[Author's Note: Based off RPs and planned things that are in store on a Fallout: New Vegas RP forum that's under construction. Ritz [the Courier mentioned] is owned and copyrighted to my dear buddy Moth.. who also RPs the Caesar on this, ahaha. She's epic. 100%.]

Methodically bandaged fingers worked over each handgun from the pile beside him with the skill of long practice, lifting each one close as The Burned Man snapped back the chamber, inspecting each nook and cranny for any defects, before snapping it back into place and settling it down on the opposing side. Rinse and repeat. While the action served a purposeful function – as everything Joshua did tended to do – it also took him to a near meditative state… one where he could think, muse, over recent events and what lay along the bloody road once more before him.

He did not regret joining the Courier's cause when the younger man had tracked him down, appeared before him again to appeal to his experience and knowledge as the former Legate of the Legion. Ritz was not entirely unlike how he had been when he'd been younger, those years before, tending to act without thought regardless of those he tromped on in the process. But the boy sought redemption for the past he regretted… atonement for the sins his fool's choices had committed. And who was Joshua Graham to deny the younger man that?

There was much that needed to be done. While Ritz had done well in raising an army to his cause many of those people were too young, unprepared for the onslaught that they would eventually find themselves facing. The Legionaries were brutal, merciless soldiers… completely devoted and so easily willing to throw their lives away for the Legion and Caesar. Joshua did not yet believe that Ritz had considered the entirely likelihood that he would lose some, if not many, friends within this conflict he'd chosen to ignite. There would be sacrifices. There would be losses, perhaps heavy ones. That was the nature of warfare – death was uncaring of the lives it claimed, truly incapable of being sated in its endless eternal bloodlust.

Joshua would pray for their souls. It was, perhaps, the least he could do. Even with his know-how on Legion tactics he knew he would not be able to save them all.

And of course there was the matter of himself within the battles to come… and of Caesar. While his former friend had chosen to wipe away everything that once had been, everything that could have been, that moment when the flames licked The Burned Man's flesh and send him plunging over the edge of the Grand Canyon the younger of the two knew their paths would cross once more… once again. Within the ties that bind one eventually drew the other – it was how it had been and would always be. No fool, Joshua knew better then to expect to survive this new path. Before he'd followed the Courier back to the Mohave he had prepared his people and granted them the knowledge they'd need to continue on without him. In the flames he'd refound his faith and it would carry him until the end, he'd have that, but it did not remove the darkness that still lay inside from the years serving so valiantly within the Legion. He was only human – such transformations of character were truly impossible, though despite being a brutal monster in so many ways he did like to think that he'd ultimately found the goodness in his heart once more.

Or did he even have a heart? Even now he saw mercy to be a savage weakness, though he took no actual pleasure these days in the killing of others. Another necessary action, another soul sent to their awaiting afterlife, more lingering traces of shadow added to the darkness within.

A part of the damaged man even hoped he perished before there'd be the chance, if ever, of that horrid aspect of himself found its way free again. For once he had been no less of a monster then the one they were fighting against was… equally as brutal, as unforgiving, as cruel and heartless and damned.

"You would laugh at these thoughts, wouldn't you Edward?" Alone, Joshua's gruff, low voice mused the question out loud as he added another gun to the pile in order to take yet another. Caesar would have indeed laughed if he had been present to hear such a question. "You never did understand faith. Not in the same means as I do." Click. Gun to the side. Next one lifted up to inspect. "It doesn't matter. There is no saving the likes of yourself, even if I was foolhardy enough to attempt.." Those words, lower than those previously, held a note of true regret laced deep within them. For while he hated Caesar with every fiber of his being a part of him still felt that strange, often volatile sense of loyalty towards him. No other person within the entirety of his life, his existence, had ever made him feel the different myriad of emotions that the other man had made him feel – companionship, loyalty, friendship, irritation, utter wretched hate, exasperation, amity, loathing, camaraderie, and, yes, even love.

Pale ice blue eyes narrowed as Joshua set the last handgun soundlessly down on the worktable before him, a frown hovering on his countenance. "And neither of us will survive our next meeting together, my dear old friend." His grave voice held an edge to those last words, almost a growl, as he rose from his seat and turned to head from the tent out into the encampment.

Enough with thoughts. Enough with musing over what had been… over what would, or could, possibly be. There was work to be done.

I played soldier, you played king
And struck me down, when I kissed that ring
You lost that right, to hold that crown
I built you up, but you let me down
So when you fall, I'll take my turn
And fan the flames
As your blazes burn