She stood over the finale of this escapade with a hunch -- it was the best her posture would do, for every time she attempted a straighter posture did Katerina feel as though there was somehow a more supermassive weight thrust unto her body. The beast, seared and incinerated its brown feathers to a soot-coal black, lay on its side along the moonlit ruddy Earth. Pigment of dying flames, cast off from the smoldering cinders before them, dashed specks of luminescence, caught in the feathers-gaps. With every heaving, slow breath the griffon made, its embers - latched on like scorching leeches - ignited a dying little flame from which its scorching wound burrowed itself deeper with every fading breath. 

	Katerina wanted to do something. Something. A gorgeous animal before her dying by her own hand, after an epic battle, where the Witch-Knight burned a whole fortress-side to cinders. And now here she was, wanting to help. Her wants were cut with a perfect gesture, more perfect than Serenity's throw. The hatchet whistled along its whirling path, the head spiraling in little orange circles like a spinning fire cantrip. Nothing escaped her. Not even a grimace or cringe. Hatred, grief, and acceptance, all in only a few minutes. 

	She barely held herself up: Katerina felt exhausted, stiff in mind, like a haze set into her mind and barely, iratingly, maddeningly seeped from a crack in the back of her head that just felt like even rupturing her skull wide open would be a welcome relief. Her muscles felt quaked, ripping and searing; Her robes, more than a [i]little[/i] singed. Even a modest pack the likes of her worn to battle felt like a whole person clawing atop her, kicking, heaving, shoving, tearing her down until the half-elf would force to crawl from the weight of her own exhaustion. 

	The Witch-Knight -- oh...how she [i]hated[/i] that name...and how many times she would have to hear it, and see it, and speak it, and know that that is the title by which she [i]is[/i] and will be...

	[i][b]That[/b][/i] Witch-Knight had seen and felt and done all of these things, these terrible things, and with nary some strength inside her, clawed out a secret reserve, like she always had: Like her wells of energy she plucked within her like cigarettes from her case...and spoke softly to Serenity: 

	[color=lightgreen][b]"Aye."[/b][/color] She made out. Katerina paused. The Witch-Dame didn't bother to look Serenity in the eye. [color=lightgreen][b]"Good kill."[/b][/color] 

	Her voice was beat, soft. Like she was holding back tears; Proud, painful tears, in a cracked slipping voice that constrained within her every last bit of strength in and out of that woman would do [i]anything[/i] not to confess just this weakness. Not a comrade. Not to a friend. To none. Not even if she were to know it herself. 

	Katerina made one final, exhausted mental note: She'd need to go see her Regular after this.