_ _ _
filth

In the shower, it's safe to cry. She can't tell the difference between her own tears and the water rolling down her face, and thus she permits herself to feel something.
Crying is seen as a weakness where she comes from. This hasn't changed since her transition from where she was to where she is now.

As long as even she can't see herself do it, it's okay. She has nothing to hide.

When she closes her eyes, she sees his face. His fur matted down with sweat and blood. His eyes, half open. Almost as if he's unaware what is happening to him.
Dreaming through it.

The cannon that brought him down resting upon her shoulder. Leading him. Not even knowing it's him. Just doing what she's paid to do as a mercenary.
She fires and the blue ball of plasma cuts through the night sky. Tracer clinging closely to it, flickering out like a flame being guided by the wind. The trajectory.

Kick causes her to stumble backwards, but she sets herself straight to watch the projectile fly through the sky and tag his wing, sending him spiraling downward to her level.
She doesn't take the time to let herself feel anything. She simply drops the spent weapon and skips to a run towards the falling ship amid the chaos.

The sound of the water splashing against her and the metal around her drowning out all the sound. She's lost in the static for a moment.
Rubbing her face, the top and back of her head. Soaking her fur. Scrubbing away the filth.

Filth.

Dried up blood. Some of it hers, some of it not.
Oily brown water sucked through the vortex spinning over the drain.

Warm water relaxing the tense and aching muscles of her body as she calms down. She closes her eyes again. She crosses an ally tank's path from behind it and heads through the field for the woods where it crashed.
Specks of flame in the surrounding trees and foliage lead her to it.

And before she knows it she's wrenching open the thick spiderwebbed plexiglass hatch.
And before she realizes what's happening she's staring into his weary, dying eyes.

Looking at her through eyes glassy and half closed. Slowly blinking.
He seems unaware of his surroundings. Like an infant, looking out onto everything with a clean slate.

She wonders if she'd help him if she wasn't sure just by looking at him that he was going to die.
She doesn't have to kill him. She doesn't have to do anything. She doesn't need this money. But he's already dead.

She unholsters her pistol and points it at his head. Without thinking she pulls the trigger and the laser tears its way through his skull, singing the fabric on the seat behind him.
The corpse smiles lifelessly at her with one eye and one hole straight through the back of his head.

Scrubbing and rinsing.
Silently crying.

Krystal catches her breath leaning against the weight of the water valve.

The water shuts off and she stands there for a moment in silence. The water occasionally dripping and splashing at her feet.
Inhale. Exhale. Hold.

You're fine, Krystal mouths to herself among the quiet. You're fine now.