Sentient Bowtie

"You aren't dragging me around anywhere. If I didn't want to go with you, I wouldn't be here right now. I easily could have said no. But I didn't." Dulcie seems pretty serious about it, and then she smiles at him. "I'm enjoying myself. This is fun, Argos." "...I could teach you about bows if you want me to, you know."

"I wouldn't have said anything about it if you changed your mind, you know. People do that sometimes." Dulcie nudges Argus in the arm. "Hmm... Well, if they don't, I guess we're going to be leaving sooner rather than later. I hope they like talking about history." She plays idly with her bow as they walk, which reminds her: "Maybe after this we could see the fletcher?"

"Well, to be perfectly honest with you, I don't know how long I could stick with reading before I would get tired of it. It happens with doing things that don't require a lot of active thinking. After a long enough time they start to bore me, but they don't really bore me, do you know what I mean?" Probably not, since most people didn't, but... "Why don't we go talk to the elder instead? As you can tell I'm much better at talking than I am at sitting around and reading."

Dulcie sighs and shuts her eyes. “No, I don’t mean to change your mind about anything. Even though I sounded that way, I was trying to understand your viewpoint. I have... lots of trouble making it obvious about which one I’m doing. Among other things.” “If it doesn’t feel right for you, then that’s that. I’m sorry about all the confusion... Could we just put it behind us, if you don’t mind?”

“Then why do you use it to hunt animals? Should a real warrior take cowardly shots at game that can’t fight back?” Dulcie asks, without a hint of sarcasm. “You should take your sword instead, it sounds more honorable.” “Fighting with a bow isn’t cowardly. You’re still close enough to the enemy to see them fall, and they’re still close enough to run over and ram a blade into your gut. In fact, I would say that using a sword and a bow in battle makes you a better warrior than if you just used a sword. It’s not everyone that can master more than one weapon and use them both effectively in the chaos of a real fight.”

“Don’t be silly. A bow is just as capable at killing a man as a sword is; the only difference is how far away you can kill him from.” Dulcie pulls back the string to her empty bow as if to fire it (pointing it safely into the distance), all the way to her cheek. The tension in the bow’s arms and her own is visible as she strains to keep it readied. “See that? How hard it is to keep the string pulled? That’s because a bow is actually even stronger than a sword. It has to launch an arrow with enough force to kill all the way from the start to the ground.” With a quiet grunt, she slowly releases the string. Dry-firing a bow was, of course, extremely dangerous at worst and carelessly stupid at best. She never forgot that after the first time. “You could protect Flynn and yourself and a few other people with that bow if you wanted to. They are powerful tools of war. Hunting is only one thing you can do with them.”

“Oh, you fell! Are you okay? Did you hurt yourself? Let me help you up.” Seemingly unbothered by exactly how he ended up in the grass, Dulcie bends down and offers Fless her hand.

“Maybe, but I still want to see what they have, just so I at least know. It can’t hurt to try, anyway.”

“My apologies. I didn’t mean to sound insensitive. I’m a little unused to the culture around here, is all.” “Thank you for the directions, sir.” She smiles warmly. “But I think you’d be surprised at what I can handle.”

“Oh, hello, Michi. This man had just asked Argos if I was his woman, and, as I am clearly not, we were clarifying the situation. “

“I’m my own woman, sir,” Dulcie replies earnestly. “Argos doesn’t own me. I don’t think slavery is even legal around here.” “Say... you don’t happen to have any bows around here, do you? I wanted to see if I could find something a little stronger than my current one.” She helpfully proffers the bow in question.

Dulcibella offers Johanna a small wave and a smile as the commander leaves. For her part, she looks as if the events of the previous night hadn’t happened. Her demeanor is as energetic and cheerful as always, if very slightly subdued. As she was standing with Argos, Dulcie turns to him. “Looks like we have the rest of the afternoon to ourselves. Do you want to see if there’s a library or something like that here?”

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. We can do it together, if you want. I really like reading so it won’t even be too much of a chore.” Dulcie fingers her chin. “...Sometimes, but it’s usually more that I annoy people while trying to be nice. But I still try anyway!”

“What? Why? I think that’s a very kind way to look at all of this. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. I feel the same, even. I’ve only heard stories about the war, and of course I know the Imperials were in the wrong and they lost and so on... but surely not everyone who was on that side is bad just because of who they fought with. It’s not all black and white.”

“No. This is possibly the worst thing to be doing. Killing a man with a sword in his hand and your death in his mind is one thing; killing a man you’ve already beaten just to get rid of him is . . . Well, I don’t even know what I want to call it.” Dulcie sighs, and tosses her own pebble into the water. It hits the surface with a dejected ‘plunk.’ “I’ve never been in this situation before. When I was just a regular soldier, I didn’t have to... think about very much. It was just fighting whoever was in front of me. Bandits, raiders, a small army or two... Nobody ever asked me what I thought about what I was doing or what was happening, because it didn’t matter. It only mattered that I did what I was told. I was never told to... do anything like this, thankfully... I assume if I was, I’d probably be in jail right now myself.” She chuckles humorlessly. “But even now that what I think suddenly matters, I still can’t even do anything about anything. It’s frustrating and upsetting and just— Rrrgh.”

Argos hears a horse quietly whinny behind him shortly before an archer sits down at his side. “You didn’t want to stay and—“ Watch them die. She didn’t want to say it out loud, even if it was already obvious. “...To stay, did you. I don’t blame you.”

Dulcie is present just outside the village gate, with Spirit. She is gently stroking his flank and seems to be speaking quietly to him.

“...I can’t stay here for this,” Dulcie exclaims. She clutches her bow tightly, as if it were an object of comfort. “I-I’m going to tend to Spirit. Goodbye.” She begins to leave, then pauses, glances back at the prisoners with a pained expression, and then continues on towards her horse.

A sullen look crosses Dulcie’s face, and she turns away from the rest of the Guards. If that’s what the prisoners wanted, so be it. ...Doesn’t mean she would watch.

“I didn’t realize any of that. I guess their corner was bigger than I thought... So much for an ‘ultimatum.’” Dulcie looks ruefully at the prisoners in front of them. “Back to prison, then. But I still don’t think we should kill them. It’s too...” She pauses, looking for the right word, but can’t seem to find it. “...It’s just not right. Killing someone in combat is different than... this. I don’t like the thought of it.” “...Maybe we should ask the villagers what they want to do.”

“They were going to die otherwise. A choice between killing for supplies and death isn’t a choice, it’s an ultimatum. Especially when you don’t actually know if anyone is going to help you if you ask.”

“It isn’t, but they had no other choice. Are we supposed to punish them for being stuck in a corner?”

”I see. I don’t know what the war was like, and I don’t know exactly what the Imperials did, or what people say you did, to make you so hated. But I still think you don’t deserve death for this. It wouldn’t be right to punish you for trying to survive.” She frowns, thinking on what the knight had said. ”...even for a prison, that place doesn’t exactly sound like it’s full of nice people. ‘The animals received better treatment’? Did they really?”

”...That is a good question. What’s that place like? Why is it so horrible that you would throw away your sense of honor instead of staying there any more?”

“I can’t claim to understand you,” Dulcie replies to the mage. “For some reason you all ended up in that prison. Maybe I don’t want to know what that reason is. You escaped with General Kiba and ended up here, forced to attack and steal from others to survive. But now that we’ve defeated you and you might be executed, you seem resigned to it. Content with it, even.” ”I can’t claim to understand you, but I still pity you.” She turns to the other Guards. “We should let them go on to Jowston. Killing them wouldn’t bring anyone back and if we sent them to another prison they would just try the same thing again.”