2021-05-16: (Un)deserving Of Redemption
- Log: (Un)deserving Of Redemption
- Cast: Ruth Pauling, Ines Colina
- Where: Zoara Badlands
- Date: May 16, 2021
- Summary: A Geohound sometimes does dirty work the Adventurers' Guild will not entertain, and it is rarely entertaining when that's the only work available. A highly skilled one from the Ignas region is being paid way too little to take down one of the most blood-stained names of the Celesti Civil War... and the target's history is not the only thing monstrous about them, now. At what point is someone beyond forgiveness and mercy?
==============================<* Zoara Badlands *>============================== Most of Zoara's interior is a vast expanse of desolate earth. A handful of areas receive just enough rainfall to allow the growth of foliage, but by and large, this place is almost as inhospitable as the wastes of Ignas. Ghost towns dot these dusty plains--many of them are settlements that dried up and died during the Celesti Civil War. Most of the remaining settlements have forfeited their sovereignty to Guild Galad in exchange for their continued survival. Rail travel is the easiest way to cross the Badlands. Guild Galad's military maintains a tight grip on most of Zoara's rail routes, ensuring that transit is reasonably safe, if extensively-policed. Outside of the rail network, travelers band together in caravans to keep themselves safe. Centuries of war have scarred this land, and attacks from bandits -- or worse -- are an unfortunate fact of life. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeL32o-P6Yw
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
SOME TIME AGO
An aging man had to process some things he heard down the rumor mill. One of the very, very few known survivors of Siddim, his life after surviving that took a turn for the worst - he's known now as one a corporate thug among corporate thugs... and the very sight of seeing animals from Siddim try to attack Port Rosalia was enough to bring back unpleasant memories.
Then he heard... that a certain someone was still alive. A handful of people in Halim reported hearing 'the four knocks on Death's Door.' From there, he knew what he had to do.
He tied a letter on a tree somewhere near the roads of Port Rosalia: 'I want Death's Door to haunt Zoara no longer.' He's put together a vague description of them from what he could pick up from Halim witnesses - an elf woman, dull copper hair, clothes far too big, and... a distinctive sniper rifle.
NOW
Said elf is making herself stew in the ruins of a ghost town - one that has been recently cleaned of its Earthbound Dead, until another roving band of them inevitably start haunting it. It's not long before sundown, and there is a lantern that both better highlights her person but also casts a dramatically large shadow behind her. She is that Death's Door - one of the elite soldiers of the Aquvy Union during the Celesti Civil War. Hers was a reign of terror, by all accounts.
If even a quarter of those accounts are true - or an eighth! - this is not a person Filgaia will miss much.
<Pose Tracker> Ines Colina has posed.
SOME TIME AGO
Jobs taken from the branch of a tree aren't always dirty work, but the people who took them didn't always have the option to be picky. She opens the note, and takes the time to read. "...Death's Door, huh." She sighs, and places the letter into a pocket inside her vest. She whistles, and a massive black horse walks up next to her. The beast woman places a hand on his neck. "Let's go Furacao. We've got work to do."
NOW
It would be impossible not to hear the heavy hoofs of Furacao riding into town, so Ines stops outside and dismounts, walking slowly into town. This is where the rumours led. This is where the trails led. And the smoke of the fire seemed to confirm it- no one living was supposed to be here. She walked slowly and calmly towards her target, thinking about how she was going to handle it.
She decides loud.
"Lash out and slice! Scything Wind Kick!""
She swings back her leg and delivers a roundhouse, sending a slicing blade of wind at Ruth, and anything in her path. Then Ines stands, tipping her hat slightly with one finger. "Sorry lady. Locals have decided you've got to go. That's business." The Geohound readies herself to fight, watching to see how Ruth reacts.
There's always the chance syhe's got the wrong woman.
GS: Ines Colina has attacked Ruth Pauling with Scything Wind Kick! GS: Ines Colina has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ines Colina has completed her action. GS: Ruth Pauling takes a glancing hit from Ines Colina's Scything Wind Kick for 41 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
The Drifter community and its close acquaintances have all seen their fair share of fantastical threats. Something like this should be much closer to home, as Filgaia has no shortage of people who have been nothing less than awful to one another. Its resources dwindle day by day as the deserts overtake the surface (or, in the stand-out case of Slayheim, up and turning the entire land to salt).
'Death's Door' isn't so much to look at now. Her reflexes upon Ines' approach seem dulled or ignorant. She might be an easy enough mark, to clean up a loose thread of the Celesti Civil War and make... far too little money for something that might make it as a historical footnote.
The elf looks up as Ines shouts loud, left hand going for her revolver with a brief hiss of pain. Her idea of what to do once she knows she's in danger is sound - getting up and running (...as well as anyone can with a skirt that long and a sniper rifle on their back).
She gets behind cover in the nick of time. The slicing blade of wind itself is not stopped, scything through said cover and pelting her with some of its debris in an injurious capacity of quantity and velocity.
She takes in a breath with a bowed head as she gathers herself, because one of them pelted her in her left shoulder.
"It'd be the same anywhere, wouldn't it," she murmurs at a volume that sounds more like talking to herself rather than Ines. Inhale... not quite exhale? Inhale again. The pot's contents are spilled everywhere.
"It would seem fitting, wouldn't it," she gathers herself as well as anyone like her can, "one of the most famous names among Geohounds." That is what Ines is, after all. Nearly a decade and a half in the field, with an impeccable track record and unwavering principles for a career that often asks the worst of the worst of jobs the Adventurers' Guild wouldn't accept.
She gauges Ines' reactions and movements, but they all come to the same outcome - popping out from the side of cover and firing off a revolver round for one of her arms. She's a bit slower on the draw than a famed markswoman might boast in a field that demands speed and precision in equal measure...
But she got good (...bad?) enough to leave so many blood stains on the sands of Zoara's recent history for a reason.
GS: Ruth Pauling has attacked Ines Colina with Fleeting Mercy!
GS: Ruth Pauling assumes the Stoic stance!
GS: Ruth Pauling has completed her action.
GS: Ines Colina guards a hit from Ruth Pauling's Fleeting Mercy for 54 hit points!
GS: Cripple applied to Ines Colina!
<Pose Tracker> Ines Colina has posed.
<poem>
As the elf runs for cover, Ines charges after her. A risky move, especially as she's armed with, well, ARMS. She may be slower than expected but Ines can't risk underestimating her, especially if she's the murderous legend they think she is.
As a bullet comes her way, and she shifts, the bullet slams into her arm with surprisingly little effect. The patch of stone on her arm might be the giveaway there. Doesn't stop it hurting like hell and limits the use of her arm somewhat.
"Now that's a first." Ines comments, as she tries to close further. "Can't say any of my marks have recognized me. And Aquvy isn't really my turf."She reaches down for the whip on her belt. "I'd make some excuse, but this is business."
And with that, she lashes out with the whip, trying to swing AROUND the cover Ruth is using, the tip of the whip becoming ice cold, shards of ice to dig into flesh. It's a gamble, but it's worth a shot and might drive her out of cover.
GS: Ines Colina has attacked Ruth Pauling with Freezing Whip! GS: Ines Colina has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ines Colina has completed her action. GS: Ruth Pauling critically guards Ines Colina's Freezing Whip for 23 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ruth Pauling gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Ruth Pauling activates Power Burst!
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
"...I've been to Ignas." That's as far as Ruth gets to explain, because Ines is a professional and she's making good on her convictions. This is business. This is what she does. As Ruth draws back into cover, her right hand goes over her heart, head bowed to look at the Granasian rosary wrapped around her arm.
She misses the sound cues of Ines drawing her whip, her thought processes (such as they are) broken as it coils around cover and snaps at her upper right back. She flinches at catching some movement, and her upper right arm catches most of it. She appears to have either too many layers of clothing on, or there's just enough distance between 'the cloth' and 'the flesh' that the icy shards just don't stab deep enough. There's no feeling of shock from the immense chill in the one place where a shard of ice does find flesh, somewhere within the exposed forearm.
She's forced out of cover as Ines intends, her right hand drawing a Crest Graph as she murmurs the incantation for its resultant spell - a rushing wave of rainwater creating a pooling current trying to push her back.
It drenches Ruth somewhat, too, dulling the colors of her clothing to look less like an overcast day and more like a muddy, rainy one.
"I could feel the fear in the air, from the last 'locals' I spoke with," she says, without looking Ines in the eye - like she can't. She really should be cutting her hair short, but she's let it grown out and now it's all over her face. "Were they afraid because of me...?" A sad laugh, in all of that. "It's," could she be digging for excuses? She tries to back away, to put some more distance between herself and Ines after that spellcast. So far, she's not living up to her reputation...
she also hasn't drawn the rifle on her back. Could she? Her posture is noticeably slouchy. There's a weakness in her left shoulder that a trained eye can pick out. Can she even wield it any more? Why even carry it if it's useless, now.
GS: Ruth Pauling has attacked Ines Colina with Deluge! GS: Ruth Pauling has completed her action. GS: Ines Colina fully evades Ruth Pauling's Deluge for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ines Colina gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Riposte applied to Ruth Pauling!
<Pose Tracker> Ines Colina has posed.
The whip doesn't connect as well as she'd hope, and Ines has to quickly retrieve it as Ruth ducks out of cover. With a deft movement, her whip is holstered again and she's moving carefully. "Huh," is all she can say to Ruth's comment.
The current of water comes for Ines, and she moves through it like, well, a shark. She surges forward through it like it was nothing. And it's pretty clear, she's charging for Ruth.
"Can't say. You seem to have a reputation. Could be fear, could be revenge, the note didn't say and it's not my business to know. You get how geohounds work." She's purposefully dispassionate, when anger has been her go to emotion of late. Anger, sadness and exhaustion.
And then suddenly she shoulder charges the elf, the so-called Death's Door with... a blitzball move?
It comes with a bonus wave of exhaustion, though.
GS: Ines Colina has attacked Ruth Pauling with Wither Tackle! GS: Ines Colina has completed her action. GS: Ruth Pauling guards a hit from Ines Colina's Wither Tackle for 42 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ruth Pauling gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Weaken applied to Ruth Pauling! GS: Charge!! You gain 35 FP! GS: Ruth Pauling activates Power Burst and Sufferer!
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
'You seem to have a reputation' earns a laugh. It's not a happy one! It just is, and... there's no stopping Ines, with her momentum and comfort with navigating bodies of water. That laugh finds itself muffled as the giant Beastfolk throws her weight against a much smaller elf. It might be a bitter thing to think about - elves are treated as minor blessings at birth, beastfolk... not so much. The sorts of things she must have done to be a marked woman as so must not be... worth laughing about.
There is, in that impact, some resistance. It might be too charitable to call it 'some,' because the mass difference between them is too great - but there is, as the elf finds themselves sliding back on their heels down to a kneel.
They fall to a kneel, right hand touching the ground. The air feels heavy with some kind of emotion, for Ines' distance from what drove her. "All too well." She should sound like she's out of breath after being rammed into like that. "When there's no one else to turn to. Where it... doesn't matter, any more, who's there for it." Emotions of guilt. Shame. Despair.
Emotions that take a more physical form, as an inky darkness exudes from the elf's form. Raindrops start to fall from a... clear early evening sky? That can't be right.
It isn't, because those rain droplets are Malevolence.
"The kind of person who ends up being there for your worst," she speaks as her rosary tightens audibly around a forearm whose color is going grayer. Whose dull copper hair seems to have a patina applied as it gradually turns moss green. Whose form seems to be swelling (confirmed by the loss of unseen tied bindings that make clothes too big... still too big but at least wearable), "who cares that they need someone. Anyone."
The rain intensifies, each raindrop like an emotional weight. Like the heavens themselves were, at last, just letting it all out.
GS: Ruth Pauling has attacked Ines Colina with Inconsolable Heavens! GS: Ruth Pauling enters a Counter stance! GS: Ruth Pauling has completed her action. GS: Ines Colina guards a hit from Ruth Pauling's Inconsolable Heavens for 88 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ines Colina gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Cover applied to Ruth Pauling!
<Pose Tracker> Ines Colina has posed.
For whatever it's worth, Ines isn't thinking about that. Maybe she did something horrible, maybe she just was wrong place, wrong time. It's not her job to care about morals.
She's been sticking around people who have... stronger feelings on that front.
But she can feel the rain start to drop. "The hell?" And then she sees it. Her eyes harden. "...You're one of those, then." She grimaces, stepping back a bit, working out what option to take.
Ines barks out a cold laugh. "I think you're overselling us," she says, straightening up. "We're just greedy, desperate bastards who'll take any job, no matter how dirty."
God, it would be helpful if Ida was here. Or even Lanval. The malevolence rain falls, and Ines brings her arms up to protect herself, burning on her grey flesh, overwhelming emotional weight hitting her. She grimaces as Ruth starts to grow. Guilt. Shame. Despair.
Memories of Saint Centour flow into her mind. Her failure. The monsters that her family became. That everyone she grew up became. The weight is crushing. Her eyes tear up.
"...You're doing this?" She asks, but she doesn't wait for an answer. "Time to wrap this up."
"Piercing blade of gleaming steel, drive through our foe! Hullbreaker Knuckle!
The knuckles on her right hand harden to steel and grow sharp, extending out into one long sharp, pointed blade. She charges forward, aiming for center of mass in Ruth's shifting form. Finish it before she gets bigger, Ines thinks. It all goes into the strike.
GS: Ines Colina spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Ines Colina has attacked Ruth Pauling with Hullbreaker Knuckle! GS: Cripple expired! GS: Ines Colina has completed her action. GS: Ruth Pauling has activated a Force Action! GS: You have activated the Force Action Guard! GS: Ruth Pauling critically guards Ines Colina's Hullbreaker Knuckle for 57 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ruth Pauling gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Ruth Pauling activates Guard bonus, Power Burst, and Sufferer!
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Ines has the right of it, as far as recent history goes - where there's Malevolence, there are eventually Hellions. Filgaia was nearly devastated a few times over already by powerful Hellions emerging from the discord within the hearts of those struggling in a dying world. This... is no small amount of it.
The Hullbreaker Knuckle is more than warranted, moving to strike center of mass as Ines attempts to put a stop to this before the Malevolence starts to take its host along for the ride. As she draws closer, she can see more shapes forming. Four horns coming out her scalp. A lengthy tail snaking along. Boots that will need replacing. Hands that... still look normal, kind of?
A singular, demonic wing emerging out the back, curving inwards to meet the blow. (A second does not appear.) It seems to pierce through the membrane, but it's like trying to drive a spike through bedrock. Like stone. Underneath, the emerging Hellion's body language is a lot calmer than most dramatic transformations of this ilk.
"I'm doing this," she responds in a younger, paradoxically more hopeful voice despite literally radiating spiritual despair. Purple... blood? Dribbles on the knuckles. (Blood usually doesn't turn purple.) She swings that wing outward, trying to push Ines back as her counter-offensive. Her head's bowed, aside from staring at the rosary around her right arm.
"All I have to offer is pain and misery," there's a smile on her face, revealing a fanged maw, "but I care that others are suffering." She raises her face, and from under the mossy long green hair is a glow of purple in her eyes.
She has to crane her neck up because Ines is still taller than she is by a handful of inches, but they are nothing short of predatory when they lock to the ones filled with tears in Ines' eyes as her tail coils around the rifle to her back and draws it clean, revealing an also Malevolence-fueled transformation that lengthens and enlarges it. Its bayonet, practically a twisted take on a naginata, as it settles into her hands.
"I'm sorry," she flicks a serpentine tongue between her lips, "but I can't make amends by ceasing to be."
GS: Ruth Pauling enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Ruth Pauling has attacked Ines Colina with Hide Our Faces! GS: Ruth Pauling enters the Stoic stance! GS: Weaken expired! GS: Ruth Pauling has completed her action. GS: Ines Colina guards a hit from Ruth Pauling's Hide Our Faces for 61 hit points! GS: Cover applied to Ruth Pauling!
<Pose Tracker> Ines Colina has posed.
This is not what Ines had signed up for. As the elf transforms into a demon, Ines' whole body tenses. The magics on her knuckles ends, but she is still pushed back from the hellion, taking the opportunity to make some distance. A mistake, she reflects, as the tail brings round that sniper rifle. The bayonet is a concern as well. This whole situation is risky.
The fact that her big anti-gear spell did very little to her doesn't help. This is a problem... She looks around. trying to see what in the ghost town she can use in this fight. There's not a lot.
"Tsk. You carry a rosary like that, but you're inflicting this shit on people?" Ines' expression grows dark. "What the hell, sounds about right for Granas." Bitterness is heavy in her voice. That trip down memory lane was unwelcome. "But this sure doesn't look like repenting to me. Might be better to rot in the ground and stop bringing up harsh memories."
Ines crosses her arm in front of her face, tattoos facing outward. They glow green. "Armour of rock, gauntlets of iron, grant me the might to face my foes! Stone Skin, Iron Fist!"
Her skin hardens, turning clearly stony and chips of earth dropping off her. Her fists, however, are purely metallic, hard iron. She turns her face to look at Ruth.
"Not everyone deserves redemption, lady. Might want to accept that."
GS: Ines Colina has attacked Ines Colina with Stone Skin Iron Fist! GS: Ines Colina has completed her action. GS: Ines Colina accepts Ines Colina's Stone Skin Iron Fist for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper and Shield applied to Ines Colina!
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
'You carry a rosary like that, but you're inflicting this shit on people?' Ines calls out the hypocrisy, and it is a blatant one - a woman of Granas, having done... what they did. Being what they are. Yet, her gaze is unwavering, bearing upon the larger geohound and that smile is not fading.
"There was a heartless monster who was told such was the way the likes of them best serve the Light," the memory itself is not a sweet one, going by the wavering tone of voice - but her motions have not betrayed the idea of wielding that rifle, or pushing against Ines' growing discomfort and disgust with what they just stepped into, "after all that's happened... I wouldn't dare set foot in His house."
Her left arm holds the rifle as the tail coils around it, freeing her right arm from holding it steady as-- no, she yanks the tail right off the barrel and takes the rifle properly in both hands, overly long tail snaking about and starting to go for where she has holstered the revolver as if it were tantalizing.
She's distended into something like this, with a build presumably monstrously strong under her overcoat (it's still too big).
"You're right," she says while taking aim, her firing stance more sober and realistic for such a display as Ines turns her skin a harder consistency than her own, "I don't want to be forgiven. What comes after if I do? Do I stop... caring? Do I stop noticing the suffering going on aroun me? Do I stop... remembering what it's like to hurt people?"
These are important questions to ask! They do not stop her from pulling the trigger, releasing one 7x62mm yellowed slug off a deafening 'boom' towards Ines.
Even as a Hellion, the recoil looks painful.
GS: Ruth Pauling has activated a Force Action! GS: You have activated the Force Action Snipe! GS: Ruth Pauling has attacked Ines Colina with One Knock! GS: Ruth Pauling has gained 1 Combo! GS: Riposte expired! GS: Ruth Pauling has completed her action. GS: Ines Colina takes a solid hit from Ruth Pauling's One Knock for 157 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ines Colina has posed.
Ines stares down the Hellion, trying to work out how to move next. She's something, alright. Focusing on the mess of questions isn't helping. She grimaces. "Whole lotta revery for a useless god," she growls quietly, more to herself than anyone else. But it's still audible.
She tries to brace for the rifle, but doesn't manage it. The bullet slips past her stone arm, striking into her chest, near the heart, and being sent sprawling onto the ground.
That's it then.
Except there's no blood pooling on the floor. She pulls herself with a grunt to her feet, the dented bullet leaving a nasty mark into the ferroflora vest now visible through a hole in her shirt.
"The hell should I know," the beastwoman roars, angrily. "Maybe there's nothing, does it matter!?" She thrusts her arms out to the side. "You'd be gone though, and that's the important part!" Wind starts gathering around her feet.
"Shards of earth and darts of steel, rise with the dancing wind and shred all in your path!"
Jagged pieces of metal start to appear in the air, while fragments of earth rise, forming a tornado with the wind.
"Shrapnel Twister!"
tInes thrusts her arms forward, and it surges towards Ruth, threatening to shred her clothes, flesh and wing, letting out a roar of anger and anguish.
GS: Ines Colina has activated a Force Action! GS: Ines Colina has attacked Ruth Pauling with Shrapnel Twister! GS: Ines Colina has completed her action. GS: Ruth Pauling guards a hit from Ines Colina's Shrapnel Twister for 102 hit points! GS: Disrupt applied to Ruth Pauling! GS: Ruth Pauling activates Sufferer! GS: Ruth Pauling enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
A response doesn't come from the Hellion when Ines mutters. Granasians have been, historically, defensive about the efficacy of their chosen subject of worship - but there is a poignant moment that follows when Ines is shot. For a hot minute, she looks like she might be one of the 'extra credit' victims of the Celesti Civil War. One of its worst monsters is right there, wielding the rifle that left a legacy of terror on the people of Zoara.
'Does it matter!?' To paraphrase the important question. She'd be gone, and that's the important part - a part punctuated as the Shrapnel Twister slices into the former elf.
There is hissing. There is shrieking. Metal is stronger than stone, and Ruth is forced to a stand and a stagger as (what little visible) flesh is shredded. Violet blood decorates the edges of these sharpened blades, flinching in the roar and anguish.
She's clutching onto her rifle, hugging it, like it were the only thing there for her as a tear escapes down the side of her face visible. "...It matters." She can feel the world around her slipping away - an insidious trait of a Hellion's psyche. Just retreat into your feelings, blot all else out, and act.
She pulls herself out of that urge, if only just so.
"It matters that there's so much suffering everywhere! Even you!" She was smiling at Ines' own aggravation and tears not long ago. Something about the anger and anguish in Ines' voice tops it off past the satiation of someone who does not want to forget what it's like to hurt people and breathes in that refresher, and is now spilling out the grasp of someone who remembers what it's like to hurt people and feel very emotional about it. That oscillation between extremes. That's why a Hellion, outside of the spread of Malevolence, is so dangerous.
The rifle gets lifted up and pointed forwards again as she rises, head bowed. The twister of shrapnel is still trying to consume her.
"...Somehow... someone found value in someone like... this," she's smiling, and it's... not a happy one. Another tear. "Everywhere I go, there's... someone who needs... anyone. Vulnerable, weak, helpless... if I'm gone, who's there for them? Time and time again, despite... everything..."
She takes off running towards Ines, bayonet blade first, heedless of the sturdiness of her ferroflora vest or other sorcerous enchantments. "I can't look away, I can't stay away..."
This is about the point where contact might or might not be made, and no matter what - it stands to look ugly.
"Not even for you!" Comes the end of that particular emotional tirade, trying to run Ines through - and lift her up. This part, if she gets her there, is one where she shows immense physical difficulty in doing so - weakness in her left shoulder, and everything, as if it strains her strength to lift her.
That all her Hellion-granted reality-defying strength really doesn't extend much further than her ability to wield the rifle.
GS: Ruth Pauling has activated a Force Action! GS: You have activated the Force Action Snipe! GS: Ruth Pauling has attacked Ines Colina with Scars of Celesti! GS: Ruth Pauling has gained 1 Combo! GS: Cover expired! GS: Ruth Pauling has completed her action. GS: Ines Colina takes a solid hit from Ruth Pauling's Scars of Celesti for 158 hit points! GS: Dispel! Hyper and Shield removed! GS: Disrupt applied to Ines Colina! GS: Ines Colina has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Ines Colina has posed.
You'd think someone like Ines Colina would be sympathetic to someone who was feeling outcast might have once found sympathy.
'Even you!'
She is not.
Instead she stares daggers at Ruth. "Suffering's kind of the way of Filgaia, if you haven't noticed." A bitterness rises in her, and it feels like bile in her throat. "Don't see how inflicting it on people fixes it." She might have bitten off more than she can chew here. Maybe she should have bailed when Ruth started to turn. Too late now.
She doesn't have a response to her second rant. How could she. It's on paper a noble goal, but...
"How do you know you're even helping anyone!?" She roars again, "All you might be doing is dredging up painful memories, or worse! And everywhere you go, this shit," she holds a hand up to the rain, "will follow!"
And then a bayonet drives clean into her stomach. It pierces shirt, undershirt, and rock skin like it was nothing. The force of the thrust lifts the giant beastwoman off the ground, even as Ruth struggles. It may not last, but for the moment, she's in the air.
Red blood oozes onto her white shirt, and she coughs, a spurt of more blood bursting from her mouth, dribbling from her lips. Some of it flies toward Ruth.
"Damn... you..." is all Ines can say. She weakly tries to grab the rifle, to try and force herself off the bayonet. It's an unpleasant sound as she starts to push herself off it.
But ultimately, it's not enough, and she slides back down the blade as she blacks out.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Ines is run through - and Ruth can no longer hold her up. Her emotions crash into a stone wall as her strength slips, leaving a seriously wounded Ines to black out in front of her. The Malevolence-conjured rain continues to fall around Ruth as she comes to a kneel. Not another droplet of it makes contact with Ines, her one wing fanned out to that end as unkind whispers deaden into something barely audible but never silenced.
For several more seconds, Ruth could be confused for being a protective entity, shielding Ines from the rain, rather than the monster who may have just taken her life. Eyes flutter closed.
I know, she wants to say. A lot of the suffering of this part of Filgaia's come from...
...
It doesn't wash what of Ines' blood reaches her.
"Filgaia's unkind to you too, isn't it." She doesn't even need to ask. Ines is a famous Geohound, and a Beastfolk besides. She could feel it coming from her, especially when her tears were let loose. That's someone who is in pain.
As she said, she can't look away from that. How will she ever know she's atoning 'properly' if she doesn't want to be forgiven? What sort of good comes from someone whose very being is the source of, and the continued renewal of, painful memories or worse. Everywhere she goes... that will follow her.
...
There's someone who dreams of better, and that's a dream worth seeing happen. She'd... like for Ines to see it. The thing is, she can't see it if she's dead.
Difficult feelings stir underneath as she sets the rifle to her back (which is a challenge because the tail keeps trying to undo it), feelings too difficult for her to want to put back on the elf skin. In the distance, she can see Ines' horse... and she decides.
Kneeling down, she does not use her hands like a normal person, but tries to scoop up Ines in an awkward but genuine hug close, and start moving her towards said horse. She doesn't look the unconscious Ines in the face, but she does let herself struggle the whole way like it means something.
She is there for Ines at her worst right now, isn't she? (Putting aside she put her 'in her worst.') And yet, the entire situation is...
...she refuses to dwell on it, once she gets to Furacao. It is a laborious effort for her to use hands to manipulate anything that's not Ines directly, as if deeply afraid those hands would just hurt her further. (This plus the challenge of whether or not the horse would let her do much other than 'get her there.')
She doesn't pursue the moment the horse may take off. She doesn't shoot, she doesn't yell, she doesn't smile. She goes to find the highest place she can reach within the abandoned ghost town and just muster back up what feelings she can.
They're all that keep her going sometimes, but they're feelings she feels makes her something other than a heartless monster.