Corona Gale, nightly build 3.2.1

This is how she fights.

Dusted violins in the rain, their instrumentalists stomping, invincible, vesuviating, blind and immortal, sienna leather coats with hoods, the violin chinrests jutted into these hoods in a way that caused a crink in their necks, all of them with the same gait, who knows how many, a dark alley full at least, all playing the same dreamy azure note. They provide the soundtrack. They existed in the old quarter of Kate Foley’s reverie, and came out when she needed dramatic focus. Their notes played over her worrying subconscious. Each thrum on the strings played over doubt, double-speak, concerns, and nonsense thoughts that would have slowed Kate down.

These make believe instrumentalists were part of a system Kate learned a long time ago. It’s an easy enough one to remember, but difficult to implement correctly over long periods of time. The problem most people who try to use this system have is they can’t get them to appear at the right moment. The band should start playing just before the doubt. This is difficult. Anticipating your own mind’s duologue and countering it with imaginary distractions takes practice, but anyone can try. There’s no special skill required. Make up a band of some kind. Make up a setting for them. Make up a reason for them to play. Give the band a set of instruments you can’t ignore, that can be played violently, to play over the beats of your own mind. And then, don’t let them stop until after your focus has become a weapon, and after that weapon has struck.

Kate’s inner duologue was trying to tell her not to run after Ollie.