RP log - Jack & Brysie, Westfall, Monday night.

[nicenewra]

((Jack received a letter that his mother, who has been sick for a very long time, is finally about to succumb to her sickness.  He's taken Brysie to his family home in Westfall to say goodbye, but his behaviour towards her is growing increasingly erratic and abusive.  This is what happens the night his mother passes away -- with their help.))

It is late. The house is too still, too quiet. Mariele is collapsed on the couch, her eyes red and puffy, but at least she's finally asleep; the wanness of her skin and how drawn her otherwise youthful face look speak to how badly she needs the rest. There are two noteable sounds: the occasional grunted moans from Ms Steeles' bedroom, those helpless, rattling sounds that she makes unconsciously even when her body would seem to be asleep -- and Jack's fingers drumming on the kitchen table where he sits with Brysie. There are mugs of tea in front of them both. His has been steeping for too long and the water is taking on a sickly grayish-green tinge. Drum. His jaw is clenched. He is so pointedly not looking at his mother's door that he might as well be staring at it. Finally, the silence is broken by a sharp: "Come," and him standing up violently enough that his chair clatters over onto the floor. Mariele doesn't even move. Jack begins to walk away, but stops, and holds a hand out for Brysie.

Brysie has been doing everything she can to help out. With his sister so plainly exhausted by all of this, she has more than once insisted on being the one to cook meals and wash fresh linens and clean up after everyone. It's also given her something to focus on other than the fact that she might as well be a ghost in that house. Unfortunately, when you're constantly cleaning, you eventually run out of things to clean, and so it is now that she is sitting with Jack at the table, and lost in the uneven swirls of her thoughts.  At the sudden sounding of his voice and the clattering of his chair, Brysie is visibly startled, jerking in her seat, her eyes snapping up to him. Nonetheless, she is quick to take his hand and rise. She moves right to his side to be lead wherever it is they are going.

So often his grip this past day or two has been harsh and wild, that of a man out of control of himself. Not so now. Although his hand is cold and clammy with anxiety, he holds her hand with a sort of neediness to be close, to feel her, to know that she is coming with him. His strides are not long as he leads her out of the tiny, too neat house. The front yard was overgrown when they arrived, but between Brysie's attentions and Eria's children wanting to do something to help her, the 'gardens' are weeded and the grass neatly cut. It is towards where the clippings are piled that Jack leads his girl. The moons are high and full over Westfall. His family home is nowhere remarkable, somewhere nearish the river that borders Elwynn but not enough to see it through the trees, vaguely close to a hill but on almost determinedly flat ground, and kind of alongside a road, if you skip through the field next door. That is to say, it is in the middle of buttfuck nowhere Westfall and the landscaping is as uninteresting as that sounds. The fence surrounding the property is well maintained, if not a little patchwork in the woods that form it: old barn wood, fresher logs, planks from pallets -- anything that Jack could find to repair the fence when he came to visit, he used. He pats the top railing of the fence and tugs Brysie gently, as if indicating he wants her to sit there. They're looking out over moonlit fields of corn and wheat. It smells like the country, and fresh-cut grass.

It may not be something expansive and expensive, but it is beautiful to her because it is a home with a family inside of it. Because it still has a roof and four walls and doors that work. She follows behind Jack quietly, and when he pats that fence, she lifts herself up onto it to sit delicately on the top railing. Of course she is in one of her long skirts, and a thin, but long-sleeved tunic with tight bodice and loose sleeves. Her hair is hanging loose in pale waves. She looks tired herself, but her eyes are bright in reflection of the moonlight, and then are absolutely focused on him so questioningly.

When he looks at her now, it's old Jack. It's that man who treated her so tenderly and respectfully when they met, the one who laughed and quoted poetry when he found her in the woods, who strutted around the forest naked after they made love the first time. The defeat is still there in his eyes, but moreso there is that wonder, a man looking at a woman he can hardly bare to take his hands from. Indeed, those hands come to her now, stroke down her thighs and give her knees a soft squeeze, not one meant to tickle her. His voice is raw with disuse. "You're beautiful, you know that?"

Oh, to be looked at that way again, it makes her heart throb so desperately. Her hands slip down to ghost across his, but she does not want him to let go, just as she doesn't want that whisper of soft cotton against skin as her skirt shifts with his movements. Those hands lift to take his face so gently when he speaks, and her brows furrow so much. Softly her thumbs stroke his face. What can she do or say to that? She doesn't know. She's never known. But she smiles tenderly because hearing it from him is the most important thing.

His eyes close when her hands come to his face, and he lets out the shakiest sigh. Everything in him hurts. Every inch of his skin aches, save for where her soft hands touch him. He flinches momentarily, as if some raw twinge of emotion gets the best of him then, and his eyes open again. "Everything else here is so ugly," he says, and he sounds almost confused by this. "And then there's you." What is he doing with her? What is he doing to her?

Her chin crumples a little when that emotion seizes him. She wishes he would let it go, just let it out. He would feel better if he did, but she dares not suggest such a thing. Perhaps she can coax it without being obvious. "Shhh," she coos softly to him. Her fingers brush over his lips and then she's urging him forward with her other hand. "Come to me, Jack. Can we just hold one another for a moment?"

Her skirt is crumbled in his fingers. He pushes it up as he steps into her, his broad body between her legs, and even then his hands are moving again, up up up, to hold her hair and the back of her neck and press her forward into his chest, his head tilting down and his lips firm against her crown. He doesn't even smell like himself. He smells like a man who is as sick as the woman whose presence lingers about them, he is dry and moldy and even though he has bathed, the soap is unscented. His body is tense.

It hurts her heart so terribly to see him this way. "Let me take care of you, Jack," she whispers as she presses there against his chest. "Let me relax you. Let me wash you and comb your hair."

His fingers tighten. He doesn't answer what she said. His rough cheek slips down to rest on her head, his mouth lowering to her ear, where he whispers, "I want you to say goodbye to her."

She swallows hard to keep in the sigh that wants to shake so heavily out of her. "Okay," she whispers. Her arms circle him tightly for a moment. "I will."

He pulls back, looks down to catch her eyes.

Her head lifts slowly, her face turning up to him. She is so fair in the moonlight, the pale rays catching her equally pale hair to cast a gentle halo around the top of her head.

He cups her jaw in his palm, thumb stroking across her lips, catching the fullness of the lower one. "Then I want you to go back to Stormwind." His brows twitch into a frown for a moment. "So I can say goodbye to her. I don't want you to be here."

That is not what she wanted to hear. At all, and it shows plainly on her face. "But," she begins.

She begins, and his fingers clench a moment, not even meaning to -- he wants to be gentle. It shows in the absolute despair on his face, how he gives his head a slow, almost meandering shake. "Please, Brysie. I don't want to do it with you here."

She should have expected he is the kind of man who mourns alone. That he does not want her to witness him in a moment of weakness, to see him crying. "I don't want to leave you here," she says softly. Her lip is quivering. "I want to be here... if you need me.."

His lips purse. There is a heat beginning to stir in his chest, a lightness coming to his head. Jack visibly forces himself to relax, to take a deep breath of the fresh, crisp, grassy air, to look away up at the sea of stars. When he looks down at her once more, he says, "A few years ago, I made her a promise. To inject her with grave moss and blindweed when the time came." Brysie would know as well as he that this is precisely what they use on animals to euthanize them. He lets go of her suddenly, brings his hands to his face and growls. "Fucking stupid."

Her eyes clench tight with those final, stinging words. Her breath catches with the force of will it takes to not burst into tears. He wants her to leave so he can kill his mother the same way he puts down animals? When she is there and could ease his mother to rest with warmth and Light? It's nearly sickening. But perhaps she is stupid. Perhaps she is stupid and too romantic and maybe she's living in a world of fantasy that has no place for her. Maybe she needs to grow up, or read more books, or maybe she just needs to stop speaking and do what he says. Is that what would make him happy? She swallows and looks up at him indirectly. Her hands lift to his, to gently remove them from her face. "I will go now," she whispers.

"She's sleeping, Brysie," he says, and while the words aren't delivered in a scathing manner there's no hiding the fact that 'you stupid bitch' could easily follow them. "I don't want you to wake her up. Tomorrow. Okay? I'll -- I'll get you a carriage back to the city." This is delivered in a much more reasonable tone, the one he'd been using. His hands drop when she tugs them away from his face, and they rest on her exposed thighs, fingers dipping under the fabric of her skirt. That heat is trembling over his veins, an inferno waiting to rage.

The corn field visible over Jack's left shoulder is waving oddly in the night, as if something is weaving among the stalks.

And Brysie is oblivious to everything except her sudden need to just go. He doesn't understand -- she doesn't want to wake his mother up. She doesn't want to be here anymore. "I just should go," she says quietly, trying to hard to keep that tinge of sorrow that wants to become tears out of her voice. "You don't want me here, and she doesn't need me. I should just go."

His hands tighten on her thighs. "Don't," he says. "Are you crazy? I don't want you here? If I didn't want you here, I wouldn't have brought you here." Why is she so stubbornly ignorant? Why does she want to run? He knows it's a horrific thing he just confessed to her, but out of everyone in the world he would expect the woman who works with him helping the wounded into rest would understand. But she doesn't. She must think he's some sort of monster.

Her hand lifts to press over her face, while the other shifts down to gently grip at one of his own. He's squeezing too hard. She doesn't think he even realizes that he keeps hurting her; that's what makes her heart ache the most. Her eyes lift to him again. "Why can't I just stay here with you? You don't have to do it alone."

That bewilders him. His grip eases. He blinks and blinks and simply stares at her. What? "You want to -help-?"

"No," she whimpers. "That's not what I meant. I just want to be here for you. I don't want you to go through this alone. I want to be here to help you ... after. When.. " Her hands press against his chest and she is trying to slip down as tears finally slip from her eyes. She curses herself under her breath, her inability to make sense, or to do anything right, failure to make him happy and a thousand other things that make her useless.

He wanted to spare her from the ugly act and the aftermath of it. He wanted her to take everything left that was sweet and pure and right, and steal it away from this place. It's all he's been thinking about: what is innocent and what is tainted. What is holy and what is profane. His jaw works soundlessly, whatever words he wants to say simply not coming to him. He doesn't know whether he should insist on her leaving, or keep her with him. He captures her hands against his chest and steps close once more, his head bowed to hers. He can't speak.

"I don't want to sit here," she says quietly as he rests against her. "I need to walk or something, clear my mind. I'm tired.. you're tired. I just... " She sighs, slumping there against him. "I'm sorry, Jack."

The corn stalks part and a sleek silver shape emerges, eyes an eerie sort of blue as they catch and reflect the moonlight. It's only Yapper, but now feral and foreign he looks there, slinking low across the ground towards the pair of them. As the canine approaches, it would become clear that his ears are lowered nearly to his skull, and a low snarl echoes in his chest.

Jack lifts his head from Brysie's and turns to look at the growling beast. Even as he does so, there is a frantic shrieking from inside of the cabin: "JACK! JACK!"

He is gone from Brysie in a moment, running in to the cabin.

Brysie is startled once again by that sudden snarling. She's never seen Yapper quite like this before and she is so absolutely terrified even before the shrieking sounds from the house. Jack is gone from her before she realizes he's moved, and she slips down off the fence, scrambling with her skirts to follow -- though her eyes keep turning back to Yapper. What is happening? What is happening?

What is happening is visible the moment Brysie enters the house. Mariele is standing in the centre of the room absolutely covered in blood and phlegm and what might be watery vomit, to judge by the flecks of the spinach in the soup they feed Ms Steeles that are decorating her front. From the bedroom, an absolutely unnatural, horrifying rasp and groan echoes, and above that hideous sound comes Jack's voice: "Get the kit now."

It's absolutely horrible -- this is nothing like putting down an old or injured animal. And yet somehow, Brysie finds herself in a sudden, and very odd, place of calm. She darts into the room their things are kept in and returns with his bag. Right into his mother's room, she goes, eyes wide, but hands moving to open the bag and offer it over to him. "What's happening?" she asks, her voice only slightly panicked.

He doesn't know. What the fuck does he know about actually dealing with a human who is dying? Jack is panicked and he's trying to hold his mother down in the bed.

If Ms Steeles was pretty in her younger days, evidence of it remains only in her children. She is skeletal now, her cheeks so deeply sunken into her mouth that it's a wonder she can breathe -- although perhaps that's because her mouth never really closes anymore these days, staying wide and hollow and making every breath echo within that dry, cavernous space. Sores line her mouth. Her eyes are huge and wide and while they were once hazel, they're now a dull muddy brown. There's no hair on her face and there's hardly any on her head; what remains is sparse. Her bones are jutting out of her body. She makes a hideous sight even when at rest, and now as her body shakes and rattles on her sweat and blood and vomit drenched bed -- Light, how did she even have that much left in her? -- she's a terrifying one. "Give me the syringe," Jack is saying.

How did she even get like this? That's all Brysie can think. How could Jack have refused to let her even try to help. If he doesn't believe in the Light, that is fine, but she does. She could have helped this woman. Could have. Once upon a time. But not now. She fumbles in his kit for the case the prepared needles are kept in and draws one of them out. She pulls the cap off and lifts it toward him even as her other hand is glowing bright and moving to press against the woman's head. Warmth, comfort, rest, stop, just lay still. Just be quiet and be still.

Jack's mother has been so sick for so long that there is nothing Brysie could have done. Jack's jaw is trembling as he takes the syringe, but whatever it is that his girl is doing, it eases his mother back onto the mattress. His hands lift from the woman's fragile shoulders -- her skin is like parchment -- and he shakes his head helplessly as he looks down at her, hardly even knowing what to do. Or rather, hardly believing what he's about to do. What he has to do, what he promised he would, back when she could talk and was aware of who was speaking with her.

The doorway darkens. Mariele stands there. She is sobbing unabashedly. She is a petite woman and a plain one, already dressed in black as if somehow she knew when she pulled on her clothing at dawn that she would be mourning at midnight.

A breeze whirls into the house from outside, through the door that Brysie left open. It carries a warm, verdant smell, so completely at odds with the macabre scene playing out in this bedroom.

"Oh, mama," Jack chokes out. But nothing else.

Brysie's hand is radiant. Everything about her is radiant. "The blessings of Light be with you always. Light without and Light within. The blessings of Light carry you to eterntiy. Light without and Light within. Light bless this woman, as you bless all souls. Light bless this woman eternally as you bless those who have gone before." Her eyes are closed and tears are slipping out, but she is glowing and warm and pumping every ounce of peace she can into this woman, hoping to usher her into death so that her only son doesn't have to put that horrid needle inside of her. The air around her glitters as she speaks, the kind blessings falling from her almost as if she has no control over them. "Light take her into rest. Light give her peace."

As radiant as Brysie might be, Jack is shadowed. He is darkness and pain and anger, and even though there are tears slipping from his eyes he brings that syringe to his mother's throat. Somewhere behind them, Mariele chokes out a sob and turns away, but he doesn't hear it. He doesn't even hear the benedictions being chanted next to him. Right into a pulse point the needle slips, and his brow is knit with such confusion and fear as his thumb presses down to deliver the medicine.

Outside, a long, mournful howl lifts, as if the wolf there knows exactly what is happening.

Ms Steeles twitches. Her face, sprayed with a mist of her own blood, has been serene since Brysie first laid the Light upon her, and there is absolutely no change in her demeanour as the lethal mixture slides into her frail body. There is only the slowing pace of her breath -- it rattles at first, then shakes, then only trembles past her lips, and Brysie's Light is illuminating her wretched form, a glow seeping beneath that parchment skin.

Only once that breath has ceased, and there is no longer a heartbeat greeting that flowing Light does Brysie pull back. The room darkens as the glow winks out so suddenly. The young paladin is near gasping for breath as she looks down on Ms. Steeles. Mariele is sobbing in the background, and Yapper howling so mournfully outside. And Jack? Her eyes turn down to his weary face.

Jack is kneeling there at the bedside with a stunned look on his face. He holds one of his mother's hands, but his other is yet gripping the syringe. It's the disappearance of the Light, the sudden shadow that sets in, that has him blinking and giving his head another experimental shake. Numb. He feels numb. He just killed his mother.

No. His eyes lift to meet Brysie's. They just killed his mother. No. They brought her to rest. They helped her into whatever peace might lie beyond the world she suffered on for far too long.

On and on the wolfdog howls, and the coyotes of Westfall are yipping and yowling along with him.

So very slowly, Brysie shifts toward Jack. She lowers onto her knees beside him, and brings her hand up to lightly stroke his hair back from his face. Her worry is very blatantly focused on him now.

His first movement is a jerky one. He throws the syringe and it shatters quietly against the wall. "Get that fucking mutt to shut up," he snarls, and his head droops, his brow resting on the edge of the mattress. There are tears rolling down his golden face, weaving into his tawny stubble. His eyes are squeezed shut as he tries to control this. Control. He lacks it. He needs to find it. He lets Brysie touch him, even though everything in him wants to jerk away. He's just too tired to move anymore.

She strokes his head gently, but she is so afraid. Slowly she draws back -- it's that lack of response that frightens her the most. As she rises, she turns to look at his sister with such apology written on her features, but she pushes past the woman and scurries out of the house to where Yapper is yowling so sorrowfully at the moon. She hits her knees hard at his side and curls around the young wolf, her hand cuppping over his muzzle. "Shhh," she cries, finally letting tears slip. "Yapper, shhh."

Awooooo-oooooooo. Awooo-ooo-oooooooo. Yapper fights against her grip, but without trying to push her physically away. He just wants his snout free.

"Yapper, please," she begs him. She releases his snout, but wraps around his neck and strokes him -- as if affection could make the dog be quiet.

AWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Now that his snout is totally free, he lets out one last, loud howl. It stretches on and on. The coyotes even stop yipping. And then he silences, enough so that Mariele's breathless, heart-wrenching sobs can be heard, punctuated by her shrieked words: "HOW COULD YOU."

Brysie is not good with mourning. She's spent so long avoiding it herself. She's bottled up her own regrets and guilt and sorrow so tight and buried it so deep inside. Hearing Mariele is nearly more than she can take. She squeezes Yapper so tight for a moment, strokes his fur and kisses him so gently. "Please be quiet," she begs him. "Please just be quiet." Slowly she draws away -- perhaps she can calm Mariele down, as well. Slowly she moves toward the house, wiping at her eyes and trying to catch her breath again.

For a moment, Yapper is quiet. The wolfdog makes not a sound until a sudden crack resounds from the cabin, followed by a crash. And then he is snarling again, ears lowered. But rather than race past Brysie into the house, he seizes the back of her skirt in his jaws and, planting all four feet firmly in the ground, tries to halt her forward progress.

There's no more sobbing.

That sudden tug against her skirt and Brysie is on all fours in the grass. She turns, grabbing at her skirt and tugging. "Yapper, let go!" she commands him.

The wild-eyed wolfdog is giving a feral, rolling snarl the likes of which Brysie has never heard from him before, and snapping at her skirt, trying to tug her closer. Whether he's trying to help her or hurt her is absolutely unclear. His fur is bristling.

"Yapper!" she barks back. "Let! Go!" He might be just a dog, but he is half wild animal, and she is not a large woman. Her skirt is pull from her hips, and she is dragging a bit because of the way she is pulling. Riiiip, goes the material. "Now!"

Snarling, slavering, the wolfdog lets go of that scrap of fabric and lunges forward again, now biting down on her wrist. It's firm but it's probably the reassurance she's looking for -- Yapper is completely in control of himself. That bite doesn't penetrate her skin, it doesn't even come close. A whimper sounds under the snarling. Tug tug tug. He's trying to pull her away.

Jack's in the doorway. "Brysie." His voice is so cold and hollow.

Light, she is so scared. Why is this animal she loves dearly doing this to her? She doesn't understand why he's pulling at her with such determination, though she understands when that bite is much lesser than it could be that he isn't trying to hurt her. But her skirt is torn. The fabric is grass-stained and now so are her hands. She's stopped pulling against the dog, but then Jack's voice sounds and she looks up at his silhouette looming in the doorway.

Somewhere behind him, his mother is dead and one of his sisters is crumbled to the ground. In front of him, his beautiful girl is fallen in the grass, her skirt ripped. Jack's hands ball into fists, although those fists ease as he walks towards the pair of them. His oddly rounded ears, ridged with scar tissue, are visible, his wild hair tucked behind them.

Yapper lets go of Brysie so carefully and, not for a moment taking his eyes off Jack, hunches down into the grass, no longer snarling. His ears are lowered, his bushy tail tucked between his legs, and he half rolls over to show his pale belly.

Jack reaches down for Brysie, both hands open. She might catch a glimpse of his bloodied knuckles.

She does. She is aware of the crimson on his hands. She heard a crash. Did he punch something? Did he knock something over in anger? She can't hear his sister sobbing anymore, even though she'd been sobbing nonstop for the last ten minutes. There is that obvious moment of hesitance before she slips her hands into his. This not right -- and the most frightening part of it to her now is how obedient Yapper being to Jack, rolling over on his belly in submission when any other time he would just take off running. Brysie's eyes slowly lift toward Jack's face, but she can't look him in the eye.

"We're leaving," he says as he draws her up. His face is so grim and determined. He has their bags over his shoulder, and anything that she unpacked is hanging hastily out. "Now." His gaze is unfocused, and somewhere far off on the horizon.

She pulls against him slightly. "What?" she asks in surprise, and glances past him, into the house. "Jack, no. We can't just leave them like this."

"Yes, we can," he answers. There's still such distance and hollowness to his voice. Yapper is still just lying there in the grass. "And we are. Don't make me drag you."

"No," she says again, pulling against him. Her other hand comes to his -- she's trying to pull out of his grasp or pry it off. "I'm not leaving them. She needs to be buried."

Yapper whines. He puts his belly to the grass and skulks onto his feet. He grips Brysie's ragged skirt once more and backs away, indicating he, too, thinks she should get away from the house -- or maybe that she should listen to Jack, whose eyes show that odd golden light that speaks to his elven blood as his gaze lowers to hers. She is successful in prying off his hand, but it might not have been the best idea: his fingers dig into her jaw, his palm tight under her chin as he forces her head to tilt up up up, until she needs to rise onto her tiptoes. "I am tired and don't want to drag you," he says. It sounds perfectly reasonable in his head. There are yet tears in his eyes and the tracks of the ones that have already fallen glisten in the moonlight silvering his skin. "We. Are. Leaving."

This fingertips hurt against her jaw. She whimpers with the strain it takes to keep her own weight from forcing his fingers in deeper. "Jack... please," she says quietly. Her hands lift to grasp at his wrist. "They need help. " She can't fathom leaving his mother in that bed to rot, or leaving his sister -- who is being far too quiet -- there alone to clean up the mess. Another whimper. She grips him tighter. Her eyes are wide and so focused on his face. He isn't in his right mind now, she knows that. "Please," she whimpers again. "Let me stay and help them."

"Do you fucking love me or do you love them, Brysie." But he doesn't even wait for her answer. He lets go of her. Entirely. He drops her bag off his shoulder and onto the ground. And then he is stalking away, his movements as rigid as she's ever seen them, off towards the river.

Brysie crumples there in the grass, only then aware when she gasps that she's been holding her breath. She doesn't bother with her things, but neither does she go after him. For a few moments she just watches him and then slowly she is crawling toward the house, and then lifting to her feet and disappearing into the house. "Mariele?" she calls out quietly, constantly turning to look at the door as she searches for her.

When Brysie enters the house, she has to step over the curio cabinet normally near the door, because it's now fallen in front of it. The knick-knacks inside are all askew, some of the delicate ones broken. It's not hard to find Mariele. She's lying on the bed beside her mother's corpse, and still crying, but it's a quiet, bubbling sound now, no longer even powerful enough for sobs. Her jaw is already turning an ugly purple and red, and she flinches and yelps at the shadow in the doorway. Upon realizing it's just Brysie, she whimpers, "Go away."

Brysie stops there, tears slipping anew at this awful scene. Her eyes move over the two women -- one dead, and the other looking like she wishes she were. She can't just go away. She cannot knowingly leave them here like this. "Mariele," she says says quietly. "I ... I can't... I can't just leave you here like this." And what of that flagrant bruising on her jaw. And the blood on his knuckles? For the first time, there is real anger building inside her. "Did he hit you?"

"Go away," the woman repeats, and starts sobbing all over again, deep, wretched noises. She turns her puffy face into the blankets and one hand raises to wave Brysie away.

Not knowing what else to do, Brysie turns away from the room and slips quietly from the house. She gathers her barely packed bag from the ground outside, watching out for Jack all the while. And then she's back in the house, tucking her things in the room she and Jack have been sharing, and cleaning up the mess he's made in his rage. He just needs some air, she thinks. He'll be back soon, clear-headed, and things will be fine.