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 Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 12:12 pm
----
A Terrible, Terrible Tide
----
with
Wickwright Finch and Hopkin (kotaline),
Dorian Arelgren and Lettie (pistolsys),
and Coyotl and Lucky (Hedjrebl)
on
March 29th, 1411, mid-afternoon. The air is still, and the clouds overhead speak of a cold rain on its way.
in
Imisus, en route to a point several hundred km. from Easton.
--------------------- All of Coyotl's worst nightmares were coming true.
Or nearly so-- at least, that was how it seemed to him. Holed up in a corner of Wickwright Finch's wagon, with his forehead resting on his knees and his forearms draped over the back of his head, the mailman couldn't stop shivering. Now and again, a racking cough would sweep over his body, and eventually he'd stopped bothering to cover his mouth with his blackening fingers. He had little energy to do anything more than wheeze at that point, anyway. Each time he did, he tasted blood.
He was dying, and so was Wickwright.
The older man was worse off than Coyotl, who could still function relatively well, for the most part. It shamed him to know that when Wickwright had shown sudden, severe symptoms of illness, his own first instinct had been to run, but there had been no time. He'd taken ill himself soon after. If he'd abandoned the wagon and its caravan, he would have simply died alone, just as painfully. Now, the two of them were just as vile and pathetic as the scores of sick Imisese that they were escorting to safety. The guides that had accompanied them were panicking, making hasty preparations to attempt to take the caravan of dying men and women on the last leg of their journey, now that it seemed the man who'd been leading the way would be dead before they even arrived.
They'd been fools to believe that possessing Plagues of their own would keep the disease from harming them. His own fish still beside him, Coyotl let his head droop to the side so that he could stare at the jar it swam in. A sharp pang of regret struck him. Now he would never get to see it change, to find out if it would be different from Hopkin, the only other Plague he had ever seen in his life. And Hopkin... Coyotl stifled a groan, his head pounding and swimming out of his control. Whatever was behind the change had come over the little creature- now not so little, and not a creature, either- was a mystery. But now that Hopkin seemed, for all intents and purposes, to be human, the self-imposed quarantine on Wickwright's section of the wagon had come to exclude him as well.
Coyotl wondered, blearily, whether they would attempt to cover any more ground that day. The caravan itself must have looked a sight, splayed out across the landscape like a great sick serpent, a blight on the already winter-razed Imisese countryside. Perhaps all that was left for himself and Wickwright to do, then, was wait to die.
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Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2011 3:49 pm
Hopkin sat in the guide's wagon, staring at the ground.
The guide was checking him for buboes, just in case, but Hopkin knew he wasn't sick. He hadn't even entertained the notion that, as a plague, he could catch the plague, even though right now he looked human. He still felt the same, could still see Wickwright's stories when he closed his eyes, all filed neatly where they should be, all waiting for him to seek them. He was still a Jawbone Book, through and through, which meant he was still Hopkin, which meant he was still a Plague. It was just that he was also a proper boy, just another adjective to add onto the already hefty list of Things He Was.
But not a Finch. Wickwright had told the guide to tell him that when he had to be sent away before Wickwright could respond to his question. No, Hopkin was still not a Finch.
He got up as soon as the guide finished checking him, muttering something about going outside and then ran out of the wagon and over to Wickwright's trying to peer in the shutters through the window.
"I can hear you breathing, Hopkin," rasped a voice from the bed weakly, "I told you to stay away."
Hopkin covered his mouth and stayed put for a moment.
"I know you're still there, Hopkin!"
"Please don't die!" Hopkin begged through the shutters and ran, not quite sure where he was going. Out of the camp, he didn't want to be back with the guide, who would only check him for buboes again like he had a nervous tic. The guide didn't trust Hopkin as a human, though he had seemed glad to have him as a plague. That was bothersome, Hopkin was a Jawbone Book, and not being trusted felt wrong somehow, like he had personally failed.
Maybe he had. If Coyotl hadn't fallen sick as well he would be blaming himself even more than he already was, but as it was he had a knot of guilt in his stomach the size of a fist. Whatever had happened to him, it might have been his fault. Whatever had happened to Wickwright, he considered, might have been his fault. Something had gone wrong, terribly, awfully wrong, and the man who was supposed to fix it was laying in the wagon and dying, and Hopkin didn't know what he would do without him.
He shook his head and stared disconsolately out over the cloudy Imisus landscape. It was so much easier to see the world when he was taller than a hand, but he didn't particularly feel like seeing the world when it delivered him situations like the hell he was currently writhing in, the healthy boy dealing with the walking dead. Being human had been good for the half hour before Wickwright bent double with the plague. Now it was just a reminder of how quickly things were changing, and Hopkin hated it. Closing his eyes and shutting out the wide world, he began to recite stories, looking inwards instead of outwards. Hopkin's mind never changed, a small blessing and a cold comfort in the circumstances.
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knife effect Vice Captain
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Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 2:41 pm
Dorian Arelgren gritted his teeth, his nerves feeling the cuts that bore deep into his arm from the week before. Despite the panacea that was applied, the pain was still there nonetheless, and the House ordered him to lead an attack knowing full well of his condition. The mounted Obscuvians beside him were rather less than sympathetic, for they urged him to quicken his pace disregarding the fact that he was the leader of the tide. Never mind to any of them, Dorian just wanted the job done and over with--his thoughts were muddy with memories of his bloodied self and others. This time, he would be the disgruntled force with cudgel in hand. Snapping the reigns of his horse, the invading Obscuvians rode on faster. A ghostly Plague hid silently underneath his red and black cloak, her small form shivering from an unfelt chill.
Finally, the caravan that the House was alerted of came into sight, and Dorian gripped his reigns tighter than before, giving a harsh jerk that evoked the sound of rushing hooves from his steed. The blur of brown and white passed before him as he neared the caravans, and he headed for the wagon in the front. Behind him, the thundering of more hooves could be heard. Unlike the rest of the Obscuvians that were howling in a hypnotic craze, Dorian was dead silent, his eyes narrowed with very little patience left to spare a nugget of mercy.
Not my damned fault I got beaten earlier, I just stood there.
Now it would be his damned fault if the mission failed mainly because he was in charge of it. To be brutally honest with himself was to ask what in the name of the tenacious hellions he was doing, but the answer was obvious: he'd accepted Felicity's grace, and the House welcomed him warmly. He was merely repaying what he owed. He'd always told himself that.
His horse halted at the immediate front of the first wagon.
"This caravan now belongs to Obscuvos. Who are the heads of it? Reveal yourselves." his voice was steely and altogether void of emotion. It was unlike him, really, and it filled Lettie with a kind of winter. It didn't disturb Dorian the least, there was nothing left in him that belonged to himself. The only "thing" he had to remind him of the reality of it all was Lettie...
Lettie who would not talk to him.
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Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 7:02 pm
Before he caught wind of riders on horseback approaching the caravan, Coyotl had been gathering his resolve to get to his feet, perhaps to fetch Wickwright some water, something along those lines. It was the only gesture he could think of that might do the man any good, and at this point, it was the least he could do-- no, it was all he could do to offer some small measure of solidarity. Standing up would mean setting the whole world wobbling and tilting, at least from Coyotl's perspective, but he would just have to grin and bear it.
That was when the noise reached his ears. First, the far-off hoofbeats- then, the alarmed voices of the guides, which quickly escalated into shouts- and then the sounds of whooping yells, like a pack of highway marauders crowing as they circled their targets. Coyotl lifted his head slowly and stared out the window of the wagon, despite the fact that from his angle, all he could see was sky. Who in their right mind would attack a caravan full of plagued travellers? Surely the smell alone should have been enough to put them off...
Then a voice rang out, quite near the door:
"This caravan now belongs to Obscuvos. Who are the heads of it? Reveal yourselves."
Coyotl remained where he sat for a few moments as the words sank in. Then, with a tiny grunt of exertion, he hauled himself upright, resting a hand on the side of the wagon to steady himself as the floor lurched about under his feet. Rather than pausing to get his bearings, though, he forced himself to take the few steps required to get to the door. He couldn't tell whether it was the fever suddenly manifesting itself in warmth rather than chills, but his blood was quickly roiling up into a boil, and it was that heat that propelled him forward, swearing under his breath, to wrench the door open.
The man outside had sounded authoritative, certainly, but from the sound of his voice, he couldn't have been older than his twenties. As Coyotl squinted out the door at the figure on horseback, his vision bleary and milky with sickness, the stranger could have been twenty or forty, it wouldn't have made a difference. He glared out at the Obscuvan with every ounce of venom he could muster up, his already dark eyes sunken and shadowed and his face pinched with loathing. The Cult had been the root of this entire mess from the beginning, and even at the very end they were determined to make as much of a nuisance of themselves as they could. So be it. Being on a swift march toward the grave had done no favors for Coyotl's temperament. As he stood in the doorway of Wickwright's wagon, gripping one side of the frame hard enough that his knuckles had gone numb, he felt not fear, not nervousness, but anger, more keenly than he'd ever felt it before. Let the Cultist threaten them if he wished. What did they have to lose?
"You--" he began hoarsely, then gave a few hacking coughs and swore again, viciously, and only half in Panymese. "What d'you want? You want this, this caravan?" He swept an arm out the door, expansively, then let it fall limp at his side once more. "You mad bleeders. Takin'... takin' all these sick folk, what're you fixin' to do with 'em? Feed 'em to your batshit bird-face god..." Unable to think of anything more substantial to say, he coughed again, sharply, then drew himself up to his full height, unimpressive though it was.
"Piss off," he hissed, and spat a mouthful of blood on the ground near the spot where the Obscuvan rider had stopped.
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Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 9:13 pm
At the commotion of voices, Hopkin was stirred from his reverie, pulling himself up and running back to the caravan. A stir could only mean two things to him- That Wickwright was better and giving the orders again, or the guide had gone in to check on him and he...
Hopkin shook his head, swiped at his eyes, and ran faster.
To his disappointment, Wickwright was not outside the wagon he had been confined to for so long, but neither was his corpse. Instead, Hopkin found an Obscuvan waiting for him, and he nearly tried to jump into his book bag until he remembered it had ripped to shreds when he had become human inside of it. He had kept the shreds on him though, and he pulled one out now for comfort, twisting it nervously in his hands. He was human, he repeated to himself, a human boy. The Cult wouldn't want him, would it?
He wasn't quite sure what telling the cultist to piss off would do, certainly the command didn't make any sense. (It was possible to piss on things, he supposed, but off?) Biting his lip, he looked at the wagon with Wickwright in it and determined that finding out about this would only make Wickwright worse. He wanted his Grimm to deal with it, but more than that, more than anything, he wanted his Grimm to live. Wickwright may have said that if Hopkin died they would both be ruined, but if Wickwright died, Hopkin was sure he would be ruined, and he wouldn't have even died saving Hopkin (as was the only proper excuse for death in Hopkin's mind).
However, he still wasn't brave enough to do anything productive. Backing up and whimpering, Hopkin ran to get the guide, who soon followed, asking, "What d'you want, Obscuvan?" in a sharp tone. "We ent carryin' nothing but the sick." He saw Coyotl outside of the wagon and startled for a moment, backing up a bit. The guide didn't want plague any more than the Obscuvans that they had escaped in Gadu.
"Coyotl Coyotl already told him that," Hopkin noted quietly.
The guide shot Hopkin a glance. "The plagued an' an annoyin' little boy. Nothin' worth takin'."
"I'm just telling you what Coyotl Coyotl has already sai-"
"You can look if you want, but it'd be best if you were movin' on, sir."
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Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2011 10:33 am
The Arelgren was slightly bemused at the hurtled insult. Batshit bird-face god.
He was already immune to disparaging notes others made because of him, but to have them made on Obscuvos's behalf was something he was still getting used to. His jade eyes swept over the sorry scene before him through the holes of a bird mask, and he found that the guide was quite right. The caravan's odor was thick with the smell of decay and grime. His horse was merely a few feet away from the amalgam of sick peasantry, and already he felt lightheaded from being exposed. Nothing struck him as odd nor fancy; that is, until the plagued boy spoke. Dorian only felt so because Lettie twitched when the plagued boy's voice sounded. Dorian scrutinized him.
He was very young. Perhaps in his early teens. He couldn't quite place his finger on what, but the boy did seem highly familiar.
Nevertheless, Dorian would not simply "piss off" back to The Annex. He dared not to inquire what punishment would be inflicted upon him if he returned with no result, yet the thought of the Obscuvian raid party eradicating a caravan of the sick and defenseless was not aligned morally with his own personal constitution. He had only asked to be a part of a family. He did not imagine that the requests of the House would transcend recruits and color him a murderer. He clenched the reigns tighter. Why was everything so ******** difficult...
"N-no, you can't!" Lettie whispered for the first time, with urgency. Dorian jumped at the sound of her bell-voice ringing in his ear. She'd climbed up onto his shoulder somehow and he did not notice.
"Why is that, Little Ghost?" Dorian whispered hoarsly, but quietly, so that the others would not be able to hear. He half wanted to strangle her for some reason.
"B-Because they have Hopkins!"
"No, Lettie. No, they do not."
"Mr. Arelgren! I know him when I see him, even if he does not look like him! You shan't hurt him, if you do, I will hate you forever!"
Dorian gave an inward groan. She was making absolutely no sense to him, Hopkins was an Excito Plague, and nothing in the caravan by the least hinted that he was there. However, it was the first time he and Lettie had been truly communicating ever since her boycott on him; it would be a good chance to attempt to patch things. Things could be more auspicious than he'd hoped. He didn't need her to threaten to hate him. He actually hated her at the moment.
He turned his horse into a slow trot so that it still hindered the caravan but was now facing his fellow bretheren. He hoped a calm demeanor would come across as commanding to them.
"Leave. I will take care of them," he softly said. From his ruby-embellished belt, he revealed a threatening sword (it was his father's, actually, Dorian himself had never used it). Its long, silver tooth seemed imposing enough hopefully to both parties. Towards the Obscuvians, it was effective, and they retreated; they figured Dorian would slaughter the caravan on his own. They did not mind not being a part of the grisly event, less work for them was altogether satisfying. The Arelgren waited until the clattering of hooves became distant and altogether silent before he sheathed his sword. He then lowered his hood and removed his mask. There was no point in hiding now that he felt emotionally exposed. Lettie exposed herself as well, sitting atop his head.
Dorian closed his eyes in exasperation, then opened them again.
"You are now safe," he informed, though instead of reassuring, it came off as an icy statement. He realized this, and said in a warmer tone, "There will be more of them. I would be wary if I were you, especially if I were accompanied by the sick and dying."
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knife effect Vice Captain
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Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2011 3:27 pm
Coyotl hadn't really expected to accomplish anything positive by slinging insults at the Obscuvan. Certainly, he hadn't expected them to actually leave, but he was less concerned at that point with preserving the safety of the caravan than he was with letting their assailants know just how unwelcome they were. It was a pointless endeavor, but it brought him some small measure of grim satisfaction. The lot of them were barrelling towards hell quickly enough, he thought, that it wouldn't matter whether or not they were on fire while doing so.
It surprised him, then, when the man at the head of the group, presumably the leader, turned and commanded the rest of his cohort to leave. Peering at the Obscuvan, Coyotl could just barely make out the fact that he carried a weapon. What was he planning to do, then, run the whole lot of them through on his own? Had the mailman's face been capable of souring any further than it already had, it would have done so. He wasn't sure how much of a fight the guides were capable of putting up, but as for himself, he would do everything he could to bring the man on horseback down with him, if possible. Not that that sentiment amounted to much, plague-addled as he was.
Then came the assurance that they were "safe". He wasn't buying it, even if the man HAD lowered both his sword and his mask in what Coyotl assumed was meant to be a gesture of peace. He had heard Hopkin's voice along with that of one of the guides; he felt odd telling the Plague-now-human what to do, given that he wasn't the boy's Grimm nor his guardian, but he felt obligated to make some attempt to keep him out of harm's way.
"Don't come too close," he called finally, waving an arm to signify that Hopkin ought to keep his distance from both Wickwright's wagon and the Obscuvan. He then returned his attention to the cultist, easing his hand off of the door frame in an attempt to appear less debilitated. It didn't really work. "Try takin' your own advice," he snapped coldly, "unless you want to be in the same boat as the rest of us." With his vision swimming and blurred as it was, he couldn't make out the tiny Plague perched on top of the man's head.
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Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2011 9:58 am
"Lettie Arelgren!" Hopkin exclaimed as she climbed onto the Obscuvan's head, stepping forward, but when Coyotl told him to stay back, he paused like someone had tied him to the ground. Disobeying wasn't in his nature, and Coyotl was a man Wickwright trusted. Instead, he hovered in the background, looking mildly concerned and staring directly at the plague on the man, Dorian Arelgren's, head.
"You know these people," the guide demanded of Hopkin, looking at him incredulously. Hopkin nodded. The guide didn't seem to trust or like him very much, so maybe information would help him realize how useful and trustworthy he was.
Hastily, Hopkin spewed, "That is Dorian Arelgren, and that is Lettie Arelgren on his head. Dorian Arelgren is a Grimm who lives in Shyregoad with Dragomir Meschke, and he often babbles nonsensical things. Lettie Arelgren is pretty and delicate and lives with Dorian Arelgren, Dragomir Meschke, and Chayele Meschke."
The guide stared at Hopkin for a moment and shook his head, turning back to the Obscuvan in front of him. "How can we trust you," he demanded. "Why would you let us go? Even if th' boy knows you, you wouldn't be able to suss out who he was-" he caught himself, "Wouldn't be able to suss out who he was from so far away, would you?" A lame excuse, but the guide didn't have much need for roundabout talking.
"And when I met them I was an excito, so that makes it more difficult, too." Hopkin offered in an attempt to help.
The guided turned and faced Hopkin incredulously. "Damn it all," he swore, "Don't you have any brains in that blonde head of yours?"
Hopkin looked perplexed. "I'm not sure. I know I have Wickwright's book in my head," he stated worriedly. "I assume I must have brains as well, since my bodily structure is human now, but as for whether or not excito have brains, I cannot answer for certain." Now that Dorian was revealed to be someone he knew, someone human and not just a masked Obscuvan, he felt quite unafraid of him and openly prattled about this information.
"I'll kill 'im," the guide spat. "Plagues really are curses."
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knife effect Vice Captain
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Posted: Sun Apr 17, 2011 4:19 am
"I've been exposed to peasantry and plague alike for far too long. I can boldy assume that I am immune," Dorian scoffed crisply to the tart "advice" coldly directed at him. Though plaged peoples disgusted him, they no longer seemed to cause buds of fear to bloom within him. They became almost mundane.
Although he intended only the best from the beginning (the moment Lettie graciously detected Hopkin), Dorian Arelgren found himself in the most awkward of positions. It did not take him long to have reality sink in; he realized he was the black sheep among the flock of Obscuvians, and if there were no corpses to present--or some morbid plethora of evidence--he would be to blame for the mysterious disappearance of the caravan. Lettie did not seem to notice this, for she was busy waving at Hopkin with a light smile upon her glowing, white face. Dorian mimicked her wave, though his was more slow and appeared less sincere. It was hard for him to be sincere in such an atmosphere where he was not the most trustworthy of men. He tried not to tremble himself too much (from whatever it was that was causing him to tremble) for he reminded himself that he was an armed man and that the caravan was more likely to be afraid of him than he would be of it. He didn't particularly care for Hopkin, though he knew that Lettie most certainly did. The character he was suddenly worried for was Wickwright; in the short amount of time Dorian was acquainted with the man, he'd felt a sort of attachment to the wise man.
Ignoring the peasantry, Dorian slipped off the saddle of his mare, kicking it with the addition of threatening calls to stir the creature to dash off into the distant scenery. Good. Now that thing is rid of.
He hoped it would become stranded and die. It would be better if the Obscuvians did not discover it.
"Hello, Hopkin!" Lettie said rather brightly after the thirtieth round of waving.
"Yes, Hello Hopkin!" Dorian shouted altogether too enthusiastically, though he wanted to get to the point without further ado-- "Where is Wickwright?"
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Posted: Sun Apr 17, 2011 4:47 pm
Immune. Just the sound of the word made Coyotl wince. He leaned on the doorframe once more, finding that it offered a welcome degree of stability. "You think so," he muttered, his voice rattling unpleasantly. It was a statement, not a question; Coyotl had believed that about himself, too, and now the idea seemed beyond laughable. If the Obscuvan thought he was safe from illness, though, did that mean he also carried a Plague? He could half-hear Hopkin rambling off a jumble of names and information, as well as the guide fuming at him agitatedly, and then, from the direction of the cultist, came another voice: "Hello, Hopkin!"
That voice was definitely female. Bits and bunches of information dribbled into Coyotl's brain as though they were being poured through a thin strainer; they assembled themselves into coherent thoughts with frustrating slowness. Whoever had called Hopkin's name- he guessed it was a Plague- was obviously familiar with him. How she'd recognized the book-boy in his current state, Coyotl didn't know, and he didn't bother to try and figure it out. What it meant was that they had met before-- and if the two Plagues had met, didn't it follow that Wickwright and the Obscuvan were acquainted with each other as well?
Then the man in question asked where Wickwright was, and Coyotl's guess was confirmed. Still wary and resentful, his first instinct was to dismiss the inquiry with another insult, but thought better of it. Wickwright had mentioned days previously that there were decent Obscuvans, though Coyotl hadn't paid much attention to the statement at the time. But if this man knew Wickwright, maybe he was one of the decent ones.
At any rate, Coyotl didn't have it in him to be angry any longer, it seemed. What energy he'd had was gone, replaced by a leaden exhaustion in his limbs. He passed the back of one hand over his face in an attempt to clear away the sweat and who-knew-what-else coating his skin. All he wanted to do was crawl into a hole somewhere and sleep until he died.
"Finch is here," he offered tiredly, gesturing inside the wagon. "But he's not..." A pause. What could he say? "... He's not well."
None of them were.
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Posted: Sun Apr 17, 2011 5:45 pm
"Yeh can't see 'im." the guide said flatly. "He'll have no visitors, not even his brat," he cuffed the back of Hopkin's head by way of illustration, messing up his blonde hair. Hopkin's hands flew to his head to sort it out, but he was nodding in agreement.
"Wickwright is in his wagon, but he is terribly ill," he said, and bit his lip worriedly. "The guide is right, I am forbidden from entering or standing too close outside or breathing loudly in the vicinity." He looked briefly pained and began to breathe more shallowly as he spoke, just in case. The fact that he couldn't see Wickwright was making him incredibly anxious, but the thought of accidentally disobeying Wickwright was worse.
"If y'thought you were immune 'cause you're a Grimm, y'thought wrong." the guide elaborated. "This fellow here's a Grimm, too, and his plague didn't change looks for no damn reason like this'un did at all. Goin' in to see Finch right now would be a foolish choice. Just let th' poor man rest before," He opened his mouth to continue, but the look on Hopkin's face made him pause. "Y'know." He gestured at his neck, pushing Hopkin's face away so he couldn't see.
"What does he know," Hopkin wailed, struggling to break free. "What does he know about Wickwright?"
"None of your business," the guide muttered gruffly, while Hopkin complained that it most certainly was and offered proof to back himself up. Amidst this racket, a faint call came from Wickwright's wagon.
"What on Profugus is going on out there?" The noise had finally alerted the weak old man, and through the shutters, it was possible to see his blue eyes peering out, trying to catch a glimpse. He coughed and wheezed, then added, "Is Hopkin safe?"
"Yes, Wickwright Finch, but the guide will not tell me what Dorian Arelgren knows about you!" Hopkin exclaimed urgently, rushing to the wagon.
"Stay back, Hopkin," Wickwright ordered sharply, straining his eyes. "Arelgren! Why would the guide know anything of what Arelgren does and doesn't know about me?"
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Posted: Tue May 03, 2011 4:01 pm
"Finch is here," the irrate man offered, he looked quite bothered by Dorian, and the latter wasn't quite enthusiastic about what the following words were either: "But he's not..." A pause."... He's not well."
"Yeh can't see 'im." the guide agreed. "He'll have no visitors, not even his brat," and Hopkin only affirmed this by nodding to Dorian's disappointment. He'd thought that Hopkin would side with him, and he'd forgotten that the Plague was prone to succumbing to confusion and was probably more concerned with Wickwright's well-being than Dorian's tumultuous soul. He didn't blame Hopkin, Lettie was all the same. Sometimes he wondered if all the Plagues were emotionally reliant on their Grimms, or if it was merely a coincidence that the ones he knew well were of the archetype. He couldn't help but be more irritated by it for some reason, though. It was Arelgren nerves that made him so.
"If y'thought you were immune 'cause you're a Grimm, y'thought wrong." the guide continued rather reluctantly. "This fellow here's a Grimm, too, and his plague didn't change looks for no damn reason like this'un did at all. Goin' in to see Finch right now would be a foolish choice. Just let th' poor man rest before..."
A lump settled in Dorian's throat and he thought with a pang of skepticism if what he was feeling was genuine worry or something else. He would prefer the anxiety to be rooted from his worry for Wickwright, but he was nonetheless unsure of how he would make it so that the guide (who'd taken a dislike to the Arelgren already--Dorian needn't guess this to confirm it)--and the tanned man would both compromise a trust to allow him to visit his older friend. Dorian seldom attempted sincerity, the occasion usually called for him to feign it, ergo, when the event called for trust he was naturally unprepared. He didn't really know how to convince people to like him, it never occurred to him that it was ever relevant for people to like him--usually it was the complete contrast of a situation. There was no challenge to him in garnering the trust of others, but he was proven very wrong. In any case, he'd at least have to make an attempt--be it a ridiculous one or one that worked.
He unbuckled his sword, throwing the antique carelessly onto the floor below. Lettie stared after it, a little sad that the rubies were now slightly dusted by dirt. She squeaked a bit when Dorian animated his body a bit in removing his coat, shaking it off himself until the lilac coat collapsed in a heap over the discarded weapon.
"There, I no longer pose a hostility to you," Dorian said breathlessly, his jade-green eyes searching the duo for some sort of compromise. He was in quite a pickle, he'd never had to try to earn trust before--but he was sure now that he was worried for Wickwright. His friend was sick--and Dorian already lost a close friend to the Plague--the addition of another would not reap any joy. Anything but. The Plague hadn't bought much fortune for him at all; it was no harbinger of luck--he'd mistaken Felicity for one much to his mistake--he wouldn't make the same mistake with someone else or some other seemingly beautiful event.
"I must see him if he isn't well. He will see me, I know he will, I must address him," the Arelgren continued on a softer note, unaware of how to continue. Lettie was intelligent enough to encourage his plea further:
"Mr. Arelgren said he wanted to meet Mr. Finch earlier when we were in the carriage," Lettie said, her cheeks pinking. Her small hands flew to her face, her voice tinged with more worry than Dorian thought it could muster, "Mr. Arelgren was meaning to, it was very important, yes, Mr. Arelgren?"
Dorian nodded, unaware of what it was he even said to Lettie (though he probably did if she bothered to remember), but it definitely had something to do with the noose that tightened around his neck. The House. Things of such. Blood on his hands. He wanted to pull at the velvet that tightened around his throat, but he didn't want to appear suspicious; men that pulled on their nooses were never to be trusted, he didn't want to appear as one of those. The trouble was expelling it, the karma-cut and everything else the past few weeks reaped.
It was these type of things that he knew he could not trust Dragomir to know (he'd only be corrected) or Felicity (he'd only be hurriedly assured, and Felicity herself was poor in assuring her own poor soul). Wickwright was the only person he really knew in Panymium that Dorian considered to be the male equivalent of Nancy. Like a father, in a sort, a friend, more likely. Dorian stared ahead, while Lettie could only do the same.
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knife effect Vice Captain
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Posted: Wed May 04, 2011 12:46 am
Coyotl stared sullenly back and forth between the Obscuvan and the guide, trying his best to make sense of what was being said. One thing, at least, was clear: the cultist did know Wickwright, and from the sound of it, he knew Hopkin, too. Even as the guide insisted that Wickwright would see no visitors, what was left of Coyotl's stubborn temper began to set itself against that very declaration. Just who had died and made that man the boss of the whole caravan, anyway? Not Wickwright, at least not yet. Coyotl still felt wary about letting the Obscuvan into the wagon, but if he was an acquaintance of Finch's, then it was Finch's decision whether to see him, and no one else's.
At the sound of Wickwright's voice behind him, Coyotl turned, wondering if he should advise the old man to lie back down, but deciding that it might be better for him to assess the situation for himself. Coughing into his fist, he made a halfhearted gesture out the door. "Someb'dy here to see you," he said simply, and with that, he exited the wagon, stepping gingerly onto the ground with a hand still braced against the side. If Wickwright did decide to speak with the cultist, his presence would not really be necessary, nor would it probably be desired; at any rate, Coyotl decided, he needed some air. Even if the air around the caravan could not really be considered "fresh" by anyone's standards, it was better than nothing.
When he felt steady enough on his feet to step away from the side of the wagon, he approached the Obscuvan with no small amount of trepidation, though he kept his distance at several yards for both of their sakes. He was still scowling, but at that point it seemed as though his face had simply frozen that way; he certainly didn't cut a particularly imposing figure. Rather, he just looked sick, and angry about being sick, and especially, he looked very, very tired.
"If Finch'll see you, then he'll see you," he said to the man, and gave the tiniest of shrugs. Anticipating an argument, he shot a look at guide and held both hands palm-up, his blackened fingers slack and slightly curled. "What harm's it going t'do? S'his problem if he gets sick, anyways." He would have been very surprised indeed if that had been all it took to get the guide off of their collective backs, though, and in light of that fact, he placed himself between the guide and the wagon as casually as he could, under the pretense of keeping an eye on the weapon and belongings that the Obscuvan had left in a heap. "Gonna' just sit here for a bit," he declared as he lowered himself stiffly onto the dusty ground. Whatever the cultist did from that point was on his own head, and Coyotl wanted no part of it.
There was still the issue of Hopkin, though. Coyotl knew that Wickwright wouldn't stand for the Plague-boy hanging around the outside of the wagon, but he hated to be the one to tell him off for going near. Even to someone with as little sensitivity to the feelings of others as he had, the sight of Hopkin, now looking like a proper human child, standing worried and frightened outside of the caravan was almost painfully sad.
"You ought to come away from there," he advised as gently as he could, unsure of what else to say. Shivering a bit, he sat with his legs crossed loosely, letting his head droop toward his chest as he hunched his shoulders against the chill of the air. With one plague-stained finger, he scratched pointless little shapes into the dirt in an attempt to occupy himself.
Knowing that you were going to die was bad enough without having to worry about other people, too.
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Posted: Wed May 04, 2011 10:05 am
The guide paused, and then shrugged. "Finch is the leader," he spat. "I ent particularly bothered by one more dead Cultist, whether they spare us or not." Gesturing at the wagon then, he called, "Finch, there's a damn Cultist out here saying he knows you."
"Dorian Arelgren," Hopkin added nervously, "It's Dorian Arelgren and Lettie Arelgren as well, so two Cult-Cultists." The word tasted tart on his tongue.
There was a pause as Wickwright weighed his options. "Arelgren can come in," he said finally, sounding tired and haggard. Hopkin's face lit up, but then Wickwright clarified, "Only Arelgren." The book boy's shoulders sagged and as Coyotl told him to get away from the wagon, he shot him a baleful look. A Cultist could see his Grimm and he couldn't, this was what it had come to. The guide was no more help, standing near the wagon like Coyotl, a hand on his bow like he was ready to shoot it at the slightest provocation from the unmasked man. Both seemed tense, but neither worried about how unfair it all was, and it was terribly, terribly unfair.
"Get back in the guide caravan, Hopkin," Wickwright demanded, and Hopkin turned on his heel, marching stony-faced back into the place he had been sequestered to. Dorian Arelgren was a pretty enough sight to be Wickwright's last visitor, but he was still a Cultist and Hopkin was his book and the two of them should never have been parted.
Nothing made sense anymore.
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knife effect Vice Captain
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Posted: Wed May 04, 2011 6:04 pm
There was a slight shifting of movement from both the guide and the unhappy man before both decided (largely in part to Wickwright's command) that the Arelgren was allowed entry as a visitor. Dorian smiled softly in return, though it was expressed more sadly then he expected it to. He was glad his undaunted will garnered profit, but he felt naked where he stood; his foot stepped forward--though it paused between the empty space that separated him from the wagon's wooden step. Now that he was granted permission to visit Wickwright, he was not altogether sure how to address the venerable man. Dorian Arelgren, was a puerile blossom in comparison. How was he supposed to even ask a dying man for advice without depressing the latter? Lettie wouldn't know. She was like Hopkin, more or less, dependent on her Grimm to seep erudition into her.
"Thank you," Dorian blankly mustered, directing his gaze towards the two reluctant men--he wasn't sure if he instilled enough emotion into his words to reflect his thanks. They seemed as uneasy as he was, though he felt rather nauseous in comparison (most likely). With a fruitful step, he gathered himself onto the wagon, before realizing that Lettie was still sitting atop him.
His hands moved to his head, cupping her small body and setting her on the floor below.
"You stay outside, Little Ghost," Dorian whispered.
"Good-bye, Mr. Arelgren, godspeed to you," she spoke as if they were parting ways for eternity.
Lettie didn't seem bothered by this to his surprise, she was perfectly content with being left behind, smiling at him as he said what he needed to. She began to emit a sonorous humming sound, tapping her feet rhythmically. Dorian assumed she wanted him gone on his way as he intended, and he left her briskly there.
He was no longer hesitant; he opened the wooden door that caused all the trouble for him in the beginning, being the prime barrier between he and the older Grimm. He did not expect the guide's warnings to be as true as they were. His eyes remained still in their sockets, his lips parting in slow horror. The image was reluctant to develop in his head, and his heart did not want to accept it.
So this is what Nancy must have appeared the night the Plague whisked her away...
"H-Hello Wicky..."
FIN
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