Since Jean gave the order to move out, Ines found herself curiously devoid of expression. Her eyes always scanned rooftops above, shattered as they were, for the omnipresent threat of sharpshooters, and her eyes returned blankness with every scan. It was more of a habit, really. A habit she’d done well to develop early, thanks to a past she’d rather forget, and in many ways, at both times wish she had been back to and also never experienced. Ines was hardly a stranger to fighting in rain-choked, fog-ridden streets. If anything, her derision of Ostend being a mirror image of Amone in its’ melancholic wreckage only forced her to see parallels. Even while she walked, every pebble, ever drainage pipe, every war-pilfered building eerily reminisced of an endless industrial district, row after row of barely-coiffed tenements hanging by a sheet of mortar that defined the city of Ostend. Maybe things never truly did get any better, if what she had signed on for was a replication of her home. Or perhaps she truly did have it worse off, that Amone - or any other city - was never supposed to be like this, and what, in fact, she had grown accustomed to was indeed man-made hell. 

A droplet plopped upon her head. Then another, angled leftward, slithered along her hairline. Its accomplice soon followed, with a merry band of raindrops falling on her head while the weather progressed into an evening’s downpour. Her helmet was damaged beyond repair, for the moment, and Ines took great lengths to express her indignant resignation while she gazed upon it. It was battered beyond what any helmet would be expected to take. To say it no longer served its function was apropos a child defending themselves with a tree branch. She felt oddly naked without it. Grown so used to its position on her head, Ines always heard about how the most heroic and brave knights fought without helmets, as if to say that you were foolish enough to insist proper sighting of an arrow about to end you were worthy of respect. 

Were things always this grim? Was there ever such a thing as “honor in combat?” Ines raced with the thought, and wondered if there was ever such a glory as to fight for a righteous cause in a field of honor. And yet, in her heart, she knew this was only half true, for no peasant waddling in the dirt could ever be on the same playing field as the knight or general. Knights had their codes, their laws, their coats of arms and proud insignia. Soldiers had a pike and a shield, if they were fortunate, and orders to go somewhere and hold ground. She imagined knights gaining glory, and the soldiers doing as they were told. And what was glory to those already in a glorious position? Was war really so divisive, so indulgent, that it was always little more than the rich and privileged flaunting themselves over? 

[i]*PLOP!*[/i] 

A raindrop, square on Ines’ forehead, seemed to restore her to the reality of what she faced. Never was it exactly certain what they were going up against, nor what she would do with any of it. Was it better to be lost in some mind-plight, or waddle in the misery that was an unpleasant reality? Ines, knowing her background, knew herself not to be any manner of serious thinker - nevermind a true philosopher - and instead wondered what took about her to think such ways with her omnipresent grimace.

Yet the answer was true, and resounded like the echoes of the rain in a dead city; It was...oddly comforting, truly. That nobody was there, but there was someone who listened. Not spoke. Not to tell you that, “Things will be okay”, or, “You need to be this.” Like a muse, or a trance. An experience, not a conversation. A void in which your thoughts were projected, echoed, mirrored, and the greater they resounded, the more you saw your own self in what you spoke; How strange it was, how absurd the reality is, how you sound, absent of opinion, in a manner of speaking. And in times when all one needed was absence, to say nothing when something should be said? A quagmire genesized from a paradox.

[color=4682b4][i]“Don’t outdo yourself, Mephistopheles.”[/i][/color] Ines warned herself not to think too hard about it. Any of it, actually. And that meant-


Ines knew this better than anyone; To what pleasure is greater than the will to defy? And to what would it mean to defy the self?

What she experienced was never something she could ignore for any meaningful amount of time. She would have to come to terms with that oddity, that sensation, that demon - eventually. 

[hr]
[center][b]Later that day…[/b][/center]
Jean went off on his pursuit of calmness in some sort of moonlit sonata. Ines almost wanted to say something. Did she? Of course not. Jean needed a listener. Listening, as it truly is, is an art, a skill, something refined, learned, practiced, constantly improved, and Ines possessed neither the years nor the insight required for the magnitude of pure madness this man needed to vent.

Would that painfully obvious observation halt our fair Gunner from foisting his speech upon him? No, not by any means. Ines looked over at him, her head resting on top of her crossed arms that formed the closest thing to a pillow she had at the moment. Her eyes narrowed, furrowing, then closing as she turned her head upwards at an obsidian skyscape beyond. She made a promise she would speak to him, and for whatever the word of a Darcsen was worth, that was a request she would see through. Discretion is the better of valor, as the saying goes, and Ines, failing all else, possessed the insight to observe this was not the time for such discussions. 

What remained of the rug beneath her was a ripped, distorted thing, but truly, Ines was accustomed to such squalor. In many ways, the life of warfare was not dissimilar to the poverty she grew so fond as an adolescent; Living on a hairline budget, no guarantee of washings or basic amenities, it all resounded to her. Maybe she was intended to live a soldier’s life, after all. Or, more likely, she was making excuses for herself as to why she had gotten herself involved in this nightmare at all. 

It was similar, in a queer sense. Ines, for all talk of needing money and stability, only found solace in the most dangerous of lifestyles. Very well could she have gone to work in one of the countless forges and factories, churning out thankless supply for the grinding gears of the Federation’s Army. Or at least done logistics, moving crates and boxes onto and off of automobiles and horse-wagons. Perhaps even been a courier, relaying messages as fast as she could. But no, she was to be a shocktrooper, the quintessence of danger in what was an already precarious occupation. 

Even when she was still but a “legitimate” fighter, Ines always acquired a taste for agony. Perhaps towards herself, or that knowing what is there could suddenly be gone, like a gambler winning after loss after loss. Nothing compared to it, truly. It was...enticing? A clear focus, like a dream, almost. As if at the drop of an instant, nothing else was there, and there was but you and your goal. No distractions, naught but a blank canvas to build a wish on could be seen under the influence. And yet...that was the issue, really.