2nd Broadcast- [written/action]

[thatmadbastard]

[Guy rose early feeling a little bit restless and intellectually dull. His days have thus far been a little ho-hum by the development of some routine, and being a man who enjoys flash and spontaneity amongst stimulating conversation and the occasional indulgence, he's been terribly, terribly bored. He's admired the "gallery" Luceti has to offer,

Comments

Action

[pugilistinpink]

[Not far into his afternoon jog, Mac catches a whiff of something not quite expected when having breathed in lungfuls of crisp air only moments before. The smell of smoke tends to have a sobering effect, to say the least. Glancing to the side, he happens to see thick, curling smoke rising upwards from behind a house - House 32, Mr. Anthony’s house, he muses - and the instant that fact registers, fear blindsides him.

Somethin’ is burnin’ and they don’t even know...

Galvanized, he bounds for the house, spotting someone familiar along the way carrying an armful of books, moving hurriedly and purposefully.

Mr.Guy.]

Hey…! [He calls out, stumbling to a stop to stare.] What the heck’s goin’ on?

Action

[thatmadbastard]

[Guy turns to look who's calling out at him, his nerves having calmed significantly once Anthony and Kim helped him sort through the mountainous columns of bookcases. That isn't to say he's fully relaxed. He cannot be at ease completely, knowing what he knows now. More will come when every last book with a hint of their names has been burned. Most of it will fade with alcohol... for a time, anyway.]

Ah, yes. You know, I fancied a bit of a fire now that the weather has gone a bit colder. I realized there are so very many things one can burn!

[He's still so very unstable, humour seeps its way over the truth.]

Action

[pugilistinpink]

Those books ain't yours, are they? [It is more of a knowing, accusing statement than a question from the way he delivers it.] ...I don' know whatchya thinkin', but that ain't right, doin' somethin' like this t'somebody's stuff!

Action

[winksandnods]

No. They're not ours.

[Anthony Blunt has come from within the house, three more books in his arms. They are added to the fire individually.

One.]

But they can't be allowed to remain.

[Even speaking to Mac, there's a hardness about his face and his voice. His eyes are focused on the fire.

Two.

Let the damn things burn. Every trace of everything they cannot let others know.

Three.]

[inabook]

... I feel like I should apologize since he's going a liiiiittle bit insane.

[thatmadbastard]

[Guy's body doesn't flinch. He posture doesn't move, shoulders rounded and curled tightly from bending over another volume, his thumb running through the index.]

Blunt, Blunt, Blunt, Blunt...

[There it is. The name. Blunt, Anthony and a list of page numbers.]

From quadrangle to quadrangle to quadrangle, our lives mapped out in squares... every fucking square of it...

[Part of him has snapped. He doesn't want to know what his future is, how he was caught as a spy. In wartime. Double traitor.

He doesn't want to know how he died.]

[inabook]

[thatmadbastard]

How many can there be?

[He closes the book, letting it fall from his fingers without thought into the pile about. Waiting is wounding him, and his eyes are rimmed by the darkness. He's so afraid to say anything without burying everything.]

Where--O for pity!--we shall much disgrace
With four or five most vile and ragged foils,
Right ill-disposed in brawl ridiculous,
The name of Agincourt. Yet sit and see,
Minding true things by what their mockeries be.

[He reaches into his coat pocket, withdrawing a green bottle.]

Agincourt is red, and the know it.

[He uncorks it and tips the bottle to his lips, taking a pull of gin from it. He chases a dribble with his sleeve and finally looks at her, horrified.]

[action--at the bridge outside the Item Shop]

[lists_to_port]

[Today is all about preparing for a long winter at the shore, where the pirate may or may not find himself cut off for lengths of time from supplies. Therefore Jack has been hitting up the Item Shop with Murphy the pony, who is obligingly drawing a cart filled with needful things: lamp oil, candles, extra blankets, nonperishable food items--anything and everything that a house should be stocked with for winter.

It IS strange to see Guy hurrying toward him with books, though.]

Erm....Hallo, Burgess.

[Maybe this is part of that whole "mad Burgess" thing he'd been talking about.]

[action]

[thatmadbastard]

[This particular trip back to the house has Guy puffing furiously on a cigarette in an ill attempt to calm the madness that comes with suddenly realizing your fate is determined and there for public knowledge. He answers with the tube hanging from his lips, something quite noticeably off about his temperament.]

But great Priam would not let them cry out! And in silence they piled the bodies upon the pyre, with their hearts in sorrow, and burned them upon the fire, and went back to sacred Ilion.

[He laughs a little, darkly, approaches Jack, and with haunted eyes says,]

Hello Captain. A pyre for our volumes...

[action]

[lists_to_port]

You want help with that burden, mate? Murphy here's got space in his cart for more items.

[Mad. Mad. Utterly mad. Ancient Greek, sacking-of-Troy-levels of mad. Jack's seen this before.]

[action]

[thatmadbastard]

[Guy shifts the books awkwardly and bends up an arm over the spines and jutting covers, pulling out his cigarette for a brief moment of unpolluted breathing before he eagerly sets back to it again.]

You have a keen eye and it worries me how many else do. How does the populous take their reading?

[A few more steps, then a glimpse around. Back over his shoulder. He can't help it.]

"Still, we will let all this be a thing of the past, and for all our
sorrow beat down by force the anger deeply within us..."

[For a moment, he looks as though he's thought of something, and the darkness in his eyes gleams for a mad moment.]

Perhaps I am but a horse, if not an ass.

[ action ]

[slaying]

...Light reading?

[ at some point -- in the library -- buffy approaches. it's not often she gets to be taller than anyone so she puffs up a bit at the sight of guy sitting on the floor.

she had been on her way to the other side of the building. there is a large large codex that she very much wants to break into without alerting a certain pirate that she'd one any breaking-in at all. this is meant to be casing mission; eye up the book and think a little harder on it.

but then she sees guy and her curiousity wins out. the mission is temporarily abandoned. ]

[ action ]

[thatmadbastard]

[Guy looks up from the book he's curled around, body slumped atop the volume as he scans its index for any of their names. Even Donald. Or Litzi. Or Julian Bell.]

I've always wondered what it would be like... to not be remembered, but to walk in shadows of the night and be remarkably forgotten. They say that things can purify one's sins, vindicate them of their crimes. Water, fire... but what of the fires that burn the innocent, those that were bright and needed no cleansing?

To mollify the pillars, the old-boys and burn... it will consume us in the end; there will be no pyres for us, the condemned English. [He thought they were in the camps once, destined to be the ashes of those they pretended to hate.] How such little words... the compromises...it was all so very over the top, he told me.

[Blunt, Burgess and Bell] Like Tumbler Wells...

[ action ]

[slaying]

[ ...huh. okay. buffy takes this in stride. ]

Most people aren't, you know. Remembered.

[ she takes a tentative seat next to guy on the floor. ]

[ action ]

[thatmadbastard]

I was never supposed to be.

[He looks down at the books, hoping curiosity won't prompt her to start looking through them. Then he'll have to act, and ask for forgiveness later when he becomes brash and bitter.]

Even if that's how all the parties were planned.

[Action]

[i_speak_softly]

[Donatello is visiting the library today, a sheaf of handwritten posters under his arm, the good Professor Hastings in tow. As the two look for places to hang their signs, they can't help noticing a certain gentleman engaging in bizarre book-destroying behavior in one of the aisles.]

[Unsure quite how to react to this, Don just stops and stares.]

((Robert is tagging momentarily! Hope the double-teaming is okay?))

[Action]

[semper_cogitans]

[This is, indeed, bizarre book-destroying behaviour - but not just bizarre. Disturbing, too. This is the closest thing Luceti has to a database; why the hell would you do that?]

... What on T-Terra...?

[... Not to mention it's defacing the former corpses of trees. If you're going to use paper for anything, at least use it for some noble purpose, not this.]

[Action] (tag team all you like)

[thatmadbastard]

[Guy hears nothing of them, his shoulders rounded as he stoops over another volume. His eyes dart through the pages, skimming over an index that is slowly blurring. Anthony's name will always come first. Blunt, Burgess, Maclean, Philby. That's the order. That's how it goes.

Blunt.

If they've found these names, written about them, then they'll all fall on each other. Dominoes. Skittles.]

With her ducks all in a row... the picket line assembled, rifles primed for the death march.

[Action]

[i_speak_softly]

[Don exchanges a glance with Robert, then looks at the muttering lunatic again.]

Should I try to stop him?