I am the shadow driving the hearse

SUNJATA

the flood

but am i too late? or hearts to your spades,
if i don't suit you? then what do you want from me?

This morning should have gone like every other. Smoothly. A coffee in one hand, a cigarette in the other, an easy trek to the Slagveld to open it for the day for those wishing to train. It’s still somewhat dark within, the lanterns long burned out, but sunlight filters through in swaths of blues and golds from the partially overcast sky. And in practiced motions, Sunjata unlocks the door, flips the sign in the window to open, moving to pull the cigarette from his lips and go about prepping the place for the day.

The scent of blood in his senses isn’t unusual, not for a place like this. But this amount of it, dry iron mixed with sand is different. It’s still somewhat fresh in comparison, and the volume of it that assaults his senses is wrong. That should have been his first clue.

He finally takes a moment to look around the boxing ring, spying a shadow on the wall that instantly has him on edge as he partially shifts his gaze to see better, as feathers navy hued and vibrant flick down his neck and shoulders in his surprise. He recognizes the face, albeit vaguely.

He recognizes the death more so.

And it’s horror that crosses him, that has him dropping the coffee into the sand, (what’s a little spill of coffee among the pool of blood?) the cigarette wavers pinched between his lips as his feet take him nearer when he simply would rather have nothing to do with this at all. But when does he ever get his wish?

He nears it, the body, trying his best to swallow down the horror and sudden nausea, of the memories it sparks back to the surface, long hidden and drowned, of blood on a marble floor, of promises made but never kept, of slit throats purely for show and pain.

He finds the letter, the handwriting so much like his it makes him feel sicker. He reads the language of his home. And he knows. He knows. He hates it.

And there’s nothing he can do but to follow the instruction. To look back up at Arsen, quietly cursing out the man for coming back, cursing him out for not staying away like he’d tried to make him do.

The cigarette is discarded, and Sunjata finds himself beginning to pull the nails from the other man’s wings, shuddering at the thought of them being his.

so we're not written in the stars,
but i'm okay with that. i'm okay with anything

DECLAN

What Declan's ever doing anywhere is anyone's guess.

His black coat sweeps into the dimly-lit entryway of the Slagveld and already there's something thick in the atmosphere. Blood has a funny way of seeping far beyond its physical reaches, haunting and stilling the air.

Declan can smell it before he sees it and, instinctively, he shuts the door behind him. The lock quietly snaps closed, ensuring no prying eyes. There's a coppery taste in his mouth as he silently chokes on the smell. Saliva pools across his tongue in reaction. He looks around for... well, he can't be too sure, but he's looking anyway.

The courier soon appears, brows raising as his gaze takes in the gruesome scene. A harpy-man is nailed to the wall in an all too clear message. Fallen feathers litter the ground. Declan's arrival stirs a few of them, but they cling to the sand stubbornly. Red, red, red.. everything is stained in it, stuck in it. Sunjata is, too, as he works to release the sticky nails.

"Aye, what a mess..." he sighs, tone pensive, nodding grimly as he looks around. Just another day in the life. It's then, as his eyes explore further, that he sees the letter. Curiously, he picks it up between rough fingers, but his brows furrow as he realizes it's in some foreign language he's never seen before.

"Who left you this?" He asks, lifting up the letter and peering expectantly at Sunjata.

I'm not always good.

SUNJATA

the flood

but am i too late? or hearts to your spades,
if i don't suit you? then what do you want from me?

He is acutely aware of the sounds around him even if it’s hard to hear with the blood thundering in his ears. It makes him feel small, his skin twitching with every turn, every click, until a voice pipes up that’s familiar and yet not familiar in the way he expects. He half expects to find Shaju there, to see how well Sunjata has done with cleaning up the mess he’s made. Probably to see if he cleans it up at all.

But it isn’t.

One glance over his shoulder confirms that as he moves to pull another nail from large feathered wings, as he moves to pull just enough of the nails that perhaps Declan might prove useful in lowering Arsen from the wall and not simply letting the man fall flat. Underneath the partial mix of feathers and skin, the man is pale — and so is Sunjata as his head lowers with Declan’s question. “Someone who wanted to leave a message.” He says flatly, void of emotion because it’s warring within him.

He could tell him it’s his father, but it wouldn’t do any good. Shaju had never looked the same to Sunjata twice. There isn’t a way he could explain it and catch him. But the letter, the letter is evidence. Declan, now, a witness. And it’s something, even if he can’t do anything about it right now.

The blood is cold, so cold that Sunjata’s jaw clenches as it clings to him and he tosses the nails into a heap on the floor. “Can you flip the sign and lock the door, then come help me remove him from the wall?” It’s a quiet request, but Sunjata isn’t the mood for masks and faces right now, not with this gaping hole in his chest.

so we're not written in the stars,
but i'm okay with that. i'm okay with anything

DECLAN

Declan's gaze flinches at Sunjata's answer, looking back down at the words in the letter. He leaves it then, where he found it, since clearly it was addressed to the governor. There was something oddly personal about all of this. Sure, sending a message like this could've been from some disgruntled person with a grudge, and that could've been anyone. Knowing the sorts that lived in Torchline, he wasn't surprised that Sunjata had a fair bit of enemies. That happens when you become a figurehead.

The letter, though, that's a sign of some deeply personal vendetta. And the writer of it had to have been very fuckin' confident. The notion was enough to chill Declan's own blood, down to his bones, but he didn't reveal this. He merely shed his coat and left it on something nearby, something untouched by blood.

Believe it or not, this isn't his first murder scene- or clean-up. And maybe that's obvious in his unsurprised demeanor, but that's old news...

"Already done 'at, I knew somethin' was off the second I walked in," he made his way over to Sunjata's side brusquely, rolling up his sleeves, "Can't have some half-baked come in and start makin' more of'a mess."

Declan grabbed hold of one of the nails and one of the arms, prying the man free of the wall. Bloody weight befell the pair of them, and Declan hoisted it up as well as he could. "You got a place for our friend here?" He arced narrowed eyes over at Sunjata. Taking it that he was quite shaken from the 'message', Declan rumbled harshly, "Listen, I'll take care of this after we're done here. I got a wagon I can hide him in. Meantime, If y've got a blanket, sheets.. somethin' of the sort. Be kinda obvious if I go walkin' down the street with a body."

He grunted and shifted his weight.

"Unless y're wantin' to go public with 'im?"

I'm not always good.

SUNJATA

the flood

but am i too late? or hearts to your spades,
if i don't suit you? then what do you want from me?

He’d been raised with that language. He’d been raised how to write so similarly to it that it hurts to look at. All those sharp edges where the letters would usually curve. Perhaps that was part of the point. But Declan leaves the letter, moves further in and sheds his clothes, Sunjata’s request already half done, before he’d asked, a small mercy among the shit show everything else was becoming. It’s already too late for Sunjata to remove his clothes before removing Arsen, too distracted by the sight to think about it. And so it’s his sleeves and clothes that get splattered and covered in the cool, chilled blood. “Thank you.” Is all he manages, pulling another nail from Arsen’s arm as Declan rolls up his sleeves beside him.

It doesn’t take long for them to get him from the wall, the body dropping onto them, hard and gone for long enough it’s no longer malleable. It only surges more of that nausea and dread within him. “Put him on the ground. I’ll grab some blankets.” For now, it should work as he racks his brain to try and think up what the fuck to do with him. But they manage to get him into the sand and Sunjata’s standing to slip back toward the spare room attached, a closet on the inside that he pulls a few sheets and a thicker blanket from. “Keep it quiet. It was for me, anyway. I thought I’d ran the kid out of town.” He says, bringing the blankets over to spread out in the sand so they could lift the body again and place him within.

“He was a troublemaker but… Didn’t deserve to die for it.” He can’t help the pinch of his brow, slipping away from Declan and the body to wipe his hand on a clean enough part of his clothes, before he lifts the note and ticks it into a pocket so it isn’t lost or stolen. “Could drop him far off in the ocean.” He rumbles before he remembers he can’t. Another perk from his dear father, he assumes.

so we're not written in the stars,
but i'm okay with that. i'm okay with anything

DECLAN

Declan sheds the weight of the body with more ease than he has holding it, allowing the kid to slide into the drying pool of his own blood. Declan merely waits with icy calm - because one of them has to be calm in this. Sunjata seems to be faring well, at least, ruffled feathers perhaps smoothed by Declan's cool.

When Sunjata returns with the aforementioned items, Declan is quick to help lift the body into them. He grits his teeth with the effort but, it's done. He takes a minute to stare down at the sheets, at the face he doesn't recognize, and now it makes sense. It's becoming more and more evident that this is personal, a message meant only for Sunjata.

Keep it quiet.

Declan nods and pulls the material around the body, effectively hiding it within the blankets. They would have to look upon his face no longer. Not unless they made a point to. Declan's gaze lifted up to Sunjata's, a question in them he wasn't airing. Could he handle this?

It's one question Declan doesn't have a damn clue the answer for. Not an inkling. Information came and went, but.. knowing people and their merit, that was something he specifically avoided. There's one cold fact he was certain of; this wasn't over. Whatever this was.

"No one will miss him, then. That works in our favor," he trails off a bit, looking toward the pocket (with the letter in it) with a pointed furrow of his brows, "and whoever's done it."

At Sunjata's offer of dropping the body off in the ocean, Declan's already shaking his head before the sentence is finished. His resolve only grows when the man seems suddenly uncertain. "No, we'll clean the blood and the sand, and you'll leave the body to me." Declan says this with an eerily experienced implication, if that can be done. "Gathering information is not my only skill, brother," because if there's anything that makes you brothers, it's taking care of a body. "You can worry about the person that sent the message."

And Declan mills about toward the kitchenette, retrieving whatever cleaning supplies he can. Rags, soap, whatever works. He sets these things down and, before he will begin, he turns to Sunjata, "Ya gonna tell me what this is about?" and this isn't a demand, or a condition. He's simply wondering, which is obvious in the way he rolls his head on his neck and looks curiously toward Sunjata.

Then, without waiting too long, he tosses the other man a rag and begins cleaning up the stains that cake the wall and the floorboards.

I'm not always good.

SUNJATA

the flood

but am i too late? or hearts to your spades,
if i don't suit you? then what do you want from me?

He’s glad that Declan is calm, because if someone had walked in and been frantic, he doesn’t know how he would’ve reacted. For now, however, he can pretend that he’s alright. Besides, it isn’t like he hasn’t seen this before. It isn’t like he hasn’t killed before. But it had been a part of his life long since forgotten, shoved under the rug, hardly ever to be brought up and looked at again. A dark pit within him that he constantly tries to fill with light in the hopes it makes him a better person.

The only difference is he’s never had to hide the bodies before.

Brought back in the moment, the mention of it working in their favor has his muscles feathering in his jaw again, that pit wide within him growing with every second. “I think he was a drifter.” He rumbles offhandedly, as if it makes it better (it doesn’t). Declan catches his gaze, however, as he’s standing from wrapping the body, the boy’s face no longer seen – a relief, and yet no relief.

Brother is a term he hasn’t heard since the resistance either. But he nods, chews on the inside of his cheek. “Thank you.” He repeats, the bags under his eyes appearing darker somehow even if the boxing ring grows lighter as the sun rises higher. He’s half tempted to comment that he’s worried about the person that’s sent the message far more than he wanted to. How it had been months of it. He doesn’t, of course.

While Declan rummages around the kitchenette for cleaning supplies, Sunjata grabs a bucket and a shovel – to pull the bloody sand from the floor to dump somewhere and replace with fresh sand as they often did after fights. And he’s already lifting a bit of the bloody sand into the bucket when Declan’s question hits, a low sigh slipping through his lips as he debates it. “It just says; ‘I did you a favor. Clean this up now.’” And he says nothing else, just grabs another shovelful of sand to dump into the bucket, head ducked a bit more and feathered shoulders tense with the tension and the burden of it all.

so we're not written in the stars,
but i'm okay with that. i'm okay with anything

DECLAN

Declan doesn't think much more on the matter of who the boy was. If he was a drifter, if he wouldn't be looked for, then there was no reason to. That kind of sentiment would only serve to hurt, to plague and poison the mind. Once it takes hold, it can't be cured. Only the symptoms can be treated, often by means of a stiff drink... Declan knew all about that.

The thanking him had to stop, though, because it was starting to get... jarring. "Don't."

"Don't thank me. Was in the wrong place at the wrong time, tha's'all." It's a brief look he gives Sunjata, and maybe it's sympathy that softens his expression. Whatever it is, it doesn't last long, because then it's replaced by something harsher. If anything, it's to keep them both afloat through this lurid situation. "This is what we do for each other now. Don' thank me..." His voice suddenly loses its initiative and trails off as if he's choked up. But nothing else contorts his countenance, and he's moving on to the next... step, if it can be called that.

Sunjata can handle the sand, feathers and all, if he so chooses. Declan's not partial to working together. If anything, the governor could've easily left right then and come back in a few hours, and this would all be gone. A bad dream. Only, the rest... the innerworkings, the intention, the plans of the person {or people} who'd done this. Those things would not simply disappear with water and soap. The blood itself was pretty stubborn, anyway, and Declan had to put a fair amount of elbow grease into it.

Sunjata speaks and he pauses, letting out a long breath. And he thinks about that for a moment, deliberates over it. Then, he jerks his head up, expresion incredulous and narrowed. He looks over his shoulder at Sunjata. "Now what the fuck's 'at supposed to mean?" He rolls his jaw, cooling himself, and dips the blood-stained cloth into a bucket of soapy water. He wrings it out, crouched down, and says, "I get it, you don' wanna make a scene, don' wanna make people panic. I don' either, but I can't help ya any further than this if you don' tell me what's goin' on." He squints up at Sunjata, watery blood dripping from his hands. Somewhere among the chaos, he's managed to light a cigarette. It dangles between his lips, smattered by wettened, crimson liquid. "What I should be lookin' out for, now that 'm on your side."

I'm not always good.

SUNJATA

the flood

but am i too late? or hearts to your spades,
if i don't suit you? then what do you want from me?

”Don’t.” He hears at first and he pauses in his work, letting Declan continue, to briefly explain, to glance to him as he too glances back at the man, silent aside from chewing on the inside of his cheek. There’s a nod, the way the other man trails off. He knows that all too well. And so he keeps it to himself, drawing silent and in on himself, focused on everything else rather than the obvious. He keeps himself together, though his eyes stray to the body wrapped in sheets, his thoughts stray to what exactly Declan would do with him.

He supposes it’s best he doesn’t know.

So he translates, instead, letting Declan understand what the note says before he draws silent to clean more of the sand up, the ebony feathers that drift around – and if there’s a few navy ones out of his own shoulders from the pure shock and upset this has caused, he pretends he doesn’t notice. And Declan cuts through it – questioning him directly. But he can’t answer, not truthfully, despite how much he wants to. So he beats around the bush with it, chewing on the inside of his cheek more and more until it’s raw.

“I don’t know what’s going on or what to look out for.” That, perhaps, is what makes it worse. He doesn’t know what his father plans on doing. He doesn’t know what the next step is. “I just know that whomever this was knows a lot more about me than most people here.” That’s not entirely a lie. Because his father had known all, and it seemed he’d been here long enough to learn tidbits here as well.

So he finishes putting the sand in that one bucket to set aside, to grab another and sift the rest of the sand for feathers, to drop into a new bucket while Declan cleans up the blood. “Which means it’s all targeted. It’s all at me.” Because why else would his father want to get at anyone else? This wasn’t Korofi, this wasn’t home. This was Sunjata’s new home, and if there’s one thing he knew about Shaju, is that Sunjata doesn’t ever get to keep the things he likes or he wants.

It’s better to keep the Attuned miserable rather than let him thrive. And unfortunately, Sunjata begins to believe it.

so we're not written in the stars,
but i'm okay with that. i'm okay with anything

DECLAN

Sunjata can withdraw, Declan makes no further comments about that. It's probably best that they don't get too wrapped up in their emotions. Especially since Declan's are inherently stunted. He'd be of no use for Sunjata to spill his emotions to, not here, not now. They have a job to do, as indicated by that cryptic fucking letter. They bury themselves in blood and sand, lines of red staining Declan's arms.

I don't know...

Declan takes a sharp inhale of breath, annoyance piercing his gaze and clenching his jaw. He squeezes the cloth one last time, knuckles whitening, and then he resumes working on the floor. Circular motions, that's what gets the tough stains out. Red bubbles surface along the boards in his wake. He wipes those away too. By now the rag is a damned sight to behold. It had been white, now it's clotted with blood and grime.

He retrieves the next rag to begin the process again because this is no easy mess to clean. But his hands are moving relatively fast, especially now that his temper is spiked by Sunjata's self-absorption.

Declan doesn't give a damn about the dead kid, doesn't know him and now he never will - and that's fine. That's one thing. It's another thing, however, that now he is on Sunjata's side of whatever battle this is. Something tells him this isn't anything to do with the Order, which is a whole other thing in and of itself.

"And ya know who it is," Declan speaks up suddenly, resuming the conversation as if several minutes hadn't just passed in concentrated, tense silence. But he doesn't look up from what he's doing, doesn't lift that icy gaze of his to steel it over Sunjata. Not yet, he's too irritated and he doesn't want to get upset. "So 'm guessin'... that ya know what else they might do. To get at you. Who else ya got around, Sunjata? Hm? Your husband. Your guild. Your people." It's then that he looks up at the other man, he can't help it, it has to be said. He slowly leans back, knelt down among the soap and blood. "You really think y're the only one that's gonna suffer? Look around, look at this!" He throws the bloody rag down at the ground, pursing his lips angrily and letting out a heated, shaky breath.

So much for not getting upset.

I'm not always good.

SUNJATA

the flood

but am i too late? or hearts to your spades,
if i don't suit you? then what do you want from me?

He wants to withdraw completely, despite his refrain. He has to be in the moment, cleaning up the boxing ring, fixing the mess his father has left him with, horrified that the handwriting on the paper is so similar to his own that he wonders if someone would think that he did it. Luckily, however, Declan was here to bear witness to Sunjata’s quiet rolling horror, his sorrow evident in the way he aimed to remove the boy from the wall.

His thoughts are irrational right now, a game of tennis in his head that bounds him to and fro, sometimes out of bounds, sometimes hitting a net – that he doesn’t notice when his words begin to send Declan into his own quiet spiral, his own quiet rage. Silent tension has overcome them while they work, and Sunjata’s only brought out of his thoughts to hear that he knows who it is. “I have ideas who it could be.” But again, no actual face to be able to scout for. He doesn’t even know where his father resides in order to try and enact any justice for this horror.

So Sunjata continues to silently work, as Declan airs out his fears on a plate right before him – Sunjata’s thoughts growing darker, his mind spiraling more internally, withdrawing himself so much that when the wet slap of the rag hits the ground it makes him flinch. He recovers quickly, as if it hadn’t happened, simply continuing to sift the feathers out of the sand in silence as he mulls his thoughts together, as he swallows against the tightness of his throat, as he tries to keep himself from breaking apart here and now.

That’s for later, after all.

“There is no place to start.” His voice has shifted again toward sounding a bit more regal, that Korofi switch within him flipping again. “All I have is this. No trail to follow. He wasn’t killed here, but there’s only four people who have a key here.” He informs the courier in a flat, matter-of-fact tone. “None of them would do this.” Not if they could help it. “Which leaves it up to chance, if someone saw something. Maybe they did. Maybe they didn’t. I don’t know yet.”

so we're not written in the stars,
but i'm okay with that. i'm okay with anything

DECLAN

He pulls on his cigarette, temper receding, and raises disappointed brows up to Sunjata. If that was the truth, if he really had no idea where to begin, then this was going to put a huge damper on things. Declan could already feel apprehension raising the hairs on the back of his neck. The building was probably being watched right now, so.. if they'd seen him, they'd know to target him as one of Sunjata's allies.

This is why everything's a trap. This is why Declan doesn't get involved in shit that ain't got to do with him, but, now he's made it so that it does got to do with him. What's next, then? His gaze drifts to the side, as if an idea is forming. Yet, all his mind can come up with is static, beginnings of ideas but none that are concrete or helpful. He's really not sure, and that's making this feeling of dread worse.

The proverbial ball is in Sunjata's court, but the problem is the court's empty. No shot to take.

"If y're gonna keep this quiet, y're gonna need to be real fuckin' smart from this point on. Ya need a plan," his gaze is on Sunjata, expectant, pressuring. Because the last thing he should be doing is... "fallin' apart, that can wait. Whatever this is, it's not over. You know it, I know it, and whoever they are knows it. Can't jus' take it lyin' down, Sunjata... y' need to make a move."

Declan snatches up the rag and plops it into the soapy bucket, wringing it out until the liquid runs mostly clear. The floor and the wall aren't exactly caked anymore but, blood is fucking stubborn. He gets back to it.

I'm not always good.

SUNJATA

the flood

but am i too late? or hearts to your spades,
if i don't suit you? then what do you want from me?

Sunjata’s mind tries to wrap around everything, tries to pinpoint what’s occurred and what will occur, but he comes up empty every time. He tries and tries and instead his mind begins to numb things out, to blur them together with other situations – moments where it isn’t feathers he’s pulling from the sand but bullets instead. The thought makes him shudder when he focuses on it and realizes what it actually is. One blink to change it from cool, fired, warped metal into a soft feather in his calloused hands.

Declan’s voice reaches him again and he’s almost forgotten he’s spoke up at all. But the man’s right, he does need a plan, he does need to be smart. How can he do it when he feels like he’s lost every advantage he’s had? So he’s quiet for another bit of time, Declan’s gaze felt on him but he doesn’t look over. Instead, he simply just focuses on the feather in his hand before he drops it into the bucket and moves to deposit that too once the feathers are picked up. And then it’s onto cleaning the blood – he grabs another rag and more fresh water, joining the other man as he works to draw the blood from the wood again.

“I’m not falling apart.” He is. “How do I make a move when I don’t know where to start? Where to strike?” He knows nothing about what his father’s been up to here. He knows nothing about what relationships he has with people – it was alarming how charming his father could be, the way he could manipulate others into doing unthinkable things.

And get them to lie for him.

He’s silent for a time once again, mulling over his words. “I’ll keep the note. When I find him again, I’ll strike then.” He just… Needs to find him first, to not let him get the upper hand. Though that was the hard part, seeing as his father’s trained him well, conditioned him to freeze up and panic about everything he does.

Perhaps he’ll be ready next time.

so we're not written in the stars,
but i'm okay with that. i'm okay with anything

DECLAN

Declan feels a sigh curl the muscles between his shoulders, tightening his arms, his posture, his expression. He stills as the governor finishes with the sand and comes to help him with the soapy blood, and for a moment he simply watches. Watches how the man avoids his gaze and envelopes himself in the work to be done. It's a shell of a person that's in front of him, and he knows enough about people to see that.

Sunjata, of course, was right - and Declan has no straight answer for his questions. There are a myriad of potentials, some of them good, some of them bad, but all of them were up to Sunjata. Whether he had the strength and fortification to see it through, the steel. Declan knows nothing of the man's past, nothing but that he is an Outsider and he's seen some shit. Fair enough, so has everyone - outsider or insider.

Whatever makes Sunjata different from the everyday person, Declan doesn't know for certain, but he knows that he is, because he's got wolves at the door and blood on his hands. And many, many sleepless nights ahead of him.

Perhaps if Declan knew the relation, he might be able to offer up some more specific advice. But he doesn't, and he feels like there's something Sunjata isn't telling him, so a frown deepens the look on his face further. As if he's trying to reach a conclusion, a lifeline to offer the man in front of him, but he just doesn't know enough. Fuck.

"Pretty shit plan," Declan rumbles casually, even though he can't come up with anything much better at this point, "you'd need someone with ya fer that. In case it goes wrong. Don't have to be me," he shrugs, and he really doesn't care either which way. The less involved he is in this - not that he isn't already deep in the shit - the better. If Sunjata had told him he'd be helping him rid of a body, he would've laughed in the man's face and called him on the lie.

Yet, here they sit, with a bucket of blood and a body bag.

"Ya shouldn't go alone, whatever the fuck ya decide to do. You know where to find me, if yer... needin' another body picked up," the last bit of that comes out like it's almost a joke, but it isn't. Not at all. Might as well add it to the list of services he offers. "But it better not be yours."

But he's picking himself up, suddenly. It's still early. Torchliners are notorious for drinking till the morning light; a lot of them will be too hungover or too fuckin' tired to notice him slip by. They hardly notice him on a normal day, anyway. He can do this.

"Ye should get out of here, go... clean yer'self up, I can handle the rest of this," he said, turning back to Sunjata as he stood there. There's not much of a question in these words for him to argue against. "But whatever ya do, don't pretend this didn't happen, and don't think it won't happen again... This guy, whoever it is yer plannin' on confrontin', I get the feelin' he wants to play games. So let's beat him at his own game, yeah?" And, at that, Declan reaches out to grab the man's hand and help him to his feet. "Before he turns me and everyone else around you into pawns."

I'm not always good.