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

[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.