faderift | ( closed. ) we are objects of contempt to our neighbours,

Pel keeps her eyes on their captors, keeping watch while Sina works. There is no pretending Sina was bound now, she supposes, nor was there ever much of a chance of pulling an arrow out with feet. Not the best suggestion she has come up with under pressure. She sends her own strain of Creation magic to help Sina close the wound, though she has never been much of a healer.

"We're going to take care of you now," she says quietly. "We can get out if we have a well-timed distraction."

Even if it is discovered their bonds have been cut and loosely bound, they can cut them again in the same way. But it would take precious seconds, and seconds matter in this situation.

To her credit, she does not swear or exclaim, just swallows the pain and waits a long moment to adapt to the pain and the relief that follows. Truth be told she is a little thrown by Sina's healing, if just because her mind is still adjusting to all this, but the nod she gives Sina is grateful.

"I'm good with fire," she starts, softly, exhaling a little harder on the first word as she does her best effort at ignoring the pain of the arrow bring pulled away. "And we've an abundance of trees nearby..." Her look between Pel and Sina is one of concern. "If it draws people to one side of camp then I would wager there's little chance of it trapping people."

The elderly, the sick, the children. Mercy and compassion were as much Herian as they were the way of a proper knight, for all that it reminded her of her path.

There is no chance for more to be said when from a little away there is the sounds of familiar voices - Aithne the Hunter, Pryderi the First, and a little entourage with them. Herian jerks away from Sina, and only hopes their released hands are not discovered.

Pryderi addresses the group before he or the others can see them directly voice bright and cheerful. "And how are our guests feeling?"

Sina straightens immediately at the sound of voices, holding her hands together as though they're still bound, even if they somewhat obviously aren't.
She leans back against the post with a nervous intake of breath, looking up at their captors without speaking to them. She's learned the hard way that things don't go well when she tries to do the talking.

The black look Pel gives Pryderi could wither a fresh summer rose on the spot. Her chin lifts, her eyes glint hard like steel.

"Like our mercy is running thin," she says icily. "The Inquisition knows we've been taken. You won't want to get trapped between them and the three of us. I wanted to forgo negotiations altogether because you threatened by baby. Sina convinced me to give you a chance to let us go peacefully. You'll only get the one. What will it be?"

She is proud indeed. She is also barely over five feet tall and tied to a pole, with a pout and a heart-shaped face that makes her look like a twelve-year-old.

"A threat against your baby?" He looks as though he could almost laugh. "I offered you sanctuary if you complied. That is not a threat."

Pel’s comments draw Pryderi’s focus immediately towards her, snatching any that might have gone to their hands away. There are three elves with daggers hanging from their sides who they’ve not yet seen, one wandering the outer perimeter of where they are held. By some mercy, he does not notice the lack of bindings about their wrists, though it is a close thing - his distraction is due in part of Pryer’s words. Highlighting that harm could come to a child without said sanctuary wasn’t a real threat, gosh. What a funny creature that harellan was.

"Your time amongst the shemlen has made you over-sensitive," he continues, with a chuckle.

"All the better for us." The lead hunter speak, next, and Pryderi starts as if he had forgotten she was there, immediately becoming a little more meek. "Tell us all you know of the Inquisition." She draws a knife, wickedly sharp, blade catching the light. "Start, perhaps, with how well they value their collection of harellan and..." she looks to Sina, rather than Herian, "you said the flat ear was born of a elvhen'ala, did you not?"

Rather than give any answers that could incriminate any of them, Sina just shifts her gaze aside from the hunter's, hunching down slightly like a prey animal trying not to be noticed. Her hands, clasped behind her back, rest palms-flat against the post against which they were tethered.

She keeps her eyes down in a combination of fear and concentration; though it's difficult to notice, small tendrils of brambles are slowly creeping their way towards the feet of their captors.

"No," Pel says testily, "you made it clear that if I did not do as you say, harm would come to my baby. That is hostage-taking, len'alas lath'din. Your time stewing in your own filth and breeding with your own cousins has led you to forget what words mean."

Their attention is being directed toward Herian; if Pel can make them angry enough, she can make them forget their purpose.

Aithne laughs, a harsh sort of sound - quick, startling. Not near so fast and vicious as her hand slapping across Pel's face with a backhanded strike that brings a leather glove hard against brow and cheekbone.

"Very clever. We shall see how clever you might be without your hands, perhaps. Or without your tongue, if you'll not speak save for filth. As I recall you were happy to let the whelp speak for you all before."

Aithne looks to Sina, gaze sharp. "You seemed so fond of one another, before."

Herian pulls against her bindings reflexively, weakened but not yet severed.

Sina yelps in wordless horror when Pel is struck, and leaps to assist her-- if it wasn't obvious before that their bonds are undone, it definitely is now.
With about two seconds to realize this, Sina pauses with the look of a startled rabbit, and then slams her hands to the earth. The brambles grow much larger and more rapidly, snaking up and around the ankles of the hunters, thorns puncturing their lower legs as they become further ensnared.
She knows she only has until the spell is interrupted, but stares at them with mixed hatred and terror as she awaits the inevitable. Eat it, harellan.

Pel flinches, but that steeling of herself is what makes the blow less effective. And if there was a time for Sina to reveal herself, it should not have been now, when this blow meant Pel was victorious in keeping harm from coming to Herian. And now Sina is doubly in danger, from the threat of Aithne and from Sina's magic. She feels a pull, a scream from something so visceral she can barely discern it from herself--a rage of fear, an understanding of the inevitability of the death of elves at the hands of violence, hysteria that elves are doing the Child's work. She can see the black creeping in on the edges of her sight, the inevitability that she must do whatever she can to protect those who Mythal would protect, and the promise that it will all be taken care of if she surrenders to--

The easy way. Cynicism and fear, the acceptance that only the worst is what is possible. If nothing can be done, then she doesn't have to do anything. Something else must.

The Child, that amalgam she created as a child for anything that kills elves--disease, hunger, hatred from humans, suicide, sheer accident--it roars in her ear, tells her she is helpless without it. And she remembers what her Keeper taught her. She is, and must be, a force of nature for Mythal, a hurricane of her own making, free of outside influence. Free of possession.

And that is why, for just a moment, she pretends to be subdued. Pretends to be overcome with pain, so that their attention can be divided, and she can pull herself together and come up with a plan to keep them from hurting Sina for this. They will see Sina, complete their thoughts that she must be punished, and Pel will give them a reason to punish her instead. No demon is necessary. A demon would only hold her back.

Herian’s eyes widen, a knee-jerk feeling of dread at the sight of the vines - never mind the source. The sight of them surging forward reminds her of when she was a child, and when they didn’t protect Guenievre Baudin, and her lip curls in a snarl. Logic overrules the instinctual desire to lash out at the vines, and instead she batters her shoulder into Pryderi’s knee, before sinking her teeth into his thigh. She is a knight, now, but she was a child of the Starkhaven alienage first, and when there is a fight there is an opportunity.

The Dalish respond to the vines, as well;

Aithne is entangled and rivulets of blood course down her legs from the thorns punctures, as others wrestle with the sudden burst of vines. She has a knife in her hand, and though she is on one knee before Pel, her reach is enough to reach Sina. With a lunge forward, her knife sinks through Sina’s hand to pin it to the ground. Her other hand wraps around Pel’s throat and pushes her back against the post. “Stop or she dies by your hand.”
Her voice is harsh, and the blade shifts just enough to be markedly deliberate.

Pryderi, for his part, casts a belated glyph to drain away Sina’s mana. He is red in the face, blisteringly angry, and the backswing of the staff is used to club Herian’s cheekbone so he can scramble away.

“We should kill them now!“ Gone is the act of composure and easy smugness. “They’re worthless!“

Sina should have known better, and perhaps she did, but didn't care; either way, the knife sinks easily all the way through her right hand and into the ground, resulting in an anguished scream from the smallest elf.
Her first instinct is to tug away, but of course that isn't going to work, so she tries to stay still instead, willing magic toward the wound-- magic which is abruptly gone again, causing her to sob once or twice, a helpless, juvenile sound.

And then from her shard comes a pop of energy. As Sina's body gives a small jerk from the force of it, her breath leaves her, both from the pain and the shard's proximity to her lungs. Eyes streaming and voice briefly silenced while she tries to take a deep breath, she seems to actually forget about their tormentors long enough to take a long and uneasy look at the deceptively peaceful sky.

Up come Pel's knees. Her feet lash out together to crack Aithne in the chest and shove her away.

"Who's worthless?" she sneers. "A little boy who wasn't good enough to be First until the real talent got himself killed? Tomorrow, the entire clan will be wiped out. That's how shems operate. We were your only chance. So, a fantastic job you've done during your tenure. Nobody will be left to plant a tree in your grave."

Aithne's hand remains on the knife as she lurches backwards, braces herself, and quite weary of Pel's words, lunges forward again in a smooth motion to deliberately drive the top of her head into Pel's face. She does not seem the calm and controlled hunter of before, now, but a feral thing. You will be in pieces, left for wild animals," she promises. "Your precious Inquisition will not find you, and they cannot hope to find us once we begin to move. We can claim ourselves to be other than who we are and disappear to the places where no shemlen dare tread."

"Enough."

The sound of Neasa's voice ringing out as she joins them is clear and crisp; for a moment it seems as damning as the tolling bells of any Chantry, as the march of soldiers to battle. "Hold their arms behind their backs, if you cannot be trusted to oversea the prisoners are properly bound." The hunters, back on their feet, move forward cautiously, though their pace picks up under Neasa's gaze. Two each to Pel and Sina, cranking their arms behind their backs.

Pryderi looks to Sina's hands, the blood running around her wrist as he twists it back further. "I will see to stopping the blood," he advises, though there is none of the false gentleness of earlier. He holds out his hand, and fire blooms over Sina's palms, as he brings her uninjured palm closer to expose it to the flame as well.
Herian attempts to lunge forward at the flame, reflex more than sense, though the moment before her gaze had been caught on something - hanging from Aithne's belt, the hilt of her Spirit blade. She takes a blow to the chest for her troubles, as Aithne steps forward with a smile.

"Pryderi." Neasa's tone is dangerous. "Did I not say that was enough? They've no care for themselves, nor for their people." With a jerk of her head, Neasa's nods to Aithne, satisfied that the four elves seeing to Pel and Sina can keep them held, with Pryderi casting another glyph now his work against Sina's hands is done. Aithne moves quick, fingers curling into Herian's hair and twisting, exposing the line of her neck to the edge of the blade. "Their concern lies only with the shemlen."

Edited 2016-10-29 01:37 (UTC)

It's a cruel twist that this is how they choose to punish her-- Keeper Thalia had a similar method, though with much less heat and for much less time, the equivalent of a slap on the wrist without doing any actual slapping. Having her palms burned therefore isn't that unusual to Sina, but for the sheer extremity of it.
Her instinct is still to heal herself, which she is consistently unable to do. She's never endured this much pain, and as a result all she can bring herself to do is sob helplessly and try (probably fruitlessly) to wrench herself away from Pryderi.

"No," she whimpers at Neasa, "please, she didn't do anything!" Before today, she would have been fine never seeing Herian again. But now that they're in this, she can't bear to see the woman killed.

There is an explosion of red hot pain and Pel sees stars. For a moment, there is too much pain to breathe. When she gasps in air at last, she spits out blood on whatever face is near enough. Her arms are twisted up now, and she is completely helpless.

She has two choices: go down fighting, or develop a healthy enough respect for the danger of this situation that someone can make it out of this alive.

"You let Sina go," she spits, unable to breathe through the throbbing pain in her nose, "you let her go and I will give you secret magic I have discovered from the days of Arlathan. A way of keeping someone alive while their body is scattered in pieces."

Keeper Neasa holds a hand up for Aithne to stop - not at Sina’s words, but at Pel’s.

The knife point digs into the flesh of Herian’s neck just enough to nick it, and send a bead of blood rolling down the curve of of her skin. Staying very still, Herian’s eyes look between Pel and Sina. There is some faint hope, she thinks, if Pel can hold their attention long enough. A slow heat that will burn her, but perhaps be subtle enough that the hunter will not notice her hands are no longer tied until it is too late and she can tear the the hilt away from her. They have no seen her magic yet, and while the glyphs beneath Sina and Pel are renewed as regularly as Pryderi thinks to, she has been forgotten.

(Pryderi, for his part, scoffs at the claim, and is silenced when Neasa watches Pel very intently.)

“You make a bold claim. What proof do you have?”

Edited (html stop being so rude) 2016-10-29 02:21 (UTC)

Faint from the pain, Sina has the fortitude to shake her head at Pel. It's not worth it, not for them to have the knowledge, and she isn't going to leave unless Pel comes with her anyway. Another crackle of her shard and she jolts and wheezes, her head dropping forward.
But she can't allow this conversation to transpire. If this clan learns the secrets of this vile magic, Mythal only knows what they'll do. Sina lolls her head toward Neasa, wincing as the agony worsens with every beat of her heart.
"You let us all go," she says faintly, shivering all over, "or I'll open the sky."
She doesn't know what her shard is doing, but they don't need to know that. Maybe it will explode again, maybe she'll rend the veil and unleash demons onto this clan of traitors. Maybe nothing will happen. Maybe she'll just fall over dead.

The trouble with giving these people the secret of the Temple of Dirthamen, the darkest magic Pel has ever witnessed, is that Pel doesn't know how it was accomplished. It was a bluff, a ploy to buy them some time. Then Sina speaks.

Pel's mouth opens. Closes. Her lips press into a line briefly.

"That is a better idea," she tells Sina with forced calm, as if Sina can control this thing at will. Even if she does, the act may kill Sina, kill them all, but it will never have the chance if Neasa has some sense and recognizes that Sina is serious.

Edited 2016-10-29 03:32 (UTC)

Whatever Neasa makes of their threat is hard to discern - if she takes them seriously, or suspects they are little more than children playing at games, that they wait until this point to make mention of their great power.

“No shemlen ever approaches our Clan and leaves. That is our way. That is the way it should be for all the People.” Neasa looks to Sina, then, appraising. “I believe, though, you said something of her being kin? Aithne, what do you say?”

Herian is trying her utmost to focus her magic on the bindings around her wrist, to burn through them, to turn to magic she has not used so precisely without a staff for a long time. Her is a moment where she seems a little vacant, as if she is not aware she is being spoken of.

Her attention is demanded at a sudden lance of heat and stinging pain, as two quick cuts are performed; an upwards slash that leaves a mark on her neck and carves diagonally from the lobe to the outer shell of her ear, and another that hacks across the top of her ear to carve it into a crude point. There is no sound of pain, only a near deafening awareness as the pain seem to burst outwards. The careful focus is disrupted for all the automatic control in her, and the small point of heat to burn though rope becomes a massive burst of flame further away, as a group of trees blocking between their holding point and camp proper goes up in flames. (She remembers her father, and his body, and his ears hung about her neck, and the fire grows more vicious.)

Beyond there flames? There are urgent yells for the Keeper.

It draws Pryderi’s attention, so he misses the glyph of neutralisation fading away beneath Pel and Sina. Neasa’s attention is pulled away as well, so she grips her staff and begins in that direction, barking an order to Aithne that the prisoners remains closely watched. Neasa draws away, moving swiftly.

Herian looks to Sina and Pel, pupils blown and blood streaming down the side of their face, and makes eye contact with them both. Ready?

Edited 2016-10-29 12:51 (UTC)

Shaking, and eyes glassy from withstanding the pain, Sina nods to Neasa's question-- she does consider Herian kin, as well as any others of elvhen blood. But she barely has time to realize what's happening before two cuts of a knife have mutilated the woman's ear, and then there's fire.
Sina feels like her mind is going in and out of awareness, caught between trying to shut itself down from the pain and terror, and stay awake and alert to get her out. It seems like she'll never stop crying, and she's not even aware of it anymore.
But as the magic flows back into her she finds that her senses are sharpened, and with them her mind. She feebly wills her hands to heal, the process slower than normal for dual reasons: she tends more toward herbal and not magical healing, so her skill isn't great, and also it's difficult to concentrate under such duress. As the skin renews, the angry blisters pop, draining pus all down her fingers, peeling and sensitive and excruciating and slow. So slow.
She looks at Herian with weary dread; perhaps there's a part of her that has already given up.

There's a shock when Herian's ear is cut to a point, an odd feeling that this isn't real at all because bodies don't do that naturally. Pel feels the heat of the blast of flame on her face as it rushes to the trees, and some of the blood on her face dries in seconds. The rest, she is still spitting out as it drains from her nose.

She meets Herian's eyes, breathing labored from fear, but entirely ready to take the human's lead here. They need to be coordinated, and Herian has the most experience and training for battle.

Aithne remains close, jerking Herian's head to the side to grab at her other ear. The angle allows her to see the very moment that Herian's hands are freed from the rope, allowing her to grab for the hilt of her spirit blade from where it hangs on Aithne's belt, twisting it around as the magic sharpens into the form of a sword. The hunter makes an attempt to stab at Herian's throat, but Herian surges upward, slashing the blade across Aithne's chest in an upward diagonal.

The hunter lands on the floor in separate pieces, and for a moment those left to restrain Pel and Sina are utterly still, their grips slightly loosened with shock.

Blood and entrails and all the rest are part of this, but there is no time to focus on that now. What there is time for?
Her hand outstretched, as she casts disruption field to slow and weaken their enemies. This was what she could do, this might have made the difference if not for the constant onslaught of mana draining glyphs cast at them before.

There's plenty of time to focus on the blood and entrails for Sina, who's seen some pretty vile injuries in her time working at the healing tents, but never witnessed them in the making. Or seen anything this... complete. Visceral.
All attempts to heal herself are cut off in the wake of this new horror, and rather than be of use to anyone at all, Sina just stands there and stares disbelievingly at the remains of the person who was just standing in front of her.
She only moves to look at the sky again, her movements sluggish and dazed.

Pel reaches up to grab the neck of the person holding her arms and slams his face into the post. She refuses to look at the mess Herian made out of Aithne, worried she might panic herself, thinking of Elan. When his grip loosens, she slips free of her bonds and turns to face the nearest threat, whoever it may be.

( closed. ) we are objects of contempt to our neighbours,

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hover for translation.

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cw: this thread is made of terrible but EXTRA TERRIBLE

tw GROSS

tw blud

cw dismemberment

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