[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

[sangsues]

"I must," is his simple response. "Some of these people have excellent teeth. I'll not see others starve because I am in the company of the squeamish."

Dentures, Marcoulf. Important and lucrative.

[esquive]

A bag of pretty dark stones carved into small animals is upended, scattering over the leaves. Fine, the gesture seems to say.

He thumbs through the little animals, then replaces them back into their bag - tucks the packet inside his coat and makes a mental note to see give them to the boy when they're done here and have seen him and his sister into the care of-- someone. He'll put his mind to that problem when this one is closed.

In Orlesian: "Is there something you can give them? To quiet them." Marcoulf tips his head to indicate the white faced children at the edge of the encampment.

[sangsues]

"Where there any pigs?"

He'd caught sight of the animals out of the corner of his eye, and is silent for a moment as he absorbs that question, and looks to Marcoulf with a brow raised. "I've a tincture that helps to soothe anxious nerves and insomnia, amongst other ailments."

Marcoulf probably doesn't want to know what's in the tincture.

[esquive]

Does anyone ever want to know what's in the tinctures?

"Let's make sure they have it then when we leave here, then." He'd rather not fight with a child the whole way back to the village. He's had enough of being slapped and scratched at this afternoon.

Marcoulf fetches up a flat wooden case, opening its latches. Flatware. Someone at the village will be missing it. It gets tossed to the pile to take with them.

"Two pigs."

[sangsues]

"Two?" Etienne smiles, and it's not terribly pleasant. "Leave one here, then. A marker for the fallen."

With a sigh, he reaches towards his bag, and pulls it closer. Opens it up, and pulls out a bottle of dark brown glass, swirling the liquid within. "A potent brew, but it will see their spirits soothed a while. Normally I recommend three drops beneath the tongue three times a day. They may not be so compliant as my usual patients."

Nor so inclined to pay proper coin.

[esquive]

Etienne earns a flat look for the matter of the marker, but no more. Maybe if there were a scorpion or snake - damn that woman with her needle and damn him for being so foolish about it. He'll be useless to Six in the training yard for some time without the full strength in his offhand for parrying.

"I can hold them if you need an assistant, doctor." Kylo Ren would be a better assistant for that work, but Marcoulf can picture what might happen if one of the children were to bite him and the work involved with it seems unpleasant.

[sangsues]

"Thank you. That would be best."

The vial is pocketed, so that it might be easily grabbed momentarily, and he wipes his hands with a handkerchief.

"Will you need treatment, once that is done?"

[esquive]

A wooden spoon is tossed into the pile of assorted rubbish. "It should be packed and bound," he mutters, but after they've dealt with this. He's already been chewed a strip of willow bark for it, the repetition of working it between the teeth a suitable distraction even if it's done little to relieve the actual pain. But-- "If you've the patience, surely."

But not right now. The weeping of that child is giving him a headache and should be sorted before anyone's shortened temper has cause to flare. So Marcoulf climbs to his feet, dusts off his leathers, and moves toward the children who grow wide-eyed and pale, grave silent as any attention is turned their way. Good. Maybe they won't need holding after all.