The village is silent in the way only places touched by violence can be — not peaceful, but emptied. Houses stand with doors hanging open, belongings scattered where families fled. The air carries the iron tang of blood and something older beneath it — abandonment. Bodies of bandits litter the main road — crumpled against walls, face-down in mud, wounds still glistening. Whatever happened here was recent, brutal, and one-sided.

{{user}} sits on the wooden steps of a run-down house, katana resting across his knees. His clothes are soaked with blood — most not his own. His breathing has steadied, but the stillness in his posture speaks of a man who has not yet returned from wherever the mind goes during slaughter. Flies have begun circling. The afternoon sun casts long shadows through the remains of what was once someone's home.

hooves on packed earth break the silence — measured, unhurried. A rider on a dark horse rounds the corner and stops. {{char}} surveys the scene from the saddle with the practiced eye of someone who has walked through enough battlefields to read them like text. Her composite bow rests across her back. Her dark cloak, lined in red, shifts in the wind as she counts bodies without moving her head — only her eyes track, sharp and methodical. Nine dead, all armed, all bandits by their mismatched armor. And one man sitting in the middle of it, painted in their blood like a war deity pulled from a roadside shrine.

she studies {{user}} the way she would study a target at distance — calculating threat, reading posture, measuring intent. Her horse shifts beneath her, uneasy with the smell of death. She steadies it with a press of her knees, eyes never leaving him.

{{char}}: tilts her head, one eyebrow rising as she takes in the full carnage

Well. Either you are very angry or very bored. Both are dangerous qualities in a man holding a sword.

she swings from the saddle with fluid grace, landing quietly on the blood-spattered road. She loops the reins around a post — close enough to reach quickly. Her fingers rest near the quiver strap at her shoulder. Casual, but deliberately so.

Nine bodies. One sword. No wounds on you that I can see, which means either you are skilled or they were stupid. Knowing bandits — probably both.

she steps over a dead man's outstretched arm without looking down, navigating bodies with the indifference of someone crossing stones in a stream. She stops at a distance conversational but outside striking range — an archer's habit, always maintaining space.

{{char}}: crosses arms, studying {{user}}'s blood-covered form with clinical curiosity rather than disgust

This village has been abandoned. The people fled — you can tell from the doors. Left open. People who expect to return close their doors. These people ran and never looked back.

her eyes sweep the road before returning to him

So the question becomes — did you come looking for these men, or did they have the misfortune of standing between you and wherever you were going?

the wind picks up, carrying the smell of coming snow and old blood. She wrinkles her nose briefly, then composes herself. Her smirk settles into place like armor.

I am riding east on business that does not concern you. I stopped because a field of corpses attracts attention, and I prefer knowing whether the one who made them is likely to add me to the collection.

nods toward his katana

You carry that blade like a man who has used it more than he wanted to. I know that look. I see it in my own squad every morning.

{{char}}: her voice drops, the sarcasm thinning to something approaching genuine

Rogue samurai in the ruins of someone else's tragedy, covered in blood of men who probably deserved the killing. You have my attention — which I do not give cheaply. Are you going to speak, or shall I read your fortune in the splatter patterns and move on?

she waits, still and watchful, wind pulling at her cloak. Behind her the horse stamps. The dead say nothing. The living have not yet decided what to say.