[Eventually, the thing stops moving. The doppelgänger that had worn Amos’ voice and used his voice is nothing now but cracked ice and cold, cold water under her bloody hooves, and Hayame’s eyes finally refocus, find the next and nearest threat-
Which is Amos, technically, standing there bruised and cracked while she stands atop his look-a-like’s improptu grave, lungs heaving with it’s blood smeared over her lips and a finger snapped back all wrong on her bow hand.
But she’d just proven that she was far deadly enough without handicapping herself with the weapons of civilized man. Belatedly, instead of the usual “you do not need to thank me”, or “I did not ask for your thanks”-]
… You are welcome.
[He was a Zenith. She had just potentially saved his life, or at least his dignity, and so… he should thank her. He was in her debt now.
Movement returns, wincing herself as she straightens from the feral stance of a trample and spits more blood from her mouth, wiping the rest with the back of the broken hand before she reaches down, seizes the finger… and, no, it’s definitely broken, not dislocated. She pulls a strip of cloth used for tying her barrel from the pouch at her waist and begins splinting it makeshift instead, watching Amos all the while.
She doesn’t want to answer the question.
His hand had been so warm, that day. What a shame, she’d thought… that she should be on opposite sides of one of the few people she’d met in this place that she thought she might get on well with. Understand, even, in a world where she felt no one truly did. (If she hadn’t been sure before… she was sure now. “Be grateful”… As if they should be grateful-]
… I fought my double today, in the Hall of Mirrors. I didn’t see anyone else.
[She says it as if reporting to a superior, her stormy gaze even on his across the ice.]
It was troublesome to kill, but I managed it. No [TIME] changed hands.
[Mercy, kindness, or laziness had never motivated her before. So what is it now… that prevents her from acting… ? From proposing what it is she does now… ?
no subject
Which is Amos, technically, standing there bruised and cracked while she stands atop his look-a-like’s improptu grave, lungs heaving with it’s blood smeared over her lips and a finger snapped back all wrong on her bow hand.
But she’d just proven that she was far deadly enough without handicapping herself with the weapons of civilized man. Belatedly, instead of the usual “you do not need to thank me”, or “I did not ask for your thanks”-]
… You are welcome.
[He was a Zenith. She had just potentially saved his life, or at least his dignity, and so… he should thank her. He was in her debt now.
Movement returns, wincing herself as she straightens from the feral stance of a trample and spits more blood from her mouth, wiping the rest with the back of the broken hand before she reaches down, seizes the finger… and, no, it’s definitely broken, not dislocated. She pulls a strip of cloth used for tying her barrel from the pouch at her waist and begins splinting it makeshift instead, watching Amos all the while.
She doesn’t want to answer the question.
His hand had been so warm, that day. What a shame, she’d thought… that she should be on opposite sides of one of the few people she’d met in this place that she thought she might get on well with. Understand, even, in a world where she felt no one truly did. (If she hadn’t been sure before… she was sure now. “Be grateful”… As if they should be grateful-]
… I fought my double today, in the Hall of Mirrors. I didn’t see anyone else.
[She says it as if reporting to a superior, her stormy gaze even on his across the ice.]
It was troublesome to kill, but I managed it. No [TIME] changed hands.
[Mercy, kindness, or laziness had never motivated her before. So what is it now… that prevents her from acting… ? From proposing what it is she does now… ?
Hayame does not know.]