On the third clap, Cocoa throws one of his daggers, aiming for center mass of Sable's body. Then he darts away, his second dagger raised to defend himself as he pulls a second from his bandolier. 

Sable lunges into a powered leap, forward and up a bit, using her wings to twist through the air above the dagger, slashing down with a vampiric blade as she approaches him.

Cocoa's just as fast, and knocks the blow aside with one short blade while the second comes around for Sable to fall onto. 

Sable flares her wings and flaps to redirect, turning what would've been a deep stab into a light slash to her arm. She drops into a tumble and rights herself a few feet away, lunging into a low slash at Cocoa's side.

Cocoa's not fast enough to twist away from the blade, but his leather armor catches the blow and turns what could have been a serious injury into a wide bruise. He staggers, but retaliates, his daggers lashing out to try and catch Sable's unguarded throat and her stomach respectively. 

She flaps again to try to evade, managing to interpose her sword before the dagger aimed at her throat, and catches the other strike on her leathers, staggering backward, winded. She manages to retain enough focus to whip her tail out to try and catch Cocoa's ankle, though.

Cocoa feels his footing going, and chooses a headlong lunge forward, aiming to bear Sable to the ground and pin her. 

Sable rolls backward, trying to catch Cocoa in the waist with her feet and toss him over her.

Cocoa takes the hit with a whuff of exhalation, and is flung over Sable - but drops into a roll on the other side and comes back with another thrown dagger. 

It catches Sable in the left shoulder just as she's kipping back to her feet. She grunts in pain, lunging into a powered leap directly at Cocoa, saber wreathed in vampiric energy.

Cocoa whirls with his second dagger, and as Sable comes in he raises his empty hand to intercept Sable's blade —

There's a blast of wind from his palm, and Sable's blade is knocked aside violently, far out of space to recover. In the moment while Sable's guard is down, Cocoa strikes with his dagger and sinks it into Sable's throat.

"Sable!"

A stab of panic goes through Hyacinth, and it's all she can do to keep from rushing the field.

Sable sinks to her knees with a gurgle, giving Cocoa an impressed but pained look.

She quickly throws Sin a wink as she tips over onto the ground.

And then she's out.

... okay okay okay okay. 

This was the plan. This was exactly what she was aiming for. 

Nonetheless, she finds herself on her knees on the grass grabbing the body. 

It takes a second for her to come back to herself. She's hyperventilating and her body feels all hot and cold. 

She toggles her meditation. Stills her breathing. 

<You're doing so good. You can do this.>

Hyacinth pries her grip from the corpse. 

"Sorry," she says to the boy who just stabbed her girlfriend in the throat. "I... have never seen my girlfriend die before. I kind of... I lost control."

"It's okay," Cocoa says, wiping Sable's blood off his knife. "She fought well, and she'll be back." He sheathes his blade and presses his hand to his bruised side. "Got me good in the side, too. Would you like me to come to the temple of ruin with you to wait for her?"

"I..."

She kind of hates this boy a little right now, to be honest. 

But she nods. 

"Yeah."

Sable awakens in a quiet living room, lying on an exquisitely comfortable couch with soft, deep purple upholstery, a weighted blanket draped over her. She sits up a bit and looks around. Another couch, two armchairs, and a small pile of pillows fill the rest of the room. Various knick-knacks sit on shelves: sculptures in gemstone and glass and steel, bottles of ink in all sorts of colors, metal puzzles, and more. Large windows reveal a purple sky, pink clouds, and stars in countless colors.

A teenage girl — maybe sixteen or seventeen years old — sits in one of the armchairs, staring out the window, watching and listening to the waves as they wash against the shore. Her blonde hair is tied back in a messy bun, a pair of glasses with plastic frames sit on her face, and she's wearing shorts and an oversized sweater.

"Evening, Pirates. Evening, Sable. How are you feeling?"

"Huh," she asks, sitting up further, keeping the weighted blanket around herself. "Pretty decent. So this is the death dream? You know about us?"

"Mmmhm," the girl confirms. "You know, in the entire history of the death dream building its environment from people's memories and where they feel safe, this is one of the only unreal places I've seen. It doesn't exist in the outside world, has never existed there, and with the purple sky and pink clouds and no-sun-only-stars thing going on it can't exist out there."

She turns toward Sable. "I only know it's somewhere you feel safe, not what it means. Wanna tell me about it?"

A soft, vulnerable expression crosses Sable's face. "It's... our mindscape. The space we carved out in the heartlands of my soul to be our home."