Karise opens her eyes slowly. Upon seeing Ajax, she has no fear. There is a slight surprise in her expression, though she’s not at all anxious or disturbed.
“...Yes. Why not.” She says, quietly, accepting his offer for conversation. She looks over at him. Her eyes seem distant as if she’s looking past him at something he would never be able to see. At this moment, Ajax’s instincts scream at him that something is wrong. She’s too confident. She has no reaction to his presence.
“Ah… you must have been the one who rendered Trot unconscious.” She remarks, uncaringly.
“Who’s that?” He asks. By Trot, she is most likely referring to the man with the feathered hood whose ring Ajax had stolen. He decides to play it off, his mind racing about what’s going on right now.
“I’m not surprised you don’t know, but I expect not many could pull off the kind of strength you displayed. All for a whore who killed a human unprovoked. How sad.”
“Do not speak about her like that.” Ajax warned.
“Or what?” This is the moment when Ajax sees a bright smile on the woman’s face.
That expression feels like a provocation to him from someone who feels no danger at all. It angers him, but Ajax isn’t someone to become violent over an expression, or even insulting words. He notices though that he had never seen her wear that expression before. In the next moment, it’s gone as if it were a lie.
“You know… Ajax, was it?” She asks, her expression cold but smiling.
“Yeah, what might your name be?” Ajax asks, his expression curious, though annoyed.
“My name is ‘go fuck yourself’. Hahaha…” She laughs dryly. “You won’t get my name even until the moment of my death.”
“That’s a shame. Then? What did you want to say?” Ajax asks, the air growing colder around him. “What is the source of this confidence of yours?”
Whether she feels the chill or not, she doesn’t show it in her face.
“Ah, yes. I had wanted to ask you. Ajax, why are you here?” She speaks his name as if speaking a curse.
Ajax doesn’t exactly understand her question, the purpose of it.
“I’m here… because I noticed that you and that man you were with had headed towards the direction of this… apartment complex. Towards this rally. I wanted to understand why you did that, what your purpose was in trying to accuse that demihuman man. What you’re doing right now…”
“Me? What am I doing? I’m just standing here, listening to the crowd. I do enjoy whenever these humans start punishing a beastie. I do have to commend you though for being able to save that middle aged man as well as the mother and child. How brave of you. Though, even if you helped the previous one, well, I don’t think you’ll be able to help them all.”
She smiles darkly.
His intuition tells him that there is something very wrong going on here. She’s hiding something. He doesn’t have the faintest idea what it could be so he has to keep her talking. As long as she talks, she can’t do something unexpected.
Karise continues as she surveys the crowd around her.
“I’ve been to rallies and lynchings in the past. There’s something so different about this one. Is it because it’s the first one I’ve been to since Osva slew Semjaza? Though, I was hoping to see a lizard around as well… Haa, Tritol isn’t a city where you can find a lot of them.”
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“I don’t understand what’s going on with you. Are you aware that I could kill you with a mere touch? I have to ask, what is giving you the confidence that you have at this moment?” Ajax cuts to the heart of the matter. Karise turns to face him.
She looks him directly in his eyes.
“...Let me tell you a story, Ajax. Don’t worry, it’s not too long.”
“...Fine.” Ajax doesn’t fully listen as Karise speaks. He observes her body language as closely as he possibly can. This whole situation feels like a trap to him.
“I was born as the fourth child in a family of seven. My elder brothers were my parents’ pride and my younger siblings were my parents’ joy. But, the middle children. What are they?”
Ajax first considers her lack of fear towards him. What could that mean? Does she believe she has some sort of trump card that can be used to defeat him? He doesn’t discount the possibility so he pays special attention to her hands and the movements of those in the crowd around him.
If she and her allies were to try and trap him, he could easily outmaneuver them, even kill them if they truly proved a threat. All he would have to do is freeze their heads and they would die instantly. He’s never used his power that way, but he definitely could. He doesn’t truly believe he’ll feel remorse about killing people associated with this woman.
They’d all be vicious human supremacists anyways, people who would lie in order to kill a middle aged person just because they were demihuman.
“The middle children… they’re mostly forgotten. The dregs of the family. The extras. My parents loved my brothers and sisters. They also loved me. But, they never paid attention to me, they never heard me when I spoke, they barely even remembered I was still alive. It was more like I was a… distant relative. Sure, you love all your distant relatives, they’re your family after all.”
Karise’s eyes narrow slightly. She bites her lips as her stoic expression crumbles.
“But, you also decide they’re not people you really know. They’re fine people, sure. They’re just there and you ‘love’ them.”
Ajax also considers why Karise is standing right in the middle of this crowd of human supremacists. He doesn’t believe that she’s not working towards some greater goal. She truly seemed like someone on a mission when he had met her earlier, why would she just be standing here right now then?
It is possible she’s observing the crowd that she helped amass but… no, Ajax believes that someone like her would not stop moving until her task was complete. These crowds didn’t feel like the task to her, the means to an end maybe?
“My parents died in poverty.” This snaps Ajax out of his inner monologue for a moment.
“They tried as hard as they could to provide for each and every one of us. They taught us right from wrong. But, their lives were growing steadily worse since slavery was abolished. Their parents lived better than they did. Their grandparents lived even better. But, their generation was entering a lower standard of living.”
Ajax notices her eye’s twitching. Then he realizes something. Her fingers are shaking as well. He thinks to himself if that only just started or if that’s been going on since he confronted her. She’s sweating a little too. He zooms in on her face and can see her pores in greater detail.
There’s something wrong with her. He’s not a doctor so he can’t tell just by looking at someone what’s wrong with them. He discreetly smells her in order to identify if her sweat smells any different.
He notices it. There is something that’s… inhuman, in her scent. It has an aroma that’s too sweet to be sweat. It’s not a fragrance either or some kind of body odor.
What is it, what is it?
“So, I joined a certain organization. I really did enjoy my work with them. We did so many wonderful things for the humans of this city. I so enjoyed seeing the happy faces of my fellow humans when they saw our work. Their children were smiling so brightly. I became more invested, more committed to Osva, through the help of my friends.”
Ajax doesn’t want to think about what she could be referring to by “wonderful things”. He’s gotten slightly more context about what’s going on now though. She’s part of some kind of organization, a radical group probably, that goes around doing things to help humans by specifically hurting and humiliating demihumans.
But, Ajax believes that this is out of his depth. He has a hunch about why she’s speaking like this. Her monologue. The strange presence within her body. Her position within the center of this large crowd. Her lack of fearlessness as if having already accepted something important.
Death.