Ash sat within the Pendragon manor, the large ballroom hauntingly empty as the butler sat cross legged in the center of the polished wood floor. He was dressed in black slacks, with shining black shoes placed upon his feet. His button up shirt was white, as he usually wore, but in place of his normal brown vest a dark black one sat. His gauntlets and greaves hung in his room, he had put them there the moment he got back and hadn't taken them down since. He wasn't sure if he was ever going to. The old man's face was worn, tired, and almost empty. He did not cry, he didn't move, he simply sat in the center of the ballroom with his sullen gaze staring at a wall, barely even noticing it. Within his mind images of Aisio flashed through his head, as they had been doing for a week, everything from her laughing and smiling with her brother, to her despair and depression when he died, and the determination in her eyes as she held Excalibur proudly to become the Pendragon she was always meant to be. It all culminated with the roaring inferno, visible from within the walls of Setek, and Ash sprinting to it as fast as he possibly could.

But he was still too late. He had skid to a stop beside Aisio, as that man, Cullen, shoved a monstrous claw through her chest. His impassive face showed a flicker of emotion, of rage, as he thought of that. He had made a vow that day, the next time he saw that man, no that monster, he would kill him. Just, not if that day was today. Today was one to honor the fallen, to honor Aisio as she was in life, and her ideals in death. A few servants wandered around him, despite the fact that he had told them they didn't have to work today, or this week, or if they wanted at all. Most of them were doing it to take their minds off the death of the last Pendragon, some because they felt it their duty, and others just because they didn't know what else to do. All Ash could do was sit and wait, hope that his mind and body were numb enough that he didn't have to feel the pain, the loss. He just wished that he would have time to grieve, before going out and hunting Cullen, and discovering the meaning behind Aisio's last words. Aethelwulf...the name once again sent a flicker of rage across Ash's face. That name was something that she tried her best to convey to him, in her dying breath. He would figure out what it meant.

"It is time, Ser Ash." The butler looked up at the voice, a surprisingly deep yet feminine one. His eyes fell upon two piercing green eyes, a long head of black hair and a singular feline ear, the other nothing more than a stump. Kim stood at the entrance to the ballroom, a long black dress clinging tightly to her. It was clearly a funeral dress, the long sleeves covering even the light of the torch, save for her glowing left hand, and the fabric buttoned and overlapping in the front. The robotic faunus tugged at the sleeves before reaching down to just below her knees and tugging the bottom of the dress. "I am never wearing one of these things again." She muttered under her breath, eliciting the smallest twinkle in Ash's eye. He stood, moving to her and continuing past, towards the large double doors marking the entrance to the manor. He had met Kim only recently, though he had read the mission report about Aisio leading a team of students and finding her in a cave. She was brought to his doorstep by a man named Clover, and was invited to the funeral because Aisio had funded the project to rebuild her.

Ash stopped in the entrance hall, gazing at a table near the door and frowning slightly. Upon the table rested a golden revolver, with a switch on the side and the seal of House Pendragon upon its handle. In place of a chamber sat a glass cylinder surrounding a spear of red dust. Beside the revolver was a similar crystal chamber, except there was no crystal within it. All of this sat beside a brown leather drop holster, one Ash had built to occupy his thoughts in the first few days. Ash walked to it shakily, reaching out to take it. His hand stopped beside the grip, quivering in place and refusing to get any closer. He spent a few moments like this before clenching his hand, reaching out and removing the fire chamber from Flamelash. He hadn't been able to bring himself to even carry it with one of those chambers, one of her chambers. Ash unceremoniously dropped the fire chamber before picking up the empty chamber and loading it into the weapon. He attempted to grab it again, and was successful in wrapping his fingers around the gun.

He quickly placed the weapon within the drop holster and buckled it to his thigh, turning back to the doorway. Kim stood there, trying her best to look anywhere but at Ash. The man walked out the door, a driver already prepared to take the two of them to St. Ivy's Basilica. Ash made it all the way down the front steps before his legs refused to continue, tears threatening to begin pouring from his eyes. Kim wrapped a gentle hand around him, or at least what she thought was gentle which was actually a rather firm grip, and continued walking slowly. He blinked a few times, shaking his head to clear his thoughts as he continued forward. The chauffeur opened the door for the both of them, Ash and Kim entering the limo that had been provided to them in silence. The door was closed behind them, and soon they were on their way to the Basilica. To her...to her... He couldn't even finish the thought.

They arrived shortly after, the whole trip shrouded in silent melancholy. Once more the chauffer opened the door for the two of them, and they stepped out forlornly. Kim stood next to Ash as he stared at the building, tears beginning to form within his eyes once more. As he looked at the Pendragon banners adorning the wall he felt a cold grip upon his arm. He turned and saw Kim looking up at him with a kind gaze. "You do not have to go in yet. The service is not for another thirty minutes, we will await the arrival of others." Ash nodded, turning away from the Basilica and staring blankly at the nearby buildings. Kim stood next to him, and heard a gentle padding next to her. Leo nuzzled against her leg, the glowing robotic cat then climbing onto her shoulder and resting there. Kim petted him absentmindedly, continuing to gaze around and watching the area surrounding them. They waited until others arrived, standing silently in front of the Basilica and both trying their hardest to not look at the banners behind them, and even more actively avoiding entering.

Having never been to the basilica before, Aegle honestly hadn't been sure what to expect. It was only through osmosis and general pop-culture that she even knew the great cathedral existed, and it had always been one of those things which struck more as a novelty to her than anything else. Had she been a more insightful or introspective person, she might have wondered if this were not the case for most of Legion's inhabitants, to now about St. Ivy's Basilica and its remarkable architecture without ever having actually set foot within it. The way one could walk by a stream every day without even endeavoring to swim in or drink from it. Being that Aegle was not insightful nor introspective, she could only reflect on her own familiar to investigate the basilica, despite ostensibly having heard so much about it. She still wasn't sure what she was doing, going to the Aisio's wake in the first place, nor was she at all certain why she had been invited to the more exclusive service being held in the huntress' honor.  She didn't wholly appreciate the gravity associated with her invitation, but she at least understood that it was a special one, one which not everyone who actually mourned Aisio's death could enjoy. Somehow, it didn't seem quite fair to Aegle that she had gotten invited when so many other people, who actually probably cared much more than she did, were being excluded from the ceremony entirely. She didn't think she had known Aisio any better than half the citizenship of Legion, which the media had assured her were deep in mourning over the huntress' death. She'd only met Aisio once, after all, and hadn't even known who she was at the time. Since her death, Aegle had heard plenty about the honorable Pendragons, of whom Aisio had been the last, and their storied history. Social media, at least the parts of it which Aegle paid any attention to, had blown up on the subject and, since returning to Legion, Aegle hadn't been able to go anywhere without hearing mention of Aisio's pending wake. It was a puzzling development for Aegle, that everyone should only start talking about Aisio after she'd died.

It was trivial and ultimately meaningless meanderings such as these which occupied Aegle's uncluttered mind as she mounted the steps towards the heart of the opalescent church. It was a self-absorption and irreverence which the small girl with orange dyed hair wore quite honestly. The truth was that she'd found the whole fiasco building up to Aisio's funeral, from the invitations, to the media coverage, to her own complicated feelings on the subject, to be quite confusing. She'd found it all a bit difficult for her to parse, and the constant noise from the outside world hadn't done much to help. So much so that, upon arriving at the Basilica proper, she had determined to think as little about Aisio's actual death as she could.

Reaching the top of the grand steps, Aegle paused to take a look back the way she had come. Her crisp black suit silhouetted her plainly against the Basilica's bright front, it's close tailoring giving especial prominence to the crooked shape of her slender frame. Even the jacket, with its padded shoulders, did little to conceal the slight hunch there-in, while the clean cut of her dress pants outlined her narrow hips and legs with equal severity. A starchy white shirt, ornamented with a narrow black tied, was visible beneath her jacket. The suit was brand new, having been purchased a week prior for the very occasion which she was now wearing it to. It had been a while since Aegle wore something so close fitted, but she couldn't resign herself to wearing a dress. Without anything to occupy them, Aegle had slipped both hands into her pockets, which, beside the hunch in her shoulders, gave her whole figure a slouching quality. Her usual smile remained on her lips, though the nature of the day had managed to subdue even that. Even her orange mohawk was wilted and limp, sodden with rain as it was. It felt strange to her, to be on the threshold of such an event as a funeral for someone she barely knew, and yet one which she had been especially invited to. Aegle wondered, as she watched the other invitees arriving, if she might see one of the other people from her Legion mission in attendance. It would be nice to see the girl with the silver eyes again, and maybe if she did see one of them, she could get a better idea of how she was supposed to act. It was then that Aegle recalled that Lily would be in attendance too, and she realized that she might not be the only one who was unsure of how to behave. That made Aegle's smile grow a little wider. That smile did not go unnoticed by those mounting the stairs behind her, some of whom were struck by just how improper such an expression was given the setting. Aegle took no notice though, as her emerald eyes were only interested in finding any familiar faces in the ever growing crowd. If nothing else, it would be nice to sit with somebody she actually knew...

It would have been less than accurate to call what Aegle did 'hobbling', as her peculiar method of locomotion was achieved far too easily to be described so crudely. This was not to say that she moved normally, nor that she moved entirely without difficulty, but rather that the manner in which she did move had obviously been refined by years of familiarity and practice. It was with a strange sort of half-lope that Aegle traversed the grand landing of the basilica towards its main doors, one leg plainly taking shorter strides than the other, but with the other taking much longer strides to compensate. She bobbed blithely along in this fashion, her subdued grin plastered across her rapidly wetting countenance, until just before reaching the man-door beside which the one eyed soldier was standing. It was at that point that her keen, emerald eyes, first took apparent notice of the sodden apparition, and she stopped at once to regard him. Naturally, with so many people turning out for Aisio's funeral, and so many of them hunters like herself, Aegle had seen more than one invitee dressed in some strange costume which still managed to be eye-catching in spite of obvious pains made to respect the occasion. With that said, and in spite of the wet weather, she had yet to see anyone soaked to the bone as the man watching over the doors plainly was. It bares mentioning that Aegle was not renowned for her observational powers, and that if she had noticed the soldier's sodden misery, then it must have been as obvious as a tyrant at a tea-party. 

"Gosh, lookit you..." Aegle remarked as she ambled idly nearer the less-than-swarthy, sodden swordsman. Her voice was faintly pitched and carried easily through the gentle downpour surrounding them, and probably would have carried much further had she not been so subdued by the occasion. "You look as though y'wearing the whole ocean."
Regarding him with sparkling green eyes that hadn't a drop of guile between them, Aegle wore her curiosity and concern plainly on her honest countenance. Lacking the perception and insight of her peers, Aegle was confined to the most cursory examinations of the man before her. He looked old to her, and she never would have guessed him so young as he actually was. He was also richly dressed, a fact so abundantly clear that even she couldn't have failed to notice it. That his uniform was clearly the dress of the Moon Mercenaries, a band of sell-sword security merchants native to Legion, escaped her notice entirely. As did the prevalent implication that his presence before the basilica was of the 'free-lance' variety. It did not occur to her, however, that he might be hired security and that it might be his job to screen invitations either. Such a deductive leap was simply beyond her. In truth, Aegle hadn't the single faintest inkling of what might have possessed the world-weary man to stand out in the rain, ruining what was obviously a very expensive outfit. 
"Y'been standin' out here all mornin' then?" She asked in an especially insipid fashion, as she plainly bent what little observational faculty she possessed towards scrutinizing him further. It was at that point that Aegle noticed her sword, and her expression lit up with the satisfaction of a particularly 'clever' realization.
"You're a hunter aint'cha? Here for the funeral, then?" The smaller girl asked, with little pause between her inquiries to allow any sort of answer. Her tone matched her evident pride at making so obvious a deduction, and was also tinged with renewed curiosity and interest. None of these aforementioned qualities managed to make her voice any easier to listen to, and it remained keen enough to cut glass. It also should go without saying that her apparent positivity and affability were utterly inappropriate to the occasion which they both stood upon the threshold to.
"What're you doin' standin' in the rain though? You're all soaked." Aegle pressed, "That's how you get sick, you know?" 
Her concern may have been more prescient had her very decision to stop and point that fact out not meant she too was rapidly becoming soaked. Not that Aegle seemed to notice, just as she seemed wholly oblivious to the vaguely threatening set of the serpentine swordsman's posture. Contrary to convention, Aegle's willingness to make conversation with a man who was quite intimidating, even at rest, seemed less the result from any inherent courage and more the result of utterly failing to spot the danger in question. Indeed, she had every appearance of a newborn fawn, all bright eyed and shaky legged, sniffing unconcernedly at a sleeping viper.