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"H, like the letter." Candace narrowed her eyes. This wasn't funny, this wasn't at all funny. "Yes..it is his name..."

Rep pat her a** and Candace's eyes widened again. Did that really just happen? Yes, yes it did. "Right..." This wasn't Rep. This wasn't Jerry. This wasn't real.

"We'll find Jordan.." and what was happening. Was everyone like this? Clerise had been very docile toward Mimsy as well...

This wasn't right.

"It's fine, Jerry," Candace said quietly when Jerry apologized on Rep's behalf. She sounded almost defeated. Why? Why?!

[Outsidish Caveish]

Rep gave Dakota a look over and compared him against what he knew about the Moon hunter, or at least what the other him knew about the moon. So he was with Candace here?

Tough s**t. He was Queen, he did what he wanted.

As if to make this statement, he slunk his arm around the curve of her waist.

"Nothing's up. Some s**t went down downstairs, nothing to concern a mark like yourself."

[South]

Nevada woke a little too late. Her body was use to sleeping through loud sounds after all. But when she did wake, she found herself alone in her shared dorm with Stormy and a siren that pierced her ears.

She didn't pay much attention to the location, gathering her coat and her poppy pin, placing it in her hair.

Artifact Check. Weapon Check.

/Let's check south first./ Leroy piped. Neither of them remembering much of the dream world, beyond that they had completed a mission there.

"South." Nevada hissed as she went to the southern part of the Islands, scouting the area. With nothing to catch her eye, she was about to leave when a scream pierced through the silence, sending her flying over to whoever it was.

A hunter, writhing in pain. A black mark...What even??

"I..." Nevada bent down, blanking. "I don't know how to...Bandages?" She pulled out a couple, thinking that it would ease something.

[ caves ]

"I'm sorry," she said, her words hollow. "B-But I'm not going anywhere."

Is this what it means to be a hunter? I don't want to be a hunter any longer.

[Outside Caves]

"No ******** kidding I'm no myself." Rep snapped at Jerry. "This ******** body, he's wearing cheap shitty clothes, terrible coat, this underwear chafes, his hair's like straw, my mouth tastes like a ******** brothel, I must have no ******** gold anywhere on me."

He didn't even blame Candace as she moved away from him. He'd move away from this body too, it just wasn't befitting of royalty at all, he'd have to clean it up if he was going to be stuck here any length of time. "Pretty sure I could still ******** for my country if I had to." He looked Dakota over. "He's no a bad catch either. "

He lingered staring the entire time, ignoring the important information about their situation, that was Jordan's job. His job was intimidation and being so ******** fabulous it hurt.

"Hey.." he sought in his memory for a name. "..Dakota right? How do you feel about a royal audience? I can duel weild. I'll show you what I showed your girlfriend."

Dakota asked about Clarice and Candace tensed up. No. No. Don't. "Clarice is.." She bit down on her lip and held him tighter. No, don't make her say it. Please, please don't make her say it. Saying it made it real, saying it would force her to accept the truth. No. Please. "Sh-she's..dead..." Candace could barely get the word out. it hurt to say. She didn't want to admit it. It hurt to admit.

She wanted to relax, and she had been starting to when Dakota held her until he asked about Clarice, but Rep and Jerry made it impossible. Rep was all wrong. He wasn't actually Rep. Why? What happened? How do they fix it?

Candace winced when Rep brought up the whole royal audience thing. She held Dakota tighter. "I love you," she whispered. Don't be mad, don't be mad, don't be mad. Please no. Stay normal. Don't change.

This was too painful.

She needed to do something useful.

"I'm..going to go see what the rest of the island is like..." She needed space. Candace needed room to breathe.

[ caves ]

A slow trickle of blood slid down her chin, and she made no move to wipe it. It was a good thing the kind stranger cared more about how she looked; perhaps she understood. Perhaps she understood the grief that was within her, the loss and the sorrow and all that came with it.

The tears wouldn't stop. It made seeing who was speaking to her a chore, but she would recognise his voice anywhere. H had instructed her to move and had left shortly after that, leaving his orders lingering in the air with the fresh meat. The replacement.

"No," she said, simply, her voice dropping an octave, taking on a gravely (wounded, mournful, terrified) tone. She bared her teeth at the replacement, and the sound that escaped her was wounded and feral in equal measure. "I don't have anything left."

Clerise looked up at Sasha. "It's okay if you want to go ahead." I forgive you. I would leave me, too. She turned to Dakota, but said nothing. Her strife with him seemed so insignificant, now. He was just a child.

She had to show them. Clerise wiped away at the tears with the back of her hand, uncomprehending of why her face was wet.

(Oh, how they would see the world in the red that she did, a world of red and ashes. Her world was swathed in a dark fog that would never lift. Her world was over and done and finished.)

All she had left was a pair of hands, a mismatched set of charred-black and pale-blue. They were not even hers. Clarice had sacrificed everything for them, and it was still not yet enough. Her replacement wanted them already. Touching the pocketwatch around her neck, Clerise gently set the charred hand upon the ground, resting back amongst the ashes. Balthazar pulsed under her fingertips, the warmth of his totem a familiarity, but with it came a cautionary murmur.

{[ You can't do this, love. You really, really can't. ]}

She summoned him anyway, rising off her knees and shifting into a deep crouch, her sickle-scythes raised behind her. The look on her face was an empty one: she was nothing and she was no one.

(She had nothing left to lose.)

{[ They are our allies, they are ours, they are-- ]}

They want to take her.

"You can't have her," Clerise snarled at anyone that would try and take the pieces of the woman she loved. "Haven't you had enough?"

[Cave]

This was more like the Clerise that Mimsy knew. She smiled, pleased that the playing field had grown slightly more level, so she no longer had to feel like a cat above a fishtank.

She took a step back, skin tingling with curiosity. Was this what it felt like to love someone so tremendously? Was it worth protecting two hands and a pile of ashes?

How absolutely worthless, if this was how it ended.

"I hope that you understand the consequences of your actions." Her tone was cold again, with no more forced smiles or sickly-sweet coos. Her fingers grazed the brooch on her coat, tentative, waiting.

But she waited too long.

Caelius was here, which was not the worst of scenarios; it just further separated her from her goal. Ten spaces back, watching from afar again.

And the Death Lead's orders were clear, but Mimsy remained, more than certain that she was of use here.

She had a great deal of usefulness here, she thought, glancing at Clerise out of the corner of her eye.