Ah, ha ha.

Yes. Perfect. Absolutely perfect.

What did she call them? The White Blight Knights? Never heard of them. Don't care for the name. I love a good rhyme as much as the next person, but whoever picked out their name probably did so after jamming an ice pick into their ear canal. And with a name like that, they were dead ringers for heroes.

I fucking hate heroes.

Worst people on the planet. Walking around like they're better than everyone else, demanding that the defenseless rabble buy them a round at the tavern after a long day of cutting the heads off whatever local monster was blamed for the latest coincidental catastrophe. Necromancers, bandits, and the like gotta' provide for their families too--and who comes along to run two and a half feet of polished steel through their chests? Heroes. All because they don't agree with their methods. Do they even realize that they're no different from the “villains” they claim to hunt? They're murderers just as much as their prey are. Some even more so.

And these White Blight Knights Or Whatever sound like a bunch of younglings. A bunch of mewling newbies. Probably don't even know how to sharpen a sword, just how to polish one. Did they think of themselves as day-savers worthy of immortality in the songs of bards and verses of poets?

Oh, we were going to give them a good thrashing. If they wanted to be in stories, then gods-dammit, they'd get their wish. It'd just be a shame that nobody was going to survive long enough to tell them. Maybe I'd paint a rude limerick in the snow with their blood. Something to let anyone who happens upon the scene that heroes--how that word brings such a horrible taste to my mouth!--will not be tolerated.

...oh, wait. Amari's still talking.

I tried to wipe my violent fantasies from my mind, but they left behind a deep crimson smear that just wouldn't go away. “I'm sorry, what did you say?”

The red-headed assassin's face darkened. “Hyperion. She's always by your side. Not today, though.”

“Hype?” Hype. Hype is a good person. The one good thing I've ever had in my life.

The one thing holding me back from being who I truly am. Always cooking something in the kitchen, those dreadful cookies of hers. Steering me away from my laboratory in the basement, making sure I stay hidden in the forest. Always trying to get me to open up. To talk to her about my feelings. My feeeeeelings. My precious, murderous, venomous, contemptible, gut-rotting, hate-filled feelings. Fuck her. She's done nothing but be a whiny, screeching, singing busybody pest since the day I gave birth to her. Always holding me back. Always trying to make me a “better person”.

Trying to be my fucking hero.

I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate HATE HATE HATE HATE heroes.

I didn't bother to answer Amari's question. She never liked Hype either. Could rot her vines away with a brush of her hand. Tried to, once. Should've let her. Instead, I snatched the map off the table and strode over to the wheel, where a pale Aleraran stood.

I shoved the map in front of his face and jammed a briar-knit finger into the black dot that designated the village Amari picked out.

“Take us here,” I hissed. “Fast as this bloated bag can go.”

Nearly lost my balance as the dead crewman turned the wheel, The Sinistar banking hard to the left in order to change course to the future scene of some horrible shit.