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"Nine Hundred and Seventy-Five Hours" by crazyboutcute
One hundred hours. Meekel doesn’t know why he starts counting again. He hasn’t counted the days since some time into his fifth year in Darigan Citadel’s dungeons as a prisoner of a war that ended almost as soon as it began. Now that he’s free, now that he’s back home on the farm with Ma and Pa and Edie, he’s counting hours. Maybe it’s because lately, each minute feels more precarious than the last. One hundred hours. Four days. That’s how long he’s been home. It doesn’t feel real. Inexplicably, after twenty years of stasis, four days doesn’t feel sufficient to describe how long he feels he’s been free. So, one hundred hours will do. * Three hundred and thirty-six hours. He’s been home for two weeks. A fortnight. He counts the hours meticulously. Farm life is quiet, but it’s louder and busier than prison. The crowing of the Wibreths always wakes him at daybreak—a far cry from Haskol’s boisterous morning taunts but equally annoying.

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