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Vale of the White Horse
Topic Started: 5 Jan 2010, 13:03 (19,264 Views)
Marieke
Lief! <3 (and powerful!)
‘Two old dogs,’ Rhywallon said as they rode away. ‘Well done, Gwenllian.’
‘Good nerves,’ Elgued remarked. ‘So, how far to the Vale, my friend?’
‘Long enough,’ he answered. But probably not nearly long enough for him.
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Sonja
Red & dangerous! Rawr!
Spring was coming. Tudwrig could smell it in the air, in the few hours he was actually out and about instead of locked up in the musty smelling room. He wanted to see Briallen, but the situation in the settlement demanded his attention. The long winter and food shortage had taken its toll on the people, in settlement and caer alike. His only consolation was the fact that Rufus' Roman people had equally a hard time.
Tudwrig sighed, brushed the hair from his forehead and poured over a set of documents Eiluned had given him. He hated politics. Heartily.
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Marieke
Lief! <3 (and powerful!)
Winter had been hard on both her and her garden, but unlike some of the persons down in the settlement, her planted seeds had managed to survive and began crawling out of the soil. Briallen tried to manage the hard ground, freeing it of dead grass and weeds.
Soon there will be flowers.
Some of the first flowers were already blooming. Snowdrops, sweet as little children. Briallen smiled wearily. Tudwrig should see those. It’d give him some heart. She bent over and pulled on some clusters of hard sand. Maybe the earth had cracked open from frost. She pulled again, the earth gave way and a horrible smell filled her nose.
Briallen nearly fell backwards. A human hand flopped out of the ground, the flesh eaten away by the things that lived in the darkness of the earth. One brief, terrifying moment she believed that it was a malignant form of the Earth Kin that she had unwittingly disturbed. Then the truth settled in, and it was even more horrid. She shuffled backwards more, covering her nose and mouth. What to do? She looked around, but no one was around, though she heard sounds coming from the workshops.
This is bad, she realized. Whoever lay buried here, he had chosen a very ill place to die. She managed to get up and ran into the caer, straight to Tudwrigs room. Only habit made that she knocked first, waiting to see if it was safe to burst in.
Edited by Marieke, 19 Mar 2011, 21:50.
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Sonja
Red & dangerous! Rawr!
'Yes?' Before he'd even finished that one word, Briallen stormed in, looking for all the world as if Arawn's dogs were chasing her. He half-rose from his chair, 'Bri - what's wrong?' She was dreadfully pale, as if she could faint any moment now.
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Marieke
Lief! <3 (and powerful!)
‘There’s a dead man in my garden.’
She stared at him, half expecting him to tell her she had been dreaming.
‘Or – maybe it was a woman. I can’t tell. But he’s dead. Tudwig, I don’t know why.’
She looked down and saw that she had brought a footsteps of mud with her.
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Sonja
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'Wait, hold on, there's a body in your garden?' He shook his head in an attempt to clear his thoughts. 'For the love of...' Another dead man on their doorstep. Had the gods completely abandoned him, now? They'd shown a little mercy lately, but now that just seemed like a cruel joke. 'Please, show me.'
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Marieke
Lief! <3 (and powerful!)
‘I only saw a hand,’ she replied. Could it be possible that it was just the hand, not a whole dead person buried in her garden? Briallen had to shut her eyes to pull her thoughts together. Don’t think stupid things.
‘Come along then.’
She took his hand and squeezed it all the way to the garden.
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Sonja
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At first, he though she'd mistaken a bunch of roots for a hand, but as they drew nearer Tudwrig could not deny that it were skeletal fingers sticking out of the earth. He felt a dull throbbing behind his ears and put his fingers to his forehead. Think, man! If the Roman finds out, you're a dead man yourself. 'All right. We can't risk digging it out, we'll just need to cover it up properly. And then - then we'll think of something.' Damnit, who had done this? He had a sneaking suspicion Lentulus himself could be responsible, but without the proof to back it up he didn't stand a chance.
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Marieke
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‘Cover it?’ she repeated. ‘You mean to just keep it here? I don’t want that, this is my garden!’
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Sonja
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'And this is a caer full of people,' he hissed. 'What do you think'll happen if someone sees us dragging around a half-decayed body?'
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Marieke
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‘I know!’ she said. Of course she realized. But if that meant keeping it buried just beneath her vegetables, she didn’t know what she preferred. ‘We don’t even know who it is. We should know at least that.’
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Sonja
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'The body's far gone, judging by that hand. I don't think we'll find out much by digging deeper.' Tudwrig passed a hand across his face and forced himself to think. 'I'll have Eiluned ask around if anyone's missing from the settlement.'
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Marieke
Lief! <3 (and powerful!)
Briallen nodded. She found it hard to breathe. ‘So we hush it up. But Tudwrig, think about this…nobody drops dead here, not just like that. You know it.’
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Sonja
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'I know,' he sighed and knelt down, pushing the earth back to cover the hand up again. Damn it all to oblivion and beyond, he thought angrily. 'Once we know who's missing, we can hazard a guess as to who killed him and why.'
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Marieke
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‘Do you think….’ She didn’t finish her thought, but he’d understand it anyway.
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Sonja
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'Possible,' he said shortly and got up, wrapping his arm around Briallen's shoulder. 'Come on, you need a drink.' The headache got worse. Not now, damnit. Tudwrig felt as though everything was slipping through his fingers at this point.
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Marieke
Lief! <3 (and powerful!)
‘I can’t believe we’re still alive. I can’t believe Carwyn still is.’ She hoisted the baby on her shoulders. He was a little bundle in a makeshift carrying bag. Sometimes she feared that the bands would slip off or the knots would unwind, but most of the time she was happy to have both her arms for herself. Essylt glanced at Morcant, who hadn’t been speaking for a long while, even though they had been walking since sunrise again.
‘We must be getting near the Vale,’ she tried. ‘How have you been, Morcant? You never tell me anymore.’
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Sonja
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Sometimes, he'd wish Carwyn wasn't alive, and immediately afterwards he hated himself for it. Why should a grown man feel threatened by an infant, hardly capable of doing anything but produce shit? He looked at Essylt when she spoke to him, and shrugged. 'Fine. Footsore, but fine.'
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Marieke
Lief! <3 (and powerful!)
She nodded, discouraged by his lack of reply. It had been like this lately. Even when the snows had melted and they had felt it to be safe to travel on, things between them hadn’t improved. He must regret it, she often thought. Regret sticking with her while he could be among his brothers. Or maybe he just no longer loved her. Love was never a guarantee anyway; look at father. Look at Carwyn.
She’d been sleeping badly, and it was noticeable now. Her legs felt heavy, she really didn’t want to walk for another few miles before they would make camp for the night. Perhaps if she didn’t have to carry Carwyn all the time it would go better, but Morcant no longer offered to take over. She didn’t ask, either.
At night she was haunted by dreams. Sometimes she woke up with tears drenching her cheeks, and then she quickly turned and dug her face in the fabric of Carwyn’s clothes. What she saw bothered her, but she couldn’t really remember what it was. A lot of water. And this sense of wrongness, of darkness crawling inside of her, trying to get out. It was the same as when she had faced Rufus the last time and considered killing him. It scared her.
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Sonja
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The silence weighed heavy on him, and the breathing of the infant sounded disproportionately loud. At least they'd be in the Vale before long, where he could extract some vengeance from Rufus' extremities. Morcant was feeling powerful urges to hurt something from time to time. He glanced at Essylt, then sighed. 'Hope lord Tudwrig still has a job for me,' he muttered, because finally he couldn't bear the silence any longer. Curse her, why did she have to go and break it? It had suited him just fine to walk in silence.
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Marieke
Lief! <3 (and powerful!)
‘Yes.’ Because otherwise, how were they going to live. ‘Well, we can always count on Rufus’ charity,’ she added, forcing herself to sound lightly.
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Sonja
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'I wouldn't,' he said sharply, 'because he'll be dead the day after we arrive.' She had to go and say it, hadn't she? Morcant ground his teeth together, breathing deeply. A profound desire to kill burned deep in his chest, and he didn't care whether she saw.
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Marieke
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‘It was just a…’ she stopped, seeing the look on his face. Perhaps this had not been a good idea. It didn’t feel good, even his protection didn’t feel good. She would rather have walked alone right now, just herself and her baby brother.
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Sonja
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'Yes. Sorry.' He said it more as an automatism than out of real regret. Of course it had been a joke, but a really poor one. Morcant bit his cheek. This situation was getting out of hand. He had sworn to protect Essylt and her brother at all costs, but it was getting so damn difficult. And it was that little boy, with his owl-like eyes, staring at him.
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Marieke
Lief! <3 (and powerful!)
She wanted to say something in return, perhaps even it doesn’t matter if that would clear the mood, but before she could, Carwyn had found something to complain about. His shriek tore through the quiet forest like that of a banshee. Essylt staggered to a halt to shrug the carrying bag off and gather him in his arms. What in the world was wrong so suddenly?
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Sonja
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'Can you please, please tell that thing to shut his fucking mouth?' he groaned, halting in mid-track and throwing his hands up to the air as if pleading the gods to send a lightning bolt to kill him now.
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Marieke
Lief! <3 (and powerful!)
‘I’m sorry!’ she started, before realizing what he had said. Essylt looked up from the crying Carwyn. ‘He’s not a thing…And he doesn’t understand, Morcant, he’s only months old. Please,’ she added then, pleading to her brother, ‘be quiet now.’ He couldn’t have more of the milk, they had to ration it to make it to the Vale. She unwound the carrying bag. ‘He just needs changing.’ Essylt put him down on the softest piece of moss she could find and bit her lip. There was not much to change him into.
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Sonja
Red & dangerous! Rawr!
Like asking the brat was going to bloody help, Morcant thought angrily to himself. Cuff the boy on the back of the head would shut it up, as far as he was concerned. 'Whatever, I'm getting sick of his constant bawling,' he said coldly.
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Marieke
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‘Be glad your mother didn’t, when you were his age,’ she snapped, fumbling with a spare cloth. It wasn’t even clean.
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Sonja
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'At least my mother knew how to raise a kid,' he growled before walking a few dozen paces ahead.
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