The further the season goes, the further Alexis has invited themself into other people's rooms, other people's pockets, other people's beds. Why shouldn't they? They'd say they're not hurting anyone, but -- they are. Oh, they are. They're doing it as intentionally as they can, even, mixing in careless and extremely deliberate cruelty together. And, again: why shouldn't they? Even the littlest of ruinations is worth something. Even the best day of someone's life has a downturn somewhere.

In the end, everyone is just meat, walking. Nothing more, nothing less. They don't know it -- of course they don't. Alexis didn't know for a very long time; it took the worst thing that -- it took something that had never happened before to them to make them understand that. But all meat is, ultimately, just meat. And nobody knows how lucky they are, not to hurt, not to bleed, not to die. Most people don't think about it on the regular.

Alexis doesn't feel much any more. They've taken cares not to. It's inefficient and unbalanced and makes them into someone who is dragged around by the scruff by their emotions; certainly the wreckage of their own life even before everything had happened can attest to that. Most of it was their fault. And they didn't even get anything useful out of it or make any valuable connections; they were just too cruel, towards the end, pointlessly cruel in a way they did not care to hide, wrist-deep in blood because something red and hurting and painful was lodged in their heart and they wanted it out, out, out. Sometimes the ferocity exhausted them. But what else were they supposed to do? What could they have known to do? It wasn't as if they would've listened to anyone who wanted what was best for them; they wouldn't do that then, and they wouldn't do it now. One of the few things that has not changed. But when it comes to that ravenous cruelty --

They've learned better, now. Any predator worth being knows not to bare its teeth all the time.

Nobody here ought to know what Alexis is, who they are; there's been no cause to expose it to anyone who might know each other. It takes time and effort and a hundred different strings tied together to really reach the weight of something that might cause other things to move accordingly; in reaching that, they oughtn't make too make large, foolish moves. And they've still not yet seen a perfect opportunity for anything that might catch their attention; no clear points where they can fissure what someone should have and what they will. No blood.

In the very few things Alexis does feel something measurable about, some emotion they can recognize and quantify and know easily how it moves them, the lack of blood is what's driving them further into these varied endeavors.

Nobody dies, or, at least, most often nobody dies. No Senshi here wields a blade or any true weapon; they posed the question once offhandedly to Encke and he didn't quite understand what they meant, not the weight of it, not in depth. It makes them seek other outlets. It makes them seek any sensation that might replicate, even for a few seconds, that irreplaceable feeling of all that blood on their hands.

[wc: 554]