[Open] Elvish Camp Log.

[scorchedevents]

Who: Anyone marked for dinner by the elves.
When: August 12th - 13th
Where: The Elvish Camp, in the far mist.
Format: Setup is Action. As for the rest, do what you like.
What: Welcome to Mist Camp. For lunch we're having... you.
Warnings: SEE THE ANSWER TO "WHAT

Comments

The Cages

[scorchedevents]

[A series of cages, a few guards (relatively easily avoided) and you.]

[Start your escape here, talk amongst yourselves, and feel free to use/continue to use the threads long after you actually leave the cages themselves. Use them right through the camp and back into Anatole, if you like.]

[supercilious]

[ Arthur awakes slowly, his head pounding as though he'd drunk his way through a cellar the night before. His limbs feel like cooked ramen, but it only takes a moment of bleariness before his eyes snap open and he starts to struggle upright. ]

[ To make it all the way to standing, Arthur has to use the bars of the cage- he's in a cage - and prop himself up there, staring around with wild eyes. From here he can see the waste yard, and he catalogues what looks simply like a refuse pile with unseeing eyes, still dazed even with adrenaline flooding his system. ]

[calamitousnaiad]

[Verity wakes a moment later, the movement of the wooden cage upon which she is propped jostling her enough to bring her to foggy consciousness. Her limbs feel heavy as she raises her hands to her face, as if her cold fingers against her eyes will ease the pain in her head. Strands of long red hair fall around her face, her intricate coif coming all undone.

She doesn't move at first, trying to remember where she is, how she got here. But all she can recall is walking home late in the evening, turning down a quiet, empty street and then... nothing.]

Arthur?

[Her voice comes out small, uncertain. She blinks, tries to clear her vision. She's fairly sure she didn't fall asleep anywhere near him.]

What's going on?

[supercilious]

[ At the sound of Verity's voice, Arthur looks over. He'd almost missed her slumped there, despite the vivid shock of her hair. She sounds as wrecked as he feels. He takes a step towards her, limbs sluggish, and nearly falls face-first, catching himself with a hiss and setting the cage to rocking again. ]

I don't-

[ His voice rasps and catches. He swallows, clears it, and tries again. ]

I don't know. Just woke up. There's a lot of Mist.

[ This might not be real, is what he seems to be saying. Arthur knows well the hallucinations and visions that deep-level Mist can provide. It had been one of his first experiences here. ]

We're in a cage.

[ He keeps his voice steady. Perhaps next he'll be burnt at the stake by a bunch of angry Natives? That would be delightfully ironic. ]

[calamitousnaiad]

A cage?

[She blinks again, vision swimming. A cage. She stares at Arthur and his comment about the Mist seems to confirm itself. His blond hair confuses her, her mind wants to see a crooked mustache and a straw boater. Where is Ned, why hasn't he come for her? Everything would be all right if only he were here.]

You need a hat. And Dorothy Sayers.

[She pitches herself forward, fighting back a wave of nausea as she does. She's never felt so wretched in her life, her head throbbing and full of Mist and her arms and legs sluggish. She crawls towards him, not able to get to her feet yet.]

How... how did we get here? And what is that smell?

[supercilious]

I'd rather my sword.

[ He gives a bleak laugh, and holds out a hand when she's close enough. Even if she doesn't want to stand, he just wants to know that she's real. When he looks around again, he can see other people, shadows in the cages in the Mist, some of them huddled and others standing woozily. Whatever has happened, they're not alone in this. ]

I don't know how we got here. We're near some sort of rubbish tip, that's probably what you smell.

[ And blood, and smoke, and cooking meat. But all of those stenches could be smelt in any barbarian camp. They don't concern him yet. And neither of them have any chance of doing much if they can't move further than they have. Arthur tugs at Verity's hand. ]

Can you stand?

[calamitousnaiad]

A sword would be good, too. But I can't... remember. If Lord Peter ever had to use one.

[Why is she on about Lord Peter again? She can't quite seem to remember that, either. But she takes the offered hand, holding it as tightly as she is able.]

Rubbish.

[She shakes her head to try to clear it. Why can't she just think straight? This is worse than the worst case of time-lag she's ever had. At least time-lag wasn't painful, and it usually made her giddy on top of making her talk nonsense.

At the tug of his hand, she makes the attempt. With one hand on the wooden cage and the other still clasping his, she tries to pull herself up.]

I think so.

[She's upright a moment later, but wobbly at best. She simultaneously feels worse and better. Standing up seems to clear her head a little bit, though it makes the pain in her head and body that much sharper. But maybe she could use that to her advantage too.]

What do we do?

[supercilious]

[ A number of answers spring to Arthur's mind. Survive. Escape. But how to do that is another thing all together. ]

[ Arthur holds tight to her hand, since she doesn't look steady, though with the way he's feeling, if she falls they'll both go down. He doesn't dare let go of the cage bars, yet, not even to push his fringe off his sweaty forehead. His pulse is racing, and his thoughts alternately seem crystal clear and oddly sluggish. If he was drugged, it's wearing off, or being fought by the adrenaline. ]

[ The first thing to do in a kidnap situation is... what? Catalogue what you know. Arthur heaves a breath. ]

All right. I can't remember coming here and I was hardly carousing, so I assume we were taken by force.

[ Obvious, too obvious. These cages were not made by non-sentient monsters. There are a significant number of them, which combined with the size of their refuse pile implies to me a significant number of our enemies. They haven't tried to separate us, though, and they haven't made any attempt to keep us unconscious

[calamitousnaiad]

[Oh, lists! Lists are good. She listens to him as carefully as she can and wishes that she had a pen. But then, how would she hold it? She has to hold onto him and the cage to stay on her feet. She could put the pen in her mouth, but then where would the paper go? It might have to go on his face. On the upside, it would cover up the crooked mustache that keeps wanting to appear there.

On the downside, she is clearly much further out of her mind than she ever has been, even after doing seven drops with no sleep. Drugs are part of it maybe. That would explain why her arms and legs feel anesthetized and why she's having Difficulty Concentrating.]

I'll be all right.

[She makes a conscious effort to stand a little straighter, shakes her head to get her hair out of her face.]

I've never been in the Mist before. You occasionally have a mustache. But I can manage. I've also never been kidnapped and held in a cage before, so I suppose there's a first time for everything.

[She laughs very weakly.]They can't think we're much of a threat if

[supercilious]

A moustache.

[ Arthur gives her an odd look, but decides he's better off focussing on the task at hand. ]

You're right, of course. I feel weak as a kitten, but it's only wood, I'm sure we can get through it.

[ And then what? They're not the only ones in this predicament. Arthur remembers with an abrupt lurch all the whispers of missing people. Perhaps Freya hadn't been taken by Bellatrix after all. That would reassure Merlin. A cage in the Mist, however inhumane, was better than torture, wasn't it? Unless they were here to be tortured? Arthur shakes his head like a wet dog. He has to help Verity. Merlin's not here. Unless Merlin is here and oh, that kicks him into action. ]

Come on, let's move over to the door.

[ If they go bar by painstaking bar, and keep each other upright, he thinks they'll manage. ]

[calamitousnaiad]

[She nods.]

A crooked mustache.

[It's comforting to know that he's here. Maybe especially because he reminds her of Ned. But Arthur Pendragon must go home and become king. That is still ahead of him. No matter how bad this is, how terrifying if she allows herself to think about the fact that she is being held prisoner in a barbarian camp, things must turn out all right. He must escape this somehow. And if she is with him, she should be safe, too.

She has to concentrate to remember the words correctly, but somehow it comes to her.]

And through that strength the King drew in the petty princedoms under him, fought, and in twelve great battles overcame the heathen hordes, and made a realm and reign'd.

[Terrence wasn't the only one to take solace in Tennyson. The mere fact that these lines of verse exist at all is enough to get her down to the door, moving carefully, her hand still tight in his. Her smaller hand snakes outside of the cage, feeling along the edge of the rustic door.]

Maybe they've forgotten to lock us in as well.

[

[supercilious]

[ She's babbling, but he's not sure if it's Mist, shock, the drug, or all three. ]

[ Not that he minds. If her words are soothing her fears, it is Verity's presence that is driving him forwards, flying in the teeth of them. This is no place for somewhere like her, no matter the circumstances, and he resolves to get her safely free. ]

[ Though she may come up empty-handed, Arthur thinks the door might be the ticket to success. He carefully brings their hands up to a bar. ]

Hold on there a moment.

[ Once she's let go of his hand, Arthur proceeds to examine the door, finding the points furthest from the peg hinges, the way it's braced, the places it's weak. He thinks normally he might be able to knock this down... but he's weak too, the inspection a bumbling, fumbling affair, and for once his belief in his own physical ability is tenuous at best. ]

Anything?

[ As optimistic as she is, if not normally so desperately obvious about it. ]

[calamitousnaiad]

[At his instruction she holds onto the bar he indicates, continuing to feel outside of the door for whatever it is that fastens it. Mumbling, she remembers another passage. Recalling them helps her to keep her head clear and stops the shadows from growing into monsters and keeps random strawhats and crooked facial hair from appearing where they do not belong. Mumblingly, she recites.]

Merlin in our time hath spoken also, not in jest, and sworn though men may wound him that he will not die, but pass, again to come; and then or now utterly smite the heathen underfoot, till these and all men hail him for their king. Behold, thy doom is mine. Let chance what will, I love thee to the death!

[She finds it. A heavy iron latch with a pin pushed through it but she can neither reach the top of the pin nor pull it out from the base.]

Something. I can't quite... get it. My fingers feel like they've been asleep. Like... jelly with pins and needles.

[supercilious]

[ Merlin's name catches his attention, and Arthur listens, suddenly, to the light melody of her words. He knows this - well, he hasn't read it, or doesn't remember it, but he can chance a guess to place it. It's hard to resist books titled of your death, stories people wrote about a man they think is you. But Arthur has only glanced and glimpsed. It makes him strangely uncomfortably to see his life writ, wrongly no less, in books that anyone can read. He's a private man, and expectations tend to weigh heavier on his shoulders than his other burdens. ]

[ But- Verity isn't to know. He cannot tell her that none of it is certain and half is inaccurate. It seems irrelevant right now. She knows the men behind the myth, has met the boys, she doesn't mean to prickle goosebumps over Arthur as though there's a soft footstep upon his grave. ]

We were drugged.

[ Had he said that already? He can't remember. Arthur comes back to her, leaning heavy on the frame. ]

A lock?

[ It seems dubious that it should be at all gettable from within the cage

[calamitousnaiad]

[Belatedly she thinks of Merlin himself. She owes it to the sluggishness of her mind with the thick mist and the heavy drugs weighing her down. The cages beyond theirs are full of people, too, though none she can see very well, even if she squints.]

I hope he's not here as well. Merlin.

[Even though he could probably use magic or something to get them out. Not that she knows how magic works. But even so, the thought of him possibly being stuck here as well is upsetting because he's sweet and sensitive and she still feels a little bit motherly towards him even though he's an adult again.]

[She leans into the bars, reaching her hand out as far as it can go and still she can't reach the top of the pin. She tries to get her fingers around it, but it feels rusty and she can't quite reach out far enough to get a good grip.]A comb, maybe? Or a little blade? Something flat and a few inches long. I might be able to push it up from beneath if only I could reach just a bit further. Unless you think we could break it? It feels quite old and we

[supercilious]

Merlin can handle himself.

[ His tone is callous in its neutrality. Arthur cannot think of the possibilities of where Merlin is or he will be lost. There is no room for despair right now. ]

[ But when he opens his eyes to look at her, they put the lie to the calm of his tone and the blank expression on his face. They are troubled like a stormy sea, the blue almost black in the dim light. His jaw is set in bull-headed determination. ]

I don't have anything. But I can break it.

[ Even if they've dulled the strength that Anatole had given him and wearied his limbs, Arthur thinks he should be able to break a door. Point, counterpoint, the weight of his body, the way hurting himself in the process seems unimportant in the scheme of things. ]

Stand back.