"No Life 'Til Leather"

Dance Red River, Dance!

Sunny or not, the day had to come anyway.

Who's ever heard of a "day" not showing up to work? Anyone ever seen a "day" throw in a week's notice and quit? No? Maybe a day calling in sick, then? Still no?

No, because a new day always came. Through the thick and thin, the day never – not ONCE – decided to play a prank on the Terrans and left them waiting for a ne'er forecasted sunrise to spread across the horizon. It had to come. What else would there be, if not a new day? A repeat? The click of a reverse button, and a re-screening of yesterday? No, the "day" of "yesterday" wasn't the same as the "day" of "today" – and neither would the "day" of "tomorrow" be. They all had their own special days to clock into. They had their duty to fill and a purpose to serve. Wound about the never ending scatter that was the disorganized solar system, these days had to navigate their way over to Terra and somehow gather the entire planet into their heaving bellows – at least until another "day" came to switch roles.

And that day, there was noise in the burrowing hallways of the Rhodes Island (under the ownership of Babel, mind you) landship.

Noise couldn't have been an abnormality, not in a place like this. Here, however, the caliber of the noise itself had mattered most, not the quantity. Sure, there was a lot of buzz surrounding the bustling cafeteria, or a whole bunch of clinking and clanging spilling from the nearest training facility – but what really drew in the day's ears, was the strained grunting and a river of curses flowing freely from a certain "Sarkaz" mercenary's mouth.

"F-... Fuck's sake... Fuck's sake, a-almost..."

In a half-empty hallway, a half-witted, half-unnecessary gathering took place. Encircled from each side by three pairs of eyes (one of them – weary and tired, while the rest remained excitedly moronic), a violent tangle of limbs crawled about the floor, unable to come to any sort of sensible conclusion. The familiarity of an unnaturally agitated and desperately flustered Ines, sprawled over the cold metal, ended somewhere where the calm and collected coolness of a nameless Sarkaz woman, with venomously purple horns and hair, started. Her arms did nothing more but simply encircle the Caprinae's feral, bucking stature, yet it served as an inescapable prison that bound her flush to the floor, cheek mushed against the hard plate. The heels of her boots bit down Ines' ankles and effectively drilled them in place, leaving her almost utterly defenseless and helpless.

Keyword, almost.

"A-Almost..." She spat through gritted teeth, while her hands dug around the outsides of her veiling cloak in search of the familiar feel of a steel handle. In her assault, the other Sarkaz had forgotten about her grabby little hands.

"It's... isn't that enough already? Look, I don't want to... I don't want to be a burden, or otherwise an annoyance, but..." Watching from the sidelines, a slightly concerned Hedley raised a finger to propose some haphazardly thought-out idea. The hiss of both brawling cutthroats shushed any forms of conflict resolution clear from his head.

"Not now." Ines barked.

"Exactly. It's between us, not you." The other cut in, with little to no signs of physical exasperation in her voice. "... So keep it shut."

"Yeah, shut up, Hedley!" W chortled from the other side, excited beyond belief at the sight of Ines getting her shit rocked. "Let 'em fight!"

"Yeah, let them fight!" Andy, glued to her side, played into her tune with his own warble. To see a professional Babel operative at work, performing whatever battle sorcery their arsenal hid, and on one's own friend? Or, maybe "colleague", actually. Ines would probably use the word colleague. Or "nuisance", even. Andy shook his head at the thought, immediately dispersing the clouds of gloom that loomed over his mind. "... We won't get any other opportunity like this!"