#ooooh plotty bits!

  “Take what you need.” Elise is always tight-lipped, but there’s something drawn about the look on her face now. For the first time since Aola’s met her, she doesn’t look in control, like the entire military is spread out at her fignertips.   She looks like a hard wind will knock her down, like the empty place on her right-hand side has grown to a point where it’s devouring her. Aola slips into the room, careful to pull the door shut behind him. “I’ve got to bring it with me.”   “I know.”   “You’re just going to – let me?”   “I told you from the start, Mister Lane. I was not taking that damned thing from you because I wanted it.” Elise tugs the chain that she wears around her neck up. A simple key hangs from it. “I was simply holding it for you while we tried to square things away.”   Aola’s stomach lurches. He follows her to the desk, watches as she fools with getting the drawer unlocked and there – there- there is the damned bit of crystal that started this whole mess. It’s still jagged enough to leave a thin cut on his thumb when he runs it along the side of the shard. “You know I’m going to use this, right?”   “It’s yours,” she reiterates, but there’s a distinct note of disapproval in her voice. “If you feel like – “   “They have him.”   “I know.”   “I’m not letting them haul him back there,” says Aola, and it’s the closest to admitting I’m taking down the military from the bottom up that he’s ever been able to get.   Elise doesn’t try to argue with him. She’s too smart for that, already knows that there’s nothing she can do to change his mind. Instead , she opens up another drawer and pulls out a handgun. “Here. You’ll need this too. In fact, I could come up with quite a few arguments about how you’re going to need this more.”   Aola knows guns by now. Has shot them enough, been shown how to clean them enough. He takes the one offered, hesitancy only born through concern for the General. “Isn’t this yours?”   “I would say that much is obvious,” answers Elise, already ushering Aola back towards the door. “If you’re concerned about it being tracked back to me, that’s the entire point. Trust me when I say that I’m about to make my presence here in Cenmih very well known.”   “Making an alibi for yourself,” says Aola, and he shouldn’t be surprised but he is. The smile he gives Elise is crooked and toothy and far more confident than he really feels. “Guess I’m finally proving useful, huh?”   Elise reaches out, curling a hand around the back of Aola’s head. She’s half a foot smaller and, for a moment, brief, fleeting, she looks more like a friend than a superior; looks more like a mother than a collared hound. “You have always proven useful, Mister Lane. I wouldn’t have gone to these lengths if I didn’t think there was merit in the action.”