"Do you really think I care?!" she roared. Like a mad woman, like a mad woman, she was. A caged animal. All caged animals are mad.
"You should," was his whispered response. "You should because he...he was important, wasn't he?"
"None of them mattered," she breathed, labored and heavy, banging her head against the iron walls with frustration. "None of them ever mattered, none of them were really important, because I was the only one...the only one who could do it. He was weak."
"Weak because he died?" Aerrow murmured. "That's hardly fair, isn't it?"
"Fair? Nothing in this world is ever fair, Sky Knight."
"You blame him for his own demise? You act as if he executed himself."
"He let himself get caught, didn't he?" But a shudder ran down her back, a shudder that reached the corners of her fingers and the fringes of her knees, made her fall to the ground and hold herself, fetal position, rocking back and forth, deranged. The lioness is tearing at the observer no longer, no, she's pulled back inside herself and collapsed. "Didn't he? He died, didn't?" she hissed, cooing almost. Like comforting words to a child. Spoken to herself, no less.
Who's weak now? the Sky Knight wanted to taunt, but he couldn't. Could only bring himself down to her level with a kneel and look into her glazed over eyes. "We'll be there, soon."
Silence. Then...
"Will I die?" Almost inaudible.
"The Council will decide," he muttered. "They're always just."
"But will I die?" she repeats.
Pause.
"Yes."
She cups her face in her hands as the reality of it hits her. Death will do that to a person. But she doesn't cry. Just stands and glares at him, darker than ever. He turns to leave, but not before he hears her hiss one final phrase, something that will haunt him like a plague till his dying day.
"Remember me, Sky Knight. Remember me and tremble."