[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

[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

[supercilious]

Not if they have plenty of their own.

[ 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. ]

[calamitousnaiad]

[She's still frightened. What she had done to try to forget it, to focus on something else had been washed away by the scream which still echoes through her head. She can't allow herself to wonder, to try to puzzle out what is going on here. Why the cages, why so many people, the smell, that scream. She can't because she knows it will terrify her but she also can't help herself, her head spinning with theories that drop like stones into the pit of her stomach. Verity can't help but want to solve the mystery.]

[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.]

[supercilious]

[ She's seen. Arthur shakes his head and quickens his pace. ]

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. ]

[calamitousnaiad]

But...

[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?

[supercilious]

[ The quote makes him shiver, dark as it is. Inside the den indeed. He shall not ask again. ]

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. ]

[calamitousnaiad]

Right.

[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.]