"Who are you?" Hide asked, wary of the mysterious man.
The painted smile didn't shift. The Joker stood in the evening grey of the cemetery with his hands clasped behind his back and his formal suit entirely unrumpled despite having just fallen out of a tree, and he tilted his head as if the question were genuinely interesting.
"Who am I?" he repeated, savoring the shape of a question. "A joker, perhaps."
Hide's jaw tightened.
"Don't do riddles with me." His voice was flat and completely cold. "I asked, who you are."
As he said it, the scales came and covered both of his arms, the dark material rising from his knuckles and climbing up past his wrists and over his forearms to the elbow.
The Joker took one step back.
Both his hands came up, palms facing Hide and he performed with theatrical sincerity, the act of being weak.
