Mariette looks around at the passersby, up and down the stretch of walk that was the main road. Her stomach grumbles in anger, desperate for sustenance. She looks to Armen, who also noticed her audible hunger. "Might we buy some food? I am terribly famished." she inquires.

  Armen, now acutely aware of his own starvation, replies, "Aye. However, I wish not to linger amongst the populace for too long, lest they begin to note our presence and spread gossip. We must take care to not bring any attention to ourselves."

  Mariette giggles, "Well then I fear you are much too late for that: clad in armor as you are, and being human in these lands has likely already caused a stir for the people of this town."

  Armen, grunting in acknowledgment, begins to walk along the main path, searching for a market square or shop of some sort. Mariette follows at his side, aiming to pass the time of searching by inquiring of him, "What do you expect of the Inquisition as reply? Will they send more knights such as thee?"

  Armen, his walk more an ambling than a purposeful stride, replies to her, "I know not. I should hope so. For the way mother had spoke until our clash, I fear there is much more to my charge than simple routing of beasts."

  As they walk, Armen notes the various villagers that would pause their routines to stare at the unusual presence within their community. Women that beat rugs of dirt would cease and watch, young children that ran along the path playing would stand still in awe at the duo as they passed. Armen and Mariette, aware of the gawking, ignored it all while they meandered between others along the path. Upon reaching the market square, there were little reaction of their arrival. The vendors continued to cry their wares and surplus, vying for the attention of everyone within earshot.

  Within the midst of the market were the food stands. Produce and fish, dried meats and herbs, all being sold by howling merchants and farmers. Armen reaches in his satchel and gives Mariette a small leather pouch, the sound of silver jingling within. "We only have so much money to buy anything. I am only funded by Cathedral out of necessity, not desire. Only purchase the minimum we might need. Frugality is a friend in my line of work."

  Mariette takes the pouch, looking at Armen with a surprise, "Are you not to join me while shopping?"

  Armen, waving his hand as if to shoo her question, "Nay, I care not for crowds. Let alone crowds that would take notice of me to the extent that I become a novelty to them. I shall wait for you to finish over there." he points to a lone tree that stood at the edge of the square, close enough that it nearly grew into the home next to it. "There seems out of the way enough that few might notice me."

  She nods in understanding, "Yes. I suppose that you are a curiosity here. I shall purchase only the minimum, I assure you." With that, they part ways. While Armen stands underneath the shade of the tree, a child peers at him from around the corner of the house. Clearly trying to avoid detection as Armen glances over to the spying eyes, the child ducks back behind the corner and out of sight. A few moments pass before the child looks again. Then, he stumbles out from behind the corner as if he were pushed by another. With his fingers clasped together, and his head hanging low with eyes that look up in nervous fear, he tentatively steps ever closer to Armen, whom pretends not to notice the encroaching boy.

  Armen, feeling a tug at his chainmail sleeve, looks down to find the boy looking up at him with his hands clutched and rubbing together. A gray feline, no more than eight, with black stripes and emerald eyes that dart up and down, trying to hold confidence and failing miserably so. "S-Sir?" his voice squeaks. Armen kneels down to eye-level with the boy, "Yes, child?"

  "A... art thou a knight??"

  "Indeed. Why do you ask?"

  "Thine armor. I've seen naught like it."

  "Thou have witnessed knights?"

  The boy, with a slowly burgeoning confidence, now more familiar with the man whom he spoke, raises his head almost proudly as he announces, "Aye! My father has brought me to Iriat, where we saw a parade of knights. But, their helmets were different. They were pointed in the front. Father said it was so they could fit their snouts in. Your helmet isn't pointed, so... where is your snout?" he asks, his nervous finger shaking as it pointed at Armen's face.

  Armen winces, realizing that the boy assumed him to be a manolon. Grappling with the choice of admitting his humanity or lying to the child, elects to hopefully change the subject, "Iriat? So you have been to the capital? That journey is no small feat for an adult, let alone a young boy like you. What did you think of it? Were it everything you had hoped it to be?"

  The boy's eyes light, "Oh it was wondrous! I have never seen such grand houses! They're the biggest in all creation. Everyone was so nice too!"

  "The biggest you say? My my... I should travel there one day." Armen says cheekily, only playing to the child's excitement. As Armen finishes his sentence, a voice is heard calling from around the corner, "Liam! Liam where art thou? Liam?" a moment of silence before another feline walks about the corner, "Liam! Come hither! Do not speak to strangers, what would mother say??" The new feline boy looked nearly identical to the child before Armen, save for more plentiful black striping upon his face. He was clearly older, nearly sixteen if Armen were to guess.

  "Oh! They told on me!" the child curses to himself, then turns to reply, "Brother, I'm sorry! He jus-"

  "Nay! Ye know proper! You'd best hope that mother doesn't find out about your careless frolicking, now get home!"

  The boy, Liam, looks back to Armen quickly as he leaves, waving a tiny hand goodbye, "Sorry, Sir knight! I have to go." Then flees away around the corner again. The older brother looks at Armen a moment, then turns to leave, all the while side-eyeing him. Armen returns his suspicious staring until finally he disappears around the corner after his younger. Then returns to his previous standing and watching as Mariette continued shopping.

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  Armen feels his lower back ache while he stands waiting for Mariette. He sits in the patchy grass around the tree, keeping eye on the market, watching her while she converses with the merchants. From afar, he admires her grace. The way she laughs as the merchant may have told her a jest, her smile while she peruses their produce, careless of the foul world around them all. A kind nature that Armen found very rarely in his own life. A kindness that was especially vulnerable to abuse by the average derelict that wandered the corners of the earth.

  While Armen watches her continue shopping, he notices a leering group of manolons from a few stalls down. They too, watched Mariette, though they peered with hungry eyes. Looking up and down her form, and moving to whisper to one another, smirking.

  One of them, a Doberman, approaches Mariette while she is busy testing the ripeness of a tomato. His hand brushes against her rear "accidentally". Armen watches with malice as he does so, desperately aching to flog the foul thing, yet, he stays down; knowing that the attention that a fight would garner is less ideal than simply allowing the "mistake" to happen without consequence.

  Mariette jumps at the foreign touch, looking back behind her at the Doberman, she voices something to him, of which Armen couldn't make out from this distance. The man comes up nearer her behind, and grabs her arm, saying something in her ear, to which she jerks her arm away and spits on the ground at his feet.

  Now, visibly enraged, he grabs her arm more forcefully and yanks her back, eliciting a yelp from Mariette. The merchant before either of them uses his cane and begins whacking against the ill-intended manolon. The Doberman grabs the cane mid swing and yanks it from the merchant, nearly pulling him over the counter of goods, his friends begin to bear down upon the scene, while Armen, livid, springs up and marches to them as well.

  Armen could feel his knuckles ache as he clenches his hands, his toes kicking dirt behind him as he briskly stamps to them. He could feel the weight of the nervous eyes from other patrons and merchants while he comes upon the scene. The Doberman's friends stop a distance away as Armen advances upon the two. Mariette begins to settle while the Doberman grabs her waist and pulls her breast against his, as she sees Armen approaching him from behind.

  Armen reaches around and grips the doberman's snout, clamping it shut onto his tongue. Then Armen pulls his snout up and with his other hand, hammers a closed fist into the throat of the vagrant. The manolon coughs and sputters as he lets go of Mariette, whom stumbles and lands on her haunches in the dirt.

  The man clutches his throat and falls to his knees, choking for air. Armen rears his knee up to his chest and kicks his heel into the side of the cretin's skull, sending him to the ground with a yelp. Armen, still unfinished, grabs the tunic of the man and pulls him up from the ground, head bobbing in a daze. Then crushes a fist into the side of his snout. Again, again, and again. The man fell against the dirt, then rose once more by Armen's hand only to be sent down. After several pummeling blows from Armen, he shoves the vagrant back into the ground, and with finality, presses his heel down onto his skull to grind him into the dirt. Armen towers over the now deeply unconscious derelict, admiring the pooling blood that stained the earth.

  Silence befell the market as onlookers stared in awe at the violence. The friends only lingered at the edge of the crowd that now circled the three of them. Armen looks at them, glaring within his helmet, but they all look away, avoiding eye contact.

  Mariette scrambles up, grabbing Armen's elbow, "Stop! His punishment is more than enough! His crime was only accosting me."

  Armen shoves her off of himself, "You do NOT carry the dictation of my judgment! I punish him on his intent, not his actions. That is the degree to which I conduct." he points at Mariette with his entire hand, fingers splayed out and shaky with wrath. Then he bends down to continue his abuse against the manolon under his heel. Mariette huffs and chucks a tomato at Armen's helm. It splats and soaks the orle and capelet, the squelch of it only emphasized by the surprised murmur of the crowd.

  "Thine zeal is too great! Ye harm more than is deserved to him! We are meant to forgive the transgressions of the wicked!"

  Armen, now with an eerie calm, slowly straightens up and turns only his head to face Mariette, who readied another tomato. He steps towards Mariette, each bound an audible thump amidst the crowd of silent watchers. Despite being calm, one could feel the absolute blinding rage that no doubt were on the verge of consuming him entirely. "We leave... NOW." he says as he grabs Mariette's arm and drags her along behind him. She doesn't resist, though she does pull her arm back, "Release me! I needn't a lead, Armen..." with a voice indignant and sour. "I can follow you just well on my own accord." She snaps her snout to the sky and closes her eyes, snubbing his actions. Armen grumbles to himself and walks from the square, Mariette following suit.

  They continue to walk in silence back to the tavern, an uncomfortable tension wedging between the two of them. When they enter the establishment, the barkeep nods his usual way while Armen and Mariette retreat to their room. Upon closing the door, Mariette turns to face Armen directly, "Ye should not have beaten that fellow like so. Though he had sinned against me, I feel your retribution unto him was far too severe." she chides.

  Armen scowls beneath his helmet as he sucks his teeth in frustration, "Mariette... I regret to inform thee that this world is a vile place, rife with sin and evil. And as dearly as I wish that forgiveness would simply allow sinners to look inward of themselves and become better, it does not. Sister... My ultimate charge, and that of Cathedral, our sole purpose beyond the daily this and that: is to be the safety in which allows thee and the other innocent people of the world to harbor such strength of will. I am here for the purpose of slaughtering and maiming so that YOU are allowed to forgive those that seek to harm you. If the only retribution that befalls the vile and the wicked is forgiveness from their victims, then those victims become nothing but lambs to the slaughter. I am the sword sent by God to allow you to live a life full of mercy and grace. To keep your hands clean from the blood of the putrid so that you may praise the Lord as an innocent. Such is my charge, such is the price for your cleanliness..." his voice was laced with haunting rage, not the same wrath from afore. A hopeless anger, one that would befall a parent having lost their child to war.

  Mariette, sunken in a desperate hope to not believe his words, lands hard onto the bed. A defeated sigh erupting from her lips. "I know not what your life has subjected you to, but I cannot bring myself to see such villainy as you do. There are good people in this world, and we must aspire to be those people, Armen..."

  "There are good people in this world BECAUSE of men like I. Without men of action, the civility of our beloved brothers and sisters is swept away in favor of hedonism and grief. In order to live in peace, someone must be capable and willing to enact horrible violence."

  "What of the beauty in the kindness of others? Does that not give you a glimmer of hope?" Mariette beseeches further, hoping to soften his callousness to some extent

  "Aye. It does. But it is a kindness that I cannot place in the way of the wicked." Armen finishes his rant, a resolute tone in his words that bar any rebuttal. He turns into his corner, and with his gloves removed, enacts his usual ritual of bloody worship.