The end of the fight was enough to take Kaleeth's mind off of Deerz, at least for the moment. It was even enough to get her to smile at Janius. "I don't know if we should start clapping or anything, but we can go congratulate him."

For Argrei, and Julan in particular, they both looked exhausted from the fight. Once Julan pulled away his blade, Argrei gave a confused stare down at the broken halves of his spear before dropping them both at his feet. He rubbed his sore neck, then simply sat himself down on the ground where he had been standing to catch his breath. 

Julan saw his parents approaching him and took a few steps to meet them in the middle, but he soon found himself surrounded by the excited faces of the other young Argonians he had befriended over the past few days. He heard an indistinct mix of cheers and congratulations, along with a few playful shoves that actually caused him a fair degree of discomfort, given his injuries. 

However, Julan could not utter a word before Leeus ran up to him, every bit as excited as her friends, and planted a rather long kiss straight on his "lips". 

Julan, understandably, was wide-eyed and stunned into speechlessness. Even after Leeus pulled away from him, he took just two steps towards his parents, forgot his limp, and had his wounded leg buckle underneath him. In under a second, he ended up falling face-first into the mud.

[hr]

"Maybe.I don't know if it has anything to do with what happened to me, though." Ahnasha sighed. "I thought it was a good thing for me, to be able to do what I needed to do in this war without hesitation. Without regret, without...question. Our [i]souls[/i] depend on us being successful. We've had to kill people that maybe didn't deserve to die, in this war. How many silver or gas shipments did we raid over the years? How many of those were protected just by hired caravan guards who were just doing their jobs, and didn't know what was going on? Even thinking about that...I don't feel anything for them. Their souls just ended up going to Aetherius a few decades early; why does it even matter?"

Ahnasha reached over and grabbed Fendros' hand tightly, at least finally willing to accept Fendros' comfort. "Even if I do still have some empathy left in me, how can I make Rhazii see me as anything but a monster anymore? Maybe you should go find him, make sure he's alright?"