The Long Work of Warmth

The armour had become a house by accident. After the fighting, she sat beneath the ash trees and waited for it to let her out. In the breastplate, something small tapped three times. A lost beetle, perhaps. She smiled and unlatched the collar. The beetle crawled into her palm, bright as a drop of night, and she carried it to the nearest leaf. Then she began the long, ordinary work of becoming warm again.