LogFAQs > #904632632

Entry 8: Nice To Meet You, Bright Eyes

"Nice to meet you, Bright Eyes," A voice spoke from the dark.

Goetic found himself shivering. And it wasn't very cold.

//###//

As the chaos of the battle died down, the caravan riders who had survived were forced to take stock of their situation. Ignael was dead, but not much of anyone cared about that. The guy was a bit of a bastard. They were grateful he had taken so many of the bugs with him, but they weren't too sad to see him go.

Torin was the only person emotionally attached and fragile enough to feel that loss. It had more to do with his own view of himself and his capabilities as a leader.

A boy had been killed in the opening charge, but almost no one here knew his name. "It was Tristan," Captain Punch muttered to himself, as he thought about the boy. Memories from a time not too long ago were swirling around in his head now. Images and experiences which he had absorbed from Tristan's mind when he shared the moth parasite with him. That parasite hadn't been enough to save the kid.

And even though they didn't know Tristan, they knew that he wasn't mean like Igni was. And, well, the fact that he was some dumb kid who had only come here to follow the legendary Captain Punch made it seem like much more of a sad loss. The innocence of youth had been punished with one of the harshest outcomes.

Seth's body had fallen off of the rooftop and gone limp on the ground after his brains were smashed out of his skull. Despite how messy the scene was, Matsuda knelt down beside the beareded blonde man silently. He didn't let the smell of death drive him away. All he could do was look at that corpse and wonder if he could have done anything differently -- if he had been quicker on the draw, if he'd made a more risky play and it had paid off -- could he have saved Seth from this fate?

Or was it all just out of his control? Had the draw simply turned out that way...?

Dismas sauntered over to the area as well. The robber prince had done a fine job of keeping himself safe and free from harm, but it was hard to put any sort of blame on him. Even if your instincts wanted to make this guy out to be the villain he had actually gone out to the front line to join the fight along with the chained man.

Dismas glanced at Matsuda, then looked down at Seth. "Well... damn guy was supposed to keep -me- under control," Dismas said in a tone that conveyed his sense of literal graveyard humor. "Guess this means I'm free to do as I want, now."

Even though he knew Dismas wasn't to blame, those natural instincts were still telling Matsuda that he was just a bad guy in general. He found himself glaring at Dismas. He found himself not laughing at those remarks which made light of death that had happened only moments ago. "He brought you here, and you'd better honor those reasons."

"Heh." Dismas turned away. He seemed to be taking stock of things. "Make no mistake, from that guy's point of view I was nothing more than a dog. Was brought here to sniff out treasure and kill monsters. Done a good job of that so far, too, and I'll continue to do it. But I'm a stray dog. Nobody puts a leash on me."

The chained man was clanking loudly in his self imposed leash as he walked off after Dismas.

Then, before Dismas departed completely, he turned back to Matsuda. "By the way, don't play around with corpses. You'll get sick."

The two of them went over to where Maria had fallen. She was one of those who had gotten away with an injury but hadn't died. Right now her head was spinning as she looked up at the sky. As that swirling void of stars and night sky was being swallowed into itself, she almost couldn't take her eyes off of it.
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~* Now I only see your dull imposter ~*
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