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Sleep after fights comes in little packets, not long sheets. They opened what they were given. Shifts that weren't really shifts followed: two awake, two trying to convince muscles to be citizens again. The jungle tried exactly twice more to reconsider their arrangement and was told no both times — once by Rhea's humming line of heat that sang a violin note any foot would respect, once by Fizz's hissed insult delivered with such conviction that a prowling Ridge-back actually reevaluated its choices in life, reconsidered its relationship with crosswinds, and moved to another county.
In the hour when everything thin grows honest, the east thought about being light. The ironwoods exhaled a smell like old coins and dew. Bugs resumed whatever important government they had been conducting before carnage took the floor. A bird that never sang at night cleared its throat in a way that suggested it had been considering a letter to the editor.
