2023-01-18: Her End

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<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

    Towards the north of the Cape of Breath proper, one can begin to see where the grasslands and forests dwindle away to meet the expanse of the wastelands. There is no clear marker where the lands of one part of the Merian Planes end and the other begin -- just the slow and steady blur of one part of great island into the other.

    It reminds Josie of home. The home of her childhood, that is. The village upon which she had alighted for a time as an adult had so such blessings. Ledbury had been well and proper within the wasteland of Ignas and perhaps a few short decades from being abandoned itself.

    It wasn't more than a short week ago, come to think of it, when she'd had no better concerns than who was on her tail. That had been before a sad little girl missing her big sister had prompted her -- purely on impulse -- to make for the Foresaken Fortress and probably damn about put the crosshairs back on her, at least from Odessa's end of things.

    Not that she had regrets. She'd known the risk when she'd opted to go and do it, after all, and there are things you can't take back.

    "Well, what d'ya think, Penelope?" she asks, of the pigeon who carefully inspects the sparse grass at her feet for a chance insect or two. "Chance it up north in Damzen, see if we can rustle up some work or the like? Or d'ya think we could get in friendly-like with Nora and her buddies after all? Ain't like I've got secrets I gotta keep..."

    Penelope lifts her head to regard Josephine for a moment before going right on back to hunting. Josie throws up both hands in an overexaggerated shrug. "Well, ain't you the helpful sort," she laments, her lips twisted in a wry smile. 

<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.

Grasslands. For all Aquvy has become a shattered husk of what was once a throne of the world, it still possesses a scenic beauty to it that has become vanishingly rare in Ignas -- and all but impossible to find in the blasted lands of Elru.

There's great beauty here. Enough to make one thing: what was it once, before all this?

"She has returned to your side."

And what will it become, after?

The voice is wrapped in metal that renders it distinctly indistinct. Unmistakable in its flanged nature, it comes as it has, twice before now, at the back of the woman who calls herself Josephine; the tinny tone retains that matter-of-fact, simplistic way about it that reminds one starkly that there was no one there immediately prior to say anything at all.

Grass rustling like a wave of green carries towards where verdant blades tickle against the polished white, armored boots of a knight all-encompassed in that ever-present, heavy radiance. In the light of day, all that gold-trimmed white reflects a twinkle of captured sunbeams.

They say nothing else, for now, beyond that initial, almost casual observation. They do not even move. The sight of the knight feels out of place in the Cape of Breath's rustic farmlands. But then, there are few places K.K. does -not- feel out of place. It does not stop the immediate reality of their presence.

Nor does it stop the fact that right now, they are exactly where they are meant to be.

Before exactly who they mean to stand before. 

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

    The rumors -- spoken through particular networks -- speak that it was not all that long ago at all that this world had been a better one. Weakened at least, yes, perhaps still treading the path to a final demise, but further from death's door than it is now. Josie doesn't know if that's true. And even if it is true, perhaps it doesn't matter. Filgaia is still dying.

    In time, will those who are able travel to Aquvy in their desperation? Or will Aquvy shun the rest of the world and focus on their survival alone? What horrors are yet to be birthed in a world that has no future?

    'She has returned to your side.'

    Another person might have fled at the sound of that voice and everything entails.

    Josie simply straightens where she stands and then turns to face its source. "I was wondering when you'd show," she tells the Trial Knight. In spite of what it means for her, she even smiles at them faintly.

    That Josie has changed from when they last crossed paths is clear: she has discarded or traded out much of the garb and gear she had worn when treating with Odessa, and what's more, cut her hair short.

    Then there is the simple presence of Penelope, trotting along as if K.K. were not even present in her quest for more, better bugs.

    "Come to collect at last, are you? Well, I've gone and settled my business. If you want me, you've got me," she tells them, not shifting an inch.

    The last time they'd met, she'd asked for time enough to settle her score. And once that was done... 

<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.

She is a different person.

It's immediately obvious even before she speaks. There's the superficial reasons, of course -- the surface-level differences. Trading the gear of a revolutionary and terrorist for something simpler. Relieving herself of those longer locks.

But it's more than that. Past the surface is the reasons for the changes made there. In the way she smiles. In the way she stands her ground. Not out of that fatalist sense of defeat that had so hollowed her out the last time they spoke.

Out of acceptance of what is to come? Or...

'I was wondering when you'd show,' she says, but for a time, the Trial Knight says little more than what they said before. There is a weight to their stare, that feeling of instinctively knowing eyes are on you with intent even if they cannot be seen --

But that weight is not on Josephine, right now. Instead...

... instead, it follows the path of Penelope's prowl for prey, helmed head cocking fractionally to the right.

"She carries herself with contentment," observes K.K.; and it is only then, gradually, that the weight of their attention falls upon Josephine. Come to collect?

The knight's clawed fingers twitch, once. Motes of light congregate at their palm as it lifts...

"Aye."

... sculpting the grand form of the war scythe that was stopped seconds before it reaped Josephine Lovelace when last they met.

"'Tis time."

The butt of the weapon strikes the grassy ground with nary a sound. And for all that weapon is brought forth to existence where once was nothing...

Just as before, it is not immediately brought towards any deadly end.

"We come to the end. And I would bid you recall the exact terms of the deal struck that night you had drowned so deep."

Their head tilts, fractionally.

"Do you yet remember them, Josephine Lovelace?" 

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

    She'd discarded what wasn't relevant anymore. Kept what still could be of use. And built still other things anew. It's no rebirth in flames or something of the sort, but it is a sort of 'rebuilding' -- of taking a foundation and replacing what no longer worked.

    Whether or not the new is any better than the old remains to be seen.

    "Contentment? Heh. Guess you could call it that or somethin' like," she says, shaking her head and smiling. "She ain't no worse for wear, neither. Seems like she did right for herself, where she'd gotten off to..."

    That smile grows somewhat less fond and rather more bittersweet the longer she looks on.

    "...You should take her back to Spira, I think," she says, thoughtful for the moment. "After, like."

    After?

    She does ask if they've come to collect. Now, after all, is time...

    Josie blinks, as if taken aback by this line of questioning.

    Does she recall what it was that K.K. had said to her -- the exact words -- on their last meeting?

    Josie furrows her brow, the memory clearly not coming immediately to her. "You'd said that..." She pauses. "I know what I said. 'When it's finished or when I'm done searching'," she answers. "And you'd said that was right by you. --Wait," she interrupts herself with, realization blooming across her face. "You'd told me to seek it out and then... you'd see if'n I'd understand what I deserve."

    She frowns, the weight of what was owed seeming to sit a little differently across her shoulders here and now. "'What I deserve'," she echoes.

    "There's some that'd say I deserve no less than punishment. And sometimes, I ain't disagreeing, right?" She smiles tightlipped. "And there's them that'd nearly welcome me with open arms."

    Josie shakes her head. "Seems to me neither's quite right. I ain't apologizing for every little thing. I ain't gonna beg and cry and ask to be locked away for a million years. But I also ain't saying I ain't a sinner. There's stuff I did that I can't undo, however I try. However long I try."

    She narrows her eyes. "...What 'bout you? What's your take? You ain't got that thing," and here she indicates towards the scythe with a nod of her head, "out for nothin', right? ...Come to think, what's your deal, anyhow? Tormentor of the innocent? Punisher of the guilty?"

    She pauses, looking the Trial Knight over, and plants a hand on her hip.

    "Or... somethin' down the middle. Like me." 

<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.

Josephine's request about Penelope is met with silence.

Perhaps it's silent acknowledgment. Perhaps it is rejection. Perhaps the Trial Knight believes Penelope can take care of herself, her own way.

Perhaps it's simply that the Trial Knight does not take last requests.

Either way, there is nothing but uncertainty to be found within the knight themself. Their armored form scarcely even shifts for a second -- at least, until that scythe is conjured forth. It, at least, would be fitting in a place so rife with farmland -- at least, if its curved blade wasn't turned parallel, rather than perpendicular. It's a simple sign of significance.

Not all scythes exist for harvesting crop.

That blade shines as radiantly as the knight who wields it in the clear light of the sun. The breeze rolls through, calm and serene, like a reflection of the smile of resignation - of acceptance - that Josephine bears. It would be an ideal time, for an end. For blood to soak grass. For a story to end.

But instead...

It is a question that falls, not a blade.

Josephine, taken aback, is met with a figure of stoic patience. That blade does not move. K.K. does not move. They seem content to wait for her -- wait, for her to bring the memory back. Wait, for her to find the essence of those words they parted with when last they met.

What she deserves.

Does she understand, now?

She works through it. She speaks of what others think. Those that would wish her punishment. Those that would wish her come back, as if she could simple clean a slate that can never truly be cleaned.

But neither works, does it?

And so, she turns the question on them. What do they think -- no.

'...Come to think, what's your deal, anyhow?'

"There are as many guilty who have felt the kiss of my blade as not. 'Tis no different for the innocent. I am your adversary. To you, and all your get. A mantle worn by both necessity and choice."

They take a step forward. A single step, grass folding beneath their metal-wrapped footfall.

"I am a monster."

A second step.

"I came here as I did both at the first and the last. To witness an end to Josephine Lovelace. There are many ways that a thing may end. 'Twas by the deep drink of drowning that you chose, when last we met. 'Twas a draught you had long supped even ere the first time we spoke. Full of regret, still you sunk. To drown is to choose an end of self-deception."

That horned helm focuses upon Josephine.

"Yet fire remained an option, even as you drowned. To burn -- there is no more painful an end. 'Tis an end brought knowing the pain you yourself have sowed and reaped in equal measure. 'Tis the agonizing end of those resigned to punishment."

What do they think? What is their take?

"... Yet is that all there is?"

That answer is yet to come. Instead...

"This is the end of that long road, Josephine Lovelace. Tell me now. Not what others see. What is it that you have found?"

What is it that Josephine sees inside herself?

What is it that she deserves? 

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

    There is no response from the Trial Knight. Josie regards them in similar silence for a long, pregnant moment before finally smiling and shrugging, as if to herself. "Heh, fair enough," she says, apparently having made her own determination of what they mean.

    It's been a long road for her to reach this point. For so long, her language was anger, defiance. For a time it was sorrow and despair. In a sense, she has come through it and out the other side, if changed for her long journey.

    Josephine and Katriona both died that night in the fire.

    But here she stands now, facing what she had known must come. Eventually, there comes a time when one faces that which they cannot defy and which they yet must not surrender to.

    They are an impartial judge.

    "Like death," Josie says, her dark eyes shifting towards the edge of the blade, caught there by the light. "Heh... no pretense whatsoever. I admire that," she says with a smile, a far cry from their acrimonious previous encounters. If K.K. had proclaimed themselves the reaper of the innocent, or the judge of the guilty... well, she's known too many of both the former and the latter. Too many people who think they have the right, either way. To cut down both -- to dare those who you have chosen to stand against you. To try them.
    Well, it's not a bad business, if you can manage it. It's almost fair, for a world like this.

    "If you're a monster," she says, extending, her hand, "then I'm one too. Who said there's somethin' wrong about that?" She doesn't shy away as K.K. approaches her, one step at a time.

    "My end...? There's some that'd welcome that, right," she says, echoing the concept from before. "And there's some that'd argue, eh, semantics or the like, right. 'Josephine died a long time ago, so there's no need'! But that ain't how it works. Pretty it up in words however you like, but that's children's logic. I'm still here. And..." She trails off, as if in thought.

    But it isn't the matter of others that K.K. is here to hear. The Trial Knight demands an answer of her. What's her end? What has she found?

    She shakes her head.

    "My answer? I'm done drowning. Xantia told me herself, like. No more lyin' -- at least, not that sorta lie. And I ain't gonna burn, neither. What's 'my end' solve, except maybe satisfaction for them that calls for it? I'll tell you now, and you can like it or not, Trial Knight... I ain't at my end. I got stuff that needs doing, one way or another. I got people I want to see again. Hell... maybe I'll even throw in an apology or two." She closes her eyes, grimacing. "I can't take back what I did. I can't make it right. But I can pick my damn self up and keep on walking, and maybe... someone out there'll say, someday, 'I'm glad to know you'. ...Heh." She glances to one side, her expression almost embarrassed. Even so, her lips still twist in a lopsided smile.

    "I got a road I still need to walk. Sayin' 'that's it, here's the end'... that's a cop out. That's giving up before I'm done. Maybe I'll never do what I want to do, however long I go. Maybe I'll die first -- hell, maybe you'll even cut me down here and now! It's what I thought you were fixin' to do, sure enough. But however it goes... that's okay. Even if I have to back up, try again, try something else. Start over."

    Her gaze is almost a challenge now as she fixes her attention on the cold, unreadable steel of K.K.'s helm, lifting her chin as if to dare them further. "So, is that a good enough end for you, Trial Knight? My 'end' is that I ain't over!" 

<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.

"To stand upon pretense is to stand upon a foundation of rot."

The words come without hesitation or even judgment. But it's far from surprising, is it? For all they have been cryptic, for all there is so much they simply refuse to answer, K.K. has never minced words nor attempted to elevate what they are, or what they do.

That they are a reprehensible, loathsome existence.

And yet...

'Who said there's somethin' wrong with that?'

"..."

In the midst of that first step, the Trial Knight pauses to consider Josephine Lovelace in full. And for as minimalist as their movements often are --

The way they indulge in the luxury of shaking their head seems perfectly natural.

"There is ill reprehensible about the existence of a monster, save that it exists at a remove from the standard of nature. They shall not know acceptance in the same way another might; they cannot. To be a monster is to stand apart. 'Tis but the deeds one commits knowing that fact that marks them abhorrent or not."

It is not others they are here for today, though. It is Josephine; they promised such. But it's the exact content of that promise that matters.

They wish to see. They wish to know.

Does Josephine understand now?

I'm done drowning.

    And I ain't gonna burn, neither.

        I ain't at my end.

Does she understand now?

Josephine lifts her chin in defiance, and it rings different from the denial of their first meeting, or the resignation of their second. There is the spark of challenge to it, burning with a steel of resolve in her gaze. It reflects perfectly in the polished white of the knight's faceless helm like a moment of self-reflection before K.K.'s weight shifts.

"So that is the conclusion you have come to," they say, as they turn towards their right. The simplest movement, so unnervingly fluid and natural in its execution it might be difficult to take full notice of until the night is standing perpendicular to the archaeologist.

    "If that is what you believe that you truly deserve, Josephine Lovelace,"

In one moment, they are shifting that weight. Gripping the haft of that scythe in their hands. In the next

    "then I would bid you fight for it!"

that scythe is swung, singing its warsong through the crisp air of the Cape of Breath on a path for Josephine's neck. Just as before.

It is telegraphed just enough. But there is no shattering of the blade, this time. Josephine chooses challenge.

Josephine chooses to fight on.

And so, the knight would see it, in the clearest way any resolution may be tested. 

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

    Now that she's freed from pretense of her own, Josie might be able to consider K.K. afresh, without her own biases and baggage to get in the way. By no means is the Trial Knight an ally -- far from it. Neither are they harmless, or anything less than a threat. But the directness of their approach is to her, here and now, almost refreshing. They are unto themself a force of nature in a sense.

    What is wrong about being a monster?

    None, save that a monster's nature by definition means that it stands apart from polite society.

    "Wonder if that makes me and mine worse than monsters, eh?" Josie remarks evenly, without hesitation or even a trace of self-loathing. "But maybe even a monster can find a sort of redemption or what. Not absolution, like, but..."

    But something else. Not forgiveness. Not atonement. Just the simple act of putting one foot in front of each other, of advancing towards a future she can't even properly see. Just... by not letting the error repeat again. Just by trying, and trying again.

    She has yet to fully sketch out this painting of the world in which she exists. Much of her living has been day by day ever since she set out on this lonely road, away from from the ones she had loved and wounded. Once, the plan had been that once she was done, she would die. She'd still thought that, up until only a scant few months ago.
    But they'd asked her to come back.

    She'd denied it. But the thought came back again and again: could she change her way?
    It's possible to stop, her darker self had said. It might even be possible to start again.

    Thus had Josephine Lovelace come to draw the outline of a future in which she still dwelled. Where it wasn't the end. Where she would not drown or burn, or any other fate besides, but press on down this road.

    One foot in front of the other. One at at time.

    Thus, at last, does she speak as much to the Trial Knight, and in the same breath, dare them to take her future from her. She accepts her fate for what it might be. She will not run, but...

    Josie grins, teeth bared in that same instant that the knight's grasp on the scythe's haft shifts. There is light in those dark eyes. It is nearly joyous.

    ...neither will she stand and permit herself to be killed. She'll neither burn nor drown, sate not another's desire for punishment nor her own despair.

    If she dies, she'll die trying. That's the conclusion to which she's come.

    She ducks, pitching herself forward to roll across her shoulder as the scythe's blade rips through the very air. Rising to her knees in a low crouch, she draws and fires with a simple Aveh sidearm in one single fluid movement. This is not the Devil's Arm with which she had faced K.K. the last time -- indeed, it does not seem to even be present on her person. This is instead a far simpler weapon. Far weaker, one might even say.

    But weakness is relative.

    One only needs a single good shot -- a single good swipe of a blade -- to count, whatever the weapon's strength.
    And however it may play against one as armored as K.K., Josie has ever been an excellent shot. 

<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.

Not absolution, like, but...

"Opportunity," says the Trial Knight.

"To become more than the limits they constrained themselves with."

To be better? Maybe.

Or at least...

To have a place in the future.

There is only one real way though, to be better, to have a place. It takes many shapes. The way a person chooses to chase it may come to them in a myriad of ideas. There may be detours along the road that leads to it.

But the path is the same:

You make it for yourself, one step at a time. You choose it for yourself, every day.

You fight for it.

The scythe sings through the grasslands.

But its whistle through the wind finds no visceral interruptions of flesh and bone, singing unhindered through to the completion of is arc.

The blade of the Trial Knight is one of many. One of a set, a gift given to them, tied up in a bow of sentiment and history. But they chose this one for a reason. The curved edge of the vertical sickle cuts the air just over Josephine's head, through the space her neck once occupied. The knight completes the swing masterfully, neither over or undercommitting; it puts them in only the mildest of disadvantageous positions as Josephine Lovelace reacts to their attack.

Josephine draws her weapon. The knight recovers. The hammer cocks.

The scythe swings again.

                                                       BANG

The sound of a gunshot rings through the clear skies of the Cape of Breath as stray, lazy clouds roll slowly past.

The Trial Knight stands still, their scythe poised downward, their helmed head tilted upward.

The blade of their weapon is kissed just barely against the slope of Josephine Lovelace's neck, its swing stopped by a single good shot.

"... You -have- ended, Josephine Lovelace."

Slowly, that horned helm tilts downward. There, lodged in the knight's helm is Josephine's smoking bullet, sending spiderweb cracks through what was once pristine white.

"When a beast ends feeds the earth with its body, enriching it. When a civilization falls it feeds the star with its memory, empowering it. Each becomes the ink and parchment upon which the next tale is told. When the star ends, its memory shall feed the cosmic memory that binds us all. When this existence ends..."

The bullet, slowly, falls -- and shards of armor fall with it in a crumble of shattered fragments.

"An ending is naught but feeding a new beginning. What was once Josephine Lovelace has ended. What I gaze upon now is not the existence I once saw, mired deep in the drink."

Beneath that helm, a single eye of gold so bright it is practically molten stares intensely down at Josephine. Intense, but not condemning. No.

"... But she feeds it."

Approving.

"She enriches it."

It's a glimmer of a look, that only lasts for a few fleeting seconds as white light begins to suffuse the Trial Knight's armor and their weapon.

"You chose your end well, Josephine Lovelace."

An ending that is not an ending. A life that chooses to fight every day for a better life.

It is a fine one indeed, by their estimation.

A fleeting second of what may be happiness in that eye is gone with the knight in the next, leaving only the faint feeling of warmth in their wake. 

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

    One could put it that way.

    It's an opportunity. A widening gap into which she could take what was and press forward into what will be. Growth, after all, comes not from what springs forth alone -- growth comes in response to what is lost and what is reduced in just as equal a quantity.

    But of course Josie would never dare describe it in such florid terms. Her path is simply a matter of placing one foot in front of the other now. What's behind her is gone and she can't see what's ahead. But such is the human condition in so many words, and never did a single person get anywhere by staying in place or turning around and chasing what is lost.

    She can go back, as her shadow said, but only so she can start again. She can stop on her forward trek but it cannot be forever.

    To do anything but continue into the wilderness is to accept death by fire or water.

    And if she wants to continue, she must do what so many have done before her and will continue to do after, until the end of time--

    She must fight for it!

    She can hear the blade cut through air alone. A moment's hesitation would have cost Josie her head.
    She doesn't think of such things. She thinks only of this moment and the one that will follow immediately after, each shed into time alone as she forges ahead in the manner that only she can.
    The Trial Knight recovers. She aims. The blade cuts through the air towards her--

    It isn't pain, precisely -- the way that the edge of the blade only just touches the edge of her skin. Another fraction closer and it might well taste blood.

    "...Guess I have," Josie replies, dark eyes turned upwards to gaze at the knight to who stands over her. Her left arm tenses. It presages, perhaps, an attack yet to come -- should the Trial Knight take her head, she will endeavor to repay them as well as she is able.
    But it never gets further than that half-millimeter twitch. The Trial Knight turns their gaze down towards where she crouches and she can see at last what she has wrought.

    A satisfied smile creeps across her face.

    "Like the trees in the autumn," she remarks, watching the armor fragments fall.

    She can't undo what's been done. She can't save what's already been lost. There are no second chances in that sense.
    But there's more than one way to define what counts as a 'second chance'.

    "...I ain't who I was. But I also ain't who I will be. Whoever that is," she tells the knight, that owner of that golden eye.

    "I ain't figured out who that'll be just yet. Don't know if she'll be a saint, right, or somethin' a little more human than that. But... sure enough," she finishes, as light flickers over the knight's form. "I ain't done yet. And there's stuff I've got to fix."

    Not turn back. Not erase, as if it weren't done in the first place. But fix -- and fix it because it's the right thing to do.

    She stands only once they've gone and gazes up towards the heavens only to sigh. "My end... heh. Guess they've the right of it. Ain't nothin' gonna fix this sinner, so..." She turns her head then, at Penelope who in ignorance of what has transpired, is setting upon a caterpillar she's seized in the interim. The pigeon doesn't so much as look back.

    Josephine shakes her head and smiles to herself. "Well, you get the idea, right...? Trial Knight."

    They'd seemed almost happy there. Right at the end.

    "Heh. Well, don't that beat all."

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