_Music was her solace. Apart from the bottle and the lit up stick of tobacco, both habits she'd prefer to kick but begrudgingly tolerated, all she had was the piano. Whenever she wasn't working herself to the bone, drinking, or sleeping, she was playing. Practicing. Writing her own music. It's what kept her grounded. As tough and determined as Rhiannon was, there was only so much blood-spatter one person could take._

_Luckily for her, she had significant time off from her work - well, most would consider it lucky. The life of a soldier was a hard one, and though many troopers would consider a few months on disability to be a blessing, Rhiannon - propping her broken leg up on a stool - thought it a nightmare. It was some corrupted injury that healing didn't seem to help all that much. She just had to wait it out the old-fashioned way. Dammit._

_She wanted to get back into the field, or at least get back to exercising. In her room in the barracks (afforded to her since she'd been there since childhood and was already a Sergeant), her punching bag she'd hefted in there herself loomed. How she wanted to drop into her stance and start beating the hell out of it. But she couldn't. She looked down at her left leg again. That damned thing wouldn't let her._

_With a grunt of effort, she hauled her body towards the dias that held a simple piano, something she saved up her meager salary to buy and get shoved into her room. She closed her eyes as she sat at the instrument, recalling a dream she had that she wanted to write about. It was frightening, hopeful, twisted, colorful, and bleak, all at the same time. She experienced being attacked, and in her dreams she couldn't fight back. Bleeding out, then rescued by a mysterious girl. They fell for one another, and her wounds healed, and she felt as though she could fly. Through her dreams, she was able to see a bright world... as though that would ever happen. But the array of emotions she went through her dream, dying and resurrecting with the help of some unfamiliar short girl assisting her inspired her._

"...hush now, don't you cry... wipe away the teardrop from your eye..." _She played a somewhat repetitive, soft, and slow melody as she played along through the song that she'd written out. Scraps of paper from failed and completed songs alike dotted her room, and two particularly ragged sheets of paper stood at the dais. Not only did this remind her of her dreams, but it reminded her of... something. A lullaby, perhaps? Something from her past, too far back to recall._ "Your dream is over... or has it just begun?..."

_She kept along the tune, hitting a particularly pleasant beat she liked as the song took flight in earnest._ "There's a place I like to hide... a doorway that I run through in the night..." _Her voice was as soft and lilting as the piano she played. Pleasant to the ear if anyone happened to listen in, but she would probably die of embarrassment if that were to happen. It was already miraculous that she hauled this clunking thing in here without being noticed._

"I will be watchin' over you... I am gonna help you see it through... I'm smiling next to you in silent lucidity." _The song sounded nice to her. It captured the dreamlike state she was going for... but she couldn't help but feel like this was all somehow familiar to her. Softly, she breathed... and began to play again..._

_...as she stared into her whiskey glass, as she often did when remembering her checkered past, Rhiannon took a small sip. Not the gratuitous gulp she usually indulged. She placed it on top of the finely-made piano that Summer had in the bar. It was rarely touched. To her knowledge, she was the only one who ever played it - while it drew attention of others to play it, whenever anyone approached, there would be no one playing. She took great pains to make sure none of her compatriots could watch her play. No one ever seemed to know who was playing such soft, ethereal, almost mournful songs, and certainly didn't expect it to be rough and tumble Rhiannon. That was how she wanted it to be, anyway._

_She glanced at her left leg. Long since healed. She glanced inwardly, at her heart. Long since shattered._