie sprawled together on the couch in his office, her eyes bright and adoring, and its times like this that he knows why she has survived, why she was tolerated by Maria and protected, instead of being cast out or killed. She’s perfect, she’s enchanting. A beguiling little creature that has somehow chosen him as hers.
Even the idea of what she faced alone is enough to make him feel sick, to hold her tighter.
She curls against him, and turns his head so they can speak.
It’s okay, I’m here with you now.
It’s going to take time to realise that this is really happening.
//
When the wolf lunges at him, over the boundary, she screams his name. He’s heard her say it only once before, and she pronounces the ‘J’ more like a ‘Y’ but it’s enough to freeze the rest of the family, the sound of her voice.
She’s scrambling down the banks of the river to him, crouched opposite and slightly below the wolf, and the thing is that everyone sees the tiny deaf girl in lavender activewear running to his side when she is far, far more dangerous than anything or anyone present. She can take the head off the wolf - Paul, he thinks - before anyone has negotiated anything. Especially if she is afraid and threatened. So he grabs her and pulls her closer, to hold her down, even if it looks like him comforting a scared girl.
“Don’t move,” he signs. “They are allies, just volatile. Young.”
She frowns again, but agrees, her eyes still tracking the wolf.
Sam emerges from the forest, human again.
“Who is she?” he demands, unamused by the addition.
“An old friend of Jasper’s,” Carlisle placates. “She’s young and deaf, and joined our family for sanctuary.”
He wants to laugh and correct them. I knew her for decades and loved her more than anything on this planet. She is the sunshine, and I revolve around her willingly. My mate, my other half. She came to me because I am a coward, ashamed of leaving her behind.
//
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