Lucy wants a bedtime story

>Plasma laser blasts fly through the air
>Giant evil bug dragon alien monsters tear through hundreds after thousands of soldiers
>Sergeant Lincoln, however, knew better than to give even an inch.
>His men's lives were on the line, and he had a family to get back to.
>So he primed a pair of hyperplasma torsion grenades, and-
>"Lincoln."
>The sheer deadpan of the voice caused Lincoln to nearly launch himself into the ceiling.
>"Sheesh! Lucy, I'm trying to draw here!"
>Lucy merely stood over the toppled chair that contained Lincoln, her eyes invisible beneath her thick bangs.
>"Read me my bedtime story. I can't sleep."
>"Can't you ask Lynn?"
>"Dad said you're on reading duties after last time."
>The family only just paid off the contractor's bill from the last time someone other than Lincoln did the bedtime stories.
>Lincoln sighed in defeat.
>Lucy was right.
>"Do you at least have your book?"
>A perilous thud on the floor next to him told him everything.
>"We left off on chapter seventy-five. We have sixty-three more to go."
>Lincoln climbed into bed, and a warm black shape snuggled in next to him.
>"I wanna sleep here tonight."
>"Sure, whatever."
>Lincoln breathed in, smelling the exhausted and famine-prone soil of House De Chauncellan.
>"Oh, but what horrors you have already wrought, my love!"
>"Truly, truly you have yet to feel even the smallest atom of my ability."
>"Why must you be so cruel to me?"
>Because you are what I love most."
>Lincoln didn't understand what Lucy saw in it.
>A snore of contentment came from the mop of hair next to him.
>Lucy was out like a delivery boy.
>Unbeknownst to Lincoln, Lucy thoroughly despised the book.
>But any excuse to snuggle up to someone for a good night's sleep was a good one.