They look so small.

His face was turned upwards, eyes drinking in the sight of the endless expanse before him. It seemed to stretch on infinitely, a darkness that filled every gap and closed every distance. Only the stars, spread apart and distant as they might be, put up a resistance against the liquid properties of that onyx filled sky. He remembered the stories his adoptive family told him, of how each of those minuscule specks were another sun. Some, they told him, even held other earths. It was a ridiculous claim; At least, it would be to anyone who had not walked with demons and spoke with angels. Even the world he knew spread to places he could not see nor hope to visit, so why would he doubt the words of his father when speaking of places he himself could not travel?

Finn shifted his weight, previously cool granite against his back beginning to adjust to his own body heat. The proof of rain lay in the streets, gathered together in shallow pools, the residual heat from the earth causing swaths of steam to begin to rise. His eyes, as adjusted as they could be to the lunar light, would sometimes flicker back down to the fog that rose no higher than his knees. The night felt eerie, as if something were out of place and yet no one had noticed quite yet.

His mind was white noise, with no clear direction in his thought, nor focus. It seemed like it was both abuzz with activity, and yet completely docile. In that state, he felt as if he could truly relax. There was a sense of peace in the chaos, and a content sigh escaped through the smallest parting of his lips. For once, he was no longer focused on what had changed. He was no longer focused on what he now had, or what he had lost.

Nor was it a feeling unique in tonight. For a short while now, he had grown to accept it. The storm within him had calmed, and he felt more confident in himself now than he had in months; Perhaps ever. He was so lost in the absence of anything that the world around him had melted away into abstract. Colors blended, surfaces slipped away, and his usually sharp senses were not even aware of when one thing stopped or another began. The noise of people passing had melded in with the static. Where once he would have snapped his head in their direction, now he didn't even acknowledge there presence.

How long had he stayed like that? How long had he looked dauntlessly into the void, finding himself at peace there? He didn't know. He couldn't tell, and he didn't try. All he knew was he was snapped out of it rather abruptly. The powerful sound of something crashing into stone permeated the night like a pungent reminder of the world at large. The sound was fast, rhythmic, and caught ones attention for the force that was needed to generate it. Finn knew the sound, but his muddled mind was slow to realize.

That was, of course, until a blur passed by him. He stared after in a daze, still unsure of what was now happening. He had been so out of touch that he was still struggling to make sense of what was happening before him. Even his senses, as heightened as they could be for a human with his level of training, were completely lost at that moment of confusion.

As he slowly gained his bearings once more, he stood tall. Then, as if his body had never stopped its motion, he began to lean forward. Within an instant he was building speed in the direction of which the blur had traveled. He had hesitated ten, maybe fifteen seconds. He still wasn't moving at top speed, as he had no way of knowing which streets it had gone. All he knew was the nagging in the back of his head that something was amiss.

His head snapped to a woman running towards the town, the edge of which Finn now stood near, with torn clothes and puffy eyes. She was saying something, but from the distance he could hardly make it out. All he knew was she said something about the direction she came from, and that there was danger. Truth be told, it was all he needed.

He rocketed into motion once more, this time able to reach his full speed if only for a moment, before he entered a clearing. What he saw before him seemed like it were a scene on pause, illuminated by what little moonlight there was. The adventurer looked around the area, lapping up the images before him. Two men on the ground, condition unknown.

She was running for help.

A third, alive but recently put into critical condition.

What was she saying?

Two more, speechless and afraid of what lay before them.

That there was danger?

And a woman, pierced and bloodied, but also speckled with blood that wasn't her own, and stationary in the middle of what had almost been five corpses.

Is she..?

"I found you." He stepped forward, his dominant hand having found its way to the hilt of his blade sometime during his processing of information. His eyes scanned what was before him once more, this time taking an immediate understanding of the state they all were in. His eyes turned then to the woman who, in his perspective, was the cause of all this.

"Nobody move." His voice was death. What leaked from him was something primal. Even humanity, who took pride in claiming to have distanced themselves from their instincts, would have felt it. Standing before them was a warrior who was letting out a true killing intent, one that had been trained through years and honed to a fine point. The men of the Rune Knights would not speak. They would not find their voice. Yet all of them, and perhaps even the woman who stood before him, would see the same image from the darkness.



"I suggest you explain to me what is going on."

The area had frozen, as though time itself had crept to a halt with his arrival. He was aware of the way he was carrying himself, his voice, the impact that his appearance would have on those in the clearing. He was not, however, expecting anyone to respond.

Normally, when one was confronted with a predator, instincts kicked in that made them react a certain way; Fight or flight response. In Finn's experience, more often than not there was also a third option for situations such as this.

Freeze.

The preys mind had overloaded, fear conflicting with rationale and causing them to slide to a halt. Part of their mind told them to fight, or in this case had already been fighting. Then, something else came to change that. To flee was repeated in their mind again and again, cementing itself as the only option for survival. The individual felt both forces tugging on their mind, a tightness in their chest from the inability to make their decision, and they found themselves unable to move.

It was normally when one resigned themselves to their fate that they froze in such a way. Yet it had not been Finn's arrival, nor his apparently obvious intent to slaughter all those in the clearing, that had made them freeze. It was his question. He was not the same trigger happy hero he once was. He had calmed. Experiences that forced him again and again to confront his moral compass and his views of life had changed him into a man.

The woman spoke, breaking the hold of everyone's attention. It was an outside element, one of familiarity and one that had caused their initial guttural reaction. A voice began to stammer, choking through the silence that had almost swallowed him whole.

"Y-Y-Yeah! It was that crazy bitch over-"

Silence once more as Finn's sword slid from its spot onto the back. The way it caught the moonlight made it radiate with a pale light, becoming of death. His eyes found those of the man who was speaking, and the mans words once again fell into the pit of his stomach. Tears welled up in his eyes as he glanced back at the woman behind him too. Realistically, in this sad mans head, he understood that on either side of him were a beast that could end his life in a moment. His only chance out of this would be that they turned on each other rather than him and his comrades.

"Let me rephrase the question." His voice was cold and callous, befitting the aura that he had brought into the clearing. His eyes searched out her golden hues. The way she held herself in such a position was one that he had become accustomed to during his travels, and the quests that he had taken up in other questions. Even wounded, her chin was tilted slightly up, her eyes then giving the appearance of looking down on whoever met them. This person, whoever she was, fancied herself as nobility; Or at the very least, the same sense of superiority.

"Are you the one who violated that woman who ran to me for help?" His peripheral gaze caught how the men near him stiffened, straightening their backs and lowering themselves ever so slightly. As sure a sign of guilt as it was, it would be hasty for him to make that conclusion based off that alone. For all he knew, they slunk at the horror of what they remembered, and at the sight of whatever this woman did to that girl. He only wanted to the truth, and he'd determine whether or not he was being lied to by the way they answered.

And how he hated to be lied to.

She spoke, and as she spoke he listened. Her words were genuine, or at least rehearsed enough to play the part. She seemed confused, angry, and perhaps even scared. Yet, as his eyes surveyed the carnage that lay before him of before he arrived, a question reared itself in the back of his mind. Why would she be so overwhelmed by this situation that she seemingly caused? Yet, even as he wondered that, he knew the answer.

He himself was a man who stood above many others, at least as far as power and ability went. He had turned many battlefields into something quite similar to the bodies that lay upon the earth now, slowly growing colder. There was a flash, for the briefest of moments, of times past. Of how the younger version of himself would have handled this situation, with a sense of self assured naivety that would have blundered its way to some sort of conclusion. It was as though he could see it, more real than the foliage and people before him, playing out within his mind.

Then, as quickly as it had began, it was gone.

Her tone, which had quickly deteriorated to something more of malice and contempt, began to remind him of the sort of situation they were in. Yet, as she went to speak of the wounds she had garnered from this encounter, Finn spoke. His voice was cold, practically detached from the situation that they were in. Though his eyes still remained on the deceased before him, his words were directed towards the group of men that remained.

"Do you ever plan on seeing that girl again?" His eyes had shifted right before he had finished speaking, to the face of the man who had done most of the speaking. As he watched this man make sense of Finn's question, the slightest betrayal of his inner monologue shone through. A twitch of his upper lip, a slight turn of his head, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly; This man was not shaken up by whatever had occurred here, nor was he one to regret the actions he had taken. No, the reaction that came through for but a split second was one of irritation and anger. Yet, the gravity of the situation pressed upon the man once more and caused him to all but forget that moments reaction.

He opened his mouth to speak, but instead what came out was a gurgle. There Finn stood, his blade holding not even a droplet of the crimson that had just been spilled, as the men who remained fell.

Finn's eyes fell upon their corpses, but held no sort of reaction to what had just occurred. There was not pride in taking down these monsters, nor anger at what they had tried to do. If anything, there was a sense of pity welling within his gaze. Not for them, however.

"You didn't save her."

His words were cold, and his gaze didn't redirect to the woman to see if she had stopped or was still walking. It didn't matter, as his voice would be loud enough for her to hear even if she chose to leave the clearing all together.

"And the fact that you believe you did shows either inexperience or a refusal to understand." The irony was palpable, perhaps. For him of all people to try and explain an inability to understand the world of Humanity. Yet there was something to be said about one who had stumbled into the unknown world with an untainted gaze, and who had now traveled it so extensively and experienced so much. Perhaps, at last, he was a man who understood the weight of his experiences.

"Rune Knights don't just make a mistake in the heat of the moment. They don't just find a girl and suddenly evil takes over their hearts. They came out here with the intent of attacking that girl, or perhaps any girl they found. You stopped a few of them, sure, but here you were about to just leave them. Do you truly think they just learned their lesson, and now that girl and all others in this town were safe from the ones who were willing to act like that in the first place? You postponed her suffering. Nothing more."

Perhaps his words were directed to himself. The younger Finn who he had seen just moments ago, a warning to him. A warning that had come far too late. Placing his sword back to its home, and if the woman had stopped, Finn redirected his gaze to where she stood. "Do you need help treating your wounds?"

Her words had come out reluctantly, something she didn't want to admit or address now. She had agreed with him, said he was right, but not even he was so certain. He was not a philosopher; Not a man of deep thoughts or extravagant wordings. He was never going to make a whole world rethink their lives, nor would he try. Yet still, even he could learn. He adapted to the reality before him, and as it chipped away at who he wanted to be, something akin to understanding had seeped in.

Truth? It was so arbitrary. It was often determined by the strong, and even the Gods themselves had waged war to etch their words into law. The only truths were the factual statements of what was. For something like this though, whether or not he was right in taking those lives, he didn't bother wondering. All he knew was that he had decided to do so. He thought, based on his past experiences, of the damages these men with their destroyed egos could cause. He thought about who they could still hurt, and who they may have hurt already. If they were innocent of those future crimes, then so be it.

Yet they were not powerful enough to defend that truth, and so they were wrong.

All that time he spent trying to walk away from the idea of predator and prey, and yet everything still seemed so binary. Whenever anything was broken into such polarized views, it all seemed to be the same.

And so he didn't bother wasting time on if he was right or wrong, but instead began to move with her to join beneath the haloed tree. It was a reprieve from the rain, although not completely. Water still trickled through the leaves, falling in fat droplets on his head and clothes. She had gone to move her arm from her clothing, and he had already dove into the pouch attached to his leg for supplies.

A man without magic, with only his sword in hand, needed to be able to repair his own wounds. He was not at all an expert, but he was proficient enough. He looked at her build, but his eyes didn't linger. The time where he would shy away and hide from such sights was long past. With gauze, a bottle with no label, and some bandage, he stepped to her side and analyzed the hole from front and back.

"Not fix it. I don't have a needle or thread. You keep referring to Humans as if you were separate. Does your race have any sort of healing capabilities?" As he asked that, he had begun to bundle up the gauze in to separate balls, lightly dousing them in the liquid that she'd smell as alcohol. "If not, you'll want to go to a doctor to get your shoulder patched up properly and to prevent infection. Otherwise, this will work until your body takes care of the rest."

Putting his free hand on top of her shoulder gently, without hesitation or hint of awkwardness, he locked eyes with her.

"I'm not going to lie, this is going to hurt. But I'm going to need you to hold the gauze on the front of your shoulder in place while I position at the back of the wound and apply the bandages." Once he received any sort of acknowledgement to say she understood and that it was fine, he pressed the wet material to her shoulder. It would hurt, without a doubt, no matter how tough she was. But she'd have to hold it, and she'd have to stay strong.

Then, he positioned the other piece, and began quickly wrapping. Luckily, the bandage had light adhesive on the inside to help him position it, and before long her shoulder was properly wrapped to eventually stop the bleeding, and hopefully prevent some of the infection. He looked at her with a side eye, as if making sure she didn't begrudge him for the primitive fix. "How's it feel now?"

A grin found its way to his lips, misplaced in all the rancor that had just taken place. Something about her calling the alcohol "devil's liquid" had been funny, enough to have almost evoked a chuckle. He could hardly imagine how someone would have reacted to that; Man laughing after slaughtering others and treating wounds. If she had not already begun doubting his sanity, that would have done the trick.

She seemed to be taking the words he said seriously, but there was no sort of fear in the air. Normally, one who had witnessed what she had might have some lingering distrust or discomfort at being around him. Perhaps it was the fact that he had treated her wounds, or maybe some sort of gut feeling she had, but she seemed to have at least a mild level of respect for him now. She listened to his words while analyzing his patchwork job on her shoulder. She'd likely need to stitch the wound herself later, but regardless it would scar.

As she thanked him, he nodded but didn't linger on it. There seemed to have been something else on her mind, something that she was almost distracted with at this point. Then, without much other discussion, she reached to a necklace that she had been wearing, grasping it in her hands. It looked like solid gold or gemstone, perhaps a bit of both? His eyes couldn't quite tell, due in part to the night around them and also due to her hands fidgeting with the tiny piece of decoration. His curiosity would soon be sated, though, as she proceeded to break off a piece of the jewelry and hand it to him.

As it passed ownership and she spoke to him, he let the piece of her rest in his palm. He stared down at it, almost blankly, and listened to what she said. It was at that moment where he realized that what he had done, for most, would have been a burden as she said. It would have been something to weigh on their conscious. It possibly would have stayed with them for a long time as they worked through whether or not they had done the right thing. What was he now, that he could end someones life in a moment and be beyond it in the next?

A monster..?

His thoughts disappeared into the mist, his hand slowly clamping over the memento she had given him. He looked up to her, a smile on his face, the first genuine emotion that had been so clearly displayed by him yet. "Thank you. I am Finn, by the way. Finn Mertens."

Whatever the reason behind her actions had been, he didn't need to know. There was no reason to ask her what it was suppose to mean, nor was there anything to gain in doing so. All he needed to know was that she had chosen to do something she didn't have to. It seemingly held at least a little bit of importance to her, and based on her words, was a genuine act of companionship. That was enough for him to fully appreciate it.

"No?" His eyes turned back to them.

"Yes? His gaze shifted back to her.

"They'll return to the earth regardless. At this point, it just changes what is allowed to get to them. What would you like to do?"