Changeling-inspired fictionette

Just a little piece I felt like writing when I first started reading Changeling: The Lost.  I feel like this gives a sense of some of what this game can be.

I only have room enough in here to open one eye. There's not much to see, because there's really no light anyway. It's dusty and cramped, full of hard splintery wood and crumbly plaster. You wouldn't like it, but it's about the only place I can sleep anymore. I found a mouse skeleton over there yesterday.

My name is Hester and I sleep inside walls. I like the older walls in the B-Wing best, the stuff that was put up forty years ago. They still have the old cellulose insulation in some places, and they're sturdier than the synthetic ones in the Goldsmith Wing. I started sleeping inside the walls here about a month ago; before that I curled up wherever I didn't think any of the staff would find me. Sometimes in supply closets, sometimes in the archive, and sometimes right there in the stacks. The staff never saw me.

Still, I crawled inside the wall after the fifth morning that I woke up crying again. I couldn't stop. I don't know why I was crying, I can't remember any dreams. But I felt so awful and sad, so I just went over to a crack by the baseboard and just sort of wiggled my way in.

It's not so bad. I feel safe in here, and I haven't woken up crying in a while. I've started bringing in some of the old books too. I have a pile of some of my favorites (The Well-Tempered Clavichord, books two, three, five, and seven of The Waverly Novels, and a 1914 Sears-Roebuck catalog) keeping my mouse company now. I can't really read my books in here because it's dark, but it's easier to keep them safe.

I think Bastion would be disappointed if he saw me like this, but he wouldn't really get it either. Ever since he returned from Foolspoint, it's like he's a different person. Not that I think he was Taken and replaced (again), but... I don't know, when he listens to me, he doesn't really hear me anymore. I haven't seen that much of him in the past couple of weeks. Terrible Claire told me that Bastion has been very busy with his duties to the Scarecrow Ministry. I guess they're in negotiation with some goblin out in the Hedge who claims he's got a bottle of Bastion's memories for sale.

A better friend would be happy, I guess, but if those really are Bastion's memories and he really manages to get them back, all it's going to do is put more distance between me and him. I miss him.

I think I'm going to go out tonight. Terrible Claire said that there's going to be some kind of gathering down at the Bend tonight, for the equinox. I don't really like the Bend most of the time, but Bastion will probably be there and I should talk to him before he forgets me entirely. There's going to be a really lovely moon out tonight, and Terrible Claire thinks that Sister might show up to tell us a story. If she does, I'm going to write it down, because it'd be a shame to lose Sister's stories. I wonder if she'd meet me to start recording them?

Nobody's seen Tim for a while. Mr. Abraham says he heard Tim found his family. I hope that's true.

I should go get cleaned up if I'm going out tonight.