touch my mouth and hold my tongue ``OPEN

Sophia handed a file back to her clerk before strutting back into her office and shutting the door behind her. It was finally five o'clock and everyone could go home. It wasn't as if she hated those with whom she worked with, but she was just tired. She sat at her desk and rested her face in her hands for a moment, taking in the noises around her as her clerks left and shut everything up. Sophia wasn't sure how long she sat there for, but all she knew was that there was silence for quite some time before she finally stood up. She looked at her vast desk, organized better than the average person's. Only one file lay open upon it, and she ran her fingertips across the page. How honest could a lawyer truly be? What was the point in being a lawyer if everything had to be the truth? Was it truly possible that every lawyer told the truth all the time - if so, how was there conflict in the first place? Wouldn't just one person need to say what happened, and then it was over? 

She needed to shut down her mind. Sophia promised herself weeks ago that she would stop thinking about such things. It just led to trouble, and eventually her thoughts would lead to her mouth, just like all of her thoughts always did. She exited and locked up the office before getting in her car. She drove, although unsure of where she was going. She usually went home straight after work. She would eat, read, perhaps do some extra work on the side, and then go home. She usually enjoyed a glass of wine or two before bed. Sometimes she even went out for a drink, but it was seldom that anyone would join her, and if they did they would usually leave soon after. Sophia was known in Candor, and not in a particularly good way. She wondered what her life would be like if she had chosen Erudite. No one would have seen her grow up there. It would have been a blank slate. She could have started over.

Sophia saw the fence in the distance and she braked slowly. She pulled over to the side of the road. The road here wasn't very good or maintained, particularly because people didn't usually drive there. She didn't see any guards around, so she merely walked up to it and laced her fingers into it as she gazed out. Sophia didn't know what more she could want out of life. She was successful, she wasn't factionless, and she made quite a bit of money. She was looked well upon by professionals, and it was clear she was going to go places in life... and she was only eighteen. She accomplished more in her short years than some people did in their lifetime. 

A sudden noise startled her, and she took a step back, only for her heel to catch in a crack in the cement. She almost fell, but her finger was still stuck in the fence. All of her weight was pressed upon it, and she let out a cry of pain. She didn't fall down, but her finger was worse for wear because of it. She pulled her finger into her chest and held it like a newborn baby, the pain immediate and throbbing.