Imeeji Idol Productions ([personal profile] idolpro) wrote2020-02-17 09:33 am
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Shrike's Heart (#1)

The woman before you is beautiful—fair of features, with lovely golden skin and luxurious long black hair, petite. You have the immediate and distinct impression that she's just let go of your hand, and she steps back, and smiles.

It's not quite a happy smile.

"I'm sorry," she says. "There's just nothing I can do, as things are. But the way is there; it just needs to be lit."

You open your mouth—maybe to say something, or to express confusion—but you have to cough, and taste something metallic, spattering black blood onto the ground in front of you. Then you realize—blood seeps from opening wounds in your arms, your chest, your stomach, your face. It rims your eyes and trails from your nose and you feel like you're dissolving—

—and you fall through the ground like it's the surface of a lake, and go down, down, down.

> Wake Up
mind_blown: (The price of your greed)

Re: THE RUINED TOWN

[personal profile] mind_blown 2020-02-18 02:24 am (UTC)(link)
I'll take him.

[he holds out his hands for the boy.

the knife is held in his jacket.]
jokesaboutrighthands: doollee on tumblr (039)

Re: THE RUINED TOWN

[personal profile] jokesaboutrighthands 2020-02-18 02:27 am (UTC)(link)
[honestly he's just going to observe. the kids probably shouldn't be left to deal with this but also they seem game and so he's not going to undercut them.]
syncintohell: (lost)

Re: THE RUINED TOWN

[personal profile] syncintohell 2020-02-18 02:31 am (UTC)(link)
[ Looks over at him. He offered the man the same thing. ]

How is your stamina? Can you do first aid? There is no need for us both to carry the boy, one of us ought to look after the man.
mind_blown: (I try to make it through my life.)

Re: THE RUINED TOWN

[personal profile] mind_blown 2020-02-18 02:38 am (UTC)(link)
[he considers him for a moment.

and shakes his head slowly.]

Take the kid.

[he doesn't think this guy's gonna make it.]
syncintohell: (Genuine beauty)

Re: THE RUINED TOWN

[personal profile] syncintohell 2020-02-18 02:41 am (UTC)(link)
Very well. He said the nearest town is half a day away due east, but I cannot tell what time of day it is now. If you could support him long enough to make certain we are heading in the right direction, it would be appreciated.

[ he nods curtly and then goes to take the boy ]
mind_blown: (All these broken backs... tragic.)

Re: THE RUINED TOWN

[personal profile] mind_blown 2020-02-18 02:42 am (UTC)(link)
[he watches him head out.

and then he looks at the man.]

You're not gonna make it half a day.

Re: THE RUINED TOWN

[personal profile] handpuppets 2020-02-18 02:47 am (UTC)(link)
[ the man looks at you, blearily. ]

If I don't... maybe I won't.

[ he at least manages to wipe the trickle of blood from his mouth. ]

What if... he... what if he wants to see me, when he wakes up. Don't know where Mother is. Have to... try.

Wasn't it your... your people, who did this.
mind_blown: (Things are looking up)

Re: THE RUINED TOWN

[personal profile] mind_blown 2020-02-18 02:50 am (UTC)(link)
[he considers for a moment.]

Y'know. Maybe.

[and then, he takes his knife...

and stabs him in the heart.]

You're more likely to see your mother and brother this way, though, than trying to make it half a day's walk.

[that he's reasonably sure they won't make either.]

Re: THE RUINED TOWN

[personal profile] handpuppets 2020-02-18 02:55 am (UTC)(link)
[ The man wheezes, sputters, and grasps futilely for the knife as blood spurts from his chest, and trickles more thickly from his mouth.

And then his eyes dull, and he goes slack. ]
mind_blown: (Don't know who I am dancing with.)

Re: THE RUINED TOWN

[personal profile] mind_blown 2020-02-18 02:57 am (UTC)(link)
[yep. he's a cold blooded killer.

IT'S FINE.

Anyway, he's gonna catch him. if the name of the game is being respectful to the dead, he's gonna bury him close to his brother, wherever shu took him.]

Re: THE RUINED TOWN

[personal profile] handpuppets 2020-02-18 02:59 am (UTC)(link)
[ It's fine. You feel very fine.

You feel so fine you get a +1 willpower from taking the voices' advice.

Anyway, you go to follow. ]
claestrophe: (it can't BE)

Re: THE RUINED TOWN

[personal profile] claestrophe 2020-02-18 02:59 am (UTC)(link)
[ hEY WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK ]

What.... why... We were going to fix him......

[ no they weren't but SHE WAS GONNA TRY

HOW COULD YOU DO THIS ]
jokesaboutrighthands: doollee on tumblr (039)

Re: THE RUINED TOWN

[personal profile] jokesaboutrighthands 2020-02-18 03:01 am (UTC)(link)
[he watched that and made no move to stop it, but now he does grab Kestrel's shoulder and pull her away from the scene of the murder]

Can't save everyone, kid. And a death to that kind of wound isn't any kinder than torture. Come on.
claestrophe: (this can't be)

Re: THE RUINED TOWN

[personal profile] claestrophe 2020-02-18 03:10 am (UTC)(link)
[ He can haul her away pretty easy, she's not very strong


and also freaking the fuck out ]

He killed him.... he really.... he....

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mind_blown: (Promise me that when I go)

Re: THE RUINED TOWN

[personal profile] mind_blown 2020-02-18 03:01 am (UTC)(link)
He wasn't gonna make it. His brother's been dead for, how long? And he didn't notice because he was too delirious?

[jay is a realist about him]

All you were gonna do is ask him to suffer to satisfy yourself.
claestrophe: (more yelling!)

Re: THE RUINED TOWN

[personal profile] claestrophe 2020-02-18 03:07 am (UTC)(link)
[ that's a pretty fucked up thing to say to someone you don't even know Jay. Her unitmate might be pulling her away but she's still pelting you with stinky algae and mud. ]

He asked for help! You didn't even try to help him first! The person who wanted to satisfy themself--was you!

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Re: THE RUINED TOWN

[personal profile] handpuppets 2020-02-18 02:44 am (UTC)(link)
[ you take the boy from him, and cradle him in your arms. he's already stiffened; the man must really be out of it to not have realized that he's dead.

out of the reed bed you go? ]
syncintohell: (Marionette)

Re: THE RUINED TOWN

[personal profile] syncintohell 2020-02-18 02:48 am (UTC)(link)
[ Yes. Now that he's got this corpse, he isn't actually going to due east, especially since he has no idea where that is.

The boy should get to lay in the soil of his hometown, rather than getting forgotten or left victim to the looting that might happen following the battle. Shu is going to head into the ruined town to find a place to lay him to rest ]

Re: THE RUINED TOWN

[personal profile] handpuppets 2020-02-18 02:52 am (UTC)(link)
[ solid.

The small town isn't far away—maybe better called a village. It's clearly seen a bit of a hardscrabble existence, which has just now more or less come to an end. The thatch roofs of most of the buildings are on fire, and a few civilian corpses lie in the main thoroughfare, disregarded.

There are a handful of buildings not on fire, but that's not likely to last long. Somewhere on the other side of the main road, there's the remnants of farming fields. ]
syncintohell: (A melody overflowed from within the glas)

Re: THE RUINED TOWN

[personal profile] syncintohell 2020-02-18 02:56 am (UTC)(link)
[ he keeps his head held stiffly up, not looking down at the civilian corpses. He can't let himself be overwhelmed right now. He just saw worse. He has a duty to the one in his arms, to the brother that might survive him and come back some day.

To the fields. The ground is less likely to be hard, and maybe something can grow from this in the future. ]

Re: THE RUINED TOWN

[personal profile] handpuppets 2020-02-18 03:00 am (UTC)(link)
[ You head out to the fields. At the very least, the earth has been tilled sometime in the last season, so it's easy enough to start digging a hole; it's not too hard to find a shovel fallen behind a shed to make the job a bit easier. ]
mind_blown: (Don't know who I am dancing with.)

Re: THE RUINED TOWN

[personal profile] mind_blown 2020-02-18 03:02 am (UTC)(link)
[anyway so he's coming out with the body of the brother you were supposedly trying to save.

and he's gonna join you in burying him with his brother.]
syncintohell: (Offer your lives to art)

Re: THE RUINED TOWN

[personal profile] syncintohell 2020-02-18 03:04 am (UTC)(link)
[ no you're not?? Shu doesn't notice him until he's like right there because he's tunnel-visioning and shutting things out but if Jay is like right next to him digging, he'll notice that.

Shu turns at him ]

What— happened to him!?

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syncintohell: (Once the curtain goes up)

Re: THE RUINED TOWN

[personal profile] syncintohell 2020-02-18 03:03 am (UTC)(link)
[ He places the boy down, and then yeah, takes the shovel and starts digging.

Even if bile burns at the back of his throat, this uncomfortably reminiscent of something he will not allow himself to ever forget ]

Re: THE RUINED TOWN

[personal profile] handpuppets 2020-02-18 03:06 am (UTC)(link)
[ Even if bile burns at the back of your throat—fighting through that, that's valor. You gain +1 WILLPOWER, even as you lay the boy down in his grave.

after a while, someone joins you. ]

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