middaeg | [CLOSED] everything our passion led us to soon shall fall

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[CLOSED] everything our passion led us to soon shall fall

Who: Hector, Myr, and Special Guest Adelheid (...and Viren, Everett, and Silas)
When: 5/12-ish, evening
Where: A decrepit garden in the Outer City.
What: A Literal Murder
Warnings: In Which A Couple of Fauns Kill An Angry Revenant; death and egregious injury ahoy.

There's an abandoned park across the Bright Wall from the Haven, stitched into the Outer City's edge like a decaying jewel. It was lovely, once; now it is overgrown with weeds and brush, a haunt of ferals and the destitute. It's here Myr called Hector as soon as he could once his watch was returned to him; it's from here, in his fury-addled way, the deer plans to bait Adelheid to them and kill her.

He's--somehow--found a bench half-consumed by greenery amongst all the decay and cleared away enough of the weeds to lay out his kit in orderly fashion: Folded bits of paper with bound spells for paralysis and silence, each a different shape. His watch. His knife.

Two temporary Bonding potions.

There's a twitching, furious energy beneath Myr's skin, in his sharp economy of motion as he mounts the blade on his staff. He's failed twice this month already to protect his Bonded, and with one of them lying mutilated and despairing in hospital already, his patience with the world at large has grown a little fucking thin. Exacting the revenge he couldn't on Niles by beating the Incarnate to bone shards and rose dust would go a long way to restoring it.

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It's perhaps not the wisest plan. Both Myr and Hector have allies who could help in this fight. But fauns aren't known for their careful reason. They are creatures of frenzy and passion, and both of them have a wild, pulsating anger within them at the creature who dared lay hands on Everett.

So yes, Hector sneaks away from his new home in the evening at Myr's bidding, while Silas is visiting Everett and will keep him safe. Hector has no magic to offer, and no experience with the runes that other Mirrorbound employ. He has his hammer, and leather bracers on his forearms to protect the skin Adelheid had managed to gouge last time. And rage. He has plenty of that to bring with him.

He finds the desolate park, and wonders how Myr found this place. The deer is already here, taking stock of his inventory. Hector calls out to him quietly.

"I'm here."

He eyes the knife on a stick...probably not the most effective weapon against a skeleton, but it's also not the time to try to adopt a new fighting style. Hector can provide the blunt force trauma with the hammer that everyone likes to make such fun of.

"So how are we going to do this?"

At the sounds of Hector's approach--the quiet call of greeting--Myr twitches his ears to track his fellow-Faun but of course doesn't lift his head from what he's doing. "You've been keeping away from mirrors?"

It almost isn't a question, as he finishes with his staff and slings it across his back once more. (The blade really wouldn't be much use unless he hit a joint, and that irritates him too; if only his spirit blade still functioned. That could slice through bone, but he hasn't had the heart yet to get a Witch to make him a new one. Even after nearly a year the loss was raw.)

"There's a covered one in my pack. Anticipating she can scry through them and she's looking for you, you'll take it out and uncover it. She comes for you through it--and we take her."

He gestures sharply toward the bench. "The runes are for her--paralysis in diamonds, silence in stars," for so he's carefully folded them. "All we need do is touch them to her.

"The potions--" Had he mentioned before he'd wanted a temporary Bond? It feels years since he'd last spoken to Hector, years layered over with trauma and horror and outrage. He can't remember if he'd brought it up; if this is the first time he's saying this, so be it. It would work or it wouldn't; Hector would agree or they'd do without. "--are for us. If we're Bonded for the night, I'll know where you are and have a better hint where she is."

A compensation for his blindness, you see? He has his workarounds, his strategies.

Though they're not proof against the unanticipated, like how this ruined little park he found is a sometimes-garbage dump. Far from the two conversing Fauns, nearly invisible in the evening gloom but still in earshot, molders a heap of discarded furniture. Myr had marked its presence early...but could not see the lovely wall mirror in its ruined frame sitting among the shredded ottomans and broken-legged tables. It has no view of the conspirators now, but that all might change in the next few minutes.

Edited 2020-05-15 12:16 (UTC)

Hector nods out of habit. "Yes. Broke every mirror in the cottage. You wouldn't believe how many Everett had."

Imminent pain and murder can't stop Hector from teasing their vain goat just a little.

He listens to the plan Myr outlines. It's calculated and cold, so unlike the Myr he's known up until now. All the more reason to end Adelheid, quickly, by his own hand...to keep her darkness from dragging more people down.

Hector's to be the sacrificial lamb in this plot, which he's willing to accept. It will ensure Everett is safe and allow Hector to get his revenge. The danger doesn't even register through the rage.

"It's...a thorough plan. You've thought of everything. I can't object to it."

He picks up one of the bottles and watches the potion swirl around as he turns the glass in his hands. This will be his first bond, and it seems it is to be one formed of desperation and violent intent. He shouldn't be disappointed...he's expected no less. The fact that he's found a single person in this city who loves him is an incredible fluke.

Better to focus on the anger than to dwell on that thought. He recalls the sound of Cezar's yelp when Adelheid trod on him, the sight of Everett pinned to his bed, being strangled, and the rush of fury washes away the reluctance about bonding.

"Shall we drink? To a good hunt."

Hector takes no notice of the hidden mirror either, keeping up his horrible track record of failing to identify threats to his person.

Somehow the gentle poke at Everett's vanity still manages to get a smile out of Myr--a tight, strained compression of the lips but a smile all the same. That was their Everett, in all his glorious self-confident vanity. That's who they're here to protect, and being reminded of it only further hardens his resolve.

"Maker grant I have," thought of everything; Myr leans down to grope for the other bottle of potion. He knows even as he utters it it's a vain prayer: He hasn't, can't have thought of everything that might befall them. He only hopes he's thought of enough, and whatever surprises there might be won't be fatal to either of them.

Finding the potion, he pops the top from it his thumb. "To a good hunt," he echoes Hector, then more softly: "I'm sorry, lambkin."

It should not have worked out this way; Hector deserves far better in even a temporary Bondmate than the creature Myr is right now. But there is no time to regret that long, no time to say or do more than what he has for Hector. Myr tips the potion back in one swallow and stills, waiting for the Bond to set.

Here's to hoping its temporary nature would blunt any perception of the absolute maelstrom of fury beneath his so-controlled veneer-- And how an alarming amount of it is inward-turned.

Hector unstops the bottle and drains it. There, it is done. It's no time for apologies or regrets, only for action.

He waits for a shift or change within himself, proof that the potion has taken hold. Myr has true bonds, he knows what to expect. For Hector, this is all unknown territory.

Hector's mind translates abstract concepts like 'magic' and 'deep human connections' into metaphors he can understand. He has always thought of the place within his core that housed his power as a forge. The magic within had been a pure blue, like the hottest part of a candle's flame, burning and ready to ignite the spark of life. That fire was snuffed out when he arrived here. So far, the only replacement has been the soft green glow of his nature magic, flickering in and out in unpredictable intervals as his faun transformation progresses.

He reaches into the forge to try to understand the new magic the potion has kindled. In his mind's eye, it's the tiny flame of a matchstick, its time measured. The color of the fire is the inky blackness of a river at night, with only the barest sliver of moonlight to illuminate it. In the light of day, the color of this bond might be something bright and vibrant, a source of life and beauty. In the night, though, the flame writhes and roils with emotion, too dark and dangerous to dare attempt to ford.

Hector stops reaching out his hand to the metaphorical flame. He isn't sure how much of the darkness is his and how much is Myr's, but it's a reminder that Hector is a cursed man. They need to finish this quickly, so Myr isn't tethered to him long.

"...it's working." He sets the empty bottle back on the bench with a clink. "Take up your runes and hide yourself, and I'll unwrap the mirror."

The thread now stretching from Myr's heart to Hector's is an etiolated thing, pale and nondescript, compared to what the deer has with Everett and his Witch. It tugs at him no less for all that; there is only a small part of Hector in it, but the temptation is there to reach for whatever that small part might be and draw it close for inspection. Had they leisure, had they time--did Myr not feel like his touch would wither whatever was good or bright or golden in another--he'd do that; he wants to know more about this loyal, troubled man Everett's brought into their orbit.

But they do not have time, and their Bond can be little more to him than a compass however long it lasts. "It's working," Hector assesses, and Myr trades his own bottle for a pair each of the runes, counting the corners in a brush of fingers to be sure he's got the right ones. The knife's next, and he snugs it close to his body beneath his padded coat.

"Maker guide your blows," he says, softly. Then--after a moment to orient himself between the twin poles of Hector and true north--he begins picking his way toward the pile of furniture. It would make good enough cover... If he'd time to use it.

(He does not see his own reflection peek out at him from the junked mirror as he passes before it.)

[Two more puppets, so far from safety. How many Sherwood has in this life. And how dedicated they are to him. Foolish, the lot of them. Adelheid is beyond his charms. They'll learn what a mistake they've made. She'll be the one to teach the lesson she learned so long ago.

Anyone he cares about should suffer. If she cannot get to him, she'll destroy what he "loves". His tools, until he has nothing to command.

Mist pours from the hidden mirror, shrouding the park and soon, a rotting smell follows. Death and mold choke the air. Her voice is directionless, she will terrorize them first and foremost]

Little lambs and fragile harts make for poor hunters.

[Hector waits until Myr has taken the runes and begun moving before he opens the pack to root around for the wrapped mirror. He's bent over it, beginning to peel away the cloth, when the putrid mist and the echoing voice fill the air.]

Oh, fuck.

[He can't tell where she is, but she must be close. If she is calling out 'harts' as well as lambs, she's seen Myr. So Hector scrambles to his feet and rushes in the direction Myr went to hide.]

[her voice ripples and echoes off invisible walls, tossed all around by magic, uneven. She doesn't know if Myr truly lacks for sight, given that Awakened blindfold he's wearing, but she can practically blind them both with the heavy coat of vile fog.]

Don't worry too much, pretty puppets! [she laughs, melodic and terrible]

You won't live long with your regrets. If only Sherwood was a man who knew guilt... he won't mourn for either of you. A pointless sacrifice for a man who knows no love. [she sings, the song bouncing up and down through the air, like a prancing deer.]

Shame, shame, what a shame!

Oh fuck, [Myr mutters to himself, though there's no real surprise in it; this is the way his luck has run for months. Why not a counterambush because he'd overlooked something.

At least they've chosen the ground, though (he takes a too-deep breath of the fog, sneezes and flinches at the scent of rotting corpse) Adelheid is already doing her best to make it unrecognizable. But the fog can hardly impair Myr further and he's nearly to the pile of broken furniture...and all its leg-grabbing snares.

He draws his staff, hefting it easily in one hand with a paralysis rune pinched between the fingers of the other.]

You're going to have to do more than stink up the place if you want us dead, Adelheid! [he shouts. Hector has the hammer. Her focus needs to be on Myr, now that they've lost the element of surprise.]

[A small mercy, Hector's background has left him unbothered by the smell of corpses. The mist is obnoxious, but not noxious to him.]

There is no fucking Sherwood, hag. [Hector growls to Adelheid as he tries to find Myr in the fog. Seeing him is hard, but the bond lets him know he's at least going in the right direction.]

Are you sure that's not just her stench? She's an old, rotten widow.

[Hector doesn't know Myr's strategy in this, but he knows his: he does not want the centaur going after the blind man, and he needs Adelheid within striking distance if he wants to be of any use. So bating her into coming close to him serves that purpose. If her focus is on him, Myr will be free to sneak in with his runes.]

I'll kill you both in good time. [there's the sound of hoof steps, but they're off, odd, from all over, like her voice. More distractions and illusion. It's not the control she had back home, in her dreams, but she will play with the toys she's been given.]

You share a death wish, after all. I'll grant you that. I will have that mercy.

[a fine enough time to make her first appearance, her jagged antler lashing out from the fog at Hector. After all, he is who she witnessed living with Everett, witnessed so willing to risk his life and limb for her husband's reincarnation]

[Myr swears beneath his breath as Hector joins in on taunting Adelheid. Three guesses on what the other man's decided their strategy is, and the first two don't count; their target even calls them on it. They could continue this way and try dividing her attention--that's got a definite appeal to it, wouldn't make Myr feel so much like he's using Hector as a sacrificial lamb--but odds were she'd turn that fumbling lack of coordination against them, rather than the opposite. So, adapt.

The deer falls silent, straining senses both physical and magical against the enclosing fog. She's using illusory sound against them--not good--so tracking her direct by her hoofbeats is out, but the echoes from everywhere at least give Myr more knowledge of their surroundings. He stalks toward Hector through the feeling of their Bond, careful of his footing and working furiously at the problem of where Adelheid will come from. Presumably she wouldn't let herself be trapped between them...]

Come on, wake up, [he mutters as he moves, nudging clumps of grass here and there as he encounters them. There was another reason he'd chosen this particular park for their ambush: The grasshoppers who call it home have a taste for magical flora. No telling they'd want Adelheid's flowers (someone that poisonously bitter is probably thoroughly inedible, Myr laments), but it was worth trying.] Dinner's here--

[Wait, lose that a moment. He freezes, ears swiveling toward the sound of an antler striking something. There she is!]

[Hector's taunting works, and for the moment, Adelheid turns her wrath on him rather than Myr. Hector has to trust that Myr will use the time he buys to good use.

Adelheid's antler jabs from the shroud of mist, and Hector has the split second to decide whether to try to dodge or attack. The frenzy of battle weighs out over his own safety, and rather than trying to jump to the side, he swings his hammer at the antler's base. Silas said the skull is the key to Adelheid's power, after all.

The bony antler pierces into his side, tearing the fabric of his robes and the skin beneath. Blood leaks out, but Hector gasps in a breath and forces his hammer down, hoping this will be a trade of blows.]

[Adelheid laughs out in joy to shred skin, drawing blood. Hector's hammer may land, but it's with less effectiveness than before, seeming to not hit bone. Some shielding force blocks the worse parts of the blow, Adelheid at least wise enough to pick up rudimentary defensive magic in her learning of this worlds spellcraft. It's not an advance spell, it doesn't hold long, yet it takes enough force from the blow to be all she feels she needs.

That is, until a swarm of terrible insects descend upon her. She shrieks in rage at that, pulling away from Hector and thrashing briefly before that warmth swells again. Just a moment before she erupts into flame, burning away any of the creature's not wise enough to leave with the warning heat. Her form is, at least, visible now, burning brightly against the fog. The roar of it is far more localized than any other noise, easier to pin down than echos bouncing every which way]

I'll burn this place down around you! Leave no place for his rats to scatter! [with that, she jets fire towards Hector, but doesn't seem too focused on hitting him. Moreso, blocking off the spot behind him, cutting off his easier route of escape]

[Grasshoppers are not, alas, known for their wisdom--but some do still have the instinct to leap away from their intended feast in a whirring of wings as the air around Adelheid heats to scorching; the unfortunate rest cook off with an awful crackling and stench. For a single, solitary moment Myr's fixed in place by sheer outrage at the act, the sacrilege of fire here--

Then he's charging the obvious target the Giant's made of herself. It's still hot enough nearby to singe his fur where he plants his hooves and rears back with his staff upraised--think, think quick on how tall she might be--and brings it down blade-first in a wild stab at the top of her barrel. She can't be killed by a thrust through her lower back, but she might be pinned to the ground by the cage of her own bones and the hardened metal of the staff.

Provided he doesn't miss.]

[Hector watches grasshoppers descend like a biblical plague on the witch --what is it with Myr and insects?-- but just as quickly, Adelheid summons up her fire.

The shrieks and the smoke in his lungs and the heat close but not a danger to him drags Hector down unbidden into memories of a fire he set, long ago. Through the bond, Myr might catch flashes of a memory or emotion, rage and fear and shame stirred into a suspension.

There's fire behind him now, too, and his instincts tell him to freeze, to not get any closer to the flame. But that's not an option. Anger. That is what Hector needs to keep his shaking limbs moving forward. They are Everett's rats to this this monster, not even entities worth considering separate from him. Hector will have to teach her the price of underestimating him. His parents had learned that lesson.

His escape route is cut off, but fuck that. They need to end this. Adelheid has made a target of herself with her fire, and Myr is moving somewhere behind her, so close. It's hard to see through the smoke and fog, but when Hector hears the clanking of Myr's staff, he forces his legs to move and rushes up to swing once more for that damned skull.]

[Myr's staff strikes true, wedging between gaps in her skeletal form. Metal scraps and sparks along bone to pin her in place. That gives her a place to focus fire, quite literally, and the next burst of flame may well strike Myr center of his chest, knocking him backwards with the force of it. If she had better control, such a thing might be able to kill a man, but alas. Such magic is too new to be so effective.

Hector's efforts are met with another thrash of her skull. The hammer comes down upon her and she meets it with the hooks of those long antlers, the head of the weapon cracking the furthest end off entirely. Another feral scream from her in rage and she tries to wrench the weapon free on the man's hands. Something she could certainly do, if only she could rear upward onto her hind legs, but the staff traps her with an even worse shriek of metal and bone]

[If Myr had let go the staff and fallen away the instant he trapped Adelheid, he might've avoided retaliation. But he doesn't do that, spurred on by both his own fury(fear) and the too-real echo of Hector's over their Bond; he leans his full weight into driving the blade deep into the ground beneath her. Keep her pinned, let her pretty flowers and rotting bones burn up in the fire meant for them, she deserves it--

The fire-blast catches him full-on, center mass; reflex saves his shoulders from being wrenched out of their sockets as he lets the staff go, but doesn't keep him on his feet. He's twisting as he falls, lands badly on one shoulder and his head, but a Faun's innate magic spares him a concussion. Doesn't spare him a moment of white panic at the smell of smoke and flush of heat on him where his shirt has scorched and he falls dangerously still... Until a mage's instincts older than his stay in Aefenglom kick in and he rolls to extinguish the little licking flames.

Were it only so easy to put out the rest of the fires she's set--except he's not thinking about that as he pulls himself back to his hooves, spitting blood and gritty dirt; there's only a white-hot blend of outrage and terror in his brain, crowding everything out but the tactics of the Now.]

Get her! [he shouts, already in motion again. It'll be a second or two yet before he can engage again but maybe, maybe Hector's got his shot.

Maker grant him he's got his shot and guide that hammer true.]

[Hector feels Myr's pain through their bond as he's blasted and tossed backwards, and a feral cry escapes through his gritted teeth. Adelheid is trying to wrestle the hammer from his hands, and as the handle catches in the prongs of her remaining antler, Hector tries a new strategy. He changes his grip and gives the handle of his weapon a sharp jerk, trying to wrench her head to the side. She doesn't have a traditional neck to snap, but Hector will be damned if he doesn't try. He'd rip the skull clean off of her vertebrae if he could.

He won't get a killing blow in this way, but he's hoping he can throw her off balance long enough to get his hammer free and for Myr to get himself up and away. Already the fire is growing, beginning to lick at his heels. They don't have long.]

[Adelheid's body kicks and bucks as far as it can in all directions, beginning to snap her own ribcage. The bone splinters with each marrow rending movement, shattering enough to break free. She's back to charge forward into Hector, wishing to impale him, hoist him into the fire creeping up behind him, but he shifts him. When he pulls the hammer, it tears her skull free of the flowers holding it in place, ripping as if muscle.

Her skull falls from her neck, hitting the dirt with all together dull thud. Adelheid goes quiet with this, a brief and false sense of security. Her body turns with rapid speed, rushing down Myr, set to trample him with jagged hooves, still aflame.

A gambit, over whether Hector will choose to smash the skull as it lay prone or try to save his companion.]

[Bone shatters. Flames roar. There's a sound like tissue tearing and a distant popping wrench from Hector's side of the Bond as Adelheid falls silent.

A fight's a damned hard thing to make sense of even with intact vision; it's all Myr can do with his remaining senses to piece together what's just happened. He stumbles a step at realizing she's loose, she's charging him in a thunder of hoofbeats. She's going to run him down; from the heat on all sides there's nowhere for him to go but into the rising fires. His tail flags with alarm; colliding with that skeletal mass will shatter any of his own bones--

Except his own Faun-thick skull.

It's a stupid idea. He's probably dead either way. But Adelheid isn't laughing anymore and Hector's done something to turn the battle and the abrupt conjoined realization that this is it, do or die time, floods Myr with a sudden eerie calm.

Too damn bad his antlers are only nubs in velvet yet. He drops his head anyway, hooves digging into the soil as he lunges to meet her--literally--head-on.

DO IT! he wills with everything in him at Hector along the tenuous tissue of their Bond.]

[Hector is used to being the stupid one. He's aghast that his own skull-popping gambit worked. But now Myr's being the suicidal idiot and Hector has to do something if he doesn't want to bring Everett back a bond-pancake.]

Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck...

[Myr is forcing his hand. Hector can't get his dumb deer ass out of Adelheid's way when he's charging in like that, so the only hope they've got is that Hector can crack the skull before Adelheid cracks Myr.

It's only years of working with this hammer in his hand that keeps Hector's arms from shaking as he dives toward the skull and brings the hammer's head down upon the darkened bones.]

[There's no means for Adelheid to move her skull, so the best she can do is erupt another flurry of fire. It's too unfocused to do much more than catch more of the area around them, trapping them within a tight and intense ring of flame. That's the last effort she has and her laughter doesn't point to much regret. They'll die here, she'll be free of this prison, the soul of her husband... will it ache with despair that he lost such dedicated pawns?

No. No, it probably won't. It hadn't ached for her.

Hector's hammer shatters her skull, ringing her death knell. The body, animated and charging in flame, staggers over itself. Less a full charge and more crumpling into Myr with momentum alone, little force and even less heat by time the body reached him. Just a pile of bones and flowers, now... he'll be tangled and cut up at worst.

The flames do not disappear with her. They remain to consume and destroy what she couldn't.]

[Sometimes all it takes is a tactic so stupid it just might work.

Myr's ready for much more of a collision than he gets; instead, one of Adelheid's disintegrating tarsals tangles in his own and he goes ass over little nubby antlers into the ground beneath the ex-Incarnate.

There's a moment of silence before a breathless, sharp laugh shows he's still alive and he starts kicking his way loose of the pile.]

Fuck me, we did it. You did it. [The Giant's pelvis goes soaring into the surrounding flames. Myr's humor curdles as he hears them.] But we're still in the shit, aren't we.

Sorry, lambkin. [Despite the dire situation Myr's tone is far from resigned. Call it the adrenaline of victory or an ironclad faith that if they made it through that, they're meant to escape--whatever it is, it's keeping the deer moving and not panicking despite the closing flames.

Barely not panicking.]

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[CLOSED] everything our passion led us to soon shall fall

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