[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

[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.