The clouds roll on overhead, silver and crimson in the setting sunlight. A straight jetstream line bisects the heavens, leading towards the distant sunset like the road to heaven. The blue withdraws its cloak, drenching the heavens in the bloody golds of the earth's star. The rising dark is clean; the satellite clutter of earlier eras long done away with.

In terrestrial concerns, a pair of groundskeepers and an assistant droid are moving across the grass, patching the broken turf and repainting the hexlines. The scoreboard hovers at an unrepresentative 44-68. Machia couldn't figure out how to reset it while she was reattaching her leg, and neither had you when you were out of breath and it was her turn to run up the score again. And then it had kept ticking up as the two of you lay here in central, round after round

The first breath of cold ocean wind stirs the long reverie.

"You really don't know how to do anything but run, do you?" said Titanomachia. "Not one step to the left, not one step to the right. No tricks. No weapons. Just a straight line to the finish..." she laughed as if she was any different. "Hopeless. Muda. Muda. Muda. This isn't a race. It's a circus. So why..."

She sighed, and shifted to get out of the way of the robot nudging her foot with its paint nozzle. Her groan made it clear she had at least considered letting it just paint over her.