Sojaveña Wilds Northern Badlands

[Jackie Cat]

Sally nodded sagely, in total agreement that, yes, people preferred to find someone easy to blame rather than take responsibility. She didn't seem distressed by this.

After a moment's concentration to learn the pattern, she whistled along to Bellatrix' tune. She wasn't bad at whistling, actually.

"Yeahhh, that's how it is fer me, too," she said, at length. "Why let someone worse at the job – or as good but full of rot – do what I can do well? Hhah, I even enjoy it. Better I do than not. Folks as'll fret about me would fret about anythin', anyways."

Sally sniffed, and stared into the middle distance.

"Havin' said that... things're a li'l different 'round Frontier Town of late. Somethin' in the water, maybe – it's like the townies don't care ta' be so... cold, no more. Granted, they still give a one like me the side-eye, but it's not so bad. Enough that I notice it. Maybe it's y'all angels, havin' an... influence."

 

[Inkedust]

Bellatrix paused for a few moments, considering the implications of what Sally had just said. "It would not surprise me," she finally said. "After all I find it odd, given what I've seen and heard about Sojaveña, that Frontier Town has no gallows. Not that I think they should although I find it to be a fascinating example."

She looked up to the skies again, contemplating. "But should we even have that right?" Bellatrix then asked, cutting through any settling silence.

"While I could list a number of positive examples of change and influence, I am certain that there are just as many to the contrary," she elaborated. "After all, what's stopping another 'angel' from coming in and changing things for the worse for any number of reasons?"

 

[Jackie Cat]

Sally pulled a sort of grimace, mixing a kind of sickly amusement with something harsher.

"They used to have a gallows. Operated it fair often, too. I seen outlaws up there, an' clanners who gave offence, an' others besides. Then one day Sheriff Brisa comes down and smashes the damn thing, like a bolt a' lightning, into splinters an' smithereens. Ain't been rebuilt yet, so far as I know. Maybe it won't be. 'Carceration ain't cheap or easy, but killin' is grim, and that Prinplup boy doesn't like the taste a' blood if'n you ask me."

She frowned.

"Or that barkeep gent. He won, right?"

She shrugged.

"Maybe it matters that the worst kind a' bandits get killed afore they get judged, anyway."

The ghoulish smile returned. Sally may or may not have killed a 'mon – or several – but she was certainly happy to imply it.

"Would you kill some Forlasan pendejo lowlifes fer us vaquero mortals, Angel?"

 

[Inkedust]

"There were talks of rebuilding that gallows when we first arrived here," Bellatrix began. "But the moment Ignatius was dealt with, the very idea of it seemed to vanish." She then tilted her head. There was an election in Frontier Town? And Greasewood won? She missed a lot. Must've been too busy focusing on the current mission, she supposed.

Sally's next question snapped Bellatrix out of her momentary confusion. Her gaze went hard. Cold. "That's the thing about bounty hunting, isn't it?" she asked in response. "It gets all dressed up in the 'noble' intentions so it becomes easy to wilfully ignore the gruesome aspects."

Bellatrix looked out toward's Frontier Town's general direction.

"The Wayfarers are no exception. Many of them are squeamish about the idea of taking a life, even in self defence, but I am not above it," she answered flatly. "I take no pleasure in it but if it is necessary for the good of the world, then it is what it is."

 

[Jackie Cat]

Sally nodded gravely, then her mouth distended jovially once again.

"Everyone has their, hahh, justifications," she rasped. "Truth is, everyone ends up as dust in the grand scheme a' history. Sometimes sooner, sometimes later – question is whether you're livin' well, and able ta' live with yerself. I don't reckon there's any cosmic force a' karma or whatever that judges ya for turnin' some poor bastard into dust afore he gets hisself killed some other way. Ya know what's real, though?"

The Cacturne chuckled darkly.

"If ya kill a bunch a' kids, folks won't like ta' serve ya drinks no more. So maybe don't go doin' that if ya care to walk into town of an evenin'."

This was Sally's grim humour again – not an admission of having done anything of the sort. What she meant was, your actions will be judged by those that learn of them, in this life.

 

[Inkedust]

"That does go without saying," Bellatrix said, nodding in agreement. She then regarded the cacturne carefully, studiously, interested in what she had to say next. "But what of you? You imply that you've done it before and I gave you my stance, I'd say it's fair that you tell me yours."

 

[Jackie Cat]

Sally closed her eyes and crossed her arms behind her head.

"Sure. I'm livin' with myself just fine."

With her arms raised like this, Bellatrix would now see a row of scratchy welts on the underside of Sally's limbs. Some kind of succulent equivalent to scar-tissue, in a squarish pattern – like Tenacindean-style tally marks. There were several marks – at least one diagonal slash that Bellatrix could see, maybe another.

"I don't try to take another 'mon's life," mused Sally, breezily. "Ain't a career goal or nothin'. Sometimes it's 'cause the other party is tryin' ta' kill me first. Sometimes it's 'cause I got some diablo wretch on his knees an' I know he won't see the inside of a gaol cell, so I let him see the inside of a coffin instead. Once, some lass challenged me to a high noon duel. I ain't lose one of those yet."

Sally shifted her face to look as if she were raising a brow.

"Lotta folks get mighty itchy knowin' I don't feel any remorse about a one of 'em. Only, that don't mean I've not taken 'em seriously. I scratch 'em into my skin so I can't forget. And so's I don't get too... casual about sendin' fellas to meet the jackal."

The jackal. Also known as: the black dog; the reaper; him in the shadows; the hanged hound; Powehi.

 

[Inkedust]

"A hard choice but the inevitable one depending on who you're dealing with. Though, as I mentioned, most people are squeamish and don't have the stomach to acknowledge this fact." replied Bellatrix. There was neither condemnation nor approval within her expression or tone. She spoke on it like she were regarding the weather.

"If they don't feel remorse for their actions, why should you or I do the same when we are just there to deliver the consequence?" She let out a deep exhale, her claws found themselves brushing against her scabbard.

"Even still," continued Bellatrix, "it's a very fine line to tread. Get too comfortable, too eager, and then you'll be no better than the very criminals you've condemned."

 

[Jackie Cat]

Sally nodded, and relaxed her arms at her side once again. The tally marks were no longer visible.

"Remorse is an interestin' concept," she mused. "Some folks're all wound up in it the way a 'mon can get wound up in debt, or drugs, or drink. Don't necessarily mean that they're gonna shine any brighter tomorrow, though. Meanwhile, there's folks as have done terrible things who I dare say will never do 'em again. Which a' those devils is the more deservin' to drown?"

A rhetorical question. Apparently, Sally was a consequentialist...

"So, I gave you a real answer," she said, with a breathy chuckle. "How 'bout you reciprocate, sister? Tell a girl how many devils you've condemned."

 

[Inkedust]

Bellatrix tapped a claw on her chin in thought but left the question to hang as Sally moved on to ask about her own, to put it bluntly, body count. That in of itself was a loaded question, not because of guilt but because she couldn't remember. While she was apprenticing at her guild to be a bounty hunter, that was all she was: an apprentice, only allowed to go after the pettiest thieves.

Should she just admit that? Wouldn't it just undercut the entire point of the conversation? So instead, Bellatrix said, "The difficult thing about amnesia is that I cannot give you an exact number, but...

"I don't need to remember to know that I've done it."

She raised a paw to her chest. She let it fall to her side before she attempted to clutch at her fur. "It's like an instinct, something you feel deep down. I still know my strengths, even if I cannot recall training for such things. It was my duty and I am certain that I carried it out as I still do now; with speed and efficiency."

 

[Jackie Cat]

Sally listened with interest, seeming to understand just what Bellatrix meant, even if the experience was starkly different to her own.

"Sure does leave a mark on ya one way or another, huh?" she murmured. "Glad ta' see you're livin' with yerself just fine. Professionalism is reliable that way – reckon it's more honest than justifyin' yerself with a 'righteous cause'."

She chuckled darkly.

"Or by decidin' no laws affect you none. This Hawthorne fella we're huntin' seems to be of that mind – the way I hear it, he mauled some poor sons a' bitches fer tryin' to evict him an' his peónes from their town, killed a law 'mon in a duel, got hisself a couple a' sweethearts who weren't keen on him afore he started squeezin' their mamma. You get the picture."

A moment passed, as Sally considered whether to speak her mind. She did.

"We'll see if all that's true enough. If so, I won't shy from snuffin' out his light."

 

[Inkedust]

"Tch, certainly sounds like something that would warrant such a high bounty," Bellatrix said, a hint of distain slipping into her tone. "I don't blame you for thinking that he's better turned in dead, the wanted poster says 'dead or alive' after all."

She rolled her shoulders. "As for me, I would simply decide based on whatever's safer in the moment, which I would determine based on how and how much of a fight he puts up. If he's too dangerous to be left alive, well..."

She let her words hang in the air as Sally was certain to understand exactly what Bellatrix meant.

"We'll just have to wait and see."

 

[Jackie Cat]

Sally nodded, and smiled – this time more genuinely, not as ghoulish as the exaggerated grin she wore so often.

"We'll do just that, then, sister."

The Cacturne hunched over again, studying her little map of the northern Soja' with all the little buds she'd planted. The philosophical, personal line of conversation thus concluded, it was time to return to business. Soon they'd be packing up again and back on the move...

"I have my eye on that li'l scrappy imp in the bowler hat," rasped Sally. "Parcel, or Marcel, or whatever his name was. If'n he shows up again at Fort Fair, we'll know the li'l devils are gettin' out of Lindwurm Penal somehow. Which makes me think there's a plan to feed info in an' outta the place, right?"

The sallow eyes flashed. Sally could be deeply unserious, but she was sharp on the job.

 

[Inkedust]

"It would also be a good opportunity to investigate how they're getting out seeing as it's also a matter of security, but it is a natural assumption to make, yes," Bellatrix said. And, sensing that it was time to move soon, was where she left it. Joke or not, it was a matter Bellatrix took seriously and one that she would be certain to check for herself.

She stood up and gave Sally's map another look to better memorise it, occasionally replying to Sally's quips and questions in her all-too-familiar deadpan tone – a dynamic that had been firmly established over the prior weeks, though not one that Bellatrix minded all that much.

It was back to business as usual.

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