Certain large swaths of Earth seemed to be given to the constant back-and-forth movements of detachments - squads - armies - as if the land itself held some sort of tide made of men and their tedious incessant petty bloodshed that necessitated a gain and loss of ground governed by some force even more mysterious than that of the moon.

Not that the bodies of the Cosmos were entirely uninvolved with such movements. Some of them, as a matter of fact, were very deeply embedded in the unending martial sway.

Still, there hadn't really been anything to suggest that this particular town, with this particular movement had been linked to any rock other than the muddy and dismal Earth. A couple dozen men and their inefficient horses, toiling away at stupid conflict while somewhere over their heads interstellar royalty reclined in ease and luxury, and civilized themselves into warfare that consisted of sterile remoteness and tidy, sanitary detachment of the general's brain from the grunt's necessary blood.

Such doings, maybe, were a boon for someone looking to get away with trouble. Contrary to providing extra danger for the would-be-scoundrel to negotiate, these little armies rarely had time to spare for anything virtuous unrelated to their own ends, and even, at times, did a little marauding themselves, which was convenient in the way that an off-key singer is less noticed in a choir.

Still, some of them had the decency to at least be scrambling to attempt to organize a bucket brigade as the blackness of the night began to assume a distinctly reddish tinge. Not, however, one particular and strange figure, who had been accompanying the band but seemed aloof from it - a courier, it was to be assumed, or perhaps some sort of navigator for the mountain passes ahead; no royalty would have been seen on foot and wearing anything so drab. Whoever he was, he had kept to himself most of the day, swaddled up in his cloak and deep in his hood, moving with a lanky-limbed grace among the soldiers and saying very little.

As there was nothing to suggest that he was royalty, there was also nothing to suggest that he was one of those Cosmic overseers of Earthly conflict. But certainly the end of his sword found its way to the small of Grieve's back as readily as any soldier's might have, and perhaps more so, although it stopped before it broke clothing, let alone skin.

"A Senshi," he - she - said, in a melodious voice with a strangely accented lilt in it that sounded - it must be said - somewhat like the one in the voices of the local men that the damned Joyeuse Garde trained to be their own little squadron of Earth Cops. "Do you not think that this is somewhat beneath our dignity?"

The sword - perhaps unwisely - withdrew a few inches, in what was probably an honorable impulse. She even took a step back, on light, soundless feet, and her hood being thrown back, two tendrils of long hair - or what seemed like hair - were tossed lightly in the backdraft of the heat billowing out of the inn. Not only not a man, but not human at all, and wearing an expression of benevolent disapproval, as if she'd merely surprised a little girl tracking mud on a freshly-scrubbed floor.