Charyou Tree. Come Reap.

[notwithmyhand]

Life for you, life for your cropIt was night, and the moon had come up as Alain walked back to New Gilead, whistling Careless Love in a strangely melancholy key. The Demon Moon hung there full in the sky, and as had been his habit as a boy, he did not look up at it, superstitious of ghosts, demons, and all thing other worldly. And small wonder too

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[kings_dog]

Sandor saw the light through the trees, a bigger fire than any New Gilead was normally given to housing. Even given to loving fire as he did, Bert knew better than to build a fire that big near their houses; and after what had happened to Sandor's camp (nearly a year ago now, and how strange that was to realize) it seemed to Sandor that Bert had been even more careful.

He came toward the gunslingers' treehouses with a rumble of anxiety tickling low in his stomach, one that grew as he neared and saw the figures propped up amidst the flames. Keeping well back from the crackling flames, he circled the bonfire and stopped short in front of the figure dressed and fashioned to resemble Bert. Now that he'd met Roland, Sandor could see the likeness in the next figure; and beside that one, a straw man made to look like Alain. Alain, who stood staring at the fire with much the same expression Sandor felt he was wearing-- shock, and something akin to horror.

[notwithmyhand]

At some point, Alain's hand hand crept to his face as he clutched his chest with the other arm, trying to hold in some feeling or a cry maybe. In truth he didn't know what to think, for the vision before him was horrifying and memories raced through his brain like ghosts over the Demon Moon.

A part of him knew that Sandor was there, but it was a few moments before his eyes even flickered to the other man, so fixated was he on the fire and the flames licking up toward the painted on smiles of the stuffy-guys. When he did register the other man, he hardly knew what to say.

Finally he cleared his throat, but instead of speaking he merely looked at Sandor with a pained expression as if beseeching his help. He didn't know what this was or why it came to haunt him, but Sandor's presence, something not of the past, helped ground him some.

"It's us," he said simply. "It's me."

[kings_dog]

"Who put this here?" Sandor said when he finally found his voice. The smell of burned wood and cloth coated his throat, the taste of ash hard on his tongue, and he backed a step away. A chill prickled down the back of his neck, between his shoulder blades, and he suppressed the shiver. The likeness to his friends was so clear, and seeing them surrounded by flames twisted something in his gut, an unfocused sick feeling creeping through his body.

When Alain didn't answer, he did the sum in his head and realized that no one must have made this appear-- it had been the island, then. For what reason, he couldn't say; he knew a little of Alain's recent history, but not enough to tell why this had come here, specifically for him.

[notwithmyhand]

Shaking his head to say that he didn't know, Alain's face still held something akin to a suspicion, like a thought only half formed that he was afraid to voice before he caught hold of it firmly. But there was a doubt too, and for that he turned to his friend.

"Things like this don't just happen do they?" he asked and then seemed to realize how that sounded. He shook his head and seemed to search for the real question he wanted to ask. It took time as his eye strayed back, distracting him. "I mean to say," he corrected, "that I think maybe this was done," he finished, looking to Sandor for an answer. When they'd arrived in Gilead, Sandor had been the one to set them straight. He knew the workings and the history of what went on. Alain for his part couldn't imagine that this clear taunt and attack on their home could be so random when they had a clear enemy lurking and untouchable by them.

[ifsogirl]

She's out because it's cooler outside than inside her hut, and because people tend to withdraw once the sun goes down, even when the moon is as full and bright as it is tonight. The hiking boots she found in the clothes box help her keep moving through her days and nights. Breaking them in didn't take her longer than a few days of walking and the same number of days with sore, blistered feet. It's worth it. She likes not having to stay put, she likes moving, because if she keeps moving nothing can ever quite catch up with her

[notwithmyhand]

As she speaks, Alain turns slowly to look at her with strange eyes as if he's never seen her before. He hardly hears the joke, and if he had he wouldn't have recognized it as such. There was nothing funny about what he was seeing. Even Cuthbert would not have laughed in the face of this, young or old. Their business in Meijis had never been a laughing matter and they'd done their best to forget it, but it seemed like someone or something wanted him to remember it and remember it well.

You have forgotten the face of your father.

Alain shook his had and really looked at her this time, a helpless expression coming over his face.

"You shouldn't look, Ilse," he said finally, although why she shouldn't he cannot think, he just wished that he hadn't.

[ifsogirl]

Their hands, she sees now, are painted red. She can't look away from the flames, even though Alain tells her not to look in the first, because there's something beyond horrifying about it. Horrifying the same way it had been when she'd found The End of the Game in the Compound. The thing she'd never burned, because she'd never had the heart to do so.

It's Red. Ilse licks her lips, firelight flickering in her eyes as a shiver goes down her spine, making her feel a little sick because of its contrast with the heat off the fire. She hadn't meant to make light of it, and when she gets her wits back about her she looks at Alain with a worried fascination. Bits and pieces of stories are filtering back to her, stories that she remembers from so many months ago, nearly a year, when she'd been fresh and recovering and leaning on him every day for his support. He'd hinted at things, and she'd always thought there was more to it than what he'd allowed. He'd only ever told her the good stories

[notwithmyhand]

As she laid her hand on him, he didn't flinch but looked at her face again as she spoke. He gave her a wry pained smile and shook his head. "You know that's a lie, Ilse. That is far from the truth and that," he said, shrugging his head and shoulders to indicate the bonfire, "Ought not to be here at all," he said.

All at once his mind went reeling back to a conversation he'd had about a month ago. That conversation had neither begun nor ended well. In that same moment of remembrance, he was almost certain that someone had done this, but he wasn't sure how that could be.

He shook his head and gave her an apologetic look. "I'm sorry, Ilse. This isn't easy for me to see. Gods forbid Bert come and see it," he said, brushing a hand up through his curls.

Strangely enough, the thought of a person being behind it had calmed him somewhat. He liked the idea of a mortal man, or something like it, much better than he liked the idea of the magic that seemed to infest the place.

[brookesmart]

"Alain." Brooke's come by another path, drawn forward by the sight of dancing flames where she'd expected to see only trees. It becomes instantly clear that this is no ordinary campfire, and her feet are in the act of propelling her backwards before the fullness of the scene has even revealed itself, but then Brooke sees Alain there on the other side of the fire, looking as surprised as she feels. She rushes quickly around the edge of the flames, grabbing at his arm when the heat hits her full in the face.

"What is this?"

[notwithmyhand]

He did not hear her when she called his name, but when she grasped his arm he turned slowly to look at her, undisguised shock and anguish on his face. He didn't know what to say at first and his mouth opened and closed several times before he managed to whisper. "It's Reap come," he explains, although in the back of his mind he knows that Brooke will not know what that means.

Instead he looks up, finally meeting the gaze of the Demon Moon and points to it with his free hand. "It's Reaptide," he says, tongue stiff and unable to explain much more before his head clears. His expression is still shocked and glazed.

[brookesmart]

Something in his eyes makes Brooke's grip on him tighten, as much holding on as she is trying to hold him back from something. From what, Brooke doesn't know, but it probably has to do with the creepy faces in the flames.

"Let's just take a step back, okay?" she asks, remarkably even for the set of nerves suddenly prickling down her back. "C'mon, honey."

[notwithmyhand]

He nodded and let her pull him back a step or two from the fire, although if her intent had been to get him to stop looking at it, it was a battle lost before it was begun.

"Brooke," Alain said quietly. "Did Cort ever tell you of Reap? Of any of our festival days?" His brow had furrowed and he looked back toward the flames.

[wizard_alive]

Nita picked her way to New Gilead with a heavy heart. Face it, Neets. You lost it, yesterday. She was starting to hate this time of year - this mass of days between October 31st and Christmas, when she shouldn't really hate anything. She was wizard. Before anything, even with no magic, she was still a wizard. A sad one who had a lot on her mind, but still. Wizard.

After what had happened, she wanted to stop by. She wanted to not be alone again. When she smelled fire, she looked up. I can't be there yet. Sure, they have small fires, but...

There was no way this was a small fire if she could smell it already. Her Converse - ugly and pink and green - slid on downed leaves as she picked up the pace, skidding to a stop on the other side of the bonfire. It was just for one horrified second, just one moment that the fire wasn't a bunch of scarecrows that were half in flames but something way, way worse.

Just for a second.

She stared at the flames, and she could see him, standing, staring on the other side of that mess. "Geeze," she

[notwithmyhand]

Charyou tree. Come Reap. Death for you, life for my crop.

The words echo in Alain's ears as he looks on, as the stuffy-guys burn, and as the memories, some long since buried swell to the surface, disturbed by the image come back again from his boyhood. He'd earned his guns that day, though he'd later tested for them for the sake of ceremony, but all he could remember was Reaptide and their cowardly decision to turn their back on Susan to avoid her fate. Roland's decision he might have told himself once, but it was not true. They were katet. Despite the loyalty that their tet held to their dinh their consent was still necessary for any action to be carried out. They had left Susan with full consent no matter what they had thought later

[wizard_alive]

"Alain," she said, skirting as close to the fire as she could, wishing of all the ridiculous things that she was taller, so she could step between him and the flames. "Alain." She said his name louder - the first time was clearly too quiet to be heard over the roar of the flames, and now-

She didn't know if she should touch him, but the look on his face was one that she'd seen before, and it was all she could do to not look over her own shoulder. It had been a while- a long while since she'd seen that.

The Pullulus. That was the last time, when the universe had been ripping itself apart, and she'd seen the look on everyone's faces everything'd taken a short trip in a handbasket. Her own concerns - the ones she wasn't thinking about til she had to were pushed away.

[notwithmyhand]

His gaze shifted, slowly, reluctantly to Nita, but he focused on her nonetheless and it seemed to at least partially break the spell. He felt like he'd been listening to the thinny as Cuthbert had back then, mesmerized, horrified, and enticed by it all at once.

He shook himself and managed to look at her, really look, and see the nervous concern on her face. He felt like a man coming out of a dream. But the thing of it was that the fire and the burning stuff-guys were still there. His eye kept straying back to the sight, but he anchored his gaze on her face.

"Nita," he said simply, tone half a plea, half an acknowledgment. He didn't know what else to say just yet.

[aly_brighteyes]

Aly understood bonfires and harvest celebrations, knowing their like from Tortall. What she couldn't understand, however, was why the effigies looked so like her two friends, as well as the man she'd only seen in brief glances during her visit to their world. She stood at the edge for a long time, staring at the scarecrows while her own Junai circled over her head, unperturbed by the bonfire or the threat that Cuthbert (and his hawk) might be nearby.

Across the way, she saw Alain and looked at him with confusion, real and troubled. Something about the look on his face kept her voice stuck in her throat.

[notwithmyhand]

When he caught sight of her, Alain moved, startled although his eyes only flicked to her for the briefest second. It was truly all he had time for with his expression so caught by the

(orange)

flames and what lay within them. It was as if his gaze were caught in the grapefruit, the wizard's glass that had been their undoing in Meijis, but nothing reflected in that

(pink)

color. There were only the flames and the eerie smiling expressions on the face of the stuffy-guys on the stakes. The rest had already blurred beyond recognition, but his face was still clear.

"This was from home," Alain nearly whispered and then shook his head. "No, not home. Meijis," he said as if she should know what that meant.

[aly_brighteyes]

She caught the way he started, wondered after it, but said nothing. In the face of Alain's shock and her own confusion, Aly could only stare mesmerized into the flames, at the effigies of her friends. He understood what he meant by 'from home.' It was 'from home' in the way of the island's fondness for cruel gifts, of slave collars that woke her with bad memories. What kind of story did the gunslingers here have that this could be brought to them?

Involuntarily, she thought of Magda's warning, back in Cuthbert's dream. "But a gunslinger is something else, heart. They're more like falcons-- you can keep 'em, and you can train 'em, but they'll always be wild." Was this a part of that?

"What does it mean?"

[notwithmyhand]

"It's a warning," he said, "And ill luck." He almost added that it was ka, but he privately wondered if he had not evaded that entirely. Certainly men like him did not get second chances once the bullet that had been carried for them found their home.

"At home, this would have been Reaptide," he added for her benefit. "A celebration." His cold dead tone told her the same story as his face.