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 Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2011 10:32 pm
"Although they tried to penetrate the Collection, the Men of Hooded Cernitos fell," Hopkin repeats dutifully, half asleep and bathed in the warmth of the flickering candlelight. "O'Neill led the Men of Bone into battle, and though they were scholars, their zeal for truth made their swords, and their devotion became their armour."
"Is that correct?"
Wickwright nods, half asleep as well. "To the word."
"Can truth make a sword?"
"It's a metaphor, Hopkin."
"I don't think I like those very much," Hopkin offers hesitantly, pushing himself upright in an attempt to wake up again.
"You'll need to get used to them. We have to tell O'Neill the right stories tomorrow if we want to find him in a good humour. By the bone, a little flattery never hurt."
Hopkin frowns, the light from his mouth narrowing into a thin line. "But this isn't about our O'Neill, right?" he asks, looking at Wickwright worriedly. "Will he really be flattered because we told him about something a different O'Neill did?"
Wickwright laughs weakly, resting his head in his hands. "Oh no, Hopkin, we're all one and the same. Finch is Finch is Finch, and O'Neill is O'Neill is O'Neill. I was frustrated too at first, when I read all the histories that refer to us all like we're one man, but it's because we are, you see. The truth is that a Finch is raised to be Finch himself from the moment he's chosen for induction. No, when we tell O'Neill these stories, he'll be hearing about himself, not this, that, or the other, O'Neill. To a Jawbone Man, you are your ancestors, closer than blood, through to the bone."
"And who am I?" Hopkin asks worriedly, looking down at his hands. He remembers the Finch from his dream, so adamant that he was simply Finch. Hopkin could never be so certain about such a statement, unless he was certain with wishing.
Wickwright stops and looks at his concerned little plague. "A Jawbone Book, Hopkin," he soothes. "Not through the bone, but through the ink, which is just as honourable." Hopkin smiles a little half smile at this, and Wickwright can't help but smile back. The thing is so easy to please, he thinks in the sleepy warmth of the dim wagon. Simpler than O'Neill, and easy, familiar company to keep. Of course, Wickwright reflects, he's kept Hopkin's company for years, it's just that he's never talked back before.
"That's enough stories to be getting on with," Wickwright announces as Hopkin begins to nod off again. "We'll tell those to O'Neill and hopefully he'll be in a humour to advise our course of action. You rest so you're ready for tomorrow."
"Yes, Wickwright Fi- Wickwright," Hopkin amends sleepily, and stumbles over to his book bag.
"Goodnight, Hopkin," Wickwright says, watching the plague go.
"Goodnight, Wickwright," replies the plague.
Wickwright blows out the candle, but sits and thinks instead of retiring to bed just yet. Of many things, of O'Neill, and tomorrow, and all the uncertain days ahead, and finally of thirty years of unanswered goodnights.
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Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2011 8:55 am
[But in those formative years, the purest of the Jawbone Faith set out into a strange and hostile world, and friends were far between. Many pagans, led by blind faith, would attack the Men of Bone in their noble pursuits, eager to end another creed by bloodshed rather than patient logic. The Jawbone Men made strenuous attempts to appeal to such foes with reason, begging them to see the true world unaided, as they themselves strove to. But corrupted fools had no wish to hear hard truths, and, nestled deep in their easy lies, made all effort to destroy the bearers of logic and light. For a while, it seemed a vicious sect, that of Hooded Cernitos, would succeed, but the First Family, O'Neill, was resolute in his desire to fell the opposition, and in one last charge, defeated the foes who would smother truth.
ARMOUR and ]
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Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2011 8:56 am
"No."
Hopkin stares nervously at Wickwright, mouth moving silently as O'Neill delivers his decision. Wickwright stares back, then at O'Neill, and then lets fly a nervous laugh, piercing the air that smells so strongly of smoke and pine. "O'Neill," he begins, licking his dry lips, "Please, let him finish his story before you make that judgement."
"Finch," O'Neill replies, tugging at his beard. "I know what a blow this must be to you, losing your book."
"It's not lost," Wickwright replies sharply.
"Your book changing, then." O'Neill corrects, and this time there's an edge in his voice that gives Wickwright pause. "But this is a Plague, Wickwright, it's not... Not something you can contribute to the collection!"
Wickwright shakes his head. "That's a decision for the entire society to make, O'Neill, not just one man."
"In most situations, yes," O'Neill begins, but Wickwright interrupts.
"And what could possibly be so different about this situation as to supersede tradition?" he demands, then remembers himself and coughs. "Pardon my tone, O'Neill, but this is more than just a philosophical disagreement." He nods at Hopkin, still standing on the table between them. "This is my actual contribution, my book." Hopkin perks up a little when Wickwright acknowledges him, and turns to look at O'Neill, who avoids the gaze.
"Exactly," he replies, getting up and pacing the dimly lit dining room. "This is not a hypothetical situation." Leaning in front of Wickwright and glancing back at Hopkin, he states, "The Society has enough problems right now, Finch. I need you to be on my side, working on fixing them with me, not introducing yet another one for me to deal with. Aren't the Jawbone Men disjointed enough without yet another controversy to squabble over? If we were in more peaceful times, maybe we could discuss this properly, but right now, that, that plague is only going to seem like the embodiment of all our problems. It'll just be a distraction we can't afford, Finch, not the Jawbone Society, not me, and especially not you."
Wickwright pushes his own chair backwards, but doesn't get up. The proximity of O'Neill seems to intimidate him, and knowing that there's someone in the world who can intimidate Wickwright makes his fear do flipflops in his hollow head. "You can't say for sure that this change is only for the worst," his Grimm offers after a moment. "The main factions are collecting plagues. We could benefit from having one!"
O'Neill snorts. "Yes, we could have one and attract the attention of the main factions. Do you really want the Obscuvians taking notice of us, Finch? They're giving us enough trouble without even bothering to acknowledge that we exist, would you like them to actually start trying?"
"Grimms are said to have immunity to the plague," Wickwright retorts. "If Hopkin were in the collection, he would belong to the whole Society. None of us would leave for the House out of fear of disease, and we could begin to regroup. If the cult tried to attack-"
"-Your zeal for truth will make your swords." Hopkin finishes, repeating part of the story he had been interrupted from reciting by O'Neill. "And the men of the House Of Obscuvos will fall."
"Well, at least all that they might bother to send to us," Wickwright admitted. "Really, O'Neill, you think that with the Mages, the Military, and the Scientists occupying their minds, the Cult will linger long over a group like us with only a single Plague?"
"They will linger long enough!" O'Neill exclaims, slamming his hands on the table and causing Hopkin to startle. "Do you think it will take long to take care of us while we are already weakened, while they have members within their very ranks who know where the Collection lies? It will only take one firey night, Finch, for the House to deal with our Society."
"You can't say that for sure, O'Neill." Wickwright counters, backing away again. The Grimm holds his ground, but never comes closer to O'Neill than an arm's length, nor does he turn his back, more out of a bred-in respect than a fear for his safety.
"No, but I can think like a leader, Finch. And were I the leader of the House of Obscuvos, the Society would seem like nothing more than a fly to swat out of the way. If we have a plague, what does that make us? A faction? A nuisance, for sure, and that's more than we are now. It's too dangerous to be a nuisance, Finch, even for the sake of your book."
"All I ask is for you to call a meeting of the Society, O'Neill," Wickwright pleads, picking Hopkin up off the table. "All I ask is for you to let us all decide together. Hopkin is still a book, and he is more now as a Plague. He could be of use, and the House may not even take heed. There are so many Plagues across Panymium now, what does one matter to anyone but their Grimm?"
"I can't," O'Neill states firmly, and that seems to be the end of it, except now Hopkin is trying to get a decent footing on Wickwright's hand, and is opening his own mouth to speak.
"Y-you must." he says, carefully looking away from O'Neill, his high-pitched metallic voice shaking with fear.
"What did you say?" O'Neill asks incredulously, looking at the Plague, and then up at Wickwright, who looks equally alarmed.
"Hopkin-" Wickwright starts, but Hopkin shakes his head.
"Y-you must convene the Society, because I am a true object, one made by Wickwright Finch, and one as much a part of this world as a treatise or essay or fairytale. I am not imagined, and as I am also a plague, I have been as of yet unrepresented in the Collection. I am Wickwright Finch's plague, solely his, from a book made by him, and so, I am eligible. And therefore I must be up for discussion, even if there is reasonable doubt." As he begins to speak more of doctrine and the Jawbone Society, Hopkin forgets his fear, caught up in what he feels is right. The Jawbone Society's ethics feel as natural to him as breathing, and for a moment he loses sight of who he's talking to until he finishes. When he sees O'Neill's face after his speech is over, he hiccups nervously in half-swallowed terror. "Th-th-that's how it is supposed to be," he mutters, climbing further up Wickwright's arm.
O'Neill looks to Wickwright, then back to Hopkin, and gives a frustrated growl. "Your Plague is speaking out of turn, Finch," he tells him, rubbing his temples.
"We aren't supposed to have an hierarchy, O'Neill," Wickwright reminds him mildly.
"I need your help with the problems we already have. We can't afford for you to be distracted, you know the most Jawbone Men across Panymium."
"I can help you, O'Neill. I swear to you, I can and I will help you, and I will think on what you've argued today. Just, please. Convene a meeting."
O'Neill shakes his head. "If we don't have an hierarchy, ask them yourselves, Finch and book. I will offer no resistance, but nor will I offer assistance."
Wickwright nods in acquiescence and puts Hopkin back in the book bag, slinging it over his shoulder. He looks back at the comfortable, richly decorated house in the woods before he leaves, and as he does so, O'Neill catches him at the door, looking for Hopkin. When he sees no sign of the book Plague, he pulls Wickwright close to him, leaning to mutter a few words in his ear.
"I retain my position, Finch. Even if you help me, if you push your little book on the Society, there will be no Society left for it to join."
Wickwright glances at the bag, but it is motionless, a small blessing that that sentiment is one Hopkin doesn't have to hear. He smiles a melancholy smile at O'Neill, shaking his head. "I have to try."
"Bah!" O'Neill spits, turning away. "Trouble comes on a Finch's wing."
In the bag, Hopkin quietly finishes the story that O'Neill interrupted, unaware of the argument outside. The visit has left him with worries and concerns, but Wickwright still calls him a book, and so a Jawbone Book he must be. If Wickwright is sure, then so is he, but the things O'Neill say still worry him, so rather than try to think about it in the book bag, he finishes what he started and waits for Wickwright to tell him what comes next.
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Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2011 8:57 am
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Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2011 8:58 am
checking up on the joneses reflection
other plagues, how strange to see!
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Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2011 9:11 am
META SOLO
on a crow's wing
March 15th, 1411.
The letter comes in the morning, early enough so that even Wickwright is still asleep. It is heralded with a scrabbling and cawing, and the ruckus rouses Hopkin before his Grimm. Hopkin pushes up the cover of his book bag, looking around at the floor of the wagon, and then at the window where the noise is loudest. Hitching up his burlap nightrobe, he scrambles up Wickwright's desk and hops over to the shuttered window, peering through the cracks.
A flurry of feathers and talons greets his eyes and he gasps, a soft little noise, but it causes the ruckus outdoors to stop. After a moment of silence, a beady black eye stares at him through the other side of the shutter, letting rip a loud cawing. Hopkin falls back in shock, mind racing with fear. Wickwright. He has to get Wickwright, and then the Grimm can face the thing on the other side of the window. Scurrying back down the desk legs, he reaches Wickwright's mattress and stands near his sleeping face, pushing his nose insistently. Wickwright's eyelids snap open.
"Fwa- Hopkin! What in the name of Truth are you doing, you nearly-"
"There's something outside," Hopkin interrupts, the worry in his voice giving Wickwright pause. "Outside the window, looking in."
Cautiously, Wickwright picks up Hopkin and moves towards the window, peering through the wooden shutters himself. "Just a crow," he snorts. "Look, Hopkin. It's not going to hurt you." Throwing open the shutters, he sets Hopkin down on the desk and moves to shoo the crow away when he sees the letter it carries. Cautiously, he reaches out towards the bird and says, "Hopkin, take the letter."
"Me?" Hopkin exclaims, panicking. "Wickwright, I don't think that-"
"You can take the letter or catch the bird, Hopkin, whichever one you prefer."
Hopkin sags, but does as he's told, clambering back up onto the sill. Despite his fear, the bird is a sight to behold, gleaming and ethereal and definitely wrong. It's as if someone took a bird and painted it in night and whispers. It smells terrible and causes Hopkin to cough as he reaches out to grab the parchment between its sharp beak, flinching as he does so. He pulls away as if he's been scalded, falling back onto the desk with the paper in his little metal hands. The missive is larger than he is and he struggles to remove himself from under it as WIckwright grabs at the bird, trying to examine it properly.
"Something's wrong with it," Hopkin notes once he manages to extricate himself from the letter. "What is it?"
Wickwright bites his lip. "It almost looks plagued." Hopkin remembers the glass of absinthe that Alae Greaves had and nods.
"What now?" he asks, holding the edge of the letter warily.
Turning away from the bird, Wickwright cautiously unfolds the letter, which begins to speak.
"Grimm,"
Wickwright fumbles with the letter in surprise, looking carefully around the room and then back at the parchment. As far as he knows, only four people in Panymium know about Hopkin. Has one of them been spreading rumours? Wickwright is seized by a brief paranoia, made no better by the stinging term, Grimm. Wickwright dislikes being reminded that his role as an author has changed so much that there's a completely different term for it.
"Wickwright Finch,
A book such as it was surely held a prized status among your petty society, but how important could it truly be now that it cannot be read? Now that it walks and speaks and cannot remember a single thing within its pages, how important are you to them?"
Hopkin stares at the letter in horror as it mounts its accusations. "No, no, I can remember," he squeaks, and begins reciting in order to try and prove his case to an inanimate object. Never has paper been so alarming to him. "Throw it away, Wickwright," he pleads. "It's lying, it's not true." But their meeting with O'Neill is too recent in his memory, and the accusations hit just close enough to that meeting to sting. Wickwright is clenching the letter as if possessed, and Hopkin has never seen that look on his face, nor does he ever want to see it again. "Please throw it away," he chokes, but the letter continues regardless.
"You aren't, Wickwright Finch. You are disposable to the Jawbone Society. That book was all you had there, your legacy to them, but your small Plague could be your legacy with us! It would be in your best interests to act first; how much longer will they keep you around now that you're worthless?"
With that, the ethereal crow flaps away unnoticed by Wickwright, uncaptured. The letter dissolves, becomes a mess of black ribbons which drape over Wickwright's hands like vines ready to bind him. Hopkin reaches out to touch them, but Wickwright pulls away, still silent.
"I know what was in the book, Wickwright Finch," Hopkin heaves, sounding like he'd be crying if he had the eyes for it. "Please tell me, may I be a Jawbone Book? I want to be one, please believe me, I'm trying to be one."
Wickwright pauses for a moment longer, looking at the ribbons like they'll have the answers on them if he stares at them long enough. Finally, he walks over to the window, balls them up, and throws them outside with all the force he can muster.
"You're a Jawbone Book, Hopkin," he affirms. "And I've been an incautious old fool."
Somehow they had garnered unwanted attention, and Wickwright had to take measures to protect them.
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Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2011 8:33 am
META SOLO
March 15, 1411
The rest of the day is moving, just moving, with no sign of stopping and no sign of a plan. Wickwright is silent, lost in his own thoughts, and Hopkin is silent, waiting for Wickwright to tell him them. There's a tangible tenseness in the air, something that encourages nothing but miserable contemplation.
Wickwright thinks of plans, of escapes, of protection. Hopkin thinks of beady eyes and mounting accusations, and moreover, of legitimacy. The hours pass slowly, but the wagon rattles onward, to the border, to Imisus, though neither of them can say why. Perhaps the old association between home and safety, despite the whispers on the wind that no, Imisus is not safe. Safe or not, it's the closest thing to home that they have outside of the wagon, and Shyregoad has left a bitter taste in their mouths, with their O'Neill and their enchanted crows, and their Cultists, Cultists everywhere.
But, oh! Hopkin thinks, trying to picture pleasant things, that Lettie Arelgren and Chayele Meschke were delicate creatures. Pretty, pretty things, even if he couldn't really talk to them, even if they tied his tongue in knots. They made him feel terribly uncomfortable up close, but they are lovely to think about from afar, and curled up in his bookbag, they are more welcome images than the constant image of a crow's eye.
Eventually, not even thoughts of Lettie Arelgren and Chayele Meschke can keep his mind from that picture though, and so he tosses and turns, stomach aching, all the accusations associated with that picture piling up in his head. O'Neill, mounting obstacle on top of obstacle in front of his path to the Society, the crow delivering its doubly damning letter, eventually O'Neill's eyes are the crow's eyes, and they are one and the same, a grotesque monster made of fears and concerns. Wickwright is too busy to slay it for him, and Hopkin can only wait, curling up into a tighter and tighter ball in his little self-made nest and reciting facts to try and assuage his anxieties. But though it lingers longer than the faces of the two girl plagues, even fear does not haunt him forever, and the rhythmic rocking of the wagon lulls him into a restless sleep.
There, the monster is real.
A flat, half-formed, ill-conceived beast, something that makes Hopkin screech sharp words that fly into the air and buzz like gnats around his head. Terror causes him to run, and the thing, deformed as it is, can only lumber slowly after. Still, its pace is steady, and Hopkin soon tires, until the only thing left to do is hide. He does hide, behind a rock, and in the flat world that is as good as invisibility. The beast sniffs around, but to no avail. But the facts that Hopkin recited so diligently before sleeping find him, and circle around the stone, causing the beast to roll it away and roar with delight. Hopkin is doomed by his own knowledge, and thus closes his eyes-
But the beast does not kill. It stands there, as if torn, and then leans down to sniff the little plague. Desperate, Hopkin begins to recite a story.
"There was in Helios then, a great swordsman, known far and wide for his strength and his comely manner," the book boy begins breathlessly, "And in Helios, he was known as a slayer of all things e-evil and terrible, a protec-tor of good and a-"
Galloping in the distance. Hopkin recites faster.
"-A just lord! But in his heart, he was discontent, for there was no man who could challenge him, no beast who was not an easy victim for his blade, and thus- thus, only boredom could plague him, and he began to seek new foes, but the only things left plaguing his tenants were their own vices. With that single threat remaining, he began to plan the destruction of moral decrepitude, ordering the finest sword-" Hopkin begins to hear a slashing, but doesn't dare look up, "W-with a blade sharpened by magic, keen as his virtues and swift as his justice."
A hand falls on his shoulder, and Hopkin finally looks, finding himself face to face with an armoured knight. "A-ah," he squeaks. The story he was so hastily telling is flying around the knight like a second shield, and he raises an armoured hand, waving the letters into nothingness. Dismounting from his horse, he looks at Hopkin and states, "A most pathetic source are you, who cannot even slay anxiety. I have slain many demons that haunt men, both great and small,"
Hopkin looks down at his feet and whispers, "I know," as quietly as he can. O'Neill has said the same thing, and so has the letter. A most pathetic source is he. "I-I'm trying not to be."
"Be as unto me," the knight suggests, dismounting from his sturdy horse. The creature is far more elegant than the ox pulling Wickwright's cart and Hopkin admires it, unsure that he could be fine as a knight. "I can't. I can't put myself in danger, I don't belong to me. I belong to Wickwright Finch and the Jawbone Society."
"Ah!" says the knight. "Yes, your Wickwright Finch Fecit. I have seen him at the end of the world."
"Actually, it's just Wickwright Fi-"
"But the source cannot be a coward. I refuse to come from a cowardly source, so I must teach you to be like me, Wickwright Finch Fecit's opinion on the matter aside."
"But-"
"Come with me, little source. Wake up, Hopkin."
"What?"
"Wake up, Hopkin."
Hopkin wakes up and Wickwright's face peering into the book bag is the first thing he sees. "Wickwright," he says before the Grimm can tell him, "Is there a sword that can kill anxiety?"
Wickwright frowns. "The Story of the Prideful Knight? A metaphor, Hopkin."
Hopkin's shoulders sag. "But can pride kill a man?"
Wickwright strokes his chin. "I'd say pride can kill a man, but not in a duel."
"I don't think I like metaphors. They're not terribly fair." Hopkin repeats miserably.
"So you've said before. But come out, it may be more difficult to reach Imisus than I anticipated. Men have appeared on the periphery, and they may intend to thwart our progress."
Hopkin gets out of the book bag to look, and for the first time that day, the wagon draws to a shuddering stop. The brief time they had to think is over and done with, and again, the chaos of their situation begins to grip the Plague and his Grimm. Hopkin thinks of the knight and tries to be like him, but to no avail. It's difficult for him to wield a sword, even a metaphorical one, when he's no bigger than a hand's height, and the line on the horizon is more frightening to him than a thousand anxiety monsters. He looks at Wickwright, who is peering ahead to see what the men are doing, and quietly joins him at the shuttered window. "It's too dark," Wickwright decides, and Hopkin lays in his bookbag, sleeplessly tossing and turning until sunrise.
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Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2011 8:39 am
META SOLO
the start
March 16, 1411
By mid-afternoon the purpose of the men at the border becomes clear. They stop travelers frequently, searching their things, for what, neither Wickwright nor Hopkin can tell at this distance, but neither wants to spend longer than necessary guessing. After the crow's letter, the urge to keep moving is pressing and watching the men longer is undesirable enough to make them simply prepare for the worst and take a guess: that the men, too, will be after plagues. This leaves the pair with a dilemma, the question of how to hide something so out of the ordinary as Hopkin in a place that no one will think of looking. Luck is on their side as they're traveling in a wagon and not by foot, as some crossing the border had been that morning. Hiding places are plentiful, but finding one that the guards will be sure not to examine proves to be more difficult. Hopkin points to the sacred places, the book bag, the ink pots, all the places that no one but Wickwright is supposed to touch. Wickwright, savvier than his plague, points to all the unpleasant places, under the wagon, inside the mattress, within a particularly horrible stuffed raccoon that was an heirloom from a long-ago Bunting to a long-ago Finch, although at the end of the day, all Buntings are Bunting and all Finches are Finch according to Wickwright (Except for certain exceptions, Hopkin remembers, in the same dark tone that Wickwright told him the fact in the first place).
Everything is fallible. Hopkin's ideas are right out, Wickwright is forced to explain. Not all men find the process of writing sacred, not even all Jawbone Men, and guards on the border, unless they are unusually devout, would likely think nothing of rifling through inks and book bags. Wickwright's ideas are more plausible, at least in Wickwright's opinion, and that opinion quickly becomes Hopkin's opinion as well. However, Wickwright can think of a way that each can fail upon closer scrutiny. The border men could look under the wagon, they could stab the mattress, they could take the raccoon, as terrible as the moth-ridden thing is. He paces for a while, thinking aloud. They need a place that the men wouldn't think to examine naturally, a place that cannot be removed from the wagon, a place that cannot be stabbed.
The Grimm pauses and looks at the plague, then looks outside. There is one place, he muses, that is necessary for the wagon to operate. A place that cannot be removed without hassle, that cannot be stabbed without preventing the wagon from leaving after it is approved, that would not be looked at unless there was serious suspicion of whatever it was they were looking for being there. In other words, Wickwright announces, he knows the safest place in the wagon, and asks Hopkin if he would like to hide there. Hopkin agrees at once.
He ends up crossing the border in the mouth of Wickwright's ox, desperately praying that it will not swallow too hard. It reeks inside the beast, a pervasive smell that is practically a traveling companion, and a most unwelcome one at that. Worse, it's damp and slimy, and he feels his carefully wrapped bandages going mushy. Wickwright is outside and he can hear him speaking just barely, along with the voices of strange men, low and rumbling and gruff. Hopkin would do anything to be able to hide out there right now, in Wickwright's hood or the book bag, how wonderful the book bag seems lately! It seems only better in comparison to this new hiding place of Tristram's mouth, though the ox is terribly patient and noble, Wickwright tells him, he's not dry or very aesthetically pleasing, not even from the inside. Hopkin had never been interested in getting too close to Tristram in the first place, now he is even less so. He would almost prefer the crow's eye staring at him through the shutters again, although on second thought, he thinks as his stomach lurches with fear, definitely not.
The voices are still speaking, and Hopkin finds himself nodding off in the warm damp of Tristram's mouth. Slapping himself with a metallic click, he struggles to stay awake. Slipping into the dream world now could mean getting swallowed alive. He has to stay awake, because Wickwright has instructed him that if Tristram swallows too hard or he cannot breathe properly, he must grab Tristram's uvula and force him to vomit Hopkin out. The thought is appalling to Hopkin, but he supposes that being vomited is not a fate worse than death, and thus merits him paying attention to his situation. He shifts uncomfortably as Tristram's tongue rolls around him and wonders if he will ever be able to look Tristram in the eye again. He'll certainly never be able to smell his breath again, unless the smell never washes off of him and he's forced to reek like an ox's yawns for the rest of his life. What would Lettie Arelgren and Chayele Meschke think! He hopes that they are not in the same straits as him, and remembers that Dragomir Meschke is a murderer. Perhaps they are not in the same straits as him, because Dragomir Meschke could just kill these men, but perhaps he does not have the mettle. Wickwright doesn't seem to think of Dragomir Meschke as a killer, but Hopkin doesn't know what it's like to kill a man or how easy it would be to do it again. He doesn't even know how easy it would be to do it the first time.
The voices are dying down, and he drums his fingers on Tristram's tongue for a moment, then feels his heart skip a beat as the ox finally lurches into motion. He moves to get out but remembers just in time that the men are still there and he must wait for Wickwright, collapsing back onto the ox's tongue with a resigned sigh.
An hour later he is let out, and he spends the rest of the day scrubbing himself in a gourd of water until he cannot feel his own metal skin, so cold and raw is it to the touch. Nevertheless, he still smells ox breath, and doesn't think he'll ever be able to stop. Hopkin decides that it's not just metaphors that he dislikes, but borders as well, as both seem to be of a generally unpleasant nature.
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Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2011 8:40 am
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Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2011 9:06 am
META SOLO
the kick pt. II
March 19, 1411
The crows fall dead around Hopkin's feet.
An irksome nuisance to be sure, and Hopkin massages what passes for his temples, leaning on the corpse of the anxiety monster, which, upon further examination, is actually a mere grotesque. A man with a bird's head an O'Neill's body, perhaps larger and stronger than a normal being, but by no means fearsome enough to be called a monster unless sufficient mental anxiety lends the figure extra terror. Hopkin plucks some of the feathers from one of its broken wings, but the feather is coarse and black, like Coyotl's hair, and so he discards it, uninterested in adding it to his collection. The anxiety that lent this grotesque the strength to become a monster is still present in the back of his agitated mind, but after a whole day of letters falling on the road in the wide world, the terror the crows lend has now become routine. A boring, humdrum kind of terror, choking, yes, oppressive, yes, but not urgent, not immediately terrifying like the first crow. And now that the terror has become routine, Hopkin can think about it, categorize it, and deal with it, or at least he can in the flat world. In the real world, things are different, never what he expects, and never quite right. Here, things are more intuitive, and so he can sort out his fear as easily as examining a metaphor's cold corpse.
The only thing distracting him from his contemplation is the Knight, standing a few feet away and boredly felling the crows with a dagger, throwing it at them and plucking it from their chests when they fall to the ground with a squawk. Their empty letters are splattered red as they melt, and the knight rips a laugh with each bird that falls, though to Hopkin it's nothing more than an irritation. Quietly he bears it until one crow almost falls on his head. Looking up at the knight, he asks, "Must you kill them?" somewhat reproachfully.
"They are worthless," the knight replies with a shrug. "Just constructs, with no real value."
"Still," says Hopkin, watching as he pulls the knife out of the nearby crow's frail body with a grunting thrust. Despite himself, he finds that the sight of the birds being so carelessly murdered makes him uneasy, even sorry for them. Perhaps because they almost appear to be plagued, he supposes. If they're worthless, he doesn't want to know what his worth value is. "They're a symptom, that's all."
"So none shall miss a few," replies the knight easily. Hopkin gives up with a sigh and navigates his way across the minefield of crow corpses, picking up one of the ominous pieces of paper and checking it for any sort of hidden message before it melts. It is blank, or at least in the flat world it is, and since Hopkin hadn't been expecting anything more than that, he isn't disappointed by the revelation. The crows aren't meant to send messages, the crows are the messages, like the metaphors Wickwright tells him to watch for, only this time they're meant to say 'You had better give up, because we know where to find you.' Metaphors aren't supposed to be so real in the wide world. The Cult isn't playing fair.
"They're narrative-minded, maybe," Hopkin comments to himself, and the knight shrugs.
"I think not on whether birds think like books, little source. However, if the question were posited to me, I would answer thus: that birds are most shallow beings, crows especially so."
"I-I meant the sender."
The knight draws his sword. "A sender! A villain, no doubt, one in need of slaying, mayhaps."
Quick to avoid more killing, Hopkin replies, "They can't be in the flat world. I don't know about them, just the birds. I'm just guessing, really. Thinking aloud."
"But they are your nemesis, are they not?" the knight replies.
"Wickwright says so, yes. I'm sure they intend me no good,"
"Well then, little source, I say you should confront them." He leans on the grotesque's corpse, his armoured boot snapping the bones in its already shatterd wing with sickening cracks whose text oozes out like blood into the flat ground. Hopkin pauses, wishing that it was Finch here talking to him instead of his newest companion.
"Wickwright says that without allies, we cannot possibly hope to overcome them," he explains. "That's why we need the Scientists."
"Your Wickwright Finch Fecit seems to be a terrible coward."
"Wickwright Finch. He's just protecting me," Hopkin mutters defensively.
"And meanwhile your nemesis yet lives?"
"The wide world is more complicated than I anticipated," Hopkin admits. "If you could see it, you would know. They have no sense of narrative or linearity."
"A terrible, barbaric way to live," the knight agrees, throwing his dagger at another bird and slaying it with a coarse laugh. He offers Hopkin the blade, pointing at a particularly fat crow in the air. Hopkin declines and waits to wake up again, thinking of birds and barbarians and threats.
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Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2011 9:08 am
META SOLO
March 20th, 1411
It turns out that a visit to Rosstead cannot be avoided.
To get a letter to the Scientists when it's so hard to find a trustworthy messenger, Wickwright is disposed to find a scientist to do the job for them. He knows a few in Imisus outside of the capital, but Rosstead is nearest to them, and so home his wagon goes, carrying with it its misfit band of grim refugees. There is a man in Rosstead, a ratlike, nervous man, who can get the job done for them. Wickwright is fond of him in a peculiar way, he is a strange and off-putting sort of scientist, but there's something of a childish nature in him that is oddly charming.
Didericus Fleck is his name, and he studies pests. He lives outside the city a ways, so the danger is mitigated, and Wickwright is able to feel less guilty about bringing them into a dangerous area. Fleck prefers solitude, and for once in his life, Wickwright is glad of it.
"Fleck!" he calls, knocking on the door of his ramshackle house.
"N-n-nuh NO-no one is huh-home," a voice whimpers from the other side. Wickwright can hear a hissing, scratching sound underneath the unlikely statement and frowns.
"Didericus Fleck, it's Wickwright Finch, you little fool. Open this door and let us in."
"Us?" the voice replies sharply.
"I brought a friend, Coyotl Coyotl. A mailman, harmless."
The door opens a crack, and when the eye glinting behind it sees the truth in the statement, it's opened slightly wider and Wickwright is herded inside. "Juh-just you, not him," the voice insists and Wickwright acquiesces, making an all clear signal back at the wagon. He finds himself directed onto a small, sad stool, and moments later, a dry biscuit is thrust into his hand. With a dragging thump, another stool is pulled up next to him and the short scientist sits himself on it, hunching over a biscuit of his own and nibbling it with some agitation. Around them are his latest experiments, all rodents and insects and birds, some pickled, some stuffed, some dissected. The smell his horrendous and Wickwright forces down a gag. "Y-yuh-YOU-you're a fuh-ool, Wickwright Finch," announces Fleck as he wipes crumbs off his face. "Cuh-coming here at s-such a t-tuh-ime."
"I know the danger, yes. I need a favour, Fleck, that's all. Friend to a friend, I swear that it's important." Speaking softly and patiently is the best way to coax Fleck into doing something, as Wickwright has found out over the years they've been acquainted. Fleck is about ten years younger than him, but in the years before he left Rosstead to become a nomad, they knew each other as boy, and Fleck has hardly changed since. The only times he isn't a stammering wreck are when he's woring or talking about his work, and if anything else is needed from him, it's slow and careful going.
"Fuh-favour," Fleck repeats. "Whuh-wh-what is it?"
"I need you to deliver a message to the Scientists in Gadu for me." Wickwright states simply. There's a crash, as Fleck has knocked his own chair over, and when he pulls himself up, he stares at Wickwright like he's a madman.
"G-guh-g-ad-Gadu," he repeats incredulously. "Th-tha-t's a dea-duh-d-eath sentence!"
Wickwright raises his hands beseechingly. "No, no, listen to me, Fleck. You're the only man who can do this for me. I have reason to suspect that the messengers in Imisus are working for the Cult. I need a man from within the Scientists to deliver this letter. Someone inconspicuous. Someone I can trust. Someone I've known since childhood." Fleck's childhood, anyway. Wickwright had saved him from bullies, so Fleck owes him for that still. Now is as good a time as any to give him a gentle reminder.
"Inc-conspicuous," snaps Fleck, drawing himself up to his full, still-unimpressive height. Wickwright raises his hands again consolingly.
"You know I didn't mean it like that, Fleck. You're out here outside of Rosstead, not in the capital all the time, and you keep to yourself. I'm just saying that if anyone can get through to the Council in the midst of all the riots, it's you."
Fleck squirms in his chair like a small, nervous child, playing with his fingers as he thinks about it. "W-why the Scientists," he demands after a moment, peering at Wickwright suspiciously. "Wh-at do you need fr-from us?" Hopefully, he adds, "I-if I can huh-elp here, yuh-you won't make me go to Guh-guh-adu." Make instead of ask, notes the Grimm. Wickwright has already half won.
"I'm seeking membership in the Council of Scientists," he admits openly. "Someone has been threatening the Jawbone Society and we need allies." Hopkin goes unmentioned. Fleck is mostly harmless, but Wickwright doesn't like the idea of showing him a Plague and tempting him to experiment. "I've already been threatened by the Cult, Fleck. The faster I can move, the safer I'll be, which is why I need your help so I won't have to scour the ends of the earth for a reliable messenger."
"One c-uh-came with you though," Fleck points out.
"He's a target as well. He can't risk it anymore than I can."
"D-do you e-even know about science?"
"I'm sure I can be of some small service," Wickwright interjects smoothly. "It's all in this letter," he explains, pulling out his first missive. As Fleck makes a grab for it, Wickwright pulls it out of the way, adding, "Not for your eyes, Fleck. I need to trust you, please. Can you do this for me?"
"Wh-who will look after my experiments?"
"I can do that until you return. Please, Fleck. For old times' sake."
Fleck crumples in his chair, brushing one last biscuit crumb off his sleeve. Wickwright feels a pang of sympathy despite himself, even in the old times, Fleck has never had an easy life, and his asking him to go to Gadu in a time of crisis like this is particularly unfair. However, he's well aware of Hopkin's weight in the book bag. Some things are more important to keep safe than others. "A-af-after this," Fleck finally replies, glaring at Wickwright, "We're e-even."
"More than even," Wickwright agrees, and Fleck departs for Gadu.
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Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 5:55 pm
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Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 9:17 pm
META SOLO
hesitate pt. I
March 28, 1411
Today is a difficult day.
Wickwright knows it when he wakes up, and gets up despite himself, because he must be ready to handle it whether he feels ready or not. Stepping outside, he surveys the deceptively peaceful Imisus countryside.
"How many have died tonight?" he asks the guide sent by the scientists, who nods at a small pile of bodies. Seven sad souls, covered in pitch black buboes, dead of the pestilent plague. He covers his nose, but it's really pointless, the whole caravan stinks of the disease, and for once he's briefly glad to be a Grimm. Wickwright is not a cowardly man by nature, but the black plague seems a terrible way to die, especially on the way to a safe location.
Safe. Wickwright snorts somewhat derisively, ordering the guide to help him start a fire. Safe is just a word. What is the point, he wonders, of moving the dying to a safe location when their days are numbered anyway? Better to burn in the riots than waste away slowly. They had started their journey with roughly one hundred and twenty sick. The number has dwindled to ninety. Who knows how many more will die before they reach their destination? How many will be dead by the time he returns from his mission? He's tried to talk to as many as he can, but there are already strange or only vaguely familiar faces amongst the dead. Impossible to collect all their stories, to form an impression of each and every one before they're gone. A grim reminder of how vast Panymium is and how Hopkin will never really be complete, not really. There are too many tales in the world that no one is left to tell for his book to ever encompass them all. Still, he and Hopkin have spent restless days and nights just listening, gathering and hearing stories punctuated by coughing, and Hopkin has been silent, taking it all in. Last night he complained of a headache, Wickwright cannot blame the book. The task he's set him to is a mental overload, and Wickwright is glad for the mindless task of burning corpses to take his thoughts off of it, morbid as it may be.
A crow caws and Wickwright glares at it as it tilts its head at him.
Then it drops dead. Wickwright almost drops his kindling and hurries to deposit it at the pile, waving for the guide to continue. Going over to the bird, he prods it gingerly, then tries to lift it and bring it to the wagon. He lets out a breath as he does so, for he cannot budge it: it must be heavy as Tristram. He gets up to call the guide, but sees another bird body on the ground in front of him.
The birds are all landing, and they are all dying, as if mocking the pile of human bodies laying around them. Wickwright kicks the bird near his foot, and instantly regrets it, wincing as his toes crumple. If all the birds weigh this much, they can't possibly be collected and burned.
But why burn them like they deserve cremation? The Grimm shakes his head, let them rot. The damn things are only a reminder of what they've been through, why he's here, who's chasing after him. Without the damn crows he might still be in Shyregoad, plying the Jawbone Men, doing something more useful than running errands for the scientists. But the Obscuvians have forced his hand, and he resents it, resents it with every fiber in his body. Finch Men don't like being dictated to in the best of times, not even by people they respect.
Examining the bird further, Wickwright picks up its wing, opens its beak, prods its eyes, not quite knowing what he's expecting to find. Answers in a dead bird's body, a mark, anything to connect the bird to some larger truth that he can't help but feel is evading him, that he's felt is out of his grasp ever since Hopkin became plagued. Nothing makes sense anymore, or rather, not in the way he wants them to. Jawbone Men hate change, and Finch, though more progressive than his peers, is no exception.
He smells acrid smoke in the air as the pyre is prepared and spits on the ground. Obscuvos has tormented him enough, and the crow's body lays on the ground, providing no answers, just more questions to keep him awake at night, more queries Hopkin will ask him that he won't be able to reply to properly. Sighing, he covers his mouth and goes to help feed the flames.
Let the crows rot.
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Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 9:19 pm
META SOLO
fleeting | hesitate pt. II
March 29, 1411
Hopkin wakes to darkness, but this isn't terribly frightening.
He knows about the dark, he's seen it before and he can understand it. It's normal, just something that happens to the world every night and comes back every morning, just the absence of sunlight, or Sol's chariot, or the eyes of the gods, or whichever of the thousand stories he knows is real. Maybe all of them together. Darkness is easy, annoying, but explainable, and it had never bothered him before, not so long as he still knows Wickwright is nearby. No, the dark doesn't bother him, but what does is his reaction to it upon waking.
He blinks.
A strange spasm of muscles that were never there before, a twitch where there should have been nothing to twitch. That makes Hopkin panic, and he clutches at his face, shifting his bandages as he does so. Light floods into his vision and he pauses, then slowly, ever so slowly, unwinds the bandages from his face, pushing his hands up over where they used to be and feeling, not the cold metal that he's used to, but warm flesh rubbing against flesh. Indents where he can feel the roundness of eyes in sockets, and, when he moves his hands further up, hair. He grabs at it, tries to pull it into his line of sight, and then shrieks and he accidentally rips a handful right out of his scalp, not expecting it to hurt so much as it does. Rubbing his head, he stares at the blonde strands between his fingers, shining in the morning sunlight. Blinking at it, he panics again as his eyes close and the world goes dark, then does it some more, on purpose this time, watching his line of sight flicker in and out of existence.
Hair. Eyes. Skin. He remembers Finch's words from the flat world, you have to be a man to be a Jawbone Man. At his feet, he can see the remainders of the book bag he was sleeping in last night, ripped to shreds, and he collects the pieces in his arms, holding them close to him as he looks around the wagon from this new angle, a sort of security blanket. His legs wobble with the shock of it as he takes a few steps around the wagon, and then he spies the writing desk. Something, some compulsion overwhelms him and he sits in Wickwright's chair, staring at the parchment he's now big enough to write upon. He takes a quill, which he can hold in a single hand, and dips it into Wickwright's reddest ink, his favourite colour.
He begins to write.
Wickwright wakes to parchment.
Parchment, over his face, on his bed, on the floor, in the air, and the steady, manic scratch of a quill from his desk. This isn't terribly unusual. Wickwright often stays up late into the night, writing furiously sometimes, often making a mess of the papers he's written already. Honestly, he thinks to himself from where he's lying half-sleep, he should be tidier about these things, but he often finds that when he gets the writing bug, it's difficult to stop for anything, even organizing his thoughts. That must be the case now, he thinks dreamily. Something must have gotten ahold of him.
It takes a few minutes for reality to get ahold of him. He's in his bed. The writer, whoever they may be, is at his desk. In his chair. Using his parchment, quill, and inks. Wickwright's eyes snap open fully and he sweeps the leaves of paper off of him, snatching at one to look at it before he accosts the intruder. Before him is a perfect page of Gothic script, neatly telling part of the story of Bunting and the Bear. Something that would take him hours to write, tossed aside like it's nothing, ink still wet even, and dripping to the point of illegibility.
"Who..." Wickwright begins, but the noise alerts the writer, who startles guiltily in his chair. Putting down the paper, Wickwright reaches over and turns the chair around, finding himself face to face with a blonde boy in clothes that look all too familiar.
"W-Wickwright," the child stammers. The echoing, metallic quality his voice once possessed is gone, but the tone is no less familiar.
"Hopkin," Wickwright murmurs incredulously, clutching at the paper that serves as proof. Who else but a book boy could write so many pages of Gothic script so quickly? Strewth, but there's a page half finished in front of him, and the red ink that he had so much of the night before is much depleted. Red, Hopkin's favourite colour. Wickwright looks to him, then to the page, then to the ink, then sinks back onto his bed and stares at the wagon wall like he expects to wake up again soon.
"Wickwright, I can explain," Hopkin assures hastily, leaping to his feet. "Well, about the parchment and the ink, I don't know about the rest, please tell me, why am I like this? May I be a Finch now?"
Wickwright stands up and opens his mouth to answer, but as he does, he breaks down into a fit of coughing, one he cannot stop. Sinking to the ground again, he clutches the arm of his chair, holding his throat and gasping. Hopkin rushes towards him, and Wickwright feels his book's warm, human hand on his back for just a moment before he roughly pushes the boy away. Clutching his chest, he pauses, then vomits, shuddering. "Hopkin," he gasps, crawling back into his bed, "Get Coyotl."
"Wick-"
"Go!"
Hopkin stares at the blood in the vomit and runs from the wagon, calling Coyotl's name. Wickwright is coughing up blood, like a plagued man. In the wagon, Wickwright lays himself back on the bed and coughs again, watching flecks of blood fly from his mouth and stain his straw pallet. Hopkin is human, and he has the coughing sickness, and if he dies and Hopkin is even less like a book, everything is lost. These things, unlike the darkness, unlike the blinking, are terribly, bone-chillingly frightening.
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Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2011 12:07 am
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