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The Order signature that flared up was not immediately near, but near enough - and almost immediately approaching, growing more insistent as its owner apparently made tracks towards her own.

But it was very quiet, and a large open space with no signs of civilian-aimed shenanigans was promising, and Joy - for so it was - slowed down as she grew nearer, especially when she managed to get eyes on the lone figure and was assured that there was no immediate threat to dispatch.

She had, herself, been quite lax on the patrolling front lately. It felt like too much to do. Easier to exert some pressure on Maus or whoever else was amenable to her suggestions, to get their Order cooties all over the place in what would hopefully be a lasting deterrent. It was a relief, therefore, to not be called into action that she never felt adequate to perform in any case.

She stopped, therefore, quite some distance away: a luxurious figure in the dim of streetlights, although her head was silhouetted against a disc of gold that seemed strangely to be illuminated by some unseen sun, like the halo on an old drawing of a saint. Her voice, however, was no saint's at all, rising up to carry with a dry sarcasm in it and just a hint of a down-in-the-holler drawl.

"Not the cloves," she said. "Needs some armpit and gauged-ear stink or you're missing the full bouquet."

It was not an opening volley she would have offered a few months ago. But Maus - and Maus alone - had shifted her perspective somewhat. It was not for her to evangelize and convert, and she certainly wouldn't be out here making any alliances. But there lurked, always, the dim hope-and-dread that she was approaching someone who might be, as he was, desperate for a help that would move the tally of this awful stalemate game in a favorable direction.

There was a lengthy silence, during which Joy contemplated the best course of action. Maybe she should drift on. But the thing that stopped her was the indication of those battered knuckles, which she had quite overlooked.

"And who of us," she asked, with a touch of coolness, "did you do that on? Asking a bit much if you're wanting my pity for it."

She was silent, again, and did not say that it wasn't that hard to hide an ambush if you were willing to stash them away in civilian form until the moment that they weren't. It didn't need to be said.

"Easier to think like this than it is to think like - whoever you are when you're not this?" she asked, and while there was still some skepticism in it, it wasn't like she was lashing out. Maybe the skepticism wasn't for her potential for violence, but for some other cause. She added: "I met a guy once who told me the worst part was being paranoid all the time and ******** if he wasn't right, but you will at least grant me that we have reason to be ******** paranoid."

"I am aware," said the knight, in a tone of cool, rational introspection rather than emotion, "that this is a war of conscription on both sides. I'm not unreasonable. I just have a hard time imagining being conscripted on your particular side and not - doing something about it."

One of Joy's biggest failings - perhaps the biggest failing of her character, all things considered - was her stubborn belief that anyone not living up to her personal standards was simply not trying hard enough. But it certainly had more objectionable manifestations than this. Certainly, it might be argued that not actively draining anyone was, in fact, doing something about it - but certainly it might also be argued that it wasn't enough. Depended, maybe, on who was doing the arguing.

"Anyway," she added, smoothing her skirt in a needless little motion of regal detachment, "My trust isn't relevant. I'm not out here trying to convert anyone. And if the best you can do is keep your nose out of making active trouble for people who also didn't ask for any of this, then I've got no desire to antagonize you, either, because it's better than some. Bigger fish to fry, you know? It's not that I trust you to be telling the truth," she added bluntly, "so much as that you seem too burnt out to bother."

She paused.

"Which probably makes it easier for them to put the screws to you," she reflected neutrally. "But I don't see them out here doing it right now. So maybe I'll just mosey on and let you keep thinking."

She had been, in fact, preparing to move on. But she stopped to listen to the stranger's whining - as she mentally termed it, unfortunately - and grew colder and angrier, that white trash demeanor falling away and replaced by something more like the steely queen she looked like she ought to be.

She shouldn't, really, care what one nameless corrupted soul thought of her. And she didn't, really - she cared that these things could be said without a rebuttal.

"You don't know me any more than I know you," she said. "So I'll forgive you for not knowing that while I may be a lot of things, a ******** hypocrite isn't one of them and never will be. You'd be ******** astonished, the sort of things I'd be willing to do and what I'd be willing to sacrifice if it was between that and loathing myself, and I make it a point not to get too close to anyone that wouldn't do the same. Anyone worth anything to me would throw me right into the meat grinder, if it was the right thing to do and the only way for them to respect their own conscience. And if the entire world ran on that principle, then no amount of creative cruelty would keep them functional. But maybe it's easier to hate yourself," she continued coolly, "than to do what hurts to make sure that you never hate yourself again. Not maybe. I know that it is. Else people wouldn't be doing it constantly, all the time."