[Open] Elvish Camp Log.
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 ( Read more... )
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 ( Read more... )
[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.]
Reply
Yes, of course he can. Better than either of us, most likely.
[Or at least she hopes. She can't begin to contemplate right now who else might be in these cages with them - Aximili? Ichigo? Sebastian? no, she can't let herself start this - so instead she concentrates on first getting out.]
[She moves back a space, carefully. She is a little more sure on her feet now which hopefully meant that whatever drug their captors used on them was wearing off. Once she has moved clear of the door, she looks to Arthur again.]
Be careful not to hurt yourself.
Reply
[ He is not careful. Turning one shoulder to the door, he takes his own step back and then throws himself at the bars which house the lock. They shudder, the cage creaks, and Arthus leans against them as he listens to make sure no-one heard, squints through the Mist to see if one of their captors is even now coming to drug them again. ]
[ When he is satisfied, he throws himself again at the bars, thrice in quick succession, giving a pained grunt as the wood cracks and gives but not enough, not far enough. Teeth grit, breathing like a racehorse, Arthur brings his frustration to bear once more. This time the lock splits. ]
[ Arthur swears, and then glances at Verity, clutching his shoulder, sheepish through the grimace of pain. ]
Sorry. Uncalled for.
[ Falling back against the solid bars beside the door swung slightly open, Arthur tilts his head in it's direction. His panting is audible. ]
Ladies... first.
Reply
Arthur!
[She ignores the door for a moment and goes to him, a note of scolding mixed into the concern in her voice.]
I'm not leaving here until you do. Are you going to be all right?
[She doesn't really believe he'd say no even if it was true, but she offers her arm to him anyway.]
Reply
[ He has no idea how long it is before he becomes aware that Verity is still there. Eventually the question sinks through the fading haze of the ache, and he pushes himself up. ]
I'll be fine.
[ Putting his pride aside, he accepts Verity's arm: he'll need it to get down from the cage without dislocating his shoulder again. But only for that. ]
You cannot stay with me. You must- you must try and find your way back to the city, and fetch reinforcements.
Reply
I haven't the first notion of how to get back to the city from here. If you let me go off on my own, I will more than likely get lost and recaptured. Or killed by some other thing. There are creatures out here, aren't there?
[She frowns at him, all fear chased from her face so that only stubbornness remains. She probably could manage to get back on her own if she could keep the Mist from seeping into her senses, but she would rather stay by Arthur's side.]
You're going to try to free everyone else, aren't you? Let me help you. Two sets of hands will be faster than one, and I shouldn't think we have much time before someone comes to check up on us.
[Besides, you're already injured she leaves off. No need to wound his pride by suggesting he need assistance.]
Reply
Fine. But the moment I find someone willing to escort you back, you're going.
[ This place is too dangerous. As though to underscore his thought, there is a sudden scream from somewhere past the cages, human but so filled with pain and terror as to be animalistic. It chokes off abruptly and the silence of the Mist seems more oppressive than ever. Arthur looks over at Verity, grim, confirming that she heard it too, that it wasn't some awful Mist-born hallucination. ]
Come on then.
[ He starts to move around their cage, away from the others. Explaining: ]
I thought I saw a sword on the waste pile.
[ Never mind his shoulder: he can fight just as well left-handed. But a weapon in his hand might help turn some of his bravado into bravery. ]
Reply
[In other words, she was planning to cross that bridge when they came to it. But she hasn't much time to consider a secondary excuse before that scream interrupts her. It's worse than anything she's ever heard, even on that night in Coventry when the city was burning and the planes were overhead, dropping shrieking incendiaries out of the sky. She moves closer to Arthur almost out of instinct, and stays near him even when he moves, barely giving it a second thought. She doesn't even wonder about the direction he's going until after he explains.]
On the waste pile? Who throws out something like that? Even if it belongs to a captive, I should think a barbarian camp - or whatever this is - would appreciate the value of a weapon, captured or no.
Reply
[ Or if they're not human after all, he thinks but does not say. Not everything with hands and fingers needs a sword to fight. ]
I may have been wrong. All we can do is look.
[ Sensing her trepidation, Arthur takes Verity's arm awkwardly, feigning a little more weakness than he feels. Their cage was right up against the refuse pile, so it's not far. The stench is overpowering as they get closer, and Arthur covers his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket, grimacing in disgust. Close up, it is obvious this is not simply the daily waste of camp life, and it is with a growing sense of horror that he recognizes a skull without a jaw, three jaggedly broken ribs, among the bones that make up a goodly amount of the pile. ]
[ This is a mass grave. ]
[ Given what the mist does to bodies and bones, Arthur is shocked by the amount. He turns the two of them around rapidly, hoping Verity hasn't noticed. He will not expose her to this for the sake of a weapon. As if it would do any good at all. ]
Reply
[She gags. The smell is profoundly awful and with the arm not supporting Arthur she follows his example and covers her mouth and nose. she is not as quick as he is to pick out the origin of the remains, but as he turns them she catches sight of a skull, hollow sockets staring back at her unmistakable. Human.]
Arthur...
[Her voice trembles and she cannot even think to level it. Not now.]
What was that... those bones...?
[Her question dies before she can even finish speaking it. She already knows the answer.]
Reply
Best not to think about it, eh?
[ As though either of them can stop. ]
Recite something else.
[ It's not that he wants to hear it, and probably they should be quieter, skulking through the cages. But he can't concentrate enough to gather that hunting instinct that serves him so well in the unknown. And he can't let her dwell on questions that have answers that don't help the situation. ]
Reply
[But of course she can't stop, sickened thoughts spinning around in her head.]
[But he's right, he's right of course. If she thinks too much she'll start to wonder who that skull might have belonged to and she'll be completely lost. She can't do that. She must keep her head and help him. The hand not supporting him goes to his arm as well, and she holds onto him for support, though more figuratively.]
[Recite something else. The Idylls have left her head, Tennyson abandoning her. But a verse of Browning comes to mind, and she speaks it in a shaking, sinking voice, barely hearing herself.]
Yet half I seemed to recognize some trick of mischief happened to me, God knows when--- In a bad dream perhaps. Here ended, then, progress this way. When, in the very nick of giving up, one time more, came a click as when a trap shuts---you're inside the den.
[Mustn't think about it, but the empty sockets stick with her.]
Didn't you need a weapon?
Reply
I can manage without.
[ A weapon hadn't served in preventing his capture, after all. Stealth was needed here, stealth and courage. ]
Could those locks be opened from the outside? If we get as many as we can, people can free themselves.
[ Does he say it to maximize the amount of people they can help? Or because he is searching, already peering into the first cage they come across, staring at the slumped body with his heart in his throat and for a moment, because of the Mist, he thinks... but instead he gives Verity a series of near-incomprehensible hand gestures as though she's a knight: stay here, keep watch, I'll be just around the corner. ]
Reply
[She nods, absently, mind running on another track altogether. One it should be stopped on before reaching its destination.]
Yes, they're fairly simple. The one on our cage, it was just a pin in a slot. It was just made to be impossible to reach from the inside. It should be simple. Just pull out the pin.
[She watches him gesture at her and wonders when he thought it fit to switch from whispering to nonsensical hand signals. She frowns at him. He probably wants her to stay behind but there is no way she's doing that, now. She waits a beat and follows him, surprisingly quiet on her light little feet.]
Reply
Reply
[He doesn't have to open his eyes to know he's surrounded by filth and bodies and fog, and weak, yes. Very weak. That hollow feeling that came from entering Dismas, the sickening sensation of being mortal.]
[It takes all his strength and will to pull himself up along the bars to stand - lean, really - so that he can look out around the encampment and try to puzzle out the scene. Movement, voices. Fire.]
...what is this.
[He turns finally (carefully) to see who he's been stuck with. Somehow it doesn't improve his mood.]
[And it certainly doesn't help that there's a thick smell in the air that's making him awfully hungry.]
Reply
Leave a comment