6. Polish (Patreon)

The latest hours of the night were the hours he liked best. The world got so quiet. He could settle in with a piece and let his thoughts run themselves into silence. That hour of the night was the only time when his shoulders could finally relax, when anger and guilt and frustration didn’t plague him like a cloud of gnats. This evening he was giving the shield a final polish, which was good and mindless work. He stared at his reflection as it slowly became clearer in the gleaming surface of the shield. He stared at himself and just for a heartbeat he remembered all he had left behind, just to work so hard to forget it all again the following day.