Semper Fidelis

[Primrosette]

"Gah...!"

Damien let out the noise as Bridie's head collided with his chin and he felt his grip on the hand with the weapon falter. He took a few steps back from Bridie, no longer trapped her like his prey. His hands raised to his hurting chin and he could taste blood in his mouth. He had bitten his tongue during the impact of Bridie's attack.

"D-Damn you...!"

[Cicadan]

Bridie's head hurt all the more, after the fact.

She stumbled one step forward and only reoriented the kama Damien's way, just in time to... what, she didn't know. Victory felt hollow, as the ringing blessing those thick bony spots right under her bangs.

A little panting. Effortful, but somehow wasted.

"Are you even trying?" She violently hissed through a pained glare that dizzily meandered all manner of places that were not her declared enemies' eyes.

"Do you even want this back?" The kama drunkenly danced, a two-step in place between her white-knuckle grip.

[Primrosette]

Damien didn't know how to respond to Bridie's words. So he didn't. He didn't say anything at all. Was his life really worth losing over a weapon? Especially from a girl who had betrayed him just like that? Sure, he may not have really trusted her but still he didn't want to run away like the coward he really was on the inside.

"....You stole it off me. It's MY fucking weapon! Mine!"

He took a step forward quickly and raised a fist to hit her in the face.

[Cicadan]

One step back.

To the side, for good measure, redundantly, just because she could. Damien seemed slower, or the world around him seemed faster. Bridie was almost mesmerized by the blur that her vision had become, Damien's face melting away at the edges into many fleshy colors of fuzz. She glared at that sight. It confused an already confused scene.

She honestly hated how this had gone so far. Damien was infuriating. She didn't know how or why he was, and that was all the more setting a red of frustration in her cheeks. Or at least it felt like the way her jaw would harden and set like wax when she felt the cloy of her own upset. She didn't know. She was still breathing too hard to really feel the pressure.

"No..." She remembered something. Rare that she could do that so suddenly.

"Still not how it works, Damien. Not here."

She hated him for how weak he was. It was dishonorable. That's what she decided on, there and then: her reason.

[Primrosette]

Damien felt himself hesitating. His fist was just a few inches from Bridie's face. Her words had made him stop for some reason. Why, why, why...? Why did have he to hold back? Was he truly afraid of what he could do? He didn't know. He didn't even know how he could have lived this long.

"Wh...." He stopped himself from speaking and the fist was lowering down to his side. He unclenched it slowly and he let out a tired sigh. "I'm such a coward....." He murmured quietly, staring at Bridie with a hardened expression and he took a step away from her.

"Am I supposed to run away now? Is that what you want, Bridie?"

[Cicadan]

Bridie's lip curled, she could feel the muscles working accordingly, as she considered the trembling knuckles she had no need to dodge.

"... Don't know."

Bridie continued to sneer joylessly.

"Not my job to answer." She stood stock still, only just aware enough of the spatial location of her weapon. Her grip just so adjusted, two knuckles crept up, the blade now cleared for a quick swing into Damien's ribs. Her breathing stayed strong, silent.

[Primrosette]

"Screw this...."

Those were the only words that came out of his mouth, his body was slightly trembling. With fear? With anger? Who even knew anymore? He turned away from Bridie and just bolted. He run and run and run until he could no longer run.

((Damien Crossly continued else))

[Cicadan]

The kama followed Damien, he backed off and backed away. Going and going until he was gone, and the blade didn't kiss Bridie's knee with it's flat edge until Damien was gone from Bridie's eyes and ears.

She had a weapon now. It wasn't a gun, obviously. It'd do, all the more obvious.

For, she was trained. Thus, she was prepared. She knew what she had to do.

And she was wasting words anyways... The thing was, she almost had a moment where she could have nursed the ember of a thought from some sort of dismal, dying flame. A brief moment of innocent wonderment, not the innocence of her one-track mind but the innocence of a girl long forgotten, reared with a cheerful smile, a nose full of gunpowder, up in the thin-air mountains of Idaho. She could have wondered how she'd ended up here, or where she was going now, or why she had to do this when she'd loved her school and loved her friends like she loved the gentle waver in the wind of her country's flag.

That moment passed without incident, and Bridie Mossberg marched.

((Bridie Mossberg continued in but one life to lose))