Is this what it is to be seen?

Correctly, coldly, dispassionately analyzed from a distance and then dispatched with a single precision strike? Nothing to take back to the mud but the verdict of [i]distraction[/i]? If she lets it, this can be true. This can be right. This can be justified, and this story can have a righteous ending.

Some part of her folds before rightful authority. Is it the spirit who collapses, as it is programmed to, or is it the girl who acknowledges that she is a thief who has stolen a place in this story? But the other part doesn't let her. It craves still. It craves to be seen not for what it is, but for what it dreams it might be. The strike finds its mark but it does not split the skin. Accuracy alone is insufficient.

"I understand you perfectly," said Zhaojun, shivering back from the force of the blow to coil her finger under Peregrine's chin. "You say that I am in service to the agenda of Hell? That means the Yozi have an agenda here, and rather than discuss it with me, a rightful representative," [i]of what?[/i] "you want to discuss and dictate terms to me. Sorceresses are a disrespectful sort, are they not?"

Her hand flares with peacock blue sorcery. She grasps Peregrine by the chin, throat dry, craving burning in her throat like the deserts beyond the Lap. 

"And so I will ask again, this time of the demons you truck with: [b]tell me what you know[/b]."

[Invoke a toxic power: 5 [i]woooooooooooo[/i]]