[closed] DANGEROUS GAME

[esquive]

WHO: Kylo Ren, Anna, Etienne, and Marcoulf
WHAT: In exchange for his support at the front lines, a small group has been dispatched to clear bandits from the Comte Chantral de Velun's estate. Spoilers: they're not bandits.
WHEN: Early Harvestmere
WHERE: Orlais, the Heartlands
NOTES: CW: violence, death, murdering innocent folks on the behalf of THE RICH, setting-typical discrimination; it's not great, bob. ASSIGNMENT INFO

The Orlesian Heartlands bloom in every season. In Spring, it is daisies and apple blossoms; in Summer small white flowers and black-eyed susans and poppies all red; and here at the beginning of Autumn the trees burnish themselves and black-green and golds, yellowing grasses ceding to white limbed poplar with their spinning coin leaves. Even far from any field for growing in, the Velun lands paints itself in harvest colors. The land and air recognizes what Celene might not yet admit - that change is a season rotating, and that some things have been the same for long enough that they insist on circling.

Comments

[notched]

She goes into the woods, daydreaming of beasts. She can hear the roaring in her ears where there is none. She waits, out of sight and silent, the collapsed whip in its cane form held firmly in her grip. She could sneak up on them now, gut them from the back and be awash in their filthy animal blood. She blinks away decay in her eyes, but does not move an inch to rub them. She doesn't need to see to kill. She wants to kill. She waits in silence, hears nothing of the abortive attempt to disperse the elves. She is only alert for the sound of a scuffle, and when it starts she takes off at a run, ducked low. She hits the path, swinging loose the whip in a wide, bladed arch and then it lays on the dirt between herself and the elves like a snake in wait.

Someone brave comes to defend those in flight from her bearing a pitted sword and shield. She knows what to do with that... she comes at a run, flicking the notches of the whip back into a cane, which she brings down onto the shield from an overhead leap. She rolls through her landing, and the whip is loose again by the time she's righted, catching every figure in a half circle around her.

The raucous of the crowd is familiar to her. The calls for mercy, the assertion of blame. Oh yes, it is all her fault, she knows. She swings the whip, merciless and methodical. Anything that comes into her range is cut down until -- Ah. A companion. She pulls the whip back in, it cinches back into the narrow cane that disappears, dripping, into her coat.

She surveys the work in complete silence from beneath her blood spattered leathers, looking for weapons and supplies amongst the bodies she might be interested in taking. She ignores the crying children entirely, as if she can't even hear them.

[sangsues]

He is a man of science and of medicine, not of murder, but this is the world he has always known. To travel, to stay, to exist in any space brings the risk of banditry, and so he has a dagger at the the ready, and draws a rapier in his other hand.

That does not mean this is easy. It just means it is necessary.

The others can advance, cut through larger numbers. He is watchful, and when he sees an older man crawling, struggling, he finishes the task. If their positions were reversed, he is sure the elf wouldn't hesitate.

[letoldthingsdie]

Their mission was clear - chase out the bandits however necessary. He had been hoping they would be too frightened to put up a fight. He didn't hesitate once the group advanced. Theirs was a painful death, the first being cleaved cleanly by the searing cut of a lightsaber. It hummed to life in his hand, the crackle and snap of energy making the other elves try to scatter.

With a shriek a woman rushed towards him, her weapon drawn as his cut through her like she was air. With each victim his anger grew, crackling through him like a maelstrom. They should have run. They should have left. Not doing so was the height of idiocy. He could feel

"You can die next." He snarled as a man approached him. He was cut down to join the rest of the carnage. These bandits had no chance. They had been here trying to stop travelers on the road and now they had met their worst nightmares come to life. Their deaths were not painless but he made sure the ones he felled died quickly.

His hand was outstretched, stopping one of the elves who had tried to dash into the woods. They made a pained sound like a wounded animal when his blade pierced their torso. With an angry huff, he lets them drop, bleeding out at his feet. He ended it quickly a moment later.

"Did any stragglers make it to the woods?" He turns to his companions, eyes darting to the woods.

[esquive]

Were it just swords, there might be some hesitation the moment first blood was drawn. But it isn't just swords. It's a dark figure in the woods with a cracking, bladed whip who smells of rot and death; it's a hissing, spitting magic blade the saws flesh as simply as air; it's two Orlesian men with drawn steel and rolling accents whose patience is shelved the moment any violence rears its head. Rage feeds on blood and fear. It eats whatever urge the refugees - and they are that and not bandits; the ramshackle quality of their camp with it's mish mash of personal belongings, their lack of real weapons, the weakness of their arms when it comes to raising what they do have indication enough of that - might have to save their skins once the killing starts in earnest.

This is how the world works. It isn't pleasant. It isn't good. Like most work, it just is.

"Anna will mind the treeline. Check the tents," Marcoulf is saying. She'd been put there at the edge for a reason and a girl is screaming, wrenching at all his attention. In Orlesian, to Etienne: "Secure that girl before she bolts, for Maker's sake."

He dives into the nearest tent himself, leading with his parrying knife and arm extended. A knitting needle finds it. The parrying knife is repulsed from Marcoulf's grip with a snarl of pain, but leaves the sword with which to deal with the elderly woman. The boy in the corner, half hidden behind a pack, sits silent and staring - remains that way after.

[notched]

She hears, says nothing. Marcoulf is correct. There will be no escapees into the woods who might haunt their leaving from this place with some mad vengeance in their heart. She swoops quickly, taking the knives that some of the corpses had once brandished, one could never have quite enough, and she prowls silently back into the underbrush, eyes scanning. At least one, she expects. There was always at least one beast hidden in the brush, although it was rare for them to cower so without flame in their faces.

She finds her one, their head down beneath the brush. She throws two knives into its back in rapid success, and has bludgeoned it into silence with the dripping cane almost as quickly. She takes their place there in the brush, crouched over the still body, watching for any more creeping-- rolling a stolen knife in her fingers, waiting.

[sangsues]

A nod, and Etienne is moving swiftly in the direction of the girl and her screams. She sees him, and begins to try and draw away, retreat, to do anything. She reaches a tree, is reaching up to pull herself up the gnarled base, managing to grab onto a bough and begin pulling herself up.

If she can get into the branches in a forest so dense as this, she could hide, might even be able to move through the tree tops.

He grabs her ankle. His strength far exceeds her own, the benefits of being well nourished and rested, and when Etienne jerks her downwards, she falls with a cry that is cut short by her chin hitting the branch. Her consciousness does not lapse, so she sees when Etienne stands over her, and has opened her mouth when the blade slashes over her throat.

Maker.

[letoldthingsdie]

"Caedus. The tents. Don't let anyone escape." He'd brought his mabari along, the beast his constant shadow. There was a nervous rustle of one of the farthest tents as he approached, hackles raised and a snarl ripping between his teeth. A moment later another refugee tried to make an escape, knocking the tent over as they went. Caedus was far quicker, diving in to sink his teeth into their leg and drag them, kicking and screaming.

"End it." He commanded, watching the elf shriek and scramble in the dirt. A moment later the beast was on them again, their throat ripped messily to shreds by sharp canines. He looks to his companions, running a gloved hand through his hair.

"Is that the last of them?"

[esquive]

Marcoulf reemerges from the tent with the boy in hand, a sturdy grip at the scruff of the child's neck and shirt collar like marching a naughty dog. There's blood soaking through Marcoulf's shirt sleeve from the puncture of the needle and it's clear from the pinch of his expression that his temper has frayed.

"Sit," he tells the child. The boy sits in the dirt without question. "Stay there."

Marcoulf jams his long dagger back into its belt sheath. Wipes his brow with the unbloodied back of his hand. It takes him a moment to sort himself - to realize he's meant to be the person answering that question. "Go fetch Anna," he tells Kylo. "See that she doesn't need anything then both of you come back here."

The camp will need sorting.

[notched]

She is crouched in the brush, her eyes cloudy. Rotting out of her head a little more every time she lets the blood lust rise in her. It was common for hunters to be spotted by the bandages over their eyes. The work took something from them, they became harrowed. She smells Kylo Ren when he comes to 'fetch' her. She turns her head like she can see him just fine, when all she notes is his shape against the light through the trees.

"Almost don't need me, with such a clever dog," she says with a strange airiness. She's killed many a rabid dog in her time, plenty enough of them former humans. She stands, pocketing the remaining knife she had been turning across her knuckles. She listens a moment longer, for panicked breathing, for muffled cries. She hears blood, soaking into earth. Shakes her head and meanders back into the camp where the overt sounds of weeping fill the space between her ears.