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It doesn't matter when she raises her hand to stop the blow, because it is not enough. Her fear shield is on the low end already and it is obliterated as her opponent hits her with the force of a blade larger than she is tall, and she's five foot eleven. Careening through the air, her body is in pain and her mind is racing and--

She hits the wall with a crack that's sickening even to her own ears, and all she can do is go limp to protect herself, the bricks crumbling around her. Her body was strong but the wall was stronger, and she speaks, calm and unwavering, pressing a bandage to her forehead.

As she slips into unconsciousness, she smiles, because she is both her damnation and salvation, wrapped up nice with a bow.

This is me.
An accumulation of memories.

And inside one of those fragmented recall,
I watched this scene plays. A sad scene from my past.



I turned from it.
Since it was just a memory.
A sad memory.

The Black Kingdom topples before her eyes (red like rubies, red like blood, red like--), and she shrinks, small enough to straddle her steed, and he howls and she follows suit, an audible echo of their horror and their loss.

It had been her home, for an eternity or more. She had lived there, cried there, murdered in cold blood, there.

They had taken it from her. She was not so weak as their tower: she would not fall without a fight.

On this day, The Fool would have her revenge.

She has heard terrible news (he killed someone, he turned on his team, he--) and doesn't want to believe it, but she does, because the one telling her is the most trustworthy of sources. It is Sasha.

Sasha confides in her with confessions of dark intentions, and so she tries to explain and plead and make her understand, there is more to life than anger, there is more to her than wrath, there is--

"YOU are important. You get to be mad, sometimes! You can be pissed off and let it fuel you, but don't let it control you," she says, and it is a plea.

"Anger isn't the only thing that can make you feel alive. Rage doesn't have to be your only motivator," she says, and it is a truth she learned too late.

"You don't have to conform to any ******** thing you don't want to. Rule yourself not by the expectations of what others might ******** find, but by what you feel like doing," she says, and it is her motto.

She looks at Sasha, waits with bated breath, and the first two words out of her mouth are
"You're right," and she is so, so proud.

Sasha explains her life, her childhood, the expectations of her old life. "Always trying to be good, never a disappointment. You're right. You're absolutely right, I just... it's hard.

"This is a huge step for me, but it's the step I should have taken when I came here initially. I don't have high aspirations. I just want to be good at what I do, without weakness. I just want to belong. I want to mean something."

She smiles. "There's nothing wrong with wanting to be good...But I think-- no one is good all the time. Good is what you are for your parents to earn approval, good is what you are when people are watching, good is what you try to do in school."

Again, Sasha says it: "You're right."

There are few things she knows well, but she knows how to loose herself of inhibitions, to release the anger that had once been her life. She thinks she can make a difference, here, and if she can do that in even just one person, it is worth all the effort in the world.

This is me.
An accumulation of memories.

And inside one of those fragmented recall,
I watched this scene plays. A scene from my past.



I turned from it.
Since it was just a memory.
A proud memory.

She hates her with everything she's got.

Fists clenched, she curls her lip and how dare she show up here, where it was her only salvation.

She throws her phone with a scream and a howl and she throws it again and someone will surely hear and she doesn't care because little Mildred the Spiderbitch does not belong here.

It is the biggest disappointment of her life, and that includes a near death experience at the hands of a horseman.

There's a cuff on her arm and she wants to know the real story.

Her friends, most of them, were almost punished with the ever-looming threat of death. She stepped up to take the burden for Dakota, who she'd always hold a fondness for in her heart. She had taken his life into her hands and shielded him from the consequences.

But she has to know what happened, so it takes being a little bit unorthodox.

She talks to Rep, and finds out the truth. It is messy, as always, full of insanity and dire situations. He is a harsh but predictable judge.

Follow your orders.

This is what it means to be a hunter.

This is me.
An accumulation of memories.

And inside one of those fragmented recall,
I watched this scene plays. A scene from my past.



I turned from it.
Since it was just another memory.
Another memory of a discovery.