2020-04-16: The Obscene Gift
- Log: The Obscene Gift
- Cast: Leon Albus, Isiris Shango'Ra, Gwen Whitlock
- Where: Sielje
- Date: 4/16/2020
- Summary: Leon goes into a tavern for a drink and some normalcy. Gwen, meanwhile, feels called to the tavern by the boy with the blue eyes. Both have their use in Isiris's plan, and if they choose correctly, they might come out on the other end whole.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Leon is in Sielje to do research. He is not a person who particularly enjoys research, but he is not so immature or so proud as to refuse to do so. He does not demand the other Wolves do it for him; he merely treats it less as an exciting opportunity and more as a necessary chore.
The city of Sielje, so high up -- accessibly by teleporter -- is still cold, even this far north. Magical heaters make it war, but warmth has to be sought elsewhere. And thus, his efforts done for the day, he has found his way to that great meeting place of Drifters, mercenaries, outlaws, and unfortunates across Filgaia:
A bar.
He is in a corner, with his heavy grey coat over his clothing. His blonde hair borders on too long, some hanging in front of his eyes. Those silver eyes occasionally, periodically scan the others here; not too many, in the afternoon.
And then, back down at his notes. He lifts his glass of brandy, swirls it idly in his hand, and has a sip.
Funny, he thinks. He almost feels normal, doing this.
<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.
And how normalcy fades like a butterfly in the flame.
It takes just one spark.
It starts as a high pitched whistle. The kind that can scarcely be heard by human ears at all. An imposition on the senses so fine so as not to be anything at all, footed barely like a spider on the gossamer web. But it is there, infuriatingly out of reach, and infuriatingly painful. The sound itself is painful, that is, and it is painful in the way that displaces the senses. Everything seems to tilt, the perception bending slowly without losing any accuracy, as if one's head were tilted involuntarily, as if the world slanted.
When he arrives, it is with little fanfare, the man with the long curved blade and the eyes a shade or two beyond the most piercing, most obscene shade of blue imaginable. He walks in slowly, and then--the string snaps.
When he arrives, it is with little fanfare, the man with the long curved blade and the eyes ... he arrives quietly. No one bears him any heed, no one looks up from their drinks, as he is the definition of nondescript, as if there were only one person in all this world who were equipped to hear the pain of his very passage. There is an unreality to it, as if no one else mattered, even the keep as the man quietly makes his way across the crowded barroom, placing a few coins on the bar. The keep never even speaks to him, it seems. He never nods, never even acknowledges him, as if he weren't even there at all. The ghost of a man never bothers to gain his attention, either. He merely turns.
Reality shivers as the man's fingertips brush against the bar's surface, leaving it cold and wanting.
It is hard to describe the exact feeling of this man, as he ascends the stairs to meet someone in the upper halls.
It is hard to describe exactly all of the ways I will bring you to the end--
"--Sorry hon, it's a lil' busy tonight. Is there anything else you needed?" the waitress asks Leon, shifting her pitcher and the tray of bussed tableware as she passes. It's going to be a long shift, but she's been very attentive thus far, and she certainly did not at all just threaten your life. Or whatever it was that you could feel.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Before Leon had even entered this bar for a piece of normalcy, things had been afoot in this completely ordinary bar. Besides, normalcy has no place in a city this cold, in a place this high in the sky.
Sielje is one of those cities that makes Gwen glad the Halcyon has heating, a luxury she never had with her wagon. Then again, she couldn't access this as easily, with packages in tow.
However, this time, she has no packages to deliver. No clients to meet. The boy with the cornflower blue eyes said something about coming here, and, whether or not she is fully committed to the prospect of pursuing this by herself, she needs to go.
No one quite questions the redhead that quietly goes up the stairs; she had the look of someone who had places to be and tasks to do. People to meet.
By the time Leon has lifted a drink to his lips, Gwen has stepped into a world within worlds, a room within rooms, a fractual vision bending light within dark.
Gwen's lips purse.
".... I'm here."
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Normalcy is a fleeting thing. Something that, in truth, Leon Albus thinks that he surrendered. He left it behind when he left Kislev; he buried it when he killed Gryndille, and his reason for being fled. And, despite his best efforts, he has not found something that has replaced that reason.
But that isn't what grabs his attention.
He would like to say that it is long years of training or short, but hard years of experience. But, no, the man with the long-curved blade draws his eyes for another reason. He tenses; his frame rigid, fingers tight around the glass, and he is suddenly sure that normalcy has abandoned him utterly. His silver eyes narrow. His jaw sets, as he sees the man move through the bar.
It is an intensely lonely experience. Leon's eyes dart -- catch the keep ignoring him, catches the way a man who turned to look in his direction just turns back, as if nothing was there. Leon feels, for a moment, alone.
'--it's a lil' busy tonight.'
He comes to with a shock. Leon rarely loses his composure -- prides himself on such a level of control -- and he slumps in the chair. "No, ah--no. Thank you," he says. He drops some gella, glimmering and silver, on the table. "That will be all. My thanks to you."
He drains the rest of his brandy. It burns down his throat, and feels warm in comparison to whatever that was.
Why, then, does he put his glass down with a clink and stand? And why, especially, does he start for the same stairs that mysterious figure started up?
His footsteps slow, as he looks up the stairs. By then, Gwen has already vanished -- a room within rooms, after all -- and he still thinks he is, in any real sense, alone. He accepts this. His hand comes to his side, to check his side sword and his shotgun.
And then he keeps climbing those stairs.
<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.
Chasing that man... it feels like the stairs go on forever.
The sound does not abate the closer you get to him. Even worse yet, it redoubles, pain folding in on itself and only getting larger, louder for the effort. It is the displacement of sanity itself, a sound that gets louder the closer it comes, or the closer you come to it. At this point Gwen and Leon might as well be the same person, as direction and time have meanings that increasingly sunset the longer one spends in his vicinity. For Leon, he might as well have been chasing him up the stairs for an eternity. For Gwen, she may have well been looking for him forever.
The short hall is the sort that keeps a bar in business, offering a few rooms with a few warm beds and a hearty breakfast for those too tossed to go home. In any other way or direction, it would be inviting. For Leon's purposes, it is a frigid place, hale and empty as he ascends stairs that seem to go in any direction but 'up' despite what his eyes may clearly say. A few doors and a piano, but even the paintings seem to make the most beautiful landscapes miserable. For Gwen's, it is something much different entirely. Leon meets the red-headed courier at the top of the stairs, looking into a hip-high black flame as it burns at the far end of the hall. As the man at the far end quietly unsheathes his blade, the soft hiss of muted steel unmistakable in his eyes. The man, unknown though as he is, is endlessly inviting, grandiose and empyreal as he slowly rests the razored edge against the nape of her neck, the kiss of steel scintillating.
"...and our shining future will be glorious," he finishes aloud.
His voice is mercilessly inviting, liquid and seductive.
(For Gwen)
You find the child after what feels like forever, after marching through no less than a score of doors, even though you are only seconds or moments (or was it eternities?) in front of Leon. He stands at the end of the room you find him in, his eyes lifting to you, a bright and enwrapping blue. "Did you make it this far? Are you sure that you're really here at all? After all, isn't there a place for you somewhere else? Someplace bright, and warm, where you weren't left behind? Like we all were? Someplace, sometime that was more merciful. Someplace you know in your heart... a place where you can meet with them, and bring mercy to everyone? Come to him," the boy begins, as he slowly catches fire, and silently burns away.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
A thousand rooms is enough for a courier to lose her mind. Room after door after door after door after room door after door after door after room door after door after room door after door door after door after door after room door after door after door after room door after door after room door after door
Leon finds the redhead in this surreal mockery of a tavern room, a place cold and bereft of the charm that would normally be found here for any weary Drifter.
A young woman, one he's seen before, though perhaps not in as close as fashion as she is now. The courier, the guileless redhead, as some have identified her.
And the man with the cornflower blue eyes is behind her, blade to the back of her neck.
And the black flame, what could be the only source of warmth in this cold fragment.
Fog blue eyes stare at the flame, cold shock still radiating across the courier's face as she looks up, towards Leon.
".... You're...." She speaks, her voice thick. "... Leon?"
She takes a step forward, turquoise earrings swaying with the motion.
"He's..."
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
The sound, at first, was something Leon thought might be a stress reaction. As it grows louder and more intrusive, he knows that cannot be true. Outwardly, his expression is a grimace; his climb up the stairs might as well be a climb up the mountain. His hand grips the railing, tightly.
The way that the hall seems expected is a surprise. Leon goes, immediately, on the defensive. The chill of the place encourages such thoughts. The way it seems to turn terrible -- the way that the paintings give it such menace -- makes his hand come to his shotgun, and half-draw it from the long holster. It seems like forever, as he moves down that hall. It grows starker; his thinking grows more ragged.
His footsteps slow, as he sees Gwen. "Miss Whitlock," he says, his voice quiet. "I am."
He runs one hand over his cheek and chin, and swears he didn't have stubble when he entered this place. Or did he forget to shave this morning? His inability to answer frightens him. He answers fear with the same steely-eyed look that he always does: deny it, and it might go away.
He looks over Gwen's shoulder, to the man with the impossibly blue eyes. He can't help but glance at that sword, then back to the wielder.
"You've made... whatever this is?" he asks, an edge of anger (for lack of a more useful emotion) in his voice.
<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.
"Of course," the nameless man replies kindly.
"We've been waiting for you."
The world draws from him, as if repulsed. To be fair, there is simply nothing around the black wolf that would stand out as a betrayal, aside from the burning flame at the end of the hall. It doesn't seem to make sense, really. A flame that large should simply overtake the hall, the inn, and eat it from the timbers down. But in this cold cavernous hall, it may as well be a hearth.
"They come to us, those who hear her song. From every corner of the world, they gather."
Though he stands behind her, she seems not to notice him at all, the man who so plainly threatens her life. "This pain is your birthright," the man explains patiently, of the shimmering agony that batters against every sense without cause or definition. And he is so inimitably patient, so very gentle. So kind, even to the woman at the other end of his blade. He could kill her in only a moment, and it's doubtful that she would ever feel it.
"This pain is your birthright," he repeats. "The same as all of us left behind. Fueled by anger, by enmity, by the pride of not knowing. Tell me," he asks, so intimately interested. "Tell me what it is you desire. Should I grant her mercy? You? Your ingenue? Tonight, allow me to let the world pivot solely on your whim."
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
As Leon runs one hand over his cheek, Gwen's own sense of manners is similarly just as roughened.
"... You look like you could use a shave," she says, with a wry halfsmile.
A lack of sense, displayed by the young redhead with the man's blade pressed against the back of her throat.
'You've made... whatever this is?"
"Eh? Me? No, no I didn't-"
She stills, eyes staring straight ahead, her body seeming to tense at the presence of that clue.
At least, that's what it could seem like, in front of Leon.
The redhead grits her teeth, short curls turning dark with sweat. "... No, he isn't innocent at all. This isn't..."
The part that would object to this clear violation of Gwen's usual code, a thing that is oddly young for a woman so openly devoted to most things full, pure, and free, is not there. It's been shifted, placed out of reach, like a missing bucket when a boat springs a leak.
A Badlands code would dictate you'd simply use whatever you have at hand to do the job.
She rushes ahead, straight at Leon.
Unarmed, but Leon likely has seen enough of the courier's abilities to know that this is as much a lie as anything in this twisted room.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"I could have sworn I did, but... something about this place--" Leon shakes his head. Focus, he tells himself. The way that Gwen is surprised, the way she answers the question not directed for him...
That is important. He tenses.
Leon's calm is the practiced sort -- and a practiced calm is a false one. A facade of control and cool, over a churning mass of anger, worry, and uncertainty. He may not know Gwen well, but he doesn't wish her ill. His mind tries to take the calm, rational approach: reduce it to a tactical puzzle. A blade against an ally's throat; an unknown enemy behind her; Leon's reflexes and weaponry as the potential solutions.
Such an attempt fades, in this strange place. The burning flame at the end of the hallway, the way that the hall seems to grow longer and everything grows more grey. That damnable noise.
And the question that he asks. His silver eyes are, briefly, on Gwen's.
She rushes at him, and he hopes he understands. Pain is his birthright? It doesn't sound wrong. Or does he mean Gwen? He grits his teeth. No, he isn't an innocent. He knows that; he accepts that. And the temptation is there to not trust another Drifter.
It is enough that, when he draws his shotgun, he debates shooting at her anyways. He feels that pulse of shame that such an idea enters his mind. He raises it, Gwen's red curls and her face in the sight of the shotgun.
Then he changes course, aiming over her shoulder, and between those blue eyes. "Let the world turn on someone else's whim. Mine's proven to have poor judgment."
His finger tenses on the trigger. He can pull it, in the blink of an eye. In this place, though, things can happen faster than a blink.
<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.
Time slows to a crawl.
Gwen sits there, suspended in mid-run. The sound of the nameless savior's footsteps as they resonate beyond the shadow of the black wolf. The near-audible hum of razored steel, the non-light cast by the flames behind them resonating in strange, undulating ways off of the temperline on his blade, illuminating the seams and angles used to conceal the weapon's smithing. "Even if he were innocent. What would you do for him? What would he do for you?"
It takes only the slightest hint of ignition, a few pounds of pressure on the trigger. The silver shotgun's report fills the room, and Gwen can feel herself die. A moon-white blast of light, and all is gone.
He stands beside her, though truthfully, not much is left. An arm, perhaps some middling portion of her torso. The rest is festering black. Bits of occluding dark is all she's been reduced to, laying supine and immobile. The pain, the twisting of the mind like a sopping rag is immeasurable. In this reality, she tried to rush past him, and paid dearly for the attempt. In another, she tries to vault over him. The sound of a weapon's report shakes the battlefield once more. Another Whitlock lays there, a courier whose story was told and ended halfway on the page in a single sound. Cut down by moonlight in the dark.
Another blast. She lays there, this time absent a head.
"Mercy is never a half measure," the nightmare agent opines kindly, standing by the only body to keep her head in the exchange, even if nothing else. "We uffer in this world, because it is not yet our time to go. We are those who are left behind. And because this is our birthright, it is our charge to save those who are in our stead."
He narrows his eyes, a cold edge to his pure calm.
"You died by my hand once before," he remark, with the chiding nature of a close friend.
"But now, I am here for you. That I may forgive you. That I may forgive him. Wish for it, and it will come real."
By the time he finishes speaking, a score of Gwen's bodies lay on the ground around her, each put down with no more ceremony than putting down a rabid dog. Kneeling, the agent's hand slips over the body's forehead, brushing her hair aside that she may see the starlit sky over her head. There, an obscene star whirls black, churning away the night. "Wish for mercy, and I will be your charge. Wish for compassion, and I will fill the streets with warm blood. Wish for me, the most obscene miracle. And..."
Time drains from the bottle, a harsh draught.
The nightmare agent is again behind Leon, his blade at the ready. The gunslinger is still mid-quickdraw, the tension in his hands tightening on the trigger. Gwen is whole, mid-stride. Leon's gun is still outstretched. Only this time, to Gwen's eye, it has moved, imperceptibly away from the shape behind her, away from the burning child and whatever lay in its shadow. To Gwen's eye, the truth is a matter of degrees. And she knows all of the ways she can and will die. "Tell me what it is you want," the nameless man asks her soothingly.
Now, Leon's gun never moved. It was always trained on her.
"Today is the day of your novel investiture. Tell me what gift I should bring."
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Isiris picked well. Leon is someone Gwen knows to some extent like she knows many people, a branch of a tree of many acquaintances, each with their own story, secrets, and lives extending beyond her scope of perception.
Leon is a leader, a soldier, maybe a man of some former military background. He is leader(?) of the Black Wolves, an organization that includes Lily. Lily and Leon have some history. Gwen trusts Leon, to a degree that she naturally trusts all people as part of her carefree facade.
But trust is a faulty thing, in this hallway/room of shadows and illusion.
What was a brief consideration for Leon becomes a reality for Gwen. And it happens again. And again. And again. Different possibilities, different wounds, all leading to death.
'Let the world turn on someone else's whim. Mine's proven to have poor judgment.'
As an answer to some question that is inaudible to Leon's, Gwen's answer is pure, all pretense washed away.
The same answer she gave that one night, when Isiris stabbed her clean through her chest.
"... I don't want to die."
And it's this that clicks a switch in Gwen's overall demeanor, her eyes gaining a feral shine like a wild cat trapped in a chicken coop, ready to cleave trails through flesh to get into the safe night beyond.
The trail Gwen makes pivots slightly, her trajectory now going towards Leon himself. A bright flash threatens to erupt from the courier's hand, maybe even an electric charge, attempting to disarm Leon before he fires that brutal shot.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"What--"
Leon's trust for people is already low. Enough personal betrayals has made him tend to regard all but the closest of allies as someone who might turn on him. He is confused, but he has a response to confusion that tends to involve sudden, sometimes decisive violence.
He doesn't realize that the nightmarish figure is behind him. He seems to fade from Leon's eyes, at first -- his words lost on him, as all of his attention is abruptly grasped and drawn towards Gwen. His mind splits into two tracks.
The first says that nothing that he can see here can be trusted. Nothing he experiences here is perfectly verifiable.
The second identifies that feral gleam in Gwen's eyes, the desperation in her demeanor, and her arm as a threat. To Leon, he swings his shotgun, and aims it -- though not for her center of mass. He aims it for her hip.
Then he fires, the gunshot ringing out. "WHITLOCK!" he shouts, bellowing her name with a harsh tone to emphasize it. "What are you doing!?"
<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.
"You've spent your life turning on those who have invested their 'faith' in you," articulates the paranoia agent.
The idea is an interesting reversal of the sentiment. Not that anything but the most piercing of ideas could really reach the captain. Not now, not in this twisting moment that leaves everything to question. Is what Leon is seeing 'real?' Is what Gwen seeing 'real?' Is there actually really an objective truth? It's an interesting thought, left to another, easier time. The spinner lets her go as Leon wills, his blade lifting, the spine of the saber resting on his shoulder. He allows the captain to deal with her as he decides, as he needs. And as he watches, with those awful blue eyes, one gloved hand lifts, fingers locked in a claw whose tips point to heaven. As he does, only then does the fire beside him begin to boil, begin to spread.
There is something insidious about the flame that he invokes. It is not real, not in the ways that one would expect a fire to be, that it may be hot and tht it may burn. There is something liquid about the way that the fire spreads at his will, creeping and jumping along with more in common with flesh than the cerulean fire that crawls down the floorboards, slipping past the three (four?) of them.
"Look at how easily you turn on them," the agent chides Leon.
"Look at how easily he turns on you," the agent reminds Gwen.
"We live in this world to give one another pain, but it does not have to be that way," he reminds you, whispering in your ear. "Not tonight, at the very least. All you have to do is..."
' kneel '
"...accept my gift."
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Gwen's world becomes a bright flash of light. The first source is the beginnings of her own attack, which is then overwhelmed by the blast and thunderous ring of Leon's shotgun.
She spins back, blood flying from the wound in her hip, landing on the wooden floor in a heap.
When the ringing in her ears subside and her vision begins to clear, Gwen becomes aware of the black flame curling past them, licking at the edges of her old fear but not quite sweeping her past the point of no return. There's no heat, no overwhelming red aching glow. It still unsettles her, bleeding on the floor there, unable to get up at that moment without incurring pain.
She's trapped.
And the animal side of her nature is there again. Resist. Survive. Grab. Find. Live.
The voice at her side makes his offer. All it wants from her is-
It bristles at the core of Gwen, her pride, and against that deadly seed of kindness.
To kneel is to give up completely, on a level Gwen's mind cannot quite concede to.
"Let the world turn on someone else's whim," she parrots Leon from the ground, shakily, with a laugh. "Mine's proven to have poor judgment."
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Leon's gun lowers, when he sees that his shot landed true. He lowers the shogtun, slowly, and the words of that strange voice linger in his ears:
'Look at how easily you turn on them.'
There is a truth in that. A truth that he does not want to confront, but is undeniable. Leon responds to that realization with a stony-faced regret, betraying little of that internalized concern.
His expression is hard as he looks at Gwen. The fire behind him makes things flicker and jump; a flame that creeps long the walls, flickering and threatening, consuming yet wrong. His silver eyes dart to it. And then he hears the command. He looks down at Gwen, then, and he swallows hard.
He shakes his head, but that does not clear it. "Who are you?" he demands of the fire, without agreeing -- and without declining.
<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.
She falls away from him, blood blossoming in the air, the blackest dahlia.
"--just a doll," he concedes, in his own time. "To be broken, again and again."
again, and again.
The flame curtains behind her, framing her as she falls to the floorboards. Fingers of flame threaten her, threaten to creep inside every angle of her, every crack and crevice of her, to worm their way within until she knows nothing else, and to burn her from the inside out. But they never quite find their way close. They curtain along the edges of the room, slowly cutting off routes of escape, making the bland geometry of the hall hard to suss out and indistinct, curtaining it off in angles and edges.
The closer one comes to the flame, the harder it is to concentrate. It is not heat that radiates from the strange tongues of fire, but impossibility and futility in equal measure. The wellspring of that heart-stopping feeling, that tension that pulls wires around the mind, it is as if you bathe in it, and where heat would be, madness is birthed instead. The unhearable sound is by now less a violin string and more a banshee wail across the reeds of perception.
He is gone from her side, but he soothes her yet still in her mind.
"It isn't your fault," he assures her.
"This world seems to have inadequately prepared you," the agent reflects, standing straight. His voice splits and redoubles, that silken echo that reverberates across the floorboards, never speaking above an intimate tone, but never failing to reach the innermost of all angles of you. "Ill prepared as you are, how could you be anything more than what you are this day? When you do not even know of the world around you..."
"Long ago, there was an ancient race who sought to bend technology to their heel. And ever since, men have been fighting over the scraps," he replies senselessly to Leon's demand, though reason coalesces in painful slowness. "I come from heaven. A cruel, gunmetal grey heaven, beyond the pale of your nobleless world. The technologies that you struggle, die and betray one another for, the tools that sustain you, the tools that kill you. They are nothing compared to this heaven. A man clings to his idealisms like a raft. But he betrays his friends, and betrays his family, and betrays his soldiers. For what? A heaven that will judge him wanting all the same. I am no one, and I thank you for your kindness."
Gwen has seen him, all this time, just behind the captain. And Leon has seen him, all this time, just behind her. At least, until the flames surged. Now only what Whitlock sees remains. An illusion, just the same as it ever was. Just a dream, a long whiling dream.
"You both have allowed me to choose."
Leon hesitates.
Gwen won't even notice when her dream ends.
When her dream becomes real, when the nightmare agent steps out of the flames and into himself.
The only warning Leon will ever get is three feet of razored Ether steel protruding from his chest.
"My mercy is neverending," he assures, endlessly kind.
"I give you the gift of knowing 'Solaris.'"
If Leon doesn't intuit the agent's natures and whims in time, he will be impaled through the back ceremoniously, through something very, very close to a critical point. The nameless man will give him the cruel light of knowledge, and then show Gwen atrocity with no escape. Here, in this burning hell. In this struggling, whiling dream.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
It wouldn't be the first time fire has tried to claim Gwen. It left its mark on her, one that required messy procedures of bandages and grafts and cuts as she grew older.
The memory of it all would have been so much worse if she hadn't met ____.
But then, she'd be dead, anyway.
And maybe, she'll be dead here, too. How would ____ feel? And why is she thinking about them, now, over a decade later? Would that person still be alive?
A person like that, a person who'd go into a burning house, would be dead, for a person who would be that selfless would run out of luck, eventually.
But what about the girl they save? The people they save?
Grey flame licks at blood the redhead does not do much to stem, her hair swaying in an unseen draft of void heat.
"You're talking about..." Gwen finally comes to, shifts, then collapses again, one hand slapping over the wound on her hip. The pain clenches her teeth and makes one eye close, threatening to make the world go grey from the slowly approaching symptoms of blood loss.
"That city created you. The same one Gebler's from. The same that chased Fei when he berserk in that gear of theirs, the same- yes. Yeah, Solaris. I figured, as much. Place like that... they took a young boy n' somehow created you."
Took the boy, and burned him up, bones and all.
'You both have allowed me to choose.'
Leon's first clue just might be how Gwen stumbles upwards, her left hand flailing out in a grab before she collapses again, her second attempt to get up more successful than the last, but still too unsteady.
Or maybe, that was a futile attempt to attack him again.
Would he be able to tell the truth?
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Leon's head looks side to side. His head rings from that damnable noise; he looks for the voice, even as it responds without answering his question. Or, at least, so he thinks. It sounds like a parable at first, one that he says he finds irritating. He finds it hits closer to home than he would like, in truth.
He looks away from Gwen, his shotgun brandished -- but when he turns to each side, he does not see the man who speaks. He only sees that strange fire, and he finds no answers. He does not, ever, quite turn around.
And that is to his misfortune.
"Solaris," he answers, and his voice is ragged. He thinks of the ones who pursued Lily. Of Loren Voss, offering them control and calling it mercy. Of dead friends; of friends' daughters turned to monsters; of the endless hunt for Fei and Elly.
Gwen's words don't quite make sense -- until they do. This is someone connected to Solaris. He only understands the very, very basics of how. His eyes widen as he hears her and he realizes.
He sees a solution, and his voice is sharp and angry and demanding. If there was a lesson here, he hasn't learned it yet. "Tell me! Tell me what you know! I need that, to bring those dogs to hee--"
There is a wet, tearing sound. Blood flecks off the blade that stabs through his back and out the chest. Fiery pain explodes through him, as he goes rigid, and his voice makes a strangled, gasping sound.
When it tears free, he collapses down to his knees. His hand is over his chest, and blood gushes through the fingers. A little more trickles down his mouth, as he stumbles forward. Gwen stumbles. He watches her, then he tasks a long and ragged breath.
He pushes himself to his feet. They feel like lead, when he does. He forces himself to step forward. It's a shuffling, stumbling gait.
He looks at Gwen, then he sticks a hand out towards her. "We--" His voice is thick, not just with panic, but blood. "We need to leave. Now."
<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.
Blood drips from the blade.
The sound is almost industrial, the way he wrenches it free from the captain. There is a value that a human life has, something intrinsic to the people, and necessary to the societal equilibrium. But for a person who owes no allegiances and has no interest in society, in the moment, Leon Albus might have been no more than a gutted deer at his boots. The drifter with the ice-blue eyes never bothers to shake the blade free, holding it at his side with no more elegance or primp than a butcher with the cleaver. He stares at his glove for a time, as if the two ceased to exist the moment he decided.
"What I know?" he asks, more to himself at this point than anyone else.
"It is easier to search the afterlife.."
The harsh string of reality snaps taut in Gwen's mind, and suddenly the nightmare spinner is ten paces away from where he once stood, as if he'd been there the whole time. As if he were merely conflicting stories, rumors repeated by two different people, in two different ways. "But this, this is--"
Time snaps tightly again.
"--not--"
Time breaks, like a branch.
"--This is not power of their creation."
By now, you can see the flames, and though they do not burn, things they touch melt away. Fingerlike in its crawling insidiousness, hands of fire consume. The piano chimes in wild panic as the flames grip onto it, crushing tendrils snapping legs like toothpicks before slithering into the case, causing each note to ring false and mad, as it begins to simply melt away into irrelevance. At this time, the blue-eyed man turns, his bootfalls hollow over the floorboards, even as the floorboards are pried up by the same things that are hiding behind the walls. Madness rips at every nail, and his every footstep is an obsession, a thirst that he raises an invisible glass to, one outstretched arm slowly rising over his head.
"Allow me to draw back every veil for you both, you alone."
He opens his hand, and every board and stud in the inn goes mad.
He is gone now. Everything in the inn is burning from the inside out via scything blades of flame that make no preternatural sense. The men and women of the bar in the floor below have been rendered helpless, unconscious and critically injured laying at every angle and every disposition, cut down by blades unseen. The only light now is the staccato wax and wane in chaotic cerulean flame. It is the pulse of a psychotic heartbeat that never lived, in a chest that never existed. Soon the inn will tear itself apart, and that will be the story of you.
Unless...
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Blood sprays across Gwen's shocked face, the scarlet dots standing out against the sea of tan freckles already present. "Leon!!"
Several thoughts flood through Gwen's mind, right in that minute span of time:
Did she bleed like that, when he stabbed her?
He was certainly a lot more gentle with her, than he is being with Leon right now, come to think of it...
How could she heal Leon? Her ARM can't create a new heart for him, anymore than it could for her without an available power source and the right conditions.
Isiris, however, is still there. Reality snaps, and Isiris is in another spot. Or was he always there? Or was he there? Or-
It never comes to Gwen's mind to shoot him, at this point. It might as well be shooting at a tornado, or a wildfire. A force of nature, like the one that licks at every board and item of furniture in the room. The flames are blue, radiating no heat, but at this point, they might as well be the same flames that marked her right side, for all the naked fear they produce.
She's not aware of the chaos below. It's probably for the best.
Blue grey eyes, glassy with tears, widen as Gwen notices Leon get to his feet out of the corner of her eye, one hand clapped over her mouth. Isiris must have missed his heart, whether by intention or sheer luck. That, or the soldier is made of stronger stuff than she accounted for.
Leon takes a step forward, hand reached out, and Gwen dutifully comes over, her own gait staggered but considerably more mobile than Leon's, at this point. One hand reaches for the neckerchief and roughly undoes the knot in the back, handing the silk fabric over in offering. "I'm gonna blast open an exit for us," she says, her voice shaking. "We're probably gonna have a bit of a jump t'handle."
That is, if Isiris will even let them go.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Everything moves slowly for Leon. Dully, as if through a fog. He has been badly injured before; some part of his mind is able to recognize the subtle shift in his perception, from surroundings that are controlled to a lack of panic created by shock. The way he looks at Gwen, his eyes unfocusing, communicate volumes about his mental state.
His assailant has vanished. Leon confirms this with a glance, out of the corners of his eyes. Those eyes still do not focus; then, he looks back at Gwen. The fire, still so wrong, is being processed.
This will kill them, if they stay. He realizes it too slowly.
He grunts, then takes the neckerchief. He presses it against the hole in his chest, from Isiris's blade. It is soaked in short order. "I can do a jump," he says. "Have a stash of berries, in my left pocket." His hand trembles, as he slams his shotgun into the holster. "Jump first."
His mind searches. What did the blade-wielding man mean, about the afterlife?
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
No answer seems to come for Leon; as far as he and Gwen are able to perceive, the blue-eyed assassin is gone. What isn't gone is the destruction left behind, including the soon to be dead occupants below.
... Not that Gwen knows this part. If she did, her actions would be far more conflicted than they already are.
It takes a few blasts to fully clear the way. Wall, furniture, banisters, anything that could get in the way of Gwen's direct path to what she perceives as the end of the building. By the end of the first round, Gwen is already in motion, her gait unsteady and wooden. Leon, if he doesn't make clear his own method of moving, will be hooked by Gwen with her left arm, an action that proves to be as much about steadying Gwen as it is about making sure Leon is coming along.
Nails and wood shrapnel produce their own series of potential injuries, whether they're remainders of Isiris's abilities or Gwen's desperate shooting.
At some point, cold air and drifting snowflakes from outside sting their faces. Gwen braces herself, fully coming to grips with the distance between the second and first floor, made vague by the blanket of snow. "... This is a big jump, huh. You ready-"
That pause is all that's allowed before a nail whips by. "...!"
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Leon can't see the blue-eyed man, but he doesn't assume that he is gone. He sticks with Gwen, her kerchief against his chest. It can only do so much to stop the flow of blood, but 'so much' is a far cry from nothing. He sticks with her, walking slowly.
But he doesn't protest Gwen's grab. One of them has a chest wound, the other doesn't. He moves along ith her, with a grunt.
And then he stumbles out into the cold. He blinks at it, a few times. Snow whips by. He glances at her -- a shaky hand reaches to his coat pocket, pulls out two berries. He chews down into them; some of the juice runs down his chin.
His eyes glance at the nail.
"Seems ill fortune's decided I'm ready," he says. "Let's go."
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Leon's reply seems to give Gwen the time needed to gather her own courage. Wincing against the sting of cold air against the wound on her hip, Gwen jumps forward, her left arm grabbing Leon.
For a brief moment, the world is simply the shock of air against the heaviness of a wounded body, gravity claiming its prize.
For the record, Gwen intended for her body to cushion Leon's landing, but the pileup of snow against the tavern's alleyway does a much better job, albeit being cold and wet against any bare skin.
It's almost tempting to let go right there, in that bed, blood speckling the snow with scarlet. Gwen ponders this, as her body collapses into it.
"... Mph... Ah!" Her weary groan turns into a cry as she staggers up, bites her lip, and looks for Leon. "You okay? We'll, ah, get through this," she tries to coax, stretching out a hand to help the main up, if he hasn't somehow managed to do so already. "Get you to a doctor, n'... guardians, that hurt..."
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Leon hits the snow, and it's far better than the rough landing he feared. He looks up, though it's later than he'd like. A similar line of thought goes through his head: it would be good to just lay here. Just for a moment. Just...
No.
He forces himself up. His eyes look sideways -- clearer than they were before. The berries he ate have been taking effect, and while that wound hurts mightily, he had some of the worst of it closed. "I'm... as well as can be expected."
He hesitates. He shot her. "What about you? Your leg," he says, with a glance. And then, a glance back at the building in flames.
"We shouldn't linger here," he adds.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
At Leon's mention, the building gains Gwen's attention then, the redhead going silent immediately as she watches the flames.
"You got stabbed through the chest," she finally offers, as if that provided some answer. SHe goes silent again, staring at the burning tavern. "There were... people, inside. I thought he was just goin' after us..."
Again, Leon got stabbed through the chest. He needs attention. So does she. But-
"..."
That part of her that clenches inside, doesn't clench for very long. Like a memory of something that was there, a phantom pain.
".... yeah." Quietly, she moves along, pausing once to look back at Leon. "... Is Lily great 'bout checkin' her messages, by chance?"
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"As well as someone who can be stabbed through the chest can be," Leon says. He gives her a look, for a second, and then he grits his teeth. There are people in there. He has little illusion about his ability to help. Sitting up was hard; standing without assistance might be impossible.
"She is, if she is near a Memory Cube," he says. "It might be a big if. But we should contact her."
He lets out a shaking breath.
"Should be one, not far from here," he says. He points down a street. "That way."
A beat, a moment. Then, he asks the question that he can scarcely keep in: "Who is he?"
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Gwen's ability to walk is hampers by the wound on her hip, but Leon's punctured chest, while healed some by the healberries, is just as much an impediment. Together, they're steady, at least, even if they would look highly suspicious to any possible passers-by once they got out of the alleyway.
"Right." The courier steers that direction, regaining some measure of willpower in receiving a destination to walk towards.
The eerie quiet that swallows them once they gain some distance from the building makes even the falling snow feel harsh and loud, to Gwen's senses. When Leon asks his question, the timespan of what should have been a few seconds instead feels like a minute to Gwen's senses.
"He's never given me a name t'call him. He stabbed me once, too. Don't know if I told Lily, or if it ever came up, but..." She takes a breath, her hand clamped on her hip. "He didn't miss, with me. If it weren't for my ARM, I'd be dead. When he found out I was still alive, it seemed t'signal something for him." A pause. "He's gone after Lily, too."
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"No name. Bloody brilliant," Leon grunts.
That breaks the quiet, at least. So, too, does his labored breathing. His wound is sealed enough to merely be not immediately life threatening; moving around with it is likely not the best idea. His hand still covers the stab wound; he glances sideways at Gwen.
Then, he nods his head once. "I remember. Someone attacked her," he says. "I didn't put two and two together. Do you know anything else? What he wants?"
He glances back at the burning inn. "Besides... that."
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
"It's s'okay. Someone like her... probably isn't the first person she's had to deal with." Realizing how that may sound, she adds, "A bright flame attracts moths."
Adjusting her hold on Leon, Gwen keeps moving. "... Lemme know if I'm grippin' you wrong. ... guardians, I shouldn't have come here."
Leon's question comes, and it's surprising how easily a possible answer comes to Gwen- at least, to her.
"... To show the world mercy."
Gwen's lips remain parted, her breath casting white into the air.
"Her Mercy."
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"It does," Leon says, with a nod. He's had to deal with their fair share of people going after Lily. It comes with the territory, he imagines. He glances sideways at Gwen, leaning on her -- and then his eyes narrow.
"Mercy?" he says. "I'd hate to see the bastard's idea of cruelty. Whose mercy, though?"
He grimaces, and looks ahead. He keeps walking -- and tries to not think too hard about the trail of blood left in the snow.
It could lead to them, part of him thinks.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
"Death," Gwen begins, "... is a mercy. To those left behind, whose work is done. To no longer struggle to flap their wings, or waste away..."
She stiffens.
"... I think he did something to me, at some point," she says, her voice beginning to shake. "Not, like, harm me, just... change me. I can't tell what parts of me were always there and what parts are new."
Gwen's body relaxes, and she continues moving. "I don't know why he involved you. I think... he wanted me to try to kill you, maybe. If you hadn't shot me, maybe, I would've succeeded."
This close, Leon might feel the subtle 'wrongness' of what accounts for Gwen's own heart beat, something like a rhythmic machine than a familiar beat of a human heart.
"I thought you were going to shoot me. I saw every single way it could've happened. Felt it. All I wanted to do was stop you. Kill you, even."
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"Change you? I remember... Lily had problems, too. Memory issues, it almost seemed," Leon says, with a shake of his head. It was something he would need to remember--
Except he feels it. A strangeness, to her heartbeat. He looks sideways at her -- blinks -- and then he nods. "I thought the same. I thought you were going to. And... I was aiming for your leg, in the end, but--" He frowns. "That man. What he does. It plays with your senses."
He hesitates.
"Miss Whitlock," he says. "After he stabbed you. You said something changed. With your mind, or... elsewise?"
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
"She did? Huh." Even Lily, someone who had vaguely assumed a certain level of invincibility in Gwen's mind, if due to her plethora of abilities. "Yeah, that's why I was surprised, about the tavern."
They're walking away from people who could still be alive. Burning away.
"It's okay," she says.
"Thank you for aiming at my hip instead of my head." The suggestion of a wry grin flashes on her lips.
He asks one direct question, and Gwen takes a moment to realize why.
".... oh. Well. Uh, that, I can answer." It's unmistakably hers, moving in sync with her like any heart would.
"Like I said, my ARM saved me. It's, uh, connected to my heart. Or was. Now, it is my heart, more or less." The night streets are silent, the redhead avoiding the stares by any passers-by. "It consumed a medium tablet to do it, and, if a dear friend of mine didn't find me afterwards, I would've died otherwise."
A few more footsteps. "It's why I sort of admired Lily, even if I can't say I know her beyond what she'd show anyone. And, why I would trust her, even if it was just me here, wounded."
She pauses, shifting her slowly weakening grip. "... she ain't gonna like that I tried to kill you, though... So, you shooting me back, well, I earned it."
As they continue to move, step by step, Gwen seems to cast away enough of her usual caution. "... I never asked you or Lily, though... what are the Black Wolves? I know you're a... uh... mercenary group, but beyond that..." She trails off, as if to let Leon fill in with his own answers.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"I did consider it," Leon says. But, maybe, he isn't that far gone yet. He glances down at the ground for a moment. When she explains, though, he makes a slightly surprised noise. Leon's good with ARMs, though no Shalune Amira. He hadn't heard of one like that.
"Ah, so--it filled in, when his sword should have ended you," he says. "And some help from a medium. And your friend."
He glances at her, then he shakes his head. "I can explain that. Lily's... well. The sort who focuses on what's in front of her."
He cracks a smile. "And that will be a chest wound."
He hesitates, though, at the question. Then, he says: "The original Wolves were a Kislevi special forces group. They were wiped out, in some treachery. The new ones... mercenaries is the short of it," he says. "Though... we've grown in power. We have Fei Fong Wong and a Solarian defector with us, for one. And... ah... at this point, it is a way to never have to bow to kings and governments again."
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Gwen winces at Leon's admission, but finds herself stifling a laugh. "Maybe that's why that man chose you. Gave himself enough room to bend the truth."
The surprised noise doesn't earn much in a reaction from Gwen, at this point. Leon has seen the extent, no more, no less. "... Yeah. I honestly found myself thinking, how I'd need a medium to heal you. But that... it doesn't work that way. I was lucky it worked the way it did, back then. Besides..."
Snow dots Gwen's cheeks, wetting the dark drops of Leon's blood. "My ARM, my will. I made the choice, whether I was aware or not. It'd be unfair to throw that on you, even if I could do it. If I even had to." Isiris's choice of strike couldn't have been up to chance, however. Everything had seemed delibrate.
"... The fact that you're alive must be because he's interested in you, too. I might've just been a tool, not the cause."
There's an element of shame that comes with the relief Gwen finds herself feeling.
Closer. Could they really be free of Isiris's influence, or are they just on an endless loop?
... No, she'd know it. She's tried to run from him before.
"Kislevi, huh... I don't remember when, but I thought something about you n' Lily was Kislevi. The sorts of things a courier'd notice, if she's been enough places enough times."
A corner is turned, and the memory cube is in sight.
"... I shouldn't have made you talk, but... kinda was afraid I'd lose my grip, if I didn't. But I think we'll be able to rest soon." How would Lily get here quickly enough, though? Should they wait, here? Or...
"... My gear is close enough nearby. We can use it as shelter. It... has a heater."
The mere memory of it suddenly strengthens Gwen to pick up her pace. "To never have to bow to kings and governments again, huh... Sounds... pretty nice, after everything that's happened." She smiles. "... I'm not made to be a merc, but I remember you guys understanding that a long time ago. But... if I haven't made the offer before, consider me someone who has a debt to pay to you."
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
<poem> Leon laughs, a little dryly. "Wouldn't shock me. Or I was an irritating interloper. I'm known to be."
He nods his head once, at her explanation. ARMs had a way of bonding with their wielders, especially the more advanced ones. Some Drifters waxed poetic about it, but Leon found there to be truth about it.
He frowns, after a moment. "Interested in me... bloody hell," the former soldier mutters. "Then I'll need to keep my eyes open."
He glances at Gwen, then. His head tilts -- but he nods. Lots of little things that can point to them being Kislevi, even Kislevi aristocrats. "Quite all right," he says. "I could use the distraction, to be honest. Your Gear... sounds like a better place than most."
When she picks up the pace, he keeps it. "I'll remember that. Far be it from us to turn down an opportunity."