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 Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2011 2:34 am
_____❂ Type: PRP
_____❂ With: Aysel Vartanian
_____❂ Status: Completed
________Stories, shared.
________A parcel, delivered.
________A Grimm acquaintance, made.
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Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2011 12:38 am
  - Dolor and Decay -
There was no denying that he was good at it; it had been several years since he'd begun working as a letter-carrier in Alciony, one of Imisus's southern districts, and by now he knew the ins and outs of the streets like the back of his hand. He used back-alleys and shortcuts to his advantage, and because of this, he was one of the fastest, most efficient deliverymen in the ranks of the postal service. Sure, he'd gotten shouted at for trespassing a few times, and chased by his fair share of dogs, but he got his job done, and quickly.
Which meant that the day's excess deliveries were almost always shunted off onto him.
Skirting a patch of ice, Coyotl crammed his fingers into his armpits and did his best to maintain his usual brisk trot without slipping on any frozen-over puddles. Imisus in winter was disgusting, he thought. It couldn't have been as bad as Shyregoed, certainly, but it was bad enough, and the street he now found himself walking on was in especially poor shape. The main streets of town were normally strewn with sawdust or occasionally sand in the wintertime, to give pedestrians a bit more purchase on the stones, but the uneven surface of these cobblestones was slick with bare ice, accompanied in places by piles of grey-brown slush. Coyotl slipped one hand under his heavy coat and into the bag slung under it, resting his fingers on the brown-paper-wrapped package within. It felt solid and heavy; even if he did fall, he didn't think he'd have to worry about whatever was inside breaking. Still, it was always better to be safe than sorry.
The home he was headed toward was the same as most of the others that lined the street: squat and boxy, with a flat wooden facade and weather-grimed windows that betrayed nothing about whoever lived inside. These were old homes, filled with old folks, and on a cold winter afternoon, the street was quiet and empty. Almost like a ghost town. He checked the address on the package once more, then withdrew a paper reciept from his pocket and rapped on the door with his knuckles.
"Mizz Levener?" he called loudly, after a moment passed with no response from inside the house. He knocked again, and waited again. Irritated, he pressed his ear against the door. Nothing. "Hello-oo?"
Once it became obvious that there would be no answer, Coyotl had to resist the urge to fling the package he held down in exasperation. No answer meant no one to receive the delivery, which meant no signature, which meant he would just have to come back out to this godawful corner of town tomorrow. Or the next day. Neither of those prospects appealed to him at all. In frustration, he attempted to peer in one of the house's front windows, to no avail; even if the glass hadn't been thoroughly dirtied, the curtains appeared to have been drawn. He turned back to the door. He was definitely not supposed to do this, but he really didn't want to have to make a repeat trip... With a furtive glance over his shoulder to make sure the street was still empty- it was- he tried the latch on the door, and found it unlocked.
He'd intended to poke his head in the door and give one more good yell, to rouse any occupants that might be sleeping, but he only made it as far as inhaling before he froze. Then he sniffed again.
The air inside the house reeked of death.
Coyotl's gut sank, slowly. He stood for a long time that way, one hand resting on the door handle, the other still gripping the package he'd come to deliver. Then, as though propelled by a force completely outside his own body, he entered the house, pulling the door shut behind him with a soft click.
The smell was even worse inside. Someone had been burning something scented in the house, perhaps in an attempt to remove some sickness from the air, and the sourness of old smoke mingled with the sickly smell of decay to produce an odor that was more terrible than the sum of its parts. Coyotl's heart was pounding a rapid tattoo against his chest as his feet carried him haltingly forward, past the foyer of the home and into what he supposed was the drawing-room.
His eyes were still adjusting to the gloom inside the house- more of a tomb than a house- but he could make out the shape of a couple of armchairs positioned near a fireplace... and one of the chairs was occupied.
The woman had been old, Coyotl could tell, and it was no mystery what had killed her. Whatever horrible curiosity had compelled him to enter the home in the first place wasn't enough to budge him from where he now stood, fighting down the sick that was rising in his throat, but he could see the black swellings on her arms and hands, though her entire body was bloated, now, and her face--
Run, run, he pleaded with his feet, but it was nothing doing. He simply stood, staring at the corpse of the woman, who had probably died alone, perhaps abandoned by her family-- or maybe she had kept her secret well, seeing as how there was no mark on her door to indicate the presence of the Plague. Maybe that was her intention: to die on her own terms, rather than as a quarantined animal. But in the end, it didn't make much of a difference, did it? Either way, she was still dead. Coyotl's mind was hazy and sluggish, as if his thoughts were coming to him through a thick fog. He wondered whether he would be sick, or pass out.
I should tell somebody.
The house might be destroyed once someone was alerted to the presence of the old woman's body. It would take a long time for the smell to disperse. The body itself would probably be burned, or maybe confiscated for examination. Did it- did she have family? Would anyone notify them of what had happened?
She could be somebody's grandmother.
Who would pray for her?
The belief- or lack thereof- in an afterlife had never been a prominent fixture in Coyotl's consciousness. As a boy, he had grown up surrounded by the spirituality of his people, but he had never fully immersed himself in it. He was superstitious, but not devout. When he had left his home in Xiuhtototl, he had not made a point of bringing the Uquese gods with him. Even in the most desperate of times, when he'd feared for his life more keenly than he ever knew was possible, he'd never been able to collect himself enough to offer what one would call a proper prayer. There had been incoherent mutterings, of course, pleas for warmth in the freezing nights, for food when he was half-starving, for the mercy of-- whom? Those babblings hadn't been aimed at any particular deity, but rather some intangible, unknowable universal force. They were letters addressed to no one, messages rolled up and stuffed into bottles, flung into the ocean in the hopes that someone, anyone, might find them.
Could the gods of his people even hear him now? Thousands of miles away, across the sea, in this foreign land with its strange language and customs, maybe he'd strayed too far for them to follow. Maybe the first step he'd taken onto Panymese soil had been the crossing of some invisible line.
Maybe, beyond that line, the prayers of his mother and her mother and all the mothers and fathers before them meant precisely nothing.
But tradition is tradition.
There was a brief funeral prayer Coyotl knew, a prayer spoken over the dead, to ensure them a safe journey from this life to the next. It was a prayer on behalf of the deceased-- but as with all such prayers, it was written with the ears of the living in mind. So he recited it to the dead woman, because that was what it was meant for.
It had been years since he'd said the words, and he tripped over a few of them, his voice wavering at barely above a murmur. At this point, though he understood the syllables, their explicit meaning was lost to him. It wasn't so much a chant as it was the regurgitation of rote memorization, drilled into his head so many years ago by the family that was probably just as dead as the woman in the chair in front of him. The prayer told of traveling spirits and the mysteries of the world beyond, but for Coyotl it spoke more of the thick heat that hung over a burial assembly. Grieving aunts, uncles, cousins. Bright sunlight and loud birds. The sound of waves crashing on a beach, coming from far away.
When he had finished, he found that his feet had unstuck themselves from the floorboards.
He wasted no time in showing himself out, stumbling through the doorway into the waning afternoon light, where he immediately slipped and fell on a large patch of ice.
Home was waiting, but first he would bring the package he carried back to the postal center. It would be marked undeliverable.
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Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2011 12:37 am
[META]
- A Ticking at the Sill -
March 16, 1411Personal Challenge The ribbon lay in a puddle on the floor.
Coyotl was staring at it from the opposite corner of his tiny flat, his back pressed flush against the wall. He'd scrambled there as soon as the letter he'd held had dissolved into inky black strands, slithering over his fingers and onto the floorboards without a sound.
That, of course, was only after the letter had talked to him.
"Grimm."
He'd recoiled from it as though bitten by the thing, nearly dropping it on the floor as the carefully penned sentences dictated themselves aloud to him, quiet, whispering, as though imparting a secret.
"Coyotl,
Traveling as often as you undoubtedly do,
it must be obvious that your peers and other
messengers are bearing a certain mark. Our mark.
In fact, the grand majority of individuals performing
deliveries across Panymium are under our wing.
We could easily task them with delivering your fish to us,
unless you would be more inclined for a hand delivery in person."
Just like that, it was over, and the message had unraveled itself.
Now Coyotl stood stock-still, eyes wide and unblinking, unable to tear his gaze away from the ribbon's dark stain upon his floor. His hands were still shaking, and his fingers felt oily, dirty, like they'd been touched by something wrong; without realizing exactly what he was doing, he began wiping them feverishly on his trousers and sleeves, desperately trying to remove the invisible residue that coated them. When this accomplished nothing, he returned to staring, each hand gripping the sleeve of the opposite arm.
Someone was watching him.
Someone knew who he was, they knew where he worked, they knew where he lived. And of all things, they knew about his fish--
He was snapped abruptly out of his reverie by the sound of hoarse cawing. The crow at his window was still watching him from where it had landed after he'd cautiously let it in, head turned sideways so that a single black eye was fixed on him intently. In a sudden burst of- what? Anger? Panic? Fear?- he waved his hands at the bird, hissing at it in exasperation. "Get out, get out, shoo! Devil take you, dammit, shoo, get away!" Cawing again, the dark messenger complied, taking flight in a dry scuffling of feathers and swooping grimly off into the cold Imisus afternoon. Coyotl slammed the window shut after it, cutting off the draft that had already sucked the warmth out of the entire room, and immediately began pacing to and fro, his fingers returning to their vice-grips on his sleeves.
He tried to collect his scattered thoughts enough to concentrate on the matter in front of him, but every time he glanced at that black ribbon, panic throttled him so hard he thought he might be physically ill. Someone, someone, someone was watching him. And perhaps not just one person, either. What had the letter said? That the messengers of Panymium were under "our wing"-- whose wing? He wondered in a brief fit of hysteria whether the letter had been written by a crow, too.
Whoever had penned the missive, whether they knew it or not, had chosen just the right words to strike at Coyotl's deepest fears and paranoia, buried by years of relatively steady, secure living, but still there, rankling away slowly, waiting to break through to the surface in a moment of weakness and overtake him. His fellow mailmen, other letter-carriers and postal workers, were a threat; they were his enemies, now, a shift in perception that had come as suddenly as the manic rapping of a bird's beak on his windowpane. A queasy, strangled moan escaped Coyotl's throat, and his paces sped up, quick strides taking him from one side of the room to the other and back again in moments.
They would come, they would find him. He didn't wonder for a moment whether the anonymous threat- for that was what it was, cordial as it may have been- was a bluff. Even if the thought had occurred to him, the mere circumstances of the note's arrival made it clear that whoever had sent it was not fooling around, nor did they lack the resources to make good on their promises. He wasn't safe anymore; the sanctity of his home had been torn asunder. And for what?
For his koi.
Coyotl's pacing stopped gradually. The bowl in which the koi swam was in its usual place, perched atop one of the wooden crates that served as tables and storage space in the sparsely-furnished apartment. The fish itself was as inscrutable as ever, given that it was a fish and all. It circled slowly in the glass, the orb in front of it bobbing just as lazily through the water ahead of it. Coyotl took a few steps toward it, suddenly feeling a bit unsteady on his feet, before stooping down in front of the crate, settling onto his knees and staring at the fish intently.
He knew what it was, or at least he'd suspected it for a long time. The concept of a "Plague" being a tangible item had never made much sense to him, and his understanding of what they were was vague at best. He'd mostly heard of them through rumor, many of which had been inconsistent. Some had said these objects turned into monsters if allowed to fester and grow, while others said they had the power to cure the Black Death; he'd heard that the beasts only spread death and disease, while still other sources had told him that coming into possession of one afforded the owner immunity from the sickness. To him, all of these explanations had seemed far-fetched to say the least.
But there it was. The letter had called him a Grimm. Coyotl continued to watch the koi as a few tendrils of liquid black streamed over its fins, impossibly dark against the white scales.
It was the fish they wanted, not him.
If he allowed them to take it- whoever they were- perhaps they'd leave him in peace. That was a best-case scenario, of course, but it was certainly possible. All he'd have to do would be to...
He shivered, perhaps due to the cold that remained in the room, or perhaps it was something else. It should have been an easy choice to make, really. Even the most avid collector of exotic pets would be hard-pressed not to relinquish something as simple as a fish in the face of a threat, especially such an ominous one as he'd received. But then, it wasn't just a fish, was it? It was a Plague.
Then again, though it was a Plague, more importantly, it was a fish. His fish. And as laughably superstitious as it would have sounded to anyone else, Coyotl knew, more firmly than any other truth, that the fish had saved his life. Call it fate, call it chance, call it anything at all; one way or the other, if it had not been for that same fish, he would still be wandering like a frightened animal somewhere in Auvinus-- or, more likely, he'd be dead. As much as a person can owe a debt of gratitude to a fish, he owed it to that koi. He knew little of how to properly care for such a creature, but he did try his best, and as long as he was able, he would continue to make sure it was kept safe. He had to. He couldn't accept any alternative.
And as much as it terrified him, he knew he couldn't allow whoever had sent that crow to take possession of the Plague.
Coyotl rose slowly from his position near the crate, wincing as his knees popped from being seated in such an awkward position. With a last nervous look out the window, he moved to stand by the ceramic stove in the corner of the flat, opening the wood-hatch to make sure some embers still burned within. He rubbed his hands together briskly in front of them; then, with the jerky movements of someone eager to finish a deed before losing their nerve, he turned, scooped up the black ribbon from where it rested on the floor, and flung it into the stove, snapping the hatch closed once more.
He didn't know where he would go, but he knew that he couldn't stay in his apartment any longer. After a moment of thought, he turned to a wooden box that held a good deal of musty clothing and a few objects that had once been food, hoarded far beyond the point of no return. A cursory search of the crate turned up what he'd been looking for: a large, wide-mouthed earthenware pot, suitable for carrying water or other liquid. Years ago, he'd come to Alciony carrying that jar, and now, finding himself preparing to leave under very unpleasant circumstances, he would leave with it, carrying the same Plague-tainted cargo within.
There were a few more preparations to be made, of course, but with any luck Coyotl would be out of the flat by nightfall. As with his previous flight from trouble, he had no clear idea of where he was headed, but this time, he knew that he needed an idea. Whoever wanted the koi would certainly have the resources to track him, unless he found an alternative to wandering aimlessly on foot. What that alternative would be... he didn't know.
Yet Coyotl felt strangely calm as he hastened around the room, scavenging his meager belongings for supplies, even as his heart was still pounding with fear. Though things looked dire indeed, he somehow managed a grim smile. He had to believe that things would turn out all right.
After all, this time he wouldn't be alone.
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Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 12:22 pm
[META]
- A Moment of Calm -
March 19th, 1411 _____❂ Type: PRP
_____❂ Challenges: "Seek" & "The Kick" [Part I]
_____❂ With: Wickwright Finch and Hopkin
_____❂ Status: Completed
________Paths are crossed;
________burdens, revealed.
________A deal, struck.
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Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 6:22 pm
[META]
- Deliver The Letter, The Sooner The Better -
March 21st, 1411"The Kick" part II It hadn't taken Coyotl long to reach Rosstead from where Wickwright had stopped. Setting out early in the morning on the 21st, he'd been able to reach the city before dusk, and might have arrived sooner if he'd felt safe traveling out in the open on the main roads, but the threat of the crow's letter still hung like a shadow over his mind. As such, he kept off of the most well-traveled paths, cutting through woods where possible and ducking behind trees whenever he thought he heard another person approaching on the road.
There was no doubt that he was still being watched; the crows that still circled overhead were evidence enough of that. Every so often, a piece of parchment would come fluttering down, dropped by one of the birds, but for the most part, they seemed content to simply shadow him wherever he went. At first, he'd taken to scooping rocks up off of the ground and chucking them at the birds in annoyance, but as this proved to be no deterrent, he eventually stopped, resigning himself to the presence of his unwelcome entourage. He could hear them flapping overhead, occasionally giving a rasping caw, and seeming to frighten away the other, smaller birds that would have otherwise occupied the sky.
Rosstead was in poor shape. Coyotl had only been there a handful of times before on postal business, but even a complete stranger to the area would have been able to tell how bad things were getting. The smell of smoke and desperation hung in the air as he entered the city cautiously, skirting the main streets in favor of the less-traveled alleys and back-routes. Though he hadn't seen any violence breaking out in the streets, the tension in the air was almost painful; the few citizens scurrying about looked frightened, mistrustful of each other, and a number of them looked to be leaving the city with all of their possessions on their back.
Coyotl had no desire to be there any longer than he had to, himself. He wasn't sure how long his business would take, or even whether he'd be able to accomplish what he'd set out to do, but he had to make an effort. One hand rested on the small bag at his side; he'd left the rest of his possessions, not including the jar on his back, with Wickwright. He didn't need much for his journey into Rosstead-- just the letter.
He had a promise to keep, after all.
Now that he'd made it into the city, though, Coyotl wasn't quite sure how to go about fulfilling his end of the deal he'd made with Wickwright. Find a postman to bring a single piece of mail to Shyregoed. It was a simple-sounding objective, but as soon as he thought beyond the bare basics of that goal, problems came popping out at every turn. To begin with, there was the obvious one: if the letter he'd gotten from the crow was to be believed, he would be hard-pressed to find a deliveryman who was not in the service of Obscuvos. For his money, Coyotl was very much inclined to take the letter at its word.
But even if there was yet a trustworthy postman in Rosstead, another issue, just as troublesome, presented itself: With the very fabric of society pulling itself apart at the seams, would the post even be functioning? He supposed there might still be some who would have need of its services, to send word of their troubles in Imisus to far-flung relatives, perhaps, but in such mean times, would there be anyone left who was willing to make those deliveries? It was a depressing thought, and Coyotl pushed it out of his mind as best he could. "To protect and preserve the free exchange of ideas"; that was the code of all postal workers in Imisus, and though many viewed the swearing of such an oath as a mere formality, Coyotl took that responsibility surprisingly seriously. There had to be someone left in Rosstead who would uphold the same.
Absorbed in these thoughts as he was, Coyotl found that he was making tracks in the general direction of Rosstead's main postal building, and wondered whether that would be too obvious a place to start looking. Frowning to himself as he muddled over this thought, he peeked down a darkened side-street warily, not sure what he was looking for, but needing some sense of direction, of purpose.
That was when he saw it: a black-cloaked figure, sporting an unmistakably-styled white mask, was standing at the other end of the alley. Calmly, unhurriedly, it shifted its weight from one foot to the other and ambled out of sight at a leisurely pace. Coyotl's heart leaped into his throat, and he found himself wanting to duck back around the corner, out of the Obscuvan's line of sight, but he forced himself to remain where he was, staring and holding his breath until the cultist had disappeared from view. When it seemed the masked figure would not be returning, he exhaled slowly, and with a renewed sense of urgency, he kept walking, now glancing over his shoulder every few seconds.
The figure had been following him, he knew; he could feel it in his gut. But why had the Obscuvan simply walked away when they could have confronted him outright? The non-encounter had set him completely on edge, moreso even than it might have if the cultist had made a threatening move and he'd simply escaped. He was being stalked, observed, and without any idea of what his pursuers were watching and waiting for, he had no way to avoid playing right into their hands-- whatever that might entail. Suddenly, he felt as though it had been a very bad idea to bring the koi along with him. He should have left it behind, left it with Wickwright in that house that stank of rats, instead of bringing it along and turning himself into a moving target--
Whump.
With a start and a yelp, Coyotl scrambled backward as soon as it registered that he had collided with another pedestrian while rounding the corner of the postal depot. He'd even gotten as far as putting up his fists before realizing that the pedestrian in question, a solidly-built man who stood more than a full head taller than himself, was someone he knew.
"Penko?" he asked almost incredulously.
The tall man, who had given a startled yell of his own and flinched almost laughably away when fisticuffs seemed likely, blinked and stared. He was fair-haired and square-jawed, and his eyes were pale green; the set of his brow made him look perpetually worried about something far out of his control. He'd looked like that since before the troubles in Imisus, of course, but now that hangdog expression seemed far more justified. His name was Oleksiy Potapenko, and after a stammer of surprise, he managed to blurt out "Co... Coyotl?! How did you get here? What--"
Coyotl silenced the man with a punch in the arm. "Shhht-cht-cht!" he hissed. Oleksiy simply stared at him wide-eyed. "Walk with me," he commanded under his breath, and set off at a brisk pace toward the post office's front door, the taller man following after in confusion. Coyotl tried the latch, and found it unlocked; with a furtive look over his shoulder, he slipped inside.
The building was deserted, as he'd feared it might be. Unsorted mail lay abandoned on the main desk, and a few letters had clearly been trampled underfoot the last time anyone had been inside the place. Satisfied that no one was hiding inside, Coyotl ushered Oleksiy through the door after him and closed it. As long as they kept away from the windows, they wouldn't be spotted.
"Where is everyone?"
Coyotl turned, surprised. That had been the question he was planning to ask. "What?" came the inarticulate reply. Oleksiy continued to stare at him almost imploringly, looking hopelessly lost. "Where is everyone? Yesterday," he babbled, "yesterday everyone was gone from the office, I know there's riots on, but Richards said the day before that we should all keep coming in to-- to do our duty, he said, and I came but there was no one here, and today I didn't even see anyone from the dispatch in town, and there's those crows everywhere, I don't know what's going on! Where is everyone?" he asked again.
Coyotl's brow furrowed as Oleksiy spoke. Richards, he assumed, was the manager of the Rosstead postal offices; having only met him once, he wasn't entirely sure. It was a small miracle he remembered Penko's name, to begin with. He'd met the taller man the last time he'd been in Rosstead for a delivery. Physically, Penko was an ox- broad, tall, and a hard worker- but he had little in the way of backbone. Coyotl found him a likeable sort, even though, as he'd learned from heading out on the town with him after his shift was completed, the man couldn't hold his liquor worth a damn. He was the type of fellow that always had an air of nervousness about him, but in his current state he looked as though he were about to have a nervous breakdown.
"I was about to ask you where everyone had gone," Coyotl said slowly, thoughtfully. "I've got no idea, myself." But that wasn't quite the truth, was it? He thought back to the dark figure he'd seen strolling casually away down an alley, and suppressed a shudder. He had a feeling he knew exactly where the other postal carriers of Rosstead were. But the rudiments of a plan were forming in his head, and he didn't mention his suspicions to Oleksiy.
"I'd expect they've skipped town, probably," he continued, raising an eyebrow. "Not a bad idea, is it? I'm surprised to see you still here, I wouldn't be in the city myself if I didn't have business to attend to." The blonde man shook his head in despair. "But this is my job," he protested lamely.
Coyotl's hand was resting on the satchel at his side. If Penko was an Obscuvan, he reasoned with himself, then he would be out in the streets, wearing a cloak and mask with the rest of the spook show. Instead, he was standing in a darkened post office, blubbering and looking as if his whole world was crashing down around his ears-- which, to be fair, it probably was. If there was one thing to be said for him, though, it was that he was dedicated to his job, and with this in mind, Coyotl pressed forward.
"Duty is duty, true enough," he acknowledged with a nod. Unconsciously, he shifted the weight of the jar on his back slightly. "We've got to live with it every day. But Rosstead's goin' to hell mighty quick, there's no way you can handle things here all on your own." He gestured at the letters stacked haphazardly around the office. Penko looked as though he might cry. "Haven't you got someplace you can go?"
"Th-there's my aunt and uncle," Penko began hesitantly. "They live up near Freykeep, in Shyregoed." He looked a bit shamefaced, then. "I didn't want to leave, but I was thinking yesterday that, well, since everyone else's gone, and things are falling apart here..."
It was hard for Coyotl not to grin to himself at that. Fortune seemed to be smiling on him at last; all the other man was looking for was a reason, one last delivery to take him up to Shyregoed, and he'd be able to leave Imisus with a clear conscience.
And wouldn't you know it, Coyotl had just what he needed.
"Penko," he said, patting the satchel at his side with one hand, "I've got a job for you."
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Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 12:45 am
[META]
- Shepherd the Sick -
March 23th, 1411 _____❂ Type: PRP
_____❂ With: Wickwright Finch and Hopkin
_____❂ Status: Completed
________Ambush!
________A pair of pursuers, outfoxed.
________A rendezvous, reached.
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Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2011 12:26 am
_____❂ Type: PRP
_____❂ Challenge: "Hesitate"
_____❂ With: Wickwright Finch and Hopkin & Dorian Arelgren and Lettie
_____❂ Status: Completed
________Two Grimms, dying;
________a third, in crisis.
________Everything falls apart.
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Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 9:43 pm
[META]
- Onwards! -
April 3rd, 1411 _____❂ Type: PRP
_____❂ With: Wickwright Finch and Hopkin
_____❂ Status: Completed
________Life returns.
________Plans are laid;
________a promise, brokered.
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Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 9:48 pm
[META]
- The Purr of a Pigeon -
April 5, 1411"Your Thin Frame" Dawn hadn't yet reached the upper stretches of Imisus when Coyotl ventured out into the morning stillness. It was chilly, as early April mornings usually were, but he'd decided to step out of Wickwright's wagon for a bit all the same, to get a breath of fresh air. Normally, he'd have stayed inside until at least the first rays of sunlight had begun to warm the earth; he hated even the mildest of cold, and preferred to avoid it whenever possible. But that day, as he felt the gooseflesh rising on the skin of his arms, it seemed almost bracing. Invigorating.
As they began their journey back to Gadu, Coyotl probably should have been at least apprehensive about returning to the city. He'd been there with Wickwright the previous month, seen the devastation of the riots firsthand, and that hadn't even been during the height of the day's activity. Many things had happened in the interim, though-- namely, he and Wickwright had nearly died.
It was funny, what a brush with death could do to one's psyche. Coyotl wondered if he would always feel the way he did just then, in that moment, with the dew seeping from the roadside grass into his pantcuffs. In the absence of the sickness that had seemed to come so close to killing him- without the coughing, the chills, the black swelling and the crippling vertigo- he felt good. Better than he had in weeks, perhaps months. He felt strange, brittle, as though his bones had gone all hollow inside, or as though something in him had been stretched, almost to the point of breaking-- almost, but not quite. As he stretched both arms high above his head, Coyotl breathed in deeply, filling up his lungs to the brim. His head was clear, and he felt very light all over, but his spine felt as strong as steel.
The sight of the bird didn't phase him as much as it would have a week or so previously. He'd grown accustomed to the sight of them flocking wherever he went, and then he'd grown accustomed to the sight of them dead on the ground. The difference between those birds and the one that came fluttering down over the trees toward him, of course, was that this one was alive, and it was a bright, unnatural white, seeming to emit its own light to shine through the murk of pre-dawn.
Coyotl watched it warily as it settled on the ground in front of him, shuffling its wings and staring back at him inscrutably. It looked like a pigeon... or was it a dove? He'd never been entirely clear on the differences between the two, but white pigeons were usually called doves, if he remembered correctly. This one was very white indeed. It carried a rolled letter in its beak, and seemed to be waiting for him to take it. He reached down cautiously to do so, sliding the red ribbon off of one end and unrolling the crinkly message. Really, what choice did he have?
"You have a choice."
He might have been more surprised if the parchment hadn't whispered to him, at that point.
"To make a Plague human
or to taunt the Grimms further of the Black Death,
grind these feathers to dust
and feed it to the object of your attention."
Feathers? He looked up in bafflement, only to see something that did take him by surprise; the bird in front of him seemed to be gagging on something. Coyotl was afraid that it might die, and leaned away from it, as dead birds had brought nothing but bad tidings over the past week. But the dove didn't die. Instead, its neck pumped several times, and finally it seemed to dislodge what had been caught in its throat, hacking it up onto the ground. Disgusted but morbidly curious, Coyotl knelt down to examine the object further.
"Now you know how wretched it feels,
to be human and feel human sickness."
He was only half-listening as the letter whispered onward. These were the "feathers" that it had mentioned. They were bound around with twine, and resembled nothing so much as a bundle of tightly-wrapped white sage leaves, dry and waiting to be burned. Something compelled him to pick the bundle up, and as he did, his eyes widened. It was heavy, as though a lump of lead had been slipped into its middle. A cursory poking with his little finger told him that this was not the case, however; it was feathers all the way through, they were simply far too weighty for their size. He turned them over in his palm, feeling the stiff, brittle pinions brush against his fingers.
"Pray, will you play God with me?"
The dove took a few small steps along the ground, pecking at the dirt idly, then took flight in a hush of wings, as if remembering it had somewhere it needed to be. Coyotl stared after it for a few moments, unsure of what to do. The message had finished, and now he was left with the bundle of feathers in his hand, heavier than it had any right to be.
He didn't think the dove had been a messenger of the Cultists; they seemed very keen on using crows exclusively. If it wasn't from the House of Obscuvos, then who had sent it? And for what purpose? The letter had explained how the feathers were to be used, but why they'd been sent was a mystery. Not that it made much of a difference to Coyotl personally. He saw no reason to use the feathers for either of their intended purposes, and especially not to prolong a Grimm's sickness.
There was a message, one that hadn't been whispered by the letter, that embedded itself in his mind nonetheless: his troubles were not yet over. Though both he and Wickwright had recovered from their sicknesses, and no living crows had been seen for days as they traveled towards Gadu, only a fool would assume that the danger had passed. The House was still active, and it wasn't even the only force sowing dissent and anarchy throughout Panymium. Evidence of the rioting in Imisus still hung in the air, mingling with the smell of sickness and corpses.
To let his guard down might prove fatal. The feather-lightness in his body and his feet was a welcome change, a transformation from the iron grip of illness, but if he allowed that flightiness too much influence over him, any passing wind could sweep him into danger. With this in mind, he slipped the bundle of feathers into his pocket.
Their weight would keep him grounded to the earth.
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Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 9:49 pm
[META]
- Storming Wind -
April 12, 1411Leaves of the Clover Something had changed, and not for the better.
It wasn't the odor that had woken him, but Coyotl could smell it before he opened his eyes. He sat up immediately and wrinkled his nose at the stink that had invaded it unbidden. Like a dog with a bee caught in its nostril, he snorted and sneezed himself into waking.
Something was wrong.
He'd spent the night in one of the abandoned buildings on Gadu's outskirts-- there were many to choose from. Whether the proper owners were dead or had fled the city during the height of the rioting in Imisus was a mystery, but one that didn't need to be solved. As they stood, the houses and shop-fronts provided a (relatively) safe place to stop and rest during the night, even though most of them had been cracked open like walnuts, looted and ransacked inside and out, half-scorched by fire in some places and burned to the ground in others, the eyes of their windows dead and dark inside. What mattered was that they were empty, and with the evidence of the riots still littering the streets- namely, corpses that had yet to be disposed of- few vagrants were willing to chance a night spent in the area.
Coyotl had found himself caught between a rock and a hard place upon reaching the city. His first instinct had been to begin familiarizing himself with the streets of Gadu, their ins and outs, shortcuts and back-alleys; the best way to stay safe in any place, he felt, was to always know where you were, and how to get where you needed to be at a moment's notice. But to move about the city out in the open was still risky, even though the worst of the riots had, for the most part, died down. It was for that reason that Coyotl kept to the outer stretches of Gadu, the dead places, keeping out of sight as much as possible, slowly building a map of the city in his head from the outside in. When he needed to sleep, he'd find an abandoned building to sneak into, one that didn't look like it would come falling down around his ears at any moment, and catch a few hours' worth of shut-eye.
That was what he'd done the previous night. Nothing had stuck out to him as odd, as he'd sprawled on top of his wadded-up overcoat and belongings, his jar never more than an arm's length away. It smelled in the empty house, but then, what place didn't? With trash and corpses piled up and down the streets, the whole city stank.
But nothing like this.
Finally sloughing the last layer of sleep off of his consciousness like a coating of dead skin, Coyotl continued to cough air out of his nose as he lurched to his feet, attempting in vain to clear his airways of the stench that was assaulting him. Where was it coming from? In a moment of irrational panic, he dropped to his knees beside the jar that contained his koi and uncorked it, peering into the darkness inside before giving a small sigh of relief. The fish was perfectly alive. He'd been afraid for one terrible instant that it had died, as the smell that he couldn't escape reminded him of the one that always seemed to float up from the water it swam in; along with a faint fishy smell, it gave off an odor that was subtly different from the usual smell of death. It was sharper, though it stuck to the inside of the nose in the same way... and now, for some reason, it was all Coyotl could smell.
Whatever the mystery stink was, finding its source wasn't an endeavor he could afford to invest himself in. The arrival of morning meant it was time to get moving again, or risk running into some of the more desperate looters that straggled into the burnt-out buildings during this time of day. After a cursory straightening of his clothes, Coyotl hitched the now-corked jar onto his back- a spot it rarely left these days, except for when he slept- and grabbed his rucksack from where it lay on the worn floorboards, slinging it across one shoulder. He cast a quick glance out the window of the second-floor room he'd spent the night in. The high, puffy clouds of the previous day had thickened into ominous grey masses that rolled across the sky on a steady wind; there were no signs of life yet in the street below.
The first floor of the building, however, was another story.
As soon as Coyotl reached the bottom of the staircase, he hissed between his teeth and made to backtrack up the steps, but he'd been spotted already. Two men, youngish and looking just as unkempt and weatherbeaten as himself, had been picking through what little remained of the building's smashed furniture. He could see a third outside, one he hadn't been able to spot from the window. Now they were all staring at him, looking startled, and he cursed inwardly as the one nearest to him, a short, stocky fellow, shook off his surprise and moved toward him. "'Ey, you there--"
"Hoy, lads," Coyotl cut the man off before he could say anything further, holding up a hand in greeting and forcing a smile onto his face. He had a feeling that it might have looked more like a grimace. If the three of them decided to bust him up, he would stand no chance; his only hope was to attempt to bluff his way out of trouble, the way Wickwright had done with the Obscuvans the last time they'd been in Gadu. With this in mind, he continued, "All right down here, then? Not much to speak of upstairs, trust me, but have a look yourselves, g'wan, I'll just be--"
"Shaddap," the stocky one growled, and Coyotl did so immediately. The degree to which that plan had not worked was staggering. How had the old man made it look so damned easy? "Wot's in the bag, then, eh?" The taller of the two stepped forward as well, looking altogether more threatening and surly than any one person could possibly be, and even as Coyotl found himself edging toward the door, he saw that that would do him no good; the third man had moved to block his only escape route. "Nothin' but food, little bit of bread, that's all," he answered, truthfully, as his hand tightened on the haversack at his side.
"Give it 'ere." The command made Coyotl wince, but he had no alternative but to comply. Scowling, the stocky man rifled through the bag; seeming satisfied, he tossed it to his companion. "An' that jar?" "Water, just water," Coyotl blurted, panic rising in his chest. The taller of the two snorted and advanced on him. "Ain't nobody carries water like that. You think we're stupid?" He made to grab the jar, and Coyotl tensed, his right hand hovering over his pocket, but before the man even touched him, he saw his nose wrinkle in disgust, and he pulled away.
"Cor," he muttered, "'e smells somethin' terrible!" The shorter of the two, who seemed not to have quite so keen a sense of smell, narrowed his eyes and sniffed piggishly before the odor hit him and he swore loudly. "You been out diggin' through bodies?!"
Coyotl tried to think quickly, realizing he could play the situation to his advantage. "You still want what's in this jar?" he asked, making to sling the vessel down from his back. "The smell's worse once you take the cork out." It was a very risky bluff, but it seemed to have worked; both of the looters backed away, covering their noses and eyeing him suspiciously. "Keep your stink," one of them said, pushing Coyotl toward the door roughly. The other seemed about to echo this sentiment, but for some reason, he was having trouble speaking-- or rather, breathing. As Coyotl backed toward the door, the man wheezed once, then twice-- then, after managing a great series of coughs, he brought his hand away from his mouth, and gave a strangled yell. Blood coated his fingers, and at the line of his collar, a patch of black swellings was already starting to appear.
A controlled sort of chaos broke out within the abandoned building. Both of the men inside panicked, stumbling and scrambling away from Coyotl as fast as they could, while their accomplice, for some half-baked reason, attempted to block his path, perhaps out of a misguided concern for the health of the other two. "What'd you--?!" He was cut short as the mailman's hand darted back to his pocket, this time pulling out the small, sharp knife he kept concealed there in a thin leather sheath.
"Back off," he snarled as menacingly as he could. The looter obeyed, much to Coyotl's relief. He'd never had to defend himself with a knife before, and he was only too glad that the hand he held the blade in was not shaking. Not wanting to turn his back on the trio, he sidled out the door as quickly as he could; as soon as he cleared the doorframe, he broke into a run. Behind him, he could hear shouts escalating, and a cry of "Plague!" reached his ears. He spewed every foul word he could think of and poured all the energy he could muster into his feet, nearly falling on the uneven streets as he made a mad dash for one of the only places he could think of where he might be able to really, truly hide.
Coyotl's memory for places and directions had always served him well in the past, and now it seemed to be one of the only allies he had. He'd spotted the burnt-out hulk of what used to be a guard tower the previous day, near Gadu's western wall, but hadn't wanted to chance exploring it for fear that it might fall in on itself. Now he had little choice but to make use of it. He slowed as he neared the structure, winded from the sudden sprint under added weight. The tower was well and truly destroyed, but the charred wooden beams had fallen in such a way that they would provide some cover, should anyone come hunting for him-- the likelihood of which was questionable.
But that wasn't the only reason he had for trying to sequester himself away. Even if no one was going to attempt to kill him, he had no lingering doubts about what the stench of death hanging around him signified. He was contagious, disastrously so. If he came in contact with anyone at all, they could very well be struck with the plague, and beyond the ramifications this could have for his own safety, the idea that he, personally, could now spread the disease simply by proximity, was a horrifying one. So he had no choice, then, but to seek out a gap in the crumpled skeleton of the tower, squeeze himself into its foundation and hide as best he could. Just like a rat, he thought to himself in disgust, and immediately tried as hard as he could to think of something else, anything else, to distract himself from the thought of how many rats were probably scurrying about unseen right beside him at that very moment. He concentrated instead on catching his breath, panting as he slid down onto what remained of the tower's rough floor, his shoulders sagging under the weight of the jar on his back. Every breath brought with it a fresh wave of the dead-smell that coated him, and he wondered if he would get used to the smell at some point, if it would become less horrible as time went on. The idea that it might was almost as disquieting to him as the idea that it wouldn't.
It was then that he realized the wind from earlier had seemingly died down.
The sky opened as though it had been waiting for precisely the right moment, and the sound of the water pouring down onto the wreck of the tower around him was nearly deafening. Coyotl didn't even have the energy to groan. He simply stared with a numb sort of defeat through a space in the boards, out at the city, at one of the many spring rainstorms that were sure to make life during the next few weeks just that much more damp. And he couldn't even enjoy the smell of the rain, one of the few consolations afforded to those who would have to suffer those storms.
If it wasn't one damned thing, it was another.
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Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 9:51 pm
[META]
- April Marches On -
April 17, 1411Not A Penny More/A Job Well Done Coyotl had to leave the fallen guard-tower eventually. There were a number of reasons, of course, not the least of which being the heavy wooden beam that had shifted over his head the previous night, nearly crushing him in the process. Most of all, though, he needed to leave for the sake of his own sanity. It had been five or six days since the looters he'd run into had taken sick simply from being in his presence, and with every passing moment, he'd been feeling less like a man and more like an animal, hiding in the wreckage of an old building night and day, only sneaking out when he felt it was safe-- which was almost never.
Though he'd told himself he wasn't going to do so, he'd crept out of the wreck on the first night, under cover of darkness, finding his way back to the building he'd last slept in. There was the first looter, dead on the floor; he wondered whether any of the motionless forms he'd passed in the street belonged to the other two. He took back the satchel that had been robbed from him, which held what little remained of his food, and was silently thankful that the looter had apparently dropped it while in his death throes. Coyotl didn't think he would have been able to pry the strap out of the man's stiff, blackened fingers. Physically able, perhaps, but not mentally.
It hadn't rained since the first night, and for that he was also grateful. Coyotl pulled himself out the same way he'd entered the skeleton of the tower, during a lull when he was sure the streets would be empty, gingerly lifting the jar that held his koi out after him. He was lucky to be dry, though he was sure he looked and smelled absolutely disgusting.
But not like death. That was what he clung to as he skulked down the empty street, the weight of the jar pressing into his back. He might have smelled like all the most awful things imaginable, like an open gutter in the most terrible heat of summertime... but he didn't stink of the Black Death any longer. His senses were free of that vile odor, and that fact alone made him grin like the cat that ate the canary.
What he really needed to do, then, was to find somewhere else to stay. He was tired, sore, and hungry, and was not relishing the thought of spending another night holed up in an abandoned building. As his footsteps took him further toward the heart of the ruined capital, signs of life became more frequent; he was wary of the few other people he saw, but they seemed just as eager to avoid him as well, giving him a wide berth as they tried to pick up what was left of their lives. Coyotl wondered whether there would be any inns still open for business in the more intact areas of the city. He had no money, of course, but he might be able to barter a night's stay and a square meal in exchange for running errands or doing some other sort of menial labor.
The further he went, the more people he saw, searching for friends and relatives, regrouping, assessing their losses, sharing their burdens and their tears. One family he saw, a couple and their two young daughters, were sifting through the rubble of their half-destroyed home; dust and gravel were being swept away by the two young girls, handkerchiefs tied over their noses and mouths, while the mother and father stacked the salvageable parts of the masonry near the street, piling the bricks by size. Coyotl slowed as he passed by, watching them out of the corner of his vision. He wondered if things were any better in Alciony, or whether he would find the same or worse if he tried to return.
"Excuse me, sir."
Coyotl didn't immediately register the fact that the uniformed young man was addressing him. He didn't even pause until the other repeated, in a raised voice, "Excuse me, sir!" Coyotl turned at this, taken aback. Before he could say anything, the young man spoke again, with a touch of anxiety in his voice. He seemed to be uncomfortably aware of the fact that his uniform made him stick out like a sore thumb in the midst of the devastation in Gadu. "By order of King Fang, I have--"
"Don't want any," Coyotl interrupted, and made to continue on his way. He couldn't imagine what the man, barely more than a boy, was stopping him for, and he really didn't care. But the other persisted. "Sir!" he half-yelped, looking incredibly flustered. Coyotl turned back around, bristling with irritation. "What?!" "I have been authorized to collect a mandatory donation from all Panymese citizens of at least ten shillings, to be contributed to the restoration of those areas damaged by rioting during the past month."
"What?!" Coyotl repeated, this time in shock, his eyes wide. He must have misheard the figure the young man had rattled off, because to him it had sounded a lot like ten shillings, and for someone who had not had more than ten pence in his own pocket for quite some time, the number was slightly mind-bending. "You're kidding, right? Ten shillings?! This many?" He held up both palms, grimy fingers spread far apart. The uniformed boy nodded, nervously. Coyotl threw up his hands in disbelief and swore, staring at the other like he'd just grown a second head. "Well, ain't that just... I can't..." He swore again, exasperated and seemingly unable to come up with the words to properly express his frustration. "How in the hell," he asked finally, "d'you expect people to come up with that kind of money? Especially folks that already lost just about everything they had?" He stiffened his shoulders and straightened his back in an attempt to appear more intimidating; Coyotl was glad the young man was slightly shorter than himself, since that stance was awfully hard to pull off while looking upward. The other balked slightly, but soldiered on regardless. "It is necessary for everyone to do their part if the reconstruction efforts are to be successful," he said, as though reciting a set of memorized lines. "I must ask you to--"
Coyotl stopped him mid-sentence. "You're out of luck, boyo," he snapped. He shoved his hands into his pockets and turned them inside-out (thankfully, he had stowed his knife in his bag a few days previously.) "Ain't got a shilling to my name. See? Now what say you buzz off, eh?" Again he attempted to walk off, and again the boy in uniform stopped him. "Sir," he began. Coyotl was getting awfully tired of being called "sir". He wondered if it was supposed to make him feel as though he was being treated with some measure of respect. If that was the case, it wasn't working. "You are required to make a donation, or I will be forced to place you under arrest." The young man's voice was shaking a bit now, perhaps not out of any actual fear for his own safety, but out of the discomfort he felt in carrying out the task he'd been designated.
With a slight huff, Coyotl began to speak very slowly, as if he were talking to someone who was a bit deaf. "Listen. I haven't got any money. I can't give you what I haven't got. Even if I had," he added, "you think I don't have my own problems? My home's in Alciony, I don't even know if it's still standin' or not."
At this, the young man blinked. "Alciony? That's..." He paused, as if unsure of how to word what he was about to say. "... Alciony's been burned to the ground, sir," he said finally, his brow furrowed. "There's not a building left that's not damaged beyond repair."
Coyotl wasn't surprised by the news- not as such- but he was unsure of how to take it. He leaned away from the uniformed boy, lost for a moment in his own thoughts. Hearing news of home was a lot different than merely speculating about it. For the first time since leaving, he felt a true pinch of worry in his gut for the friends he'd left behind there; the sense of loss was strange, numbing more than anything else. His eyes stared at nothing for several seconds, as if searching the ground for something that he had dropped. "... Oh," he said finally. "Well, I s'pose that's that, then." There wasn't very much he could say.
The young man seemed unsure of himself, almost guilty, but before he could say anything further, Coyotl had turned to watch the family he'd seen before, still trying their best to make some sense of their destroyed home. He hesitated for a moment, then set off across the street toward them. The father and mother looked up, startled by the presence of a stranger, and the two girls paused to stare at Coyotl warily. Wordlessly, he swung the jar off of his back and set it on the ground a yard or so from where they were working, then shucked off his overcoat, laying it down nearby. He hiked up his shirtsleeves past his elbows, rolling them up so they'd stay in place.
"That donation," he called to the young man as he fiddled with the left sleeve. "You said it goes toward recovery efforts, right?" Without waiting for an answer, he gestured at the rubble. "This is my donation, then. It's all I can do." He looked up questioningly. "Will that do it?"
The young man stared at him for a long moment. He didn't smile, but something in his face eased a bit, and with a tiny nod, he replied "Your contribution has been noted."
As the uniformed boy left, the wife, who had put down the support beam she and her husband been struggling to lift, eyed Coyotl cautiously. "Look, I don't know what you're fixing to get out of this," she said. "We've got nothing to offer you."
Coyotl shook his head. "I know," he assured her. "Don't pay it any mind." He brought his hands together and rubbed them a few times, then looked up at the woman and her husband with-- not quite a smile, but as close to one as he could muster.
"So, where do we begin?"
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Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2011 10:12 am
[META]
- Moving Clouds -
April 20, 1411Week 6 - Update 1 Another day, another reminder that things were not yet back to normal.
After his run-in with the young government officiate, who had attempted to levy a massive tax upon him, Coyotl had, against all odds, found someone who was willing to pay for his services as a courier. That someone was the proprietor and manager of one of the larger outdoor marketplaces in Gadu. Even in the midst of crisis, a businessman must always act to protect his interests, and so he'd had need of a fast, reliable way to contact those craftsmen and farmers living beyond Gadu's walls, to find out which of them would be returning with their wares once the city was able to get back on its feet-- and which of them had fled Imisus altogether. The pay was minimal, but Coyotl was able to buy a bit of food with it, and that was enough.
His most recent task was to visit the home of one Percival Chabot, a potter living a full day's walk outside the city. For the last five miles or so of the journey, he'd felt unpleasantly visible as the dirt trail that passed for a road wound its way out of the trees and through an expanse of wide, flat plains, the grass still dry and scraggly from winter. There was nowhere to run and hide here, should he need to, and the sun, glowing near the horizon with a golden-yellow warmth, picked out every detail of the landscape with an otherworldly clarity. But, Coyotl reminded himself, he couldn't see anyone following him. Though that was not a complete assurance that he wasn't being followed, it brought him some sense of security as he walked. He had not even seen a dead crow on the ground for several hours, and that was somewhat extraordinary. Still, as the isolated home he was seeking came into view, he felt relieved that his journey was half-over.
It was apparent even from a distance that the house was abandoned, but half out of curiosity, Coyotl took the time to examine the place up close. The front door stood open, and there had been no answer to his knocks. He peeked through each of the rooms, but to his relief, he neither saw nor smelled anything to suggest that anyone had died in the house. Circling around the back of the home, he noted a kiln that had clearly not seen use in some time, as well as a few pieces of pottery, mostly shattered. A small fenced-in area had probably kept a few chickens, he assumed, and an area of well-tilled earth must have made a small garden; in better times, it would have been quite a self-sufficient piece of property.
Satisfied that there was no one present in the house, Coyotl made his way back around to the front, peering through the windows out of habit as he did so. His employer wouldn't be pleased by the news, but that wasn't his problem. He had scooped up a small piece of broken pottery to serve as proof that he'd visited the place, and now all that remained was to travel back to Gadu.
There was a man standing on the path when Coyotl reached the front of the home.
The setting sun made the scene look strange, almost dreamlike, and for a moment Coyotl wondered if he had somehow fallen asleep. The sunlight glared off of the figure's glasses, and all that the mailman could make out about the man's face was that it wore a smile; it was the sort of smile that made Coyotl slightly uncomfortable. He had been sure that there was no one remaining in the house-- and no one had followed him across the field. Of that, he was equally sure. He would not embarrass himself by acting as though he thought the man might be Percival Chabot. Instead, he stopped several meters from where the man stood, and after pausing to see if the other would speak, he asked, loudly, "Who are you?"
"It was a pleasure to get to know you these past six weeks," came the reply, quicker than Coyotl had expected. The man's voice had an odd quality to it, as if the sound was reaching him from much farther away than the distance that separated the two of them. "But I'm afraid it's my time to go. The Plague Doctor has a new competitor-- I am him, and it looks like you and your Plague might have to get used to more visits with your new ally."
Before Coyotl could say a word in response, the man removed his hat and made a deep bow, and there was a hissing sound, almost like-- no, exactly like the sound of sand being blown by the wind. As the man's form blurred and shifted, turning to dust and sweeping itself away as though it had never been there at all, Coyotl watched with a mixture of surprise and fear. What scared him the most was the possibility that he'd hallucinated the entire encounter, that the figure really had never existed. But as he stared at the spot where it had been, he noticed the black, huddled shape of what he knew to be a dead crow, lying where there had been no crow earlier, and knew that the specter of the man had not been a hallucination.
The thing had spoken of his Plague, and of a Plague Doctor. Your new ally, it had called itself, and then alluded to future "visits". Coyotl shuddered. If he never saw that man again in his life, it would be too soon.
He had planned to stop and rest for the night as dusk settled over Imisus, but Coyotl continued walking until long after the stars had spread themselves across the sky, relying on the light of the moon to guide him back towards Gadu, away from the empty house where the corpse of a bird lay in the middle of the path.
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Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2011 10:17 am
[META]
- Black -
April 21, 1411Week 6 - Update 2 The sun had already risen high in the sky overhead by the time Coyotl awoke the next day. When he realized how long he'd overslept, he groaned and rested an arm across his eyes in an effort to keep out the sun before slowly pulling himself up off of the ground, squinting at his surroundings.
He might not have been so exhausted if he had stopped to rest before reaching the treeline the previous night. The bright side was that it had offered him cover while he slept; he much preferred to sleep underneath brush when he was able, rather than out in the open, and after yesterday's little encounter, he'd been only too glad to take cover behind a scattering of massive, moss-encrusted boulders until morning. He didn't know how much difference this really made to his relative safety, but it made him feel a bit more secure. Stowing away the thin wool blanket he'd borrowed from his employer in his rucksack and slinging his jar up onto his back, Coyotl picked his way over fallen tree limbs and protruding roots back to the main path.
There were dead crows strewn about there, just as they had been the previous day... but something was different. At first Coyotl thought that his eyes were playing tricks on him, and he blinked rapidly, trying to clear any remaining sleep from his vision. What he saw did not change, however. The bodies of the crows were no longer lying on the road, but rather, they seemed to be floating in midair-- most only hovered a foot or so off the ground, while others were suspended nearly at the level of his waist. He stared at the corpses, not knowing what to make of them. They didn't move or seem to be alive in any way, they simply hung there, still and unassuming, as if the concept of gravity meant nothing to them.
Coyotl thought back to the bundle of feathers he'd received earlier in the month, heavy as if it were carved out of stone, then to the crows themselves, each of which he'd been told had weighed as much as an animal fifty times its size. He hadn't attempted to touch the things, himself, believing that it would probably be terribly bad luck to do so. With these things in mind, he was certain that the crows' current state was somehow related to this phenomenon of things weighing more than they should, though of course the current display was a radical reversal of that state.
He sidestepped a few of the birds, eying them warily as he did so, and wondered if this was the sort of thing that he ought to be writing down in the notes Wickwright had advised him to start taking. If only he'd been able to get his hands on a bit of paper... He made a mental note to do so at the very nearest opportunity. For the moment, he would just have to observe what he could and commit it to memory.
Despite his wariness of touching the bodies of the floating crows, Coyotl's curiosity won out over his cautiousness just long enough to let him nudge one of the birds experimentally with his foot. He hadn't expected much of a result; perhaps the corpse would drift away from him through the air as if it was resting on the surface of a body of water, or maybe it would fall to earth, the brief contact breaking whatever spell had held it aloft. The actual response was much stranger. Coyotl stumbled backward with a wordless shout of surprise as the bird exploded into life. It took wing immediately when he touched it, the flapping of its wings clumsy and unsyncopated as it found its bearings, then evening out as it beat on, beyond the treetops, with a few caws marking its departure.
Coyotl stared, taken aback to say the least. There had been no doubt in his mind that the birds were dead-- the smell they gave off was evidence enough of that. What he had just witnessed might have been some sort of strange miracle, or, as he was more inclined to believe, a kind of dark magic. How else could something dead have been brought back to life? It left him deeply unsettled.
Yet as disturbing as it was that the crow had come back to life at this brief contact, the fact remained that the bird was now gone; it had not remained to harass or follow him as its fellows had done weeks previously. Coyotl was intrigued by this, and after steeling his nerves, he reached out to one of the birds that floated several feet off the ground, brushing his fingertips against its wing in a feather-light touch. The reaction was instantaneous: he jerked his hand away as the crow sprang to life just as the first had. The sound of its wings as it flew off was a welcome one, rather than the ominous harbinger of doom it had been when the skies were filled with the dark creatures. Coyotl found himself beginning to grin as he tapped another bird with his toe and it took after the first two. Perhaps he would have the whole road cleared of the nasty things by the time he reached Gadu, and wouldn't that be something!
It was pure dumb luck that he spotted the figure behind him before it was too late, as it had made no sound to announce its presence. Catching a glimpse of it out of the corner of his eye, Coyotl whirled around in alarm, his heart leaping into his throat as the figure advanced toward him, slowly, its dark robes moving without so much as a whisper of fabric against skin. Superficially, it looked like an Obscuvan, but the aura of darkness around its form was a perfect mimicry of the one that enveloped the bodies of the crows, and Coyotl knew instinctively that whatever the robed figure was, it wasn't human. He began to back away from it, his legs shaking, but before he could take two steps, another dark form materialized-- and this time, he had seen it. It seemed to grow out of the form of one of the floating birds; where once had been a crow suspended in midair was a shadow taken human form, and now both were moving toward him, gaining speed.
"s**t," he hissed, his eyes scanning the road ahead and behind him frantically. One, two, four, eight of the dark husks, and their numbers kept growing. Forward and backward were no longer options; tearing his eyes away from the figures, Coyotl turned tail and left the road altogether, scrambling into the woods. He didn't need to look back to know that the shadows were following him. On and on he ran, slipping on dead leaves and patches of mud, nearly cracking his head open on a protruding rock; gasping for breath, he took one glance over his shoulder and immediately wished he hadn't. The cloaked figures were gaining on him, and with the added weight of the jar on his back, he didn't know how much longer he would be able to keep running.
A second stroke of luck came in the form of the tree. Coyotl had spotted it from a distance, and without a moment's hesitation, he made a mad dash for it. It was a huge, gnarled old giant of the woods, with a rough trunk and several branches low enough to be suitable for climbing. He threw himself at those branches for all he was worth, barely managing to haul himself up onto the lowest one, and immediately set about climbing as far up into the higher limbs of the tree as he could. By the time he was several meters above the ground, he chanced a look downward, and managed a weak crow of triumph; the robed figures, though they reached up toward him with featureless black arms, seemed unable to climb after him.
Not wanting to take any chances, Coyotl continued to pull himself up through the branches until he reached the first major division of the tree's trunk, and settled himself between the two huge limbs. There, he allowed himself to rest, wheezing for breath and cradling his hands against his chest, his palms left raw and bloodied by the bark of the tree. As the frantic pounding of his heart in his ears slowed gradually, he gave a start as a new concern hit him. With a feeling of dread rising in his chest, he eased the jar containing his koi off of his back and uncorked it. There had been no way to avoid jostling the vessel to an insane degree as he'd run for his life; part of him didn't want to look inside, for fear of what he might find.
The water still sloshed back and forth gently, and at first, when he couldn't immediately catch a glimpse of the fish's white and red scales near the surface, panic gripped him like a vice. Peering further into the jar, though, he could see the koi and its orb moving within. The fish seemed even more disoriented and out-of-sorts than usual, but it was alive, and Coyotl felt so relieved in that moment that he thought he might cry. He rested his forehead against the lip of the clay vessel and squeezed his eyes shut, wrapping his arms around the jar as if he were trying to tuck himself into a ball around it and melt into the trunk of the tree. For a long while, he concentrated only on breathing: in through the nose, out through the mouth, over and over. At some point, he became aware that he was whispering "shh, shh" to the koi under his breath; he couldn't remember how long he'd been doing it.
For once, it didn't feel silly at all.
Nearly an hour passed before Coyotl glanced back down at the ground, peering down through the sunlit branches of the tree to see if the dark-cloaked figures were still waiting for him below. When he was met with the sight of no one standing at the base of the trunk, no arms straining upward for him, he shifted his weight very slightly, craning his neck to get a better look. The ground around the tree was splotched and puddled with black, but his pursuers were nowhere in sight. Slowly, cautiously, Coyotl pulled the jar back across his shoulders, handling it as gingerly as a hollowed-out eggshell; he began to clamber back down through the tree's limbs, wincing as the bark scraped across the torn skin of his hands once again.
When he was near to the ground, he shimmied out on a particularly sturdy branch as far away from the base of the tree as he could get, to avoid having to step over the pools of black that had stained the forest floor. Lowering himself down carefully, Coyotl scanned his surroundings once more, prepared to scramble right back up into the tree at the first sign of danger; when none presented itself, he began the trek back toward the main road to Gadu, ignoring the ache in his legs as best he could.
It was then that he realized, if the black figures had not melted away on their own, he had no earthly idea what he would have done to escape them. Would he have been stuck in that tree for hours? Days? Would he have died of hunger and thirst, trapped in his own attempt at escape?
The need to impress the Council of Sciences was becoming clearer to Coyotl with every passing day. He needed whatever safety their ranks could offer him, and he needed some measure of knowledge of how to protect himself, because running from danger was quickly becoming a very, very unreliable option. Perhaps it had always been so.
Coyotl returned to Gadu at dusk, bringing back ill tidings to his employer. When asked what had happened to his hands, he could think of no good answer to give.
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Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2011 10:20 am
[META]
- Clockwork Contrivance -
April 23, 1411Week 6 - Update 4 Coyotl remained in Gadu for several days after the incident with the crows. His employer needed time to take stock of the city's current market prospects, and while no work meant no more money for a few more days, the mailman had just enough to scrape by in the interim. He'd found cheap lodgings, and as long as he could afford to feed himself, things were not so bad, as far as he was concerned. "Feeding himself" also included food for his koi; he would break off a few crumbs of whatever he ate and offer them to the fish, which devoured them as readily as ever. It had never been very fussy about what it ate.
Coyotl was happy to remain in one place for a while, as it gave both himself and the fish time to recuperate after their most recent scare. He took slow strolls around the capital during the daytime hours, learning his way around while keeping out of trouble diligently. He was even able to get his hands on a few sheets of paper and a stick of graphite to write with, and jotted down a few brief sentences detailing his troubles on the 21st. In this way, he passed the time for the following day, content to enjoy the lull in danger while it lasted.
The 23rd of April nearly came and went without incident, but sometime in the early afternoon, Coyotl noticed a commotion on one of the capital's side-streets. He didn't intend to get very close to whatever was going on, but he figured there would be no harm in stopping to observe. A handful of people seemed to be having an argument, speaking in raised voices, though it didn't sound particularly heated; eventually, the group split, two or three people straggling off while the rest continued to talk amongst themselves. Coyotl could see a number of papers being passed around between the speakers, shuffled and re-distributed through the group. Before long, they separated as well, each going a different route. Disinterested, Coyotl had planned to continue on his way, but before he got further than a few steps, he realized one of the people he'd been watching was walking in his direction, with an engaging smile on her face.
"Care for a copy, sir?" she asked. Without waiting for him to respond, she removed a thin sheaf of papers from the top of the stack she carried and thrust it into his hand. "From the Panymese Press. Best to keep yourself educated in these times, eh? Knowledge ought to be free!" And just like that, with a brisk wave and another toothy smile, she was bustling off on her merry way. Coyotl was about to call after her, to ask why on earth she was handing him these leaflets, but she quickly turned a corner and was gone from view.
Frowning in puzzlement, he looked down at what she'd given him. The papers in his hand were thin, cheaply made-- probably, if they were indeed put forth by the Panymese Press, to lessen the cost of printing such a large volume of news. He couldn't deny that he was curious about what they might contain. Perhaps the leaflet would offer some insight into the happenings of the past month? He flipped through its pages curiously, skimming across the articles in search of any mention of the crows, or of the Obscuvans that had stalked the streets of Imisus's cities and towns.
He reached the end of the slim paper. Then he flipped back to the beginning and skimmed over it again. He skimmed it a third time, this time back-to-front.
Nothing. There was no mention whatsoever of the Cultists or the crows-- not a whisper, not a breath, not a peep. Coyotl boggled at the paper in open disbelief. How could that be possible? Both the birds and the Obscuvans had been everywhere during the past six weeks. Avoiding contact with them had been impossible; even if none of the Panymese Press's contributors were Grimms, he couldn't imagine that they could have been oblivious to the twin scourges that were now both conspicuously absent.
Then he began to actually consider the content of the articles that had been printed. He'd seen mentions of Grimms, now that he thought about it, but none of the accounts seemed to detail the troubles that he assumed most or all of the Grimms were facing. Instead, many cast aspersions on the Grimms themselves. Coyotl didn't have the patience to read through each article, but each time he caught a mention of someone in possession of a Plague- referred to often as Plaguemongers- there was a distinctly negative slant to the writing, hints of slander, even implications that the subjects were insane.
It was as if the writers were blaming the Grimms for the past month's troubles. "Free knowledge," indeed! Whoever was behind the Panymese Press clearly had an agenda, and the free, open exchange of information wasn't it. Coyotl was at once frustrated and furious. It wasn't often that he found himself actually disgusted down to his moral core, but in retrospect, the smiling young woman entreating him to "educate himself" felt like nothing else so much as a bald-faced insult.
He was sorely tempted to throw the paper away, or to tear it into shreds, but he quelled that impulse and crammed it into the bag at his side instead. The next time he saw Wickwright, he could show it to the old man; if anyone would have any insight into the strange bias of its articles, it would be him.
Or, Coyotl thought, maybe he would have need of some kindling before then.
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