2021-10-13: Drowning, Burning

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  • Log: Drowning, Burning
  • Cast: Josephine Lovelace, K.K.
  • Where: Guara Bobelo - The Arena
  • Date: October 13, 2021
  • Summary: Josie, after a rather long stretch of time, has the opportunity to again speak with K.K. alone. They have a question for her, to follow on their prior conversation, years ago. It is no kind thing, of which they are asking after.

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

    Night in Guara Bobelo is much like day in Guara Bobelo. With the city sat under a dome, well-lit with false stars, the lines that separate the rhythms of life become blurred, smeared. Time can only be measured in the city by clockwork, by more subtle patterns of the opening and closing of various venues. Absent guidance from the heavens, Guara Bobelo is a particularly good place to get lost.

    Assuming, that is, that loss is what one desires. For many who come to the unsleeping city, it is.

    Josephine Lovelace has made this place her haunt of late. Time and again, when she hasn't been summoned forth by those who would war against the entire world, she has come here. So the story goes, this used to be a cathedral. One would hardly know it now, if you didn't know where to look in the building's construction.

    Or didn't sight the statue that still stands, overseeing the arena games.

    She's had a chance to get a good look at it, herself, and from a variety of angles at that throughout her time here. What was that saint's name again...? Perhaps it doesn't matter. It isn't as if anyone here is bowing down in prayer, anymore. At least, they're not voicing any sort of prayer that can be answered.

    Up here, there's a good view of the area, the place that had once been a cathedral. Not so good as to view the fights for free -- at this distance the only thing that can be gleaned of what's happening is that there is definitely a fight in progress. The lights, the distant roar of the crowd...

    Even at this distance, Josie can almost feel it, a pulsing roar that seems to overtake and fill her body. No, she's not fighting or betting tonight.

    She has so many other vices of which to attend.

    Bottle in hand, she leans over the railing of this particular back street bend, seated high up in the city. It's one of many such -- long abandoned by any sort of authority, Guara Bobelo winds on itself like a tangled thread. It's not only a good place for someone to go if they want to get lost in a crowd, it's a good place to get lost on your own.

    As if contemplating this fact, the wayward archaeologist takes a long swig from the bottle dangling from her good hand and shifts where she stands, kicking over its already-drained sibling in the process. It clinks against the boards.

    The sound will be lost to most in the city: not far away, someone screams.

    Thus it goes, in the sleepless city.

<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.

Once, this was a place of worship for Granas. Now, it worships something else entirely. Violence, money, greed. Opportunism.

The former Cathedral of Saint Calucion might as well have been molded by the shells of war that hollowed it out so decisively.

What Saint Calucion presides over now still draws in crowds, just of a somewhat different sort. The hoots and hollars of a parish waiting for fresh blood to be spilled and hoping it's the blood they -want- shed that does the spilling.

The further one gets, the more removed and strange it all feels, until it all becomes a dull roar of indistinguishable noise, unified in a call for more pain. The further one gets, the more removed they become from the fighters, until they can't even see who has run through who so much as indifferent, inconsequential specks meeting and separating in destined collisions of one object against another.

There are cheers. There are boos. There are screams.

From the distance at which Josephine Lovelace watches, it might be as much a world a way as the sound of glass rolling across boards.

Or the crystalline sound of that glass chiming the end of its roll against a metal boot.

Once upon a time, Josephine Lovelace met a knight armored in white, at a very particular graveyard, in front of a very particular grave. The knight had announced themself with a simple statement before their presence was known.

'You court folly.'

Now, years after that day, there is no statement to usher their arrival. One second, there is nothing.

The next, the weight of them just behind Josephine can be felt, her emptied bottle stopped against the gleaming white toe of their armored boot.

The Trial Knight says nothing. Not a single word. They just stand there, arms at their side, their stance as unflaggingly dignified and straight-backed as ever as if it were impossible for it not to be. They just stand there and watch the arena that was once a cathedral, a world away.

Guara Bobelo is a good place to go to get lost on your own.

But as the shattered stretch of the arena grounds that was once a sanctuary can attest:

What's lost can always be found, even when it does not want to be.

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

    One might be given to wonder what Calucion would think, should the Saint bear witness to what transpires before their statue now.

    But they still draw in worshippers, after a fashion. It's merely a worship to a different sort of 'god'.

    There's no such thing as silence in Guara Bobelo. There's no such thing as true darkness, even in a city without a sky.

    Even here, there is a soft illumination shed by so many artificial lights strung throughout the city. And even here, the shouts and screams from the arena can still be heard.

    It's a far cry from the graveyard.
    Once there had been a graveyard with an unattended grave. It's gone unattended for some time, now. The flowers she'd lain there the last time around have surely long since returned to the earth.

    The bottle rolls against the boards, and comes to a stop with a singular chime.

    Josie does not immediately turn around. Rather, she squares her shoulders; the grip on the bottle tightens. One weighty breath is released before another is drawn in its place. Then and only then does she slowly turn about to face the Trial Knight.

    If she's surprised, her gaze doesn't show it. Those dark eyes of hers are a closed-off world. Only the tell-tale signs of poor sleep -- or possibly, semi-drunkenness -- give any hint towards the woman's internal state. She doesn't say anything, her gaze starting at approximately eye level before sweeping down, across the armored figure before her.

    "...Didn't think you were one for the fights or none," she says at last. Her lips curl in a smile that does not even remotely approach her eyes. "Though... guess it's all a trial, if'n you squint hard enough. Yeah?"

    The last time they'd spoke had been atop a grave. There, Josephine had spoken with rancor.

    The last time they'd crossed paths at all, Josephine had put words into action and delivered her hatred for the knight in the form of a single bullet.

    There's none of that now. To wit--

    "Cheers," she says to the Trial Knight, raising her bottle in a mockery of a toast as she smiles bright as can be, the rest of her expression just as flat as before.

    'You court folly'.

    That hadn't been the only thing the knight had said back then. 'And when it inevitably sinks into the murky depths...'

        '....will you, too, sink with it, child?'

<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.

It's a poker face of dark circles and fatigued stares that greets the Trial Knight when Josephine Lovelace finally turns around.

And as always, as ever, when her gaze finally lifts towards that faceless helm, it's that selfsame expression with all its tired tells that is there to greet her, like a mirror reflecting her failings upon its polished white surface.

'...Didn't think you were one for the fights or none.'

"There is merit to be found in striving against one's odds and station, making a wager of one's life whether for the money to mete out a meager existence, or for naught else but the thrill that one courts in the doing," is K.K.'s answer, as archaic yet straightforward as the knight ever has been. "And yet too there is bloodthirst and greed, savage and honorless and desperate, goaded ever-onward by those who demand violence from the sidelines whilst never humoring the chance they might themselves step foot on those selfsame, blood-soaked sands."

Their head cants towards the right.

"... But this, too, is the nature of your get."

It has been months ago that Josephine had attempted to express her hatred in that same, savage and desperate manner, by way of a bullet.

It has been months ago that K.K. had held their weapon over Josephine, like an executioner ready to reap the one for whom the bell tolls.

But now? The knight shows outward intentions towards violence. It's always at least some degree of hollow comfort where the one who claims themself humanity's adversary is concerned, but in both demeanor and in body language, they seem uninterested in continuing what had begun at the Baskar's sacred grounds.

Instead, their head tilts down, regarding the empty bottle at their boot, even as Josephine offers her farcical toast.

"You are well into your cups," they observe simply. "An effort ever-ongoing, 'twould seem."

With a single motion incongruously fluid with the full plate they wear, K.K. bends down to pluck up that bottle... and tilt it back upright before they straighten once more. The weight of their attention turns once more toward the arena that was once a cathedral as they take a single step toward the railing, past that emptied bottle.

"How does the drink suit you, now that you are sunk deep in its lightless embrace?"

One could justifiably assume they mean the alcohol. But Josephine doubtless knows better.

After all, those first three words had been far from the only thing they send, back at the grave with only one attendant to its name.

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

    The line of her mouth twitches, just the once.

    "Oh? And what of them that does both? Them that fights and watches. Where d'ya think they stand?" Josephine asks the Trial Knight. From behind her, the dull roar from the stadium rises in intensity -- even at this distance, it's clear when someone has managed to impress, for tonight, even this crowd.

    In a city untouched by sunlight, perhaps now and then something new can be fleetingly found. Tomorrow, and they'll find the same passe. But for tonight, someone in the ring holds all the glory Guara Bobelo can offer.

    "Me, I don't right think they've got 'honor', or whatever you call it. But they ain't honorless, neither."

    So says Josephine, of those who have seen the statue of Saint Calucion from more than one angle.

    "I'd offer you a swing, but you don't quite seem the type," she remarks, even as the Knight glances downwards at the already-emptied bottle, and...

    Josie's laugh is bitter by any measure.

    "I try," she quips, dashing off a smile that would seem bright enough under any other circumstance. "Just another night in Guara Bobelo, eh?" She gestures stiffly with her bad hand, as if to encompass all of the city: the harsh lights, the deep shadow, the savagery and violence, the desperation, the whole damn rotten mess piled up around them both.

    The Trial Knight might look behind her. She doesn't so much as turn.

    How does the drink suit her...?
    Now that she's gone and drowned in it.

    Here the smile comes undone.

    "Bastard," she whispers, her gaze turning towards the bottle at her feet. She takes a breath; another joins it. She closes her eyes.

    "You sure don't aim to miss, do you..."

<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.

"As close to the chaos as they may," is the Trial Knight's simple an immediate answer to that question the archaeologist poses to them. Their head tilts in Josephine's direction.

"... Or far upon the fringes, where the melee and lost life is naught but dim distraction."

Their attention turns towards the spectacle once more. With the knight so utterly concealed, it's hard to say why they watch, or if they even do, but the subtle language of their body almost seems to indicate -- interest? Fascination?

"'Honorable.' 'Honorless.' Both or neither. They are all these things and none. Some exceed your measure, some fall short of it by order of magnitudes."

Their head shakes, a firm and decisive.

"For all its brevity, your mortal lives contains multitudes staggering in their breadth. Oft, within a single soul. 'Tis the very root of your contradiction."

Perhaps this, too, extends beyond the confines of commentary on the combat below.

The ensuing, stoic silence to Josephine's observation on their interest in alcohol might serve to suffice as an answer, at least for now: but that silence even extends through the bright brim of Josephine's false smile as if thoroughly unconvinced by it or the glib words it chases. The Trial Knight might look behind them. Their head certainly tilts.

But their words are for Josephine.

Bastard.
    You sure don't aim to miss, do you...

"That arrow had struck its mark ere my words scarcely brushed it."

Armored hands clasp behind the knight's back. Their focus is once more on the arena, but their words - their attention - now holds no dual nature, no implication. It is all for Josephine.

"'Then let it drink,' 'twas the words you defiantly spat when first we spoke upon that grave. Let your obsession drag you down. Let it drown you. Let it drag the life that so surrounded and trusted in you down. You cared not."

The fingers of their right hand twitch out a little spasm at their back.

"You have drowned. Your obsession is well glutted on the lives and bonds sacrificed upon its fetid altar. So I would see the truth in you now:

"Are you content, with the wages you have paid?"

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

    "Chaos or out in the fringes and all, huh," is her response to that, some muscle near an eye twitching just the once. "Kind of a wide range there, don't you think?"

    She still does not turn about, does not take her eyes for a moment off the Trial Knight, as if they in some way were the harbinger of her own end and she didn't want to miss an eyeblink of the event.

    "Somethin' in between, yeah? Where the most of us lot fall. 'Between devils and angels', or somethin' like that..."

    Even in their brevity, their souls contain so much. Josephine inhales slowly, drawing a breath as to completely fill her lungs. She'd already know it of course. Known that the Trial Knight wasn't...

    ...human. Mortal. However one might paint it.

    But it isn't the matter of humanity -- of mortals -- of which the Trial Knight is here to speak. It's Josephine, of her measure. Of the price she's paid.

    Then let it drink.

    So she had spoken, standing atop her sister's grave.

    Is she now content, with the price she has paid?

    The once, she winces -- the corners of her eyes twitching, her face turned ever so slight away -- as she looks upon the Trial Knight. As they speak to her past words and present circumstance alike. She stands there as still as a statue then, gazing upon unreadable armor.

    All at once, she releases her grasp on the bottle in her hand. It doesn't shatter when it hits the boards: rather, it spews a gout of whatever ferment it had contained then rotates the once on its bottom before tipping over entirely to spin about in an arc, its loosed contents pooling about it.

    The fingers of her left hand curl inwards, tensing.

    "You got... no idea what I'm doin' this for. Do you?" she says to the Trial Knight, her voice just above a whisper. There's a tremelo held in its tone, as if something in her chest were beating its wings and ready to free itself. "So I'll remind you... don't you dare."

<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.

                You got... no idea what I'm doin' this for.

                                  Do you?

The Trial Knight turns upon their heel, until, by the time those words are loosed, they are facing the woman fully, the spilled bottle spinning its abandoned arc between them.

Liquor drools a thinning path across the ground until a thin stream of it ends just at the armored toes of K.K.'s boot.

Josephine Lovelace's words are defiant. But they cannot hide the way her voice quivers around them with tension. The way that bottle was so loosed from her fingers, now biting towards her palms.

That singular wince.

Do they?

"I have every idea."

The words come from that tinny voice without hesitation or doubt. There's nothing but firm resolve to meet the Josephine's tremored whisper. And they do not stop there.

"You think yourself a mask, that the heart of you is shrouded in your smiles and your spirits. The shape of you is nonesuch. 'Tis a raw nerve, exposed to all but its own sight."

They step forward, a single step. Their boot eclipses the thinning rivulets of liquor threading the space that separates them.

"I have seen countless of your kin. I have seen them grow, live and die in more ways than the cynical might scarcely dream of. But as ages pass, there are looks to life that one must know beyond a shadow of a doubt. And yours, Josephine Lovelace, is a look I have known more intimately than any other."

Another step. They said it before, didn't they? When Josephine faced them with Tomamond, so many months ago. They know the look of her. They know it well.

"'Tis the look of loathing one may only know when they have failed that thing that matters most to them in the whole of their life."

One more step. And it is there the knight stops, their horned helm focused unerringly on Josephine and the slimming space between them.

"Enough with your bravado. 'Tis for no one's sake here. Enough with your spite. There is naught here this day to be swayed by the sorry spectacle. Let this farce fall, and speak true.

"What memory have you served now, in all that you have accomplished?"

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

    "Do you--"

    It's a retort cut short by the Trial Knight's further words -- their declaration of the whole and nature of the being that has come to encompass Josephine Lovelace.

    A smile can be a mask. Light words can be a shield. As long as you're good at seeming, deflection is second nature.

    Until the charade is seen for what it is, and the core is brought twitching out into the light.

    "...Stop it. Stop talking as if you -- you of all people -- as if you know me," she hisses out, her teeth grit as if she were enduring something terrible indeed.

    And then.

    And then they name the core of her for what it is. The few things that can be said of Josephine in this moment is that she stays standing, that she doesn't entirely turn her face away, that her gaze remains on the Trial Knight. That no words slip her lips.

    But everything else fractures and breaks.

    There is never any rain in Guara Bobelo, no other account for the wetness on her face.

    There's barely any space between them at all anymore. What might happen when that line is obliterated altogether? The Trial Knight has made it plain in the past to what ends they are prepared to go to achieve their aims.

    The fingers of Josephine's left hand uncurl and twitch the once, as if she were thinking of the weapons that are certainly concealed just under that coat of hers. Perhaps there's a firearm at her hip, or in her boot. There may even be a knife -- in the absence of the shotgun strapped across her back, the options are at once limited and vast.

    She moves not a fraction more, her gaze fixed on that helm the knight wears.

    "None," she answers in a whisper, the truth prized from her core like a pearl. "Not yet."

    Even in this moment, her expression gone stony as if to entrap whatever coils and writhes in her heart, she still claims for herself that small glimmer of hope.

    That maybe, maybe all that's been and gone will have been worth what she seeks.
    It is a fault perhaps endemic to her line.

<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.

Wetness dabs at Josephine Lovelace's cheeks. The Trial Knight says nothing of it.

But for the archaeologist's unswaying stare, that reality is unswervingly reflected in the polished white of the knight's faceless helm.

After they have said their peace, after they have reached into the depths of her to drag forth that single truth, they say nothing. So close, they simply wait.

Wait, past the fraught tension.

Wait, through that steadfast stare.

Wait, as everything unravels.

Wait, for...

    None.

An answer.

    Not yet.

The fingers of the knight's left hand spasm out a brief, involuntary twitch.

And it is as those last two words leave Josephine's lips that there is a flash of light.

T H U N K .

What forms in K.K.'s right hand, held vertical in the space between them, is a great war scythe, forged in whites, blues and golds and larger even than the knight is tall. Its grand, curved blade is set straight up more akin to a halberd than the traditional scythe's horizontal affair, but there is no doubt as to the fact that it shares a similar purpose to its agricultural kin:

Reaping.

It is not lifted up. It is not pointed at Josephine. Its blade does not even so much as come close to introducing itself to her neck.

But what it evokes is clear.

Endings.

"'Tis a deceptive thing, drowning." The knight's voice cuts through the silence following Josephine's hopes. "There is pain that boils up as it begins, hot and raging. We struggle. But as our lungs fill with the drink, so oft do we delude ourselves that 'tis a peaceful process, until the gulping of fluid becomes as natural as the exchange of air."

Using that scythe as a brace, they lean forward, in those scant slivers of space, the metal warble of their voice coming through with clarion clarity.

"But 'tis naught but desperate illusion. The pain yet lingers. It yet grows. Until we know with certainty 'tis no peaceful thing. 'Tis an end crueler than most, lest we resist its siren song."

A second passes by, wherein the metal warble of K.K.'s voice fades. And then, one more question, simple but direct:

"Do you yet believe that what you stand to gain shall be worth the cost that it shall reap?"

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

    There is a flash of light.

    Josephine takes one step back, bumping up against the railing behind her. Her left hand twitches once in the direction of her hip -- no doubt, there is a firearm nestled there beneath her coat (as if this were a matter ever in doubt), but she stops, a statue the moment the heavy war scythe interposes itself between her and the knight.

    But for that brief moment of surprise, her expression remains just as hard as before. Her gaze settles again on the Trial Knight's helm, her eye seeking perhaps some point of weakness -- some place she can exploit.

    Though whether or not there would be time to exploit it is an open question.
    As is if it would even be possible in the first place.

    "...I've always wondered," says Josephine.

    "What all is the worst way to die?"

    The fingers of her left hand curl in towards her palm. "In my line of work there's a whole lot of hazards, right? Could get buried alive. Could just get shot, just like that. But I've given it some thought."

    "I think burning alive'd be worst. Think about it. If you're lucky, you'll pass out from the smoke, first. Before the real agony starts." Her dark eyes fleeting move from the knight, fixing for a moment at some point behind them.

    "Guess I'll find out, yeah? Whether or not drowning or burning alive's worst."

    But there's one more question. And at that, Josephine looses a most bitter chuckle.

    "So... you're askin' me if I think it'll be worth it?" Her lips twitch into a lopside smile, the sort undermined by the look in her eyes. "It already ain't. Don't think I don't know that or none. But I ain't got a choice in it."

    The look in her eyes now is almost over-bright.

    "Always knew this shit'd be the end of me... So what now? Don't leave me hangin'. You gonna do me?" She's started to breathe a little more quickly, as if it were becoming harder for her to get a full breath into her lungs.

<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.

Josephine's hand drifts towards her hip and stops. Her sharp gaze seeks an opening within the fine polish of her adversarial companion's horned helm.

They do not so much as budge. Perhaps they do not notice, but given the breadth of her experience with the knight, it might seem unlikely.

Perhaps --

Perhaps they are simply inviting her to look. To look for an opening. To look for a way to fight.

A way to resist an end that seems inevitable.

    'What all is the worst way to die?'

Drowning... or burning?

"..."

The question hangs in the air as Josephine Lovelace comes to her own conclusion with the drift of her attention towards some distant point.

K.K.'s own answer does not come. Not yet. Nor does their attention stray from Josephine. Not when that smile fails to reach her eyes. Not when a bitter chuckle slips from her lips. Not when...

    'But I ain't got a choice in it.'

... she answers their awaited question.

Gauntleted fingers tighten around the haft of that grand war scythe.

    'So what now?'

Their right foot shifts.

    'You gonna do m'

And Josephine has not even finished the thought before that scythe is lifted into the air as if it weighed little more than a feather and swung with exacting power and fluid grace.

The metal's song through the stale, false air of this place is paradoxically harmonious as its curved blade comes for Josephine Lovelace's neck.

But at the faintest delay.

The faintest opening in a moment that seems unavoidable.

That could be exploited, by someone who noticed it.

By someone who still has the will to defy an inevitable end.

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

    Fire or water. She doesn't get an answer to the question she poses.

    There is no answer -- or indeed, words at all -- to be had from the knight at all.

    The answer as it were comes by a different route.

    Because this is how it happens.

    The scythe is drawn up into the air as if it weighed barely anything at all. There are not even seconds remaining until it will be swung. For any outside observer, it takes place in the blink of an eye.

    For Josephine, it is as if the world has slowed to a crawl. Her chest rises and falls, her fingers twitch, her hand lunges for the sidearm under her jacket, at her hip.

    To an outside observer, it is as if the ARM has lept into her grasp, or perhaps as if it has always been there, in her hand. Perhaps, too, it had always been aimed at the knight's helm.

    Blink, and an outside observer might miss it. There is a crack, an explosion as the bullet chambered in the ARM is loosed, sent forth in its first and only flight in the world for the Trial Knight.

    ...Had Josephine always been standing, or had she been crouched this entire time? No, not even crouched, she is--

    --launching herself sidelong, ARM still trained on the knight. Can a bullet so much as scratch that plate? Had she managed to do anything more than send herself sinking further and further into the abyss of that proverbial deep blue sea?

    "Don't misunderstand me, right," she says to the Trial Knight, and all the while she is slowly taking one step after another backwards. "I ain't given up hope and all just yet. But when it's finished... or when I'm done searching... then you can do what you want with me. Yeah? How'd'ya think about that? Us makin' a deal here." That wild smile of hers has again crept across her face. "Wouldn't be a bad end, neither. Nice 'n tidy-like. And it'd mean them wouldn't need to figure in. So, how 'bout it? I walk off here, you walk off or whatever... and when the time comes, I'll ante up."

<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.

A blink.

A blink, and a shot fires off in the night, the sound of it lost in the roar of the crowds as their favored fighter lays low their opponent.

A blink, and a flash ricochets off the knight's horned helm in what may have blown through the skull of whatever lies beneath were it any normal armor -- any normal knight.

A blink, and the shot sends that scythe off its intended path until it cleaves through the rail Josephine once leaned against, sheering it as if it were all made of warmed butter.

A blink...

... and K.K. has their answer.

The Trial Knight stumbles backward, the polished, resplendent white of their helm marred bya single dent at the side of its horned top. Josephine launches sidelong. The knight plants their heel into the grimy earth beneath them.

    'But when it's finished... or when I'm done searching... then you can do what you want with me. Yeah?'

And they pivot sharply upon their heel.

The scythe sings its song faster this time, swung full force towards Josephine. Yet before it can reach its mark...

"And still yet you ill understand the end you deserve, Josephine Lovelace."

... it shatters, in a thousand brilliant fragments of light, blistering harmlessly past the archaeologist's in a rush of warmth that is so strangely pleasing and gentle.

"You would feign barter your life away. Very well. This is my offer."

The knight stands straight, white cloth of those gold-trimmed skirts flowing like liquid with inertia against their armored legs.

"Accomplish what you feel you must. Chase that moment you feel inevitable. Grasp upon it. See how it feels, within your hands. What you have lost. What you have gained. And when the time comes, I shall be there -- and we shall see if you yet understand what it is you deserve."

The deal is struck. Perhaps not on the terms Josephine set out, exactly... but the knight's word is ironclad.

"'Twould behoove you well before then to learn what end is truly worst of all ends, Josephine Lovelace."

And here, the knight begins to turn, warm white light flowing around them like a radiant shell to ferry them away.

"... And what end would best serve the memory of the one you have so irrevocably failed."

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

    The scythe swings towards her.

    And all Josephine has the time to do is to lean back, just a fraction of an inch. It isn't enough to save her. It wouldn't be enough to save her.

    But the scythe...

    ...shatters, fragmenting into a million pieces of light.
    It's warm. What a strange thought to have, in this moment...

    "What I deserve, huh..."

    Josephine smiles, in much the same way a skull might. And bit by bit, she directs her ARM towards the ground, her index finger easing off the trigger. Her gaze sweeps up and down the knight's figure, as if to embed them into memory. Some things that are said cannot be easily taken back.

    "So, that's the terms, then? You don't do by half measures, do you? Then, fine. If that's what you'll take, then I accept. I'll see you again, at the end of the world and all."

    But even as the knight begins to vanish, they aren't even half-done with what they have come here to say--

    "I'd be interested in finding out and all, too. Trial Knight."

    There may be after a moment more a sort of peace. Silence and quiet have no home here. But as the roars echo forth from the arena, the mood afflicting this part of Guara Bobelo might be able to be called 'calm' and truly mean it.

    But then, this this particular corner of the city without day or night contains only one person. Only one mood matters, under those constraints.

    Josephine eases the ARM back into its holster, that twisted smile on her face.

    "So that's that... huh. Least it means I won't need to worry 'bout them none."

    Freeing a cigarette from her pocket, she slips it between her teeth, lighting the end with a snap of her fingers.

    "Was startin' to think only he'd have the guts to do it. Whew... well. Time to sort this out or die tryin', eh?"

    So she says, breathing smoke out into the stagnant air of Guara Bobelo, as chanting rings out from the arena.

    "...Must be a good night for someone, sure enough."