MOD PLOT | CHAMPROVENT.

[heorte]

WHO: Teren, Ellis, Edgard, Lucien, and Vance
WHAT: Assisting with the cleansing of Champrovent and ensuring the taint doesn't spread beyond the village.
WHEN: August through Kingsway
WHERE: Champrovent
NOTES: ooc info + warnings for infection, discussion of murder, death, general unpleasantness.

Comments

[muckspout]

Edgard understands probably better than the Chevalier realizes and shakes his head. He wasn’t careful enough before and won’t see the same thing happen again.

“You misunderstand, I don’t want them to die, I want others to live. You can do that,” he gestures toward the paper. “I’m no good with people. I’m staying here.” He raises the volume so the others will hear. “to help.”

He waits to see how the others will proceed.

[pittance]

"Yeah? You want to make this about you?" His voice shifts, hard. "You're no good with people, but you want to be the last thing a dying girl sees?"

He steps back, shakes his head.

"Figured better of you."

[heorte]

"This argument serves no one in that house. All it does is delay an end to their suffering," Ellis bites out, eyes on Edgard. "How does ignoring the word of three Wardens help? We have seen all of this before, and we will see it again and again until we are dead. We know the way through it."

What of those people inside, some begging for death, others flinching away from it? It complicates everything for them to hear this argument. It will make whatever happens when the barricade is cleared away harder to bear.

"I am sorry for your pain, but your decision to indulge it delays our business here and it cannot continue."

In the tone of it will not continue.

[doneisdone]

"If you lot are quite finished, I-- three?"

Completely pivoting from her original statement, Teren suddenly stops and looks at Ellis, then around at each of the men in her company.

[coeurdulyon]

Well it certainly isn't Lucien. And it obviously isn't Edgard. By process of elimination...

[muckspout]

Useless, you're nothing, weak is ringing in Edgard's ears who stopped listening the second after Ellis scolded him. (Thus missing the critical point)

He breathes deep fighting the impulse to leave, to run, to get away. He balls his fists, breathes again, releases them.

He doesn't respond to his companions, but he stands his ground and doesn't move a muscle.

[pittance]

Vance breathes, turns toward to the house.

One final look to Edgard: The Orlesian's Stone-still, seems ready to haul off on whoever's nearest. A far cry from the man in the dining hall (a shaky laugh and shakier hands).

Something to think on. After, once this is seen through and they've all got space to talk. You said you knew the area,

"You gotta be honest with them," Is all the answer Teren's going to get — a conversation picked smoothly back up, his agreement shifting upon the axis of choice. "If everyone takes it, we can't control a group that big. Someone spooks and,"

An illustrative little twist of his brow. They can't chase ghouls into the next unblighted town. He stoops, begins moving pieces of the barricade. It won't be long work.

[heorte]

Edgard's silence is enough for the moment to recenter the conversation, but not enough for Ellis to shift from where he's positioned himself between Edgard and the door. When he looks at Vance, it's with Edgard in his periphery.

"Aye," he agrees. "Anyone who doesn't want it should be taken aside straight off."

Taken aside.

There is some lurking objection, whether or not it's a kindness to put someone through the calling when they all know they're a poor candidate. But at the least they can all agree on this: to spare both groups the sight of each other's deaths.

[doneisdone]

Her gaze locking briefly on Vance, Teren narrows her eyes: this conversation isn't over, but there are more pressing matters at hand.

"They agreed not to run," she says with a nod to Ellis, bending to begin assisting Vance with the barricade, "so let's keep this peaceful like, not frighten them off all willy-nilly the moment they come out."

[coeurdulyon]

While Vance and Teren work on the barricade, Lucien approaches the window through which they'd been speaking to the poor unfortunate souls within. He keeps his voice quiet, sympathetic, as he asks after their names. Yannick, Cyrille, Dany, Sasha-Rose, Amour — Oh, really? My middle name is Amour. Perhaps within you too beats the heart of a Chevalier. — Hyacinthe, Yves, and...another Yannic, spelled differently. Childhood friends, apparently. The span of ages doesn't ease the tragedy of that fact; it merely adds to it.

[muckspout]

Edgard watches the others discussing and Lucien talking to the people. Somehow, despite his protests, despite his stubbornness, he is sitting here again observing while others to the real work. His insides break and roil.

Something inside him is boiling and he closes his eyes trying to tame it, not entirely able to pin down or name exactly what it is. Should he speak again? Try and make them understand? Or will he just watch things go to ruin as they always do?

Edgard lifts his head, now watching and listening closely, but remains quite still.

cw dead kids here on out

[pittance]

They promised not to run, as if promises are worth so very much —

But he bites his tongue. The work takes it out of him: Busy hands and busier lungs, until the lot of them have dragged the door clear. Until they're inside.

They speak Trade. A blessing, with only Lucien beside the window; a rolling hum of words (please, mistake, I'm not), harmonized with some creature deep beneath the earth. There is more than one way, to hear things in dreams.

The tall man — the killer — draws taller when they enter. In better days, he must have been a terror, and it rides him now; shoulders pinned at all angles of harm. His lips curl over pale gum. There is a tightness in his eyes.

The hunting woman is less gaunt. Something still breathes in the rise and fall of her chest, of her expression. She hesitates to step before him.

Anticipation,

"Get out," He spits. "I told you to burn it. Don’t you know what you’re doing?"

"Hyacinthe." She cautions. A hand splays, catches itself again, fingers curling. The veins upon it streak grey. "Please,"

She lowers her voice, as something stirs from the dim room behind.

"We heard you outside. There’s a child —"

"Isn’t this grim enough for them?" Hyacinthe snarls over her. "Voyeurs. Run it home to Nevarra, to the mountains, run and,"

Tiny fingers grip the wall’s side. Fumble for purchase. The boy can't be more than ten, pupils wide and glassy,

And he runs.

Re: cw dead kids here on out

[muckspout]

Edgard doesn’t hesitate. The bow is armed already in his hands before he’s even decided. It’s steady and strong. He’s the only one in position to do what needs to be done.

With an inhale, he watches the boy run. Trying not to think of what this child’s life could be. Trying not to think of the fear he must feel. He’s an innocent, yes, but it takes just one mistake. One hesitation.

Edgard doesn’t hesitate. A twitch of the finger to release. The arrow appears in the boy’s back and he stops, staggers. He turns and his wide eyes meet Edgard’s, arrow peeking out through the chest. The boy drops, limp. A vice grips Edgard’s own chest. Muffled screams surround him as he lowers his bow.

It was the right call, the only choice. A mercy. Edgard feels a ripping inside him, but remains stone still.

[heorte]

Of course, the child runs.

This has been poorly done. Ellis doesn't say as much, but the sentiment is written in his face when he looks at Teren. Their task will be harder now, already made difficult by the argument that had preceded the decision to entertain discussion.

"Lucien, would you and Edgard take that lad to the pyre?" Ellis asks quickly, even as he draws out his mace, steps to close the space of the doorway. The shock will wear off, and there will be anger, grief, argument from those in that room. Better to stall against it, even if Ellis would have done this any other way if he could. A melody is beating in the back of his head, bubbling like a tension headache that won't be ignored as he looks from Teren to Vance.

"If you're making an offer, we need to go in and close the door behind us."

These people had deserved something more gentle than this. What they can do now is end the argument, and the kindest way Ellis can think to do that is give Edgard something to do elsewhere.

[doneisdone]

"Maker's fucking breath!" Teren snarls, somewhere between the child running and Edgard shooting them. She turns quickly on the remaining civilians, a blade in each hand and a caustic glance to Ellis, daring him to blame her.

"Move back," she snaps at the people in the house, making her way in and fully prepared to kill anyone else who tries to flee, "we're going to want some bloody civility in all this, so if any of you makes a move on me you'll find out what happens."

A child is dead, runs in the back of her mind, but she tries not to let it show in her eyes; the child had the Taint, they would have died anyway. It was merciful to kill them.

There's no mercy in any of this.

"You've got a choice," she continues in a low, grim voice, as sympathetic as such a sharp-edged person can muster, "you die here, now, or you come with me and die later, how much later still to be determined."

[coeurdulyon]

In an instant, it's done. In an instant, a child is dead in the street.

Even if it was the right thing to do, the only thing they could do, it's a tragedy. There's nothing that can change that.

Lucien is moving even before Ellis bids it, closing the distance between himself and the body and kneeling beside it. Gloved hands grip the arrow jutting out of the child's back and snap the shaft, severing it so that once he turns the body over, Lucien can remove the other half of it. As he does so, Lucien speaks softly under his breath. Apology and prayer, regret and...what hope is there to offer? That he is free of pain?

The boy's arms are crossed over his chest, his eyes closed as is customary, and Lucien lifts him gently, carefully.

To Edgard, then: "Viens."

[muckspout]

Edgard obeys and follows. His eyes are fixed on the boy. He doesn't see much else.

It will be easier, much easier, to push it down and not confront it.

He trails behind Lucien and doesn't say a word.

[pittance]

His hands (his skin is blistering) are lifted (the man in the dining hall is screaming —) to speak when it happens. Time they laid this argument to,


rest.


Time doesn’t inch like clocks, tick after implacable tock; always one foot in front of the next. Time slows: Pools, ebbs again about the snap of a bowstring, of a dozen turning heads.

Tick. Less than a second. Tick,

— and he’s moving, behind Ellis, back thrust to block the door before he really knows the need. Vance drags it shut (scratches inside the wood), slams the bar into place. One last glimpse of the scene outside: Of small hands twitching in the dirt. A spreading stain.

Hyacinthe is the first to spy the mace, a glint that draws faded eyes after slack jaw. It casts him somehow younger. Can't have been so old to begin with: Little more than Ellis, than Vance; only hard-faced and hard living. His withered fingers twist, pull at each other with unexpressed grief. Inexpressible. Teren erupts, and the hunter shrinks, and the house is full of screams.

Already was. Time pools,

You’ve got a choice. Someone is beating at the window. They can’t make this easy, can at least make it quick.

"I’m going back there," Vance lifts his own voice, doesn’t reach for a blade. Those hands again, palms empty and drawing toward Hyacinthe. He thinks he sounds calm, but who could say? The house is screaming. The man on the table was screaming. "I'm going to take a look."

Voyeurs,

"Anyone's not too sick to travel," Or young or old or weak or, "We’ll talk. Just you and me."

He steps around the hunter — busy forcing her own courage back toward Teren, reaching to tug at her sleeve.

"Please," She confesses. "I don’t want to die like,"

A look to the door. Hyacinthe is silent. Still. Vance slips beneath his arm, and vanishes into shade.