1-2

With a heavy sigh, she closed her eyes. “<Let them find their place,>” she whispered softly, bringing her hands to her face, “<and trouble not those who have found balance.>” She kissed the back of each hand softly, letting the warm breath wash over them, then reached down and slowly pulled the ruined clothing away from the wound, exposing the skin.

“Ugh,” Kihri complained as she reappeared from above, floating down fully into view, “seriously? Still?”

“<You’ve made it very clear how you feel, so many times,>” Zarah replied absently, slowly beginning to peel the corpse’s ruined clothes away from the wound, “<so why do you have to react like that every single time?>” Something caught her eye before Kihri could answer. “Hm. Look at this.” She pointed to the exposed flesh around the hole. “There is- here. No bruising…”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Kihri replied sourly, slowly flipping around to align herself with the ground, “I guess I just hope that every new pointless death will be the one to finally realise what a fucking sham everything is. Also, it’s creepy how excited you sound by that.”

“…sorry.”

Kihri groaned dramatically. “Please, for the love of god, learn to recognise when I’m busting your ass. You suck the joy out of everything.”

Zarah coughed awkwardly.

“Bu-ut,” Kihri continued, floating closer, “you’re not wrong. Even like a high-powered projectile would bruise more than that. Never seen that scaled up, but whatever that’d look like it’s probably not this.”

“<Oh, and I’m the creepy one.> Any guess?”

“…fell onto a comically large cartoon spike? Impaled by a horny land octopus?”

“So, no.”

“What, you don’t think horny land octopus is a legitimate avenue we should be investigating?”

“<This is hardly the time or place for your sexual fantasies.>”