Please just stay dead, let me stay dead this once. I can feel my fucking body being torn apart let this be enough.

It wasn’t enough.

Scarlet sighed as she pushed herself up out of the snow gingerly. “Ugh…”

“Are you fucking serious.” There was a hard and angry edge in his voice, disgust - and interest? Perhaps.

“Yeh…” Amari grumbled as she tried to rub her own blood out of her face but to no avail. Her eyes stang and she struggled to focus on the black clad man. “The joys of being an immortal I guess. Still.” She straightened, wincing. “A deals a deal. Frankly I just wanted to see if you’d do it, and how. I thought, if I let you give a little chase it’d get that adrenaline pumping.” She sounded tired, annoyed. The confident and stoic woman from before had been replaced with one who was just fed up with everything around her.

Scarlet reached a hand out to the Huntsman. “Call me Scarlet. I assume I’ll keep calling you Hunter?” He stared at her for a moment then clicked the weapon he was using back, folded in half, then tucked it under his coat. Then he took her hand, shaking it with a grasp that was just a little too firm. In fact, she felt her bones crack under the pressure, before he pulled his hand back with a snort.

“Hunter, or the Huntsman. Either are applicable, Scarlet.”

“Fuckin’ rough much…” She muttered as she rubbed her hand. “Look. I dunno who the fuck you met before me, frankly I don’t give a damn - but I don’t want you getting the wrong idea. I’m interested in your abilities. Nothing more.”

“Excellent. News.” He wiped himself down, swiping away - her blood, and the blood of the wolves. It stained the snow around him red, as the treated clothes he wore shed the blood with ease. He removed one glove, then took off his hat and ran one hand through his short white hair. The hat came back down, and he adjusted his collar. Then he turned his head to her. “So then. Who, or what, do you need killed?”

“Oh I could give you a list a mile long. The people I hate; Vincent, Phi, Shnsou...Jake.. ah… rather….” She paused. There… were a lot of people she hated, people she didn’t get along with and people she wanted dead. She furrowed her brows. Who DIDN’T she want dead? Lye...Madison… Zero possibly, then again he had become nothing more than a whiny pup running after Advencia.

Fuck.

Did she have anyone anymore?

She would have been better off not reviving.

“Phi… As in, Philomel?”

“Hmm?” His words snapped Scarlet out of her internal monologue. “What? I guess. Why? She a fuck buddy o’ yours? Cause as long as she leaves me and the Seventh Sanctum alone she can go along sailing the seas and screwing herself across Althanas for all I care.” He let out a loud snort.

“I have no ‘fuck buddies’ as you put it. That particular woman is responsible for me my not being in Alerar.” Others would have sounded angry at this, but he just sounded ambivalent.

Scarlet shrugged. She wasn’t going to ask him about his personal life. “Not my problem, but if we have a common enemy that may work in my favor at some point.” He simply shrugged one shoulder at her words.

“Come on, I ain’t taking you to the compound. We’ll make for this village of yours first. Get your bounty, what have you - and we’ll organise some form of semi-working business relationship. Shall we?”

“I believe that will be the best course of action, yes. Hmm. Perhaps I should take the heads of the wolves back to the town.” He turned and began trudging back towards the corpses - somehow remembering the exact direction to them.

Scarlet followed him, pulling the broken thread sof her clothes together. A lot of her skin was exposed. Thick black lines streaked across milky white. She waited patiently whilst he finished flaying the beasts.

The two barely said a word to each other. There was nothing to say.

Then, they headed to town. Two emotionally inept people it seemed. This may be an issue. It didn’t make Scarlet uncomfortable but it would get quite boring quite quickly.

All she wanted… was something to make her feel alive again, instead she found herself just following this arbitrary path set out for her. Find a strong ally, coerce them to her plight. Move onto the next, rinse and repeat.

“What the fuck am I doing…” She mumbled to herself.