2018-02-04: Drown Deeply
- Log: Drown Deeply
- Cast: Josephine Lovelace, K.K.
- Where: Great Krosian Plains
- Date: February 4th 2018
- Summary: Josie receives some advice. And, perhaps, a promise.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed. <SoundTracker> Alex Roe - The Grosvenor Manor / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWUe_-QM2EM
Like most towns towards the places where Krosse borders Aveh -- and the desert -- here in Ledbury, the slow death of Filgaia can be watched in slow motion. A good fifty years back, perhaps the termination line, the blurry boundary where soil chokes and crumbles, would have not have started its advance on what passes for the town graveyard.
Towards the furthest reaches of what can be called Ledbury proper, the air is still this late in the day, a hot dry weight in spite of the season. The sun, low on the horizon, burns the sky in pinks and purples, a fact that has gone unnoticed by the sole figure in the graveyard.
There are a variety of gravemarkers. Some are more elaborate than others, some more recent, some more aged. Ledbury is but a drop in the bucket of even the history of Krosse, but even so: generations have lived and died here.
Most graves are well-tended.
This one isn't. Even with the desolation of the soil spreading, a stubborn viney weed has overgrown this gravemarker, which the only person present -- a woman, tall, white-haired -- is attempting to clear with a knife.
Frustration mars her face. Even with each vine cut free and cast aside, it seems to make no difference.
"They didn't even bother, did they..." she mutters, rocking back on her heels and dragging a hand across her forehead. "Can't believe it, huh, Penelope..."
Josie lifts her head, gazing over at the white and black bird, perched atop the more-pristine stone marking perhaps the burial site of some village elder or another.
Flowers, in a bundle and carefully bound, lie close at hand to her. An offering, perhaps, for someone buried in a place where flowers won't grow anymore.
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
There is no moisture here in this stretch of the Krosian border. Because there is no life. Every year, every month, every day... every hour, the encroach of cracking, dried death creeps upon the land of Ignas, spreading itself like a cancer that has gone untreated and forgotten for far, far too long. Years ago, decades ago, these graves might have been decorated with at least some greenery.
Now they are decorated with little more than spider-line cracksand dust... and a single visitor.
Or at least, a single visitor, as far as Josephine Lovelace is aware.
She is, by all accounts, alone as she tends to the forgotten grave, weeds sprouting from cracks as if to choke the stone itself within the relentless mercilessness that exists amongst the life that is capable of surviving in such dry and desolate lands. Like they were her rock of Sisyphus, she prunes those weeds, cutting their twining, thorny paths free in a way that seems unendingly futile. She is the only one who cares here, it seems, to keep that lone forgotten stone slab tended to amongst the rest. The only one...
"You court folly."
... but not alone.
The shadow that casts itself over Josephine Lovelace over those twilight-painted skies was not there barely even a second before her frustrated grumbling. It is a long shadow, dragging over the white-haired woman and her accompanying companion, stretching out over the weed-choked expanse of that untended, cracked stone. And the voice? Tinny, warped towards an indistinguishable point as if it were wrapped with metal. Familiar, perhaps, if only in how it noticeably denies familiarity.
And towards the edge of the dust-caked graveyard where the dead lays amongst death, they stand, the polished white of their armor like a stark and defiant contrast to the grim finality that surrounds them... as much as their mere presence seems ominous enough in their imposing stature that they seem to carry the implicit threat of that finality wherever they go.
The Trial Knight carries no visible weapons on their person. But even now, standing simply like this, it is hard to deny the uneasy feeling of a person intimately familiar with the act of violence... and how to summon it within a hair's breadth, at any time or place.
A horned helm tilts. And their gaze on Josephine is felt far more than it is seen as the Trial Knight speaks anew.
"You try to cultivate mercy when the ground itself has long since forgotten it. Why are you here, Josephine Lovelace?"
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
Another fifty years, and the desolation will reach the town. Another hundred, perhaps, and even the most desperate of hanger-ons will have left for greener pastures, as it were.
Flowers won't grow in ground like this. No softer, finer plant could hope to find purchase in the parched soil. No, the only life a place like this invites is the desperate and the fierce: strong enough to hang on and too stubborn to call it quits.
As Josie and her knife could attest. Even a plant in a place like this doesn't want to die. It resists even the blade.
"You court folly."
First, a voice.
Then, a shadow, falling with alarming alacrity and in defiance of the light still left in the day. Her grip on the knife tightens; Josephine Lovelace springs to her feet and rounds towards the source of the shade flung across the graveyard.
No one was there a moment ago. There was not even a sound of a footfall. And yet, here, here is...
Her breath catches in her throat. Dark eyes widen first, then narrow.
The knife, for all the good it would do against someone clad in plate, is directed there at the figure looming in the graveyard.
"You."
Once, she had words for this person. Once, she had threatened this person.
Her chest rises and falls, one breath chaining after the next.
No weapons. The Trial Knight has no weapons. But even Josephine Lovelace is not a mad enough dog to dare an attack.
She lowers the knife.
Particularly not on a ground like this.
"...I could ask the same of you. A little graveyard in a misbegotten town on the edge of nowhere?" She flips the knife easily enough in her hand, sheathing the blade in the belt at her waist. One eyebrow lifts. "Don't be mistaken. ...I'm not shedding blood here. Got it?"
Her throat feels tight. It feels like every nerve in her body is aflame. And yet, Josie takes a step forward, facing K.K.
What's behind that mask, a part of her thinks, fleetingly. What kind of face...
"I still remember, you know, out in Lahan. And you were there that night, too. I saw you in Jolly Roger, before everything went to hell."
She hasn't answered the Knight's question, not yet.
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
You.
It's spit like an accusation. And from how little the knight budges at the spite-flung word, nor at the knife brandished at the gleaming white of their armor...
... it is likely far from the first time they have had either accusation leveled their way.
It is remarkable how little they seem to have changed in that long stretch of space from that day in Lahan, when Josephine Lovelace threatened the knight with unmistakeable rage lacing her voice. And yet, perhaps, not so shocking. They stand tall, almost noble in their bearing, like one might expect a king to present themselves to the world: strong and unyielding, like a force of nature. It is the same stance they took in Lahan. In Port Timney. So strikingly similar it is as if no time has passed since that day.
A constant that cannot be negotiated with, nor altered.
"Even the most forgotten of towns may one day become the crux of events immense and profound," comes their words, level and warped to a neutral metallic point that makes it hard to even guess at their tone. "And even the greatest of cities shall some day crumble into irrelevance. It matters not where I am, Josephine Lovelace. There is but a singular purpose that beats ever within this chest."
What purpose that is, the knight does not see fit to say. They just look upon that knife behind a faceless gaze as it lowers, as if that, too, were expected.
Don't be mistaken. ...I'm not shedding blood here. Got it?
"Blood will be shed when it is shed. The where cannot be controlled. Were I to press upon you now, in this dying blight, how would you deter it, child?"
It almost sounds like a challenge. A question that demands answer. Those fingers clench, as if that violence might yet be nigh...
"Would you let your own blood be spilled on this ground so dear to you to avoid the spilling of another's?"
It is a question that may yet go unanswered in action today: those gauntleted fingers slowly grow lax anew, as if simply gauging Josephine's reaction through imminent threat alone. Josephine steps forward, and the knight does not even budge once from where they stand. Behind that helm, just what they might be thinking, just what they might be planning, is difficult to say. Only those momentary flickers of body language tell any tales. And even that story is one highly controlled.
"I know you," they say, simply. "You, who let her anger carry her like a weapon she had not the strength to control the swing of. Your spite was a raw thing, child." Their head tilts, slowly.
"And yet here, you cut away the rare life on this plane in order to preserve the dignity of life long gone. There is naught beneath that rock but soil and rot, child. You are merciless to be merciful.
"Why are you here?"
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
Not even a flinch. As much as the flash of fury must ride Josephine Lovelace, there's still a flicker of... impressed acknowledgement, nearly, when the knight reacts as if this is not the first time.
It's impressive, and it's unnerving. It's been a very long time since she's crossed paths with someone who acted as if the world before them were their royal court and all else was in attendance.
Maybe that's one reason why Josie inhales a short sharpedged breath through her nose, straightening out of her usual slight slouch to stand before K.K.
"Even a little no-name town like this, huh..." She shrugs, as if it's no matter.
The furious tension that's threaded her frame suggests anything but.
"Well, fair enough. Heh. These are interesting times, aren't they, if that's true..."
There, briefly. It might be missed, but there it is: the flinch that crosses Josephine Lovelace's face, followed by the hardening that takes over her expression swiftly thereafter.
Just because of one word: 'child'.
The left hand's fingers curl inwards. "If you attacked me now, then you'll have to take me at my word: I wouldn't hold back," promises Josie, squaring her shoulders as she stares back at the knight with no less than muted murder in her eyes. "I've got too much on my plate to die in a place like this. Not yet. ...So, how about you stay your hand, and I'll stay mine. Sound like a deal?" She offers it openly enough, but the eyes tell a different story:
At least a little part of Josephine wishes for a fight.
But as far as promises might run from a heart that beats like hers might: this promise of nonviolence -- for now -- is one she'll keep.
Even if it's begrudgingly so.
In contrast to the Trial Knight, Lovelace's demeanor and bearing are far more naked -- she's someone who wears her passions, such as they are, on her sleeve. What she thinks of K.K. is plain--
They're quite the study in opposites, here in the light of the dying sun.
So thus does she ask, quite plainly: "What's wrong with anger? Or spite, come to think of it. I think it'd be far worse to go through life feeling nothing." She smiles, but it's not precisely a cheery smile, not at all. "Don't tell me you've never had someone or something get on your nerves? Or that you wanted to lash out at? I think it's easier to just say what you mean, right?" The smile widens, just a touch.
Her spite is a raw thing.
"Oh, you mean the weeds?" She arches an eyebrow. "...Oh, so that's what you're saying. Heh heh... 'I should let the past be past', or something like that?" Her lips twist in a sort of grimace. "I'll pass. I'm not letting go of anything else that's mine."
Again, runs that question. Josie -- bearing herself now with all the discomfort someone might have attempting to rein in a runaway horse, stares over at the knight. "Can't you tell? Why, don't tell me -- don't you have family? Or a loved one?"
She glances over at the lonely gravemarker, vines still burying a worn name on the stone, before delivering a venemous glance towards the knight. "That's why I'm here."
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
I've got too much on my plate to die in a place like this. Not yet.
As that promise is made, the unseen stare of the Trial Knight rests upon Josephine like a heavy weight. For a long time, there is a tense silence that promises nothing but uncertainty, as if K.K. was intent to bore into the truth of Josephine Lovelace, to the core of her, just by that scrutiny alone. Fingers twitch, mildly.
"Mm," comes the first, thoughtful sound, neutral enough to say nothing, not even judge. Not suggest whether they are convinced of her words, or not.
"There is naught that I could provide as a guarantee to the safety of this place."
The words come with brutal honesty -- one might assume it were some attempt to goad, some attempt to test, if they were not spoken in such a painfully straightforward way.
"But for now, I've no intent for violence, Josephine Lovelace."
For now.
It is perhaps as close to a deal as she'll be able to get from them.
What's wrong with anger? "There is naught wrong with anger when it is being led. You carry yours like an owner being dragged upon the leash by a mutt too wild to be tamed." That horned helm tilts down, the dying sunlight gleaming off the surface of their helm as they consider the weeds that grow through the cracks beneath their feet. "You struggle in vain, even now, but the dog yet drags you at your heels, does it not?"
And here, they take a single, simple step forward. Their boot is heavy as it strikes the cracked ground, the sound of it resounds with the sensation of metal thrumming across earth. Dust kicks up. And they step, with purpose, between the sprouting of those weeds, not bringing harm to a single one.
"But it is not me you see when you direct your rage upon me. Is it, child?"
They utter that word like it comes naturally. Like it is what Josephine Lovelace -ought- to be called. Like there was no other, appropriate description.
Perhaps this, at least, is meant to goad her, if it didn't come forward without hesitation. Like a natural epithet.
But past those initial steps, past that initial thought, the Trial Knight does nothing. No -- they listen, to the strained grimace of Josephine's words. They pay attention to the discomfiture in the way she carries herself. To the venom in her glare like it was a serpent's bite she could slay the white-armored knight with, through the poison of spite alone.
Why, don't tell me -- don't you have family? Or a loved one?
"There is but one thing in this life that I love, and naught else in this plane nor any other may compare."
Their head tilts. They stare at the gravemarker, largely forgotten and untended. Abandoned, amidst the others, save for the one woman who defiantly clings to it. 'I should let the past be past,' she had said, before dismissing it outright. The very stance K.K. adopts suggests an almost frank indifference to Josephine's choice, or even whether or not they were trying to advise her. No. They simply stare at that gravemarker, for a long, silent moment.
"So you have come here to drown."
And that horned, faceless helm tilts back Josephine's way.
"These weeds here grow off the past. They flourish off the back of what came before. They struggle and live and grow strong. Yet you would instead cling to the past like it were your life raft. A desperate gesture." The question that comes next is pointed, but purposeful. As if seeking an answer.
"And when it inevitably sinks into the murky depths, will you, too, sink with it, child?"
Demanding it.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
It's an unnerving thing to be studied. Josie might be used to stares, by turns. She's had all sorts of attention thrust upon her by unwanted corners and is well-accustomed to letting it roll off her like water off a duck.
This is different. It's akin to having her very soul studied, at excruciating depth.
She bristles. Perhaps not unlike a cat.
Penelope, still watching these proceedings in silence, tilts her head and blinks, once.
If that was an attempt to goad, it's found its mark: Josephine subtly rolls her shoulders as she stares at the knight before her. Her jawline tightens. There is no place in this world that could endure forever without being marked or obliterated -- she as an archaeologist would know that. To think that this place would endure to the end of her days is probably folly's finest. And yet.
"...Fine, then. For now. That's good enough for me."
Is it?
Her stance shifts, the heel of one boot scuffing against dessicated grass and -- mostly -- dirt.
That look in her eyes. There, now. There was a truth spoken. And she's clearly not so skilled as to keep the depth of her passions private. That remark struck to the core.
"Control yourself, girl. What good are you if you can't control even the simplest of--"
The psychic echo dies out, cut short as Josie shakes her head, pale locks briefly aflutter. "'Too wild', huh...? Heh... I'd wager you'd never seen 'wild' before in your life." Her smile twists grim, tightlipped. "You should try a turn out in the wastelands sometime. I'm sure you'd see a thing or two that'd make your hair curl."
A feint, a deliberate direction away from the heart.
And yet, K.K. presses in, stepping into what may be hallowed ground for the archaeologist, above all else.
In a flash, faux-affable twists towards a sharper edge. Josie's boot similarly crunches into dried-out earth as she attempts to step into -- and intercept -- the knight's intrusion. As if to say, 'don't'.
It's a strange thing to glare at another person and meet no eyes. Nevertheless, Josie's is one that lingers.
The tension would be palpable, if there were any observer present but a lone pigeon atop a gravemarker.
It's not quite right to say that Josie relaxes. Nevertheless, the immediate passion that gripped her treads back a step and she lingers there, still staring directly at the helmeted figure before her. 'Child'. Again, it's like a bitter taste in her mouth. "...Guess it isn't you, no," she agrees, after a moment more's tense consideration. "Why, would you want it differently?"
At the very least, Josie can be honest about some things.
Sometimes.
She's been around long enough that she must know how much she's giving away by body and posture alone. Even her words are leaving her little left to hold away from the armored figure before her.
Perhaps things have reached such a pitch though that she just doesn't care, not now. As much as such caution thrown to the wind may cost her.
And yet, in the heart of such careless bitterness:
Josephine laughs, shaking her head as if at the irony of it.
"You, too? Hah..."
But any frail sympathy earned will be lost to the dry wind in mere moments.
"What did you say...?"
She draws herself up, as if in defiance of it. She draws in that one long breath, her whole self strung rigid.
"I keep what is mine," the archaeologist repeats. "That means all of it. Whether it 'drowns me' or not, and whatever you might think of it -- save your mockery of pity, or whatever you want to call it. It's mine, and I won't let it go."
That's her answer.
She will. She'll let herself drown in it.
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
Is it good enough?
Words and actions tell different tales, intersecting at points and diverging at others, like reflected perspectives of the same story. The faux-affability of Josephine Lovelace's tone tells of a woman who takes what comes like water off her back. The tension in her step as she intercedes between the knight and that precious, weed-choked grave site tells the story of someone riding upon an edge that can't be climbed back from. Desperation. Anger.
And eventually, even if for a moment, the facade of that nonchalant tale crumbles away until the two are one and the same in the faceless gaze of the Trial Knight.
She attempts to divert, attempts to distract from the main thrust of things. But like an unerring blade, K.K. seems wholly unconcerned about her feints, not even so much as paying the tight-lipped taunts even a second's heed as if there was no thing in this world that could deter them from their chosen subject. Like an unstoppable force, uncaring of all except--
Why, would you want it differently?
"It matters little upon whom your rage is truly turned. I care not, but to see the face of your anger. And you are ill-equipped to do anything of import with such impotent fury. You cannot touch me as you are, child. No more than you could affect the one upon whom you affix the lion's share of your frustration."
--all, except that one mote of honesty amidst a sea of diversions.
Fingers wrapped in clawed, white metal spasm mildly, a series of soft, subtle twitches against the open air as Josephine laughs and finds a brief cord of sympathy to be struck. Their head cants, as if to look at the white-haired archaeologist from a new angle, but otherwise they simply hold fast -- standing there, stalwart and unshifting, yet looking ready to go through Josephine at any moment to simply stride to that gravemarker and do... what, exactly? Destroy it? Glean to whom it might be dedicated? Use it as a pedestal upon which to further mock Josephine? ...
In the end, whatever the possibilities of their intent, it goes unanswered. As Josephine repeats her stubborn defiance, declares her unspoken intent to drown with the past if it means that she may keep hold of it, the Trial Knight... steps backwards.
And with the sharp pivot of their heel, they turn their back to Josie, breaking the line of sight of her glare as if she were not even so much as worth a direct address.
"So be it."
And then they walk, the footfalls heavy enough to kick up sand as they approach not Josephine's precious gravemarker -- but the one upon with Penelope perches. For all they bear such an intimidating presence though, for all the way they stretch their hand out like it was an inevitable grasp of death that cannot be avoided --
-- there is no malice or violent intent in them at all that can be sensed in by that curious pigeon as the knight stretches out a single finger... to attempt to smooth it calmly, gently across the white and black down of Penelope's feathers.
"Obsession is a sea unending in its drink. You shall drown deeply still, within the lightless cold of a past that cares not for your future." Again, that tinny voice comes more like a pronouncement -- like an unerring prediction of Josephine's future.
"And what, then, shall you do for the memory of the one who rests within that grave? What shall you have accomplished?
"Little else than to become fresher fodder for the weeds."
Their horned helm tilts. Their faceless, eyeless gaze affixes anew onto Josephine. And then they begin to move once more. Away from Penelope. Away from Josephine. Away from that precious grave.
"So shall it be. This nation is becoming ever-mired within its own fears and obsessions. All shall suffer in parts equal if it does not abate. And should you stubbornly insist upon clinging festering stagnant within the cage of your past when my work here is accomplished...
"I shall tear it, and all that you yet cling to, down around your ears."
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"'Can't touch you as I am', huh?"
By words alone, she might sound playful.
Her expression, however, tells another tale. Her gaze hoods, her lips press into a thin smile, the sort that's not at all a smile.
"Is that just your impression, or do you have something to back that up? You know, out in the wastes, that kind of statement's fighting words..." Non-chalant, at least as far as tone. If someone had only just arrived -- aside from the incongruity of the participants in this conversation -- they might even take Josie's comment as a friendly warning.
At least, until they saw the look in her eyes.
If a look alone could slay, this would be the killing stroke.
But a glance is toothless by itself. Josie can deliver a murderous gaze all she pleases but it will not change the fact that...
...that...
Her left hand, hanging at her side, clenches in a fist. 'The one she cannot affect'...
Her expression grows ever more stoney and in the end it's only that brief, brief recognition of what they just might share that mutes the look she bears. But she doesn't wave from her stance atop the grave, apparently intent to stand there as a sentinel against whatever the knight might bring to bear against it.
Whatever their intent might be.
And K.K. turns their attention away from it, leaving Josie briefly bemused by the knight's intentions.
The armored hand lifts for Penelope, still perched atop a grave.
And it's this action that prompts Josie to step forward off the grave, slipping a previously concealed sidearm free from its holster at her hip. Though it's not lifted -- in a rare display of good etiquette, Josie keeps it aimed towards the earth alone -- the intent is likely clear. "Don't you touch her--" she barks out.
Penelope flees not. K.K. bears no ill intent as they reach for the bird. As incongruous a sight as any it is before Josie, as she watches the knight do little else except carefully stroke the pigeon's feathers.
Penelope settles on the gravestone, closing her eyes briefly as if enjoying the attention in some obscure avian fashion.
Degree by degree, Josie's stance -- not eases, precisely, but becomes less actively hostile. "...I don't know what you're trying to do, but..."
Obsession is a thirsty sea.
Josie shakes her head. "Then let it drink."
Hers is an intent unyielding, even as the Trial Knight lays plain what lies in store for her should she continue to pursue this path.
"I'll have accomplished what I set out to do. That's all I need."
It's the one thing that spurs her onwards into the unknown lands of her future. What she swore she'd do. What she intends to do.
By any means, should what she desires be placed into her hands.
Her mouth tilts into a smile, but there's no warmth there. "When I'm done, the weeds can have whatever they want. But not until then."
There she stands atop the grave, as defiant as ever she continues to cleave to her obsessions.
K.K. turns their gaze away. Walks a pace away from the gravestones, away from the both of them.
Krosse...
Even in Marze, people had been strangely acting. She's been away for so long, true enough, but...
Hair on the back of her neck stands on end.
Before those words -- those last few words -- see her fit to step away from the marker she's been so determined in guarding and off towards the knight, pulling up perhaps all of about ten feet from them at most.
"You will?" She huffs out a breath, or is that a laugh?
"I'd like to see you try. You won't take anything from me."
A boast or a threat?
Pointedly, she holsters the ARM, longcoat caught in the dry breeze that sweeps through the dust of the cemetary.
"I'm not stopping, least of all not for you."
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
"Should you deign strike in this place so hallowed to you, you shall see the answer with your own eyes."
A study in contrasts, they are, in that moment. Josephine Lovelace, speaking playful words of warning while holding the sharpened edge of a killer in her gaze. A mask of words that her expression and body language belie. And K.K., their entire figure covered from head to toe in an armor that makes those thoughts and feelings an utter mystery, cuts to the heart of things with words that are, if not pleasant, than at least unerringly forthright.
Like an inverted mirror.
They do not move to attack, even as Josephine makes those threatening words. They do not even seem to tense, or prepare themself for violence. Yet the sensation that they could bring war to this place at any moment never ceases, like they were a roving eye of the storm that could simply collapse at any moment.
And yet... it never manifests. Not even when that sidearm slips free. Not even when the white-haired Drifter points barrel towards earth with the threat of violence. As if nothing but the act, the commitment to violence alone, could make them move towards that. The ball, ever in Josephine's court.
And in the end, whether it is a test of her limits of tolerance, or simply the fact that they wanted to, all that ever comes of it is the careful press of that finger, and a single, pleased pigeon.
...I don't know what you're trying to do, but...
"You shall."
And those two words hold more depth of ominous promise than any of their actions ever could.
They turn, then, their path taking them on a singular track from Josephine and her avian partner, only pausing when the woman makes known her intentions. That she will accomplish what she needs to, no matter what. And after that...
"..."
Hand clasped to hand behind them, their left index finger twitches mildly against the back of their right hand, the sound of metal scraping metal faint in the stale, sun-soaked evening air.
And for a moment, one that feels stretched into infinity, they just tilt their head back to look over their shoulder. So that the weight of their unseen stare can take Josephine in. That unrelenting way she carries herself. That deadened stare. The grave she defends so rabidly.
I'm not stopping, least of all not for you.
"... All things stop in time, Josephine Lovelace."
A shimmer clings to armor, not borne from any source of light but the Trial Knight themself.
"All things needs must end. Most often ere they have accomplished anything of note. To simply be buried with the ghosts that so haunt them. You are a tale oft told, child."
Motes of light rise from them like fireflies of ebbing white, almost tranquil were it not for their words. Were it not for the simple unknown of what they might do, what that light might bring.
"And that end shall come for you, sooner than you may well think it."
And as the light reaches a fever pitch...
... it enfolds around the Trial Knight in a radiant flash, whisking them away.
"'Tis but a question of how much more life you shall yet tear away as you cling upon your rot, before that end comes."
Leaving nothing but the cold promise of their words behind.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed. <SoundTracker> Darren Korb - The Sole Regret / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKf5Cc2EGv0
No true threat ever levels itself towards Penelope. This is one factor in things playing out as they do.
Truth be told, it's that same stillness that K.K. possess in spades that -- as much as she may veer towards acting before thinking, as much as she makes many of her decisions on the flip of a coin, as hostile as she so clearly is in this second -- forms a part of the calculus for why she does no more than draw.
Survival instincts are a necessity in the wastes, and though Josie may be a woman who -- while dedicated -- flits with apparently random design through life, she does understand when to hold and when to fold.
Even if this weren't a place so observedly sacred to her and a place she so declaredly doesn't wish to shed blood, the abject presence redolent through the graveyard might well have been enough to make her reconsider plots of violence.
...At least, for the present time.
Some people are a force of nature unto themselves, it seems.
Penelope, perched atop the gravestone, cracks open one dark eye as her new-found friend departs. Is this what passes for pigeon disappointment?
No matter.
Josie stares back at the armor-clad knight, fingers of her left hand twitching but once, the ghost of a impulse towards an angrily clenched fist. She takes a breath.
And otherwise, she stares at the Trial Knight, still resolute in this declaration above all else.
"Yeah. They do. Everything turns to dust someday, right." An archaeologist would know it best of all. "But I'm only stopping when I'm done, and not a moment sooner."
She lifts that hand, gestures outwards as if to all the graves and the dead that here sleep.
"Someday I'll be dust. As will you, too. We can join the rest of the dead here, you and I."
An odd light shimmers, like the phantasmic glow sometimes spotted in the depths of a bog.
Or the transient glow of a firefly on a summer's night: here then gone.
Josie takes a step forward, at once uncertain of what is happening and at the same time resistant to fact of its happening. "Then let it. I'll leave it a scar before I go."
Perhaps it's reflex that sees her hand drop to her side as if reaching for the ARM holstered there. The way she rolls back on her heels as if preparing for a flight for cover.
But what becomes of the Trial Knight is only their own disappearance, save for a few parting words.
Silence looms heavy over the graveyard in the wake of it.
Josie stares still into the space where the Trial Knight most recently occupied. Her expression...
Pensive, nearly? Troubled? Furious?
All of these things, woven into some chaotic emotional tapestry?
The click of a lighter breaks the silence. Settling down atop another person's plot, Josie leans against the stone as if it were a tree gracing a hilltop and lights a cigarette.
"...Bastard," she murmurs to no one, the word said just for the sake of saying it, before she takes a drag.
And for a little time after, there is silence again.