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Joy was not entirely sure why there seemed to be a comparative cessation of hostilities, but she was starting to feel a gnawing sense of guilt for not having done something, anything to take take advantage of the fact.

This was an unhappy thought. A sense of obligation was not something she had asked for, just as she hadn't asked for any of the rest of it, but she knew that it was something that she was going to feel - some fundamental part of her make up, which might, after all, have been the thing that got her singled out by the Cosmos for being dragged kicking and screaming into what she still mentally referred to as a game, rejecting the idea of it being a war outright.

Still, despite this internal rejection of the severity of the conflict, the situation would frame itself in martial terms: not just a cessation of hostilities, but a parley, as she had thought of it last time.

But despite all this, she hadn't exactly gone out into the dark streets looking for an opportunity. If anything, she'd gone out hoping to avoid it. But the same disgusting sense of duty that had dragged her out and would make her feel a sense of obligation turned her - with a great deal of caution - towards the now-familiar feeling of hostile presence in the air, as inexorably as a flower turned towards sunlight.

Whatever it was, it felt bigger than she was. And she knew, now, that there were ways to seem smaller than you were, which was a bit like knowing that the water underneath you was very deep but not knowing what was swimming in it. So she closed one hand around the whip handle, and the other around the whistle chained to her waist, prepared to make a run for it if this turned out to be more of a "corrupt senshi yanking starseeds in the park" situation than a "snotty teenager with an attitude" one, and then simultaneously attempted - without much success - to broadcast the aura of someone hoisting a white flag in spirit, rather than skittering around in thinly-suppressed terror.

There was a pause, but she allowed herself - cautiously - to stray into view.

"I mean, I have my problems," she said, still visibly tense but not actually making any move towards violence. "Lots of them. I could make a list. But I'm not going to act on them if you don't."

She paused, making a little movement of her hand towards him, meaningless, as if to draw an invisible circle that just happened to contain them both at this moment. "Makes you think, doesn't it? If they can just suspend hostilities, why they don't."

"New enough. But I don't think that's a bad thing. You ever heard of the five monkeys thought experiment? Maybe a couple of the new monkeys should give the whole thing a critical eye." She waved a hand, clearly unwilling to pursue the topic further, leaving the concept unexplained.

"Their bad blood isn't our problem," she pointed out instead. "But whatever. Is that it, then - they think this is some kind of bigger threat?" She jabbed a finger at the sky, indicating the storm that was not there. "Good generals or royalty or whatever would just find another one to unite people under, but what do I know." She spread her hands in an exaggerated gesture of helpless stupidity. "I'm new. So new I don't even know what the threat is, if I'm being honest. I figured this was some recurring thing and I was just coming in for my first round of it. No?"

She held up her hands in a time-out sign.

"I'm gonna need you to back up to the world-eating snakes part," she said flatly, and wearily. "Because if this is some sort of apocalyptic Ragnarok situation I'd prefer to die first and get it over with, and I would damn sure like to go get laid a little more before that happens."

She made an impatient gesture, as if to wave his doohickey away, and then pointed absently to a ring on her finger, holding it up demonstratively.

“Yeah, yeah, we got that. But the first few days were just people going ‘wow, weird,’ and I know for a fact they're capable of doing another All Hands on Deck. No one did, so I stopped looking. Felt like reading Nextdoor after a wind storm. You see one blown over trash can, you see them all, so you ignore it and miss the whole Escaped Axe Murderer notice.”

She paused, and it was extremely clear that she was doing some very quick mental math.

“They have not yet done an All Hands,” she repeated. “So either this is futile and everyone knows it, or - and don't you think this is more likely? - you're right and no one else thinks it's hopeless either. I haven't heard about any runs on cashing in retirement savings or Purge-like abandon and no one has spilled the beans to the civilians, I suppose, or we'd have heard about it. So I'm guessing no one with the knowledge is strapped in for the collapse of everything.”

She said all this very quickly, as if thinking aloud, and her eyes suddenly snapped to him with bright focus, and she returned to addressing him directly.

“So are we taking bets? Because either we do get that All Hands and we all have some glorious stand, or else it fizzles out. But any amount of money: as you so astutely observe, we go right back to squabbling two days after the dust settles.” She said this with an odd sort of triumph, as if this entire conversation was the proof of some treasured hypothesis. And also, it must be said, totally without apocalyptic anxiety. Whatever her internal theory was, it must not even slightly encompass the idea of a world-eating snake putting an end to everything.

She then, perhaps unexpectedly, appealed to him as a beleaguered equal. “Don't you ever feel like you're just getting yanked around?”

“Me too,” she said, a frank offer of empathy from across enemy lines. “And as we keep pointing out. I'm new.” She, secure in her ideas, had already entirely discarded the idea of the world being on the brink of the apocalypse.

She hesitated, unsure what or how much to say, and opted for bald sympathy that was uncorrupted by actual pity. “I guess in some respects I have it easier. No one's holding my feet to the fire. I mean, they try.” She wrinkled her nose. “But they put a weapon into my hands that I didn't want and then didn't - I don't know - try to make me feel like a soldier. They're too inept for it, I guess.” This, too, felt like a shockingly frank acknowledgement of the situation, to be coming from across faction lines. “Or my theory is they don't really care. But it does mean at least I have the freedom to use that weapon however I think is best, including putting it down, if I want. But I'm also not getting salary and healthcare,” she finished drily. “So pick your poison, I guess.”

And then, again with that open fellow-feeling: “Got us all on the same stupid puppet strings, yeah? Maybe I'll run into you in a month and we'll have to draw swords and pretend this whole conversation didn't happen.”

She was silent for a long time, struggling. It would be nice to make some sort of in-road here. She had been harboring the idea for quite some time that the true aim of the game they were trapped in was flipping pieces. But it sounded like there was nothing left to flip for this one in particular - sounded like she was looking at someone presiding over the scrapped wreckage of a life - and in any case, she had never been much cut out for any kind of evangelism.

She was too honest.

"Can't promise I won't," she said, with a strained smile. "Because I can't imagine - well, anything you just said - and I frankly don't want to. It sounds like hell. Absolute hell. I've also seen what the people over there on your side are doing to stay going. I mean, look what they did to you."

And she had held, in her hand, a starseed she'd only managed to save by some kind of calamitous avalanche of lucky timing. That Elaine Carlisle would not have been able to save, and that the Joyeuse Garde could.

"I don't know what you, personally, are doing over there. Maybe you're stuck you have to keep your head low now that they roped you in. But if you're not actually trying to blow it up from the inside-" she made a helpless little gesture, lifting her hands. "Well. They didn't make me a soldier. But they gave me a weapon, and unfortunately they seem to be good at giving this name to people who are going to feel obligated to use the weapon if they have it. I can't just sit there and do nothing while your bosses run around yanking starseeds. They gave me freedom, so I'm using it. So: I can't promise I won't. Depends on you. But think of it as revenge for what they're doing to people like you, if it makes you feel any better. Or don't. I don't much care."