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Bix had stress. It was stress he couldn't shake. With Ceres he tried to be better, to be in a good mood. It wasn't that he was lying to her but she seemed to be worried too and so he put on a good face and maybe seemed too enthusiastic and when all of that seemed to be too much work they would just sleep.

But sleep wasn't helping really. Neither was his training. Or his routine. Missions were either too lame or ended up being some sort of convoluted trap. Bix, in classic Sun fashion, just wanted to smash something.

And so he was out on the training fields way too early in the morning. It wasn't quite sunny and a morning mist was the closest thing to the Fog that he could get. He was stone-faced as he stung a dummy with arrows, each red pinion popping on impact to leave singes over the wooden surface. Spots that he'd hit more than once were slowly etched away into tiny craters until it looked like his dummy suffered from a horrible flesh eating disease.

But blowing it to bits just wasn't enough and Bix darted around in a circle, firing on the move, jumping forward and backward until he was panting and sweating in the dim morning light. He'd do this until he collapsed. Until he was so tired he just couldn't think anymore.

"Not good enough for me anymore." Bix didn't have to turn to respond to Taym and his words were not as bright as they normally should have been, even this early. "They just stand there and take it." A fast volley pinned the dummy's head, almost simultaneously exploding and taking a large chunk from it's face. "I need those Hunger Games hologram things." The pale man panted.

With the arrows having done their job Bix turned his bow, held it like a two-handed staff, and the feathered blades on the ends sprung out. He charged the dummy, leaping to bury the blades into the wood over and over with heavy, angry strikes. He wasn't the top hand-to-hand fighter but he'd been here long enough, found need enough in the art, to have his weapon evolve to accommodate it. Bix's fighting at the moment seemed frantic and emotional. It was different and... not quite him.

"Do those.." he panted, "things really relieve stress like people pretend they do?" The cigarettes.

"No thanks.." Bix smirked at Taym's offer. "I'm not that low yet." It took a moment for him to realize that could have come off as an insult which he didn't intend. "No offense."

"I actually have tried smoking. Well once. Tasted like s**t." He chopped the hell out of the dummy some more before his arms were burning, blood pumping through them so much he could actually feel it.

"I need to get out of here. Do something straight forward. A mission that doesn't ******** up or end up a trap or... isn't lame." One of Mina's bladed ends sunk into the turf and she remained politely silent, offering only a feeling of support that he appreciated. He used her like a staff to keep himself upright.

"I miss the fog. I miss the barriers. Ya know the ******** murder show didn't even surprise me? Not even shocking. My trial was worse. Ya know I beat a girl to death with my bare hands? To live. To.. make it here." He tiredly waved an arm in the direction of the buildings. "I remember every second of it. Gale died first. We stopped talking about it when we realized it had just been a test but.." He shrugged. "Watching it on the phone I could only think.. 'Oh this again?'."

Bix shook his head. He was just talking now, not his quick upbeat rambling tangents, but just spilling things because he hadn't yet. It always came out eventually. He wasn't much for secrets. He'd be s**t in Death.

"Never expect it to be straight forward. When you think it'll be a breeze you end up in some horsemen trap with worms in your brain for a month." Bix apparently wasn't in the mood to mince his words. "But I'm in." He did smile in support, a genuine one, "I think I'm the sanest Sun at this point.. it's not saying much but I've got your back."

Bix pulled Mina from the turf and her blades flipped back in. He idly ran his fingers through the white feathered talisman that hung from her grip before stepping back to fire again. "So what did they do to Rep? I hear he's alive.." There was a tone of disappointment. He also assumed Taym knew because he was in Death.. or maybe because he seemed like he'd make a point to find out. "Sorry I had to get DAD on you, on that mission with Jordan. I just hate when work doesn't stay in the work-zone. In school I was like.. super serious about pressuring myself to do well and I guess I still do it here. Even if I'm a goofy weirdo the rest of the time."

He fired a few arrows. "I don't get those guys. Jordan seems so level headed all the rest of the time. And Rep is CLEARLY a killer. He's done it twice.. and then chopped off Rin's arm. I was fine to go with 'working on it' after they punished him those first couple times but.... now? I'm supposed to go into a battle with a guy who can't not kill fellow hunters?"

Another couple of arrows. It seemed the dummy-abuse was becoming boring to him. "He's like the Hulk.. not smart enough to be a super villain and not good enough to be a hero. Just some massive ball of destruction you can only put in a cage and then point it at the things you want destroyed. And if it dies, which isn't usually likely, you've got another problem conveniently solved."

Bix abandoned his bashing of the dummy to join Taym on the grass. His coat was already laying there and he was only wearing an athletic shirt and some sweats. Mina was unsummoned and when he finally planted his butt in the grass he resorted to juggling the marbles around his palm and over his knuckles. "I don't want to get ahead of myself and complain to Allan." he didn't know when Rep would see combat again, or be assigned to do missions, "but I feel like I need to complain. He should be a janitor or something. No one's life should in anyway rely on his actions."

Bix laughed, with a taint of bitterness, "And who would I complain to? Allan? Who probably thinks Rep went on vacation. You know.. he thought I went on vacation when I 'died'." He finger quoted it. "Asked me if I had a good time when I was back."

Bix was pretty sure that Allan being as delusional as he was was only a benefit for the man. "Seems like to be a division leader you have to be a straight up villain, crazy.. or I guess a traitor." Oh yea... Aria. THAT HAPPENED TOO. "What a ******** crazy month." Bix buried his face in his hands.

"Aria was cool. But when we found out she hadn't been herself and it had been one of the Halloweeners.. that shook things up. Since then it's seemed like things with her were tentative." It was before Taym's time. "The umm impersonator was the one who turned into a dragon?" He reminded, touching his own neck where the burn scars laced upwards from under his shirt. "But I owed her. She was the one who kept Ceres and my bodies from the Lifers. Gave us a chance to..." wake up? Not be dead? Whatever the hell happened?

He rubbed his face, red streaks showing on his fair skin from the pressure, and then fading slowly. "Who's Bashmet again?" He wasn't exactly embarassed not to know. It seemed like new hunters were showing up all the time, even while they were out of power. "I know the green haired kid.. at least from the tournament. But I guess I really don't know either of them. What happened?"

He opened his mouth a moment, to tell Taym that he couldbe trusted. That out of everyone, Bix felt himself the most trustworthy, but then he didn't speak. Was it worth mentioning? Was he really as trustworthy as he claimed?

Bix couldn't help it. Even with his stress and the grave nature of the conversation, he flopped back and clutched his hands to his chest like a smitten girl. "I'll be yours Taym.." He batted his lashes cheesily. Unfortunately all of Bix's 'hot' faces looked like he was constipated. "If that's what your asking?!"

And then there was a dramatic womanly sigh and he acted like he fainted backwards into the grass.

"She's... worried. She's a tough lady though. And she loves to have on her tough face but.." He frowned. "She's got that thing I have.. where we throw ourselves in front of death for our friends. So she didn't like the live broadcast too much." Took it worse than he did probably. Especially with Gale there. "I know she worries about Gale... and she's got a lot of other friends." More than Bix did most likely.

He rubbed his face before propping himself up on his elbows. "Also she's a Moon and Dakota is pretty close with her so the Shiloh thing struck close to home. Two moons couldn't save him? Didn't do enough? I mean.. he's alive now but... I guess we take our divisions to heart a bit after a while. I used to not think I was right for Sun. A bow? I mean come on." Bix then cracked a revealing smile. "But now I can't imagine being anywhere else. We take our duties seriously, she and I. A slight to the division is a slight to all the Moons I think."