Day 7: Evening

Aftern-Evening: 3pm - Midnight

[ IRL Timeframe: January 22 - January 29, 2020. ]

After all of Seven's fights, ending in Luka taking Ten's hand as the other heroes arrive. The knights will be treated to the sight of something entirely unexplainable: Seven is wounded, laying on the asphalt with a bright white crossbow bolt sticking out of their body. They're still pouring black goop off of their body, but they appear to be wrapped in some kind of cloth tarp. Five is kneeling over them, dressed in a skin-covering assassin outfit that only reveals her five eyes peering out. In her hand is a phone, and that's really all that can be seen before she and Seven disappear into a portal in the ground.

Luka, meanwhile, is standing with Ten's hand in his and his crossbow laid on the ground and not in his hand. No matter what the arriving heroes cry out in order to get his attention, it's too late to stop him. Abruptly, the portal opens and both the Princess and Ten disappear into the ground.

Naturally, the hashtag #princessnapped is forged.

That doesn't prove to be the only hashtag to get some heavy use this evening. The #wizardfound and #robotwizard hashtags find a sudden, new reason to actively discuss what's going on.

The remaining heroes: Garrot, Gyre, Haizea, Matilda, Olivia, (and... where's Terrence?) will find that the events from earlier in the day have caught up to them. There's a crack like thunder as both the Wizard and the Protector flicker into existence and both land in the superhero pose in the center of the intersection that Luka just disappeared from.

The Protector, if possible, is looking even worse than before. He's sporting a black eye and numerous cuts on his forehead, cheeks, and arms. It looks like he's been lit on fire at least once, but even so he's holding his rapier out in anticipation of the next strike.

The Wizard, meanwhile, is finally openly visible to everyone after her absence. She looks rough. It's as if the areas where she'd been harmed have been replaced or repaired with robotics. The left side of her face is no longer bandaged, instead revealing that she now has a robotic eye with a glowing yellow ring. The cables that were visible in the video before are very clearly plugged in just behind her ear, trailing down over her shoulder and down her back beneath the robes.

And of course she's still wearing pajamas. But they look like they've seen better days, charred and ripped and shredded at every edge. In her hand, though, is a massive axe. One side of its head is a giant half-circle axe head while the other side is a heavy weight like a hammer. The entire weapon is jet black, but it has a glossy shine.

What's the worst that could happen?

The Weather
Cloudy, breezy.
48°F / 9°C
Brrr.

Prompts:

3:00pm The Garden, Unknown Location: When Luka falls through the portal with Ten, he'll become immediately aware that the monster has slipped himself closer and snuck his feet beneath Luka's to stabilize him. Despite the falling, he seems surprisingly stable in the air.

And then there's the soft crunch of grass beneath his feet and he shifts slightly, waiting for Luka to step back on his own. Wherever they are, the air is filled with the scents of wildflowers and scents that are both beautiful and entrancing in their complexity. It's clear that there are dozens, if not hundreds of flowers and plants in the immediate vicinity. There's the gentle warmth of sunlight on Luka's skin, clearly advertising that they're outside (or in a very clever indoor garden). But most calming is the gentle sounds of moving water. If Luka focuses, he'll be able to pick out that there's a small waterfall, several waterways, and multiple water features with water tumbling down over rocks. And, of course, a pool or a pond with fish gently swimming about beneath the surface.

But he'll be interrupted twice before he can lose himself. The first is Ten.

"We're here." He says, but if Luka's not shaken enough he'll realize that he doesn't hear Seven and his Seven sense isn't going wild. But the second distraction happens as Luka's phone bloops from an unknown sender with a text:

"Welcome to the Garden, Princess." The text reads... with no explanation of who or how they sent him the text. That's totally normal!

3:00pm Street Intersection, Bamborough: With the arrival of the Wizard and the Protector, it's very clear that shit is about to go down. But that absolutely isn't what the Wizard has in mind for this situation. She's the one running this game, and she isn't about to get five heroes wrapped up in her duel with the Protector. Before anyone can take an opportunity to make any attacks, and especially not the Protector, she snaps the fingers of her free hand five times.

And reality fractures. The way that the cracks in midair begin to fold and reflect the area and people around them, it's like the world is folding up into a trick mirror house. It's... actually exactly that. Reality twists and folds, forming reflections and containers out of the air itself until every single hero is enclosed in one. The hero in the middle of their own box, reflected on two opposite walls. But on the opposite two walls, the Wizard is visible beyond in one of them and the Protector is visible beyond in the other room. Uh. This conversation might get awkward. Worse is that they can't get distracted by their Seven senses, because no one can feel them anymore.

3:15pm To Everyone: In the middle of the earlier events, every hero in Bamborough receives a text from an unknown sender. The only one who's spared this text is Luka, because he got a text earlier. The text reads: "I can give you one teleport to anywhere today. Tell me when and to where. Don't be unreasonable!"

8:00pm Onward, Everywhere: The day is done, the events are finished. How does your character get home? Do they go home alone? Do they seek the company of their fellow heroes? Do they stay alone, or do they get a room together? Either way, it's a rough night for everyone.

Procedure:

Reply to the appropriate toplevel comments for events below. Indicate if a post is a private conversation with "Private" in the subject otherwise all threads should be open to interaction with others. Plan OOCly how you'd like to toss everyone around.

Activity Check: January 2020

[ IRL Timeframe: January 1st - January 31st, 2020 ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Garrot sighs, his drug-addled mind making him seem more wistful than exhausted. Truth be told, he doesn't want to be here. But he needs to keep them safe.

"I'm fine." Though he still sounds chipper, there's a sharp edge to his words. There's a pit, a thin walkway, no guardrails, Luka's blind, and he's high... with poor balance. "I don't know how much sleep I'll get tonight." The words are surprisingly... dry given his mood.

But suddenly, he lets go of Gyre and recalls his cane. And a moment later, he's... dropped down on all fours?

"I'm not walking that!" There's a snarky little laugh as he says it; he's not stupid. Then, a long spool of fine rope, a mockup of his favorite brand for the bedroom, appears in one hand. "And neither are you, Princess! Your steed awaits!" For emphasis, he slaps his own behind and then locks his eyes onto Gyre's.

"Your other Knight will get you nice and safe, and then he'll watch our asses the whole way across in case something goes wrong." Finally, Garrot tosses some of the rope towards Gyre. Wild elf hermit better be able to tie good knots...

Luka waits hesitantly behind the two knights. He presumes by Garrot's reaction that they've arrived to the strange ritual room they'd visited last time. Luka recalls Ten helping him across the precarious bridge, and cringes thinking of doing that again with these two as his only hope.

"Wait, you want to carry me?" Luka asks, incredulous. Garrot had done an alright job carrying him up the mountain the previous day, but there was a lot more at risk here. Not to mention Garrot being pumped full of sedative. "Why do I feel like it would be safer just to walk on my own?"

Luka is unaware of the details of Garrot's plan that make it slightly less of a bad idea: the rope, and the fact that Garrot's dropped on all fours. At the moment he's imagining being princess-carried by a massive, doped up half-bugbear across what amounts to a highwire over certain death.

Gyre watches this idiot man drop down onto all fours, staring at his ass as he slaps it with this utterly incredulous look. He, of course, catches the rope as it's tossed to him, glancing towards Luka to get his impression before he uh acts as the parent of this unruly group.

"I believe he wants you to ride him, princess. He gave me a rope to tie the two of you together," he says dryly, describing the situation with an obvious distaste. This seems dangerous to him!! Maybe more dangerous then the two of them just uh walking across with a little help.

"What happens if you slip Garrot? Then we lose two people instead of just one. I can walk you both across, one at a time."

Garrot groans in what is now a characteristically overdramatic fashion. Someone get this man a fainting couch. Between Luka's trepidation and Gyre's flat-out logic, it doesn't seem like a fight he's going to win. As fun as it would've been.

"Fine, fine, you two can just walk across together." Honestly, that's totally fine by him, it means they'll be okay! He's lucky Gyre has good ideas sometimes. In a definitive moment of relenting, the rope... disappears. Holy shit? He's not sticking to his guns on this like he does literally everything else?

"I'm just trying to get this done with before the drugs wear off, okay?" It's a moment of actual (but still medically cheery) vulnerability and genuine emotion that's been... difficult for him to access. When Garrot's full emotional range comes back, it's not going to be pretty... for him or anyone around him. For all he knows he may be too grief-stricken to function until everything's over, so he needs to be helpful now.

And so he hunkers down and starts army crawling (idiot wriggling?) his way across the walkway, his center of balance low and his chance of slipping basically zero. There's still the occasional giggle at how silly he must look, but it looks like he's not waiting for anyone.

"Gyre?" Luka holds out an arm, half feeling for where the other is and half expecting him to just take it. "This path isn't big enough for us both to walk together, right? If you go in front, I can just hold onto you and follow behind just fine."

This was a much simpler idea than strapping himself onto a crawling Garrot, and much cleaner than Luka crawling along the path himself.

"Can you see the end of the path from here?" He remembers that the Protector had planned to visit the mountain that day, and wonders if anything seems to be disturbed. "Is anything different?"

He hesitates at the edge of the path, watching Garrot like he's absolutely certain the dude is going to fall and die at any second. He doesn't even think to look back until Luka calls for him, turning and taking his arm automatically.

"Okay, ah, here. Grab... here," he says, turning to face the path and bringing Luka's hand to his hip as he talks. He reaches back for his other hand, setting that on his hip as well, and then he just holds on to his wrists. It might keep him pinned in place, but he'd rather the reassurance that he could grab the man if he slipped than not.

"I can see the end of the path. Nothing's different, er, well. There something weird where Six and Seven's bodies should go. And Seth is here." He knows that last bit is obvious, but he wants the man to know as much as possible before they start.

"Let me know when you're ready. I'll go slow," he says, waiting for Luka's signal before he begins.

"Pffffft, if you two wanna hang back and rip each others' clothes off, be my guest!" Focus on bad jokes, Garrot, and not on the infinite void beneath you or the dead bodies ahead. He doesn't want to look closer at the dead Knights, to see how many had wounds that could be from the Protector's rapier. Part of him, deep down, knows the answer already.

He needs to put off his anger for as long as possible. Garrot's embracing the effects of the sedative completely, in hopes his body just... forgets it needs to grieve all over again.

"But seriously, how's my ass look from over there? Should I wiggle it a bit?" Garrot is completely and utterly serious about that, and he's even hooked his legs from the knees down under the walkway. Sure, it's to help stabilize him and let his lower half do scooting motions while the upper half keeps crawling, but it also shows off his butt. (Un)luckily, he's already about two thirds of the way across.

Plus, he's more than willing to distract those two from the same inky death pit and dead bodies he's trying to ignore.

"Now, Garrot, don't be jealous. It's unbecoming." Luka will indulge Garrot for as long as he needs it. He understood the desire to distract from the grim nature of their task and was happy to play along with it until the absolute last minute until they'd be forced to confront reality again.

Luka places his hands at Gyre's waist where he'd directed them, settling into a firm and steady grip.

"The Protector's been here recently. He must have done something." Luka explains, before giving Gyre confirmation that he's ready to proceed.

"Garrot, you know I can't see that." Luka hops seamlessly back into the banter. "Either Gyre will have to describe the view to me in tremendous detail or I'll have to come over there and feel it myself."

It's good they're able to keep the mood light. Gyre is here between them, trying not to explode with anxiety as he watches Garrot scootch along in front of him. He wishes the man hadn't moved quite so fast so he could be there to help if he did somehow slip. The mention of the Protector visiting also doesn't do much to settle his mood. He's all jangly nerves as he hears Luka's go ahead, and starts taking them over the bridge.

He's moving slowly, and in a rhythm, one step then the next then the next. He doesn't want there to be any surprises, forcing himself to breathe slowly and not rush. Much as he wants to be across the bridge now, he knows it won't do him any good to force it.

In all his focus, he's only half listening to the banter, his own response decidedly delayed, "It's a nice ass. Ask me what I want you to do with it when we're out of here again."

Garrot will remember that.

Luckily for Garrot's ass and its audience, the owner does not manage to slip or stumble or anything else. If anything, the fact that both of them are even paying attention is enough to embolden the bugbear to hustle through the remainder of the crawl. When he's in the clear, Garrot just bodily hurls himself towards the center of the platform, rolling twice while... laughing.

"Haaa, that was fun!" He takes a few deep breaths if only to cope with the physical exertion. "You two really made the dumb ch-" Garrot was content to badger the both of them... until he saw that they weren't right behind him. So he switches to a loud, scandalous gasp!

"My ass is a reward, hurry up, boys!" See, now Garrot is in an awkward spot. He's rolled back over and is now sitting up, facing the walkway, facing Gyre and Luka. If they fall, he'll see it and be unable to do a thing. So he'll distract himself!

By having Xaljim make a block of stairs for him to climb up onto. At least he's closer to standing?

It sounds like Garrot made it safely across, which was good! He was half worried something might actually happen there. Luka, though, is in no rush to hurry across himself despite Garrot's incentive.

When Gyre and Luka finally arrive at the platform, Luka relaxes and exhales with visible relief - he hadn't quite realized just how tense he'd been until then.

He moves closer to Garrot's voice and away from the ledge as much as possible, though his steps are still slow and cautious. Luka hadn't explored much the last time they'd been here and most of the surroundings were still a complete mystery to him.

"This is it, right?" He asks the both of him. There was no use putting it off any longer. "You can see Seth?"

Gyre also lets the tension out of his body when they get to the platform, his hands loosening their near vice grip on Luka's arms. He lets him go towards Garrot, keeping a hand on him just long enough to make sure he doesn't go in the wrong direction before releasing him.

Much as Garrot's teasing had kept him sane on the trip over here, and much as he has wanted that promised reward for a few days now, all pleasure drains out of him when Luka asks about Seth. His eyes drift there automatically, and he walks past the two of them, getting as close as he can to the pedestal without stepping off the edge.

"I can see him," he murmurs, coming to a stop and taking a slow, deep breath. There's only the one mark. Seven had sliced him to ribbons just by landing on him. There's no way. There's... "He killed him," he adds, his voice is flat and hard and certain.

As he looks, his gaze drifts past Seth, landing on Joanna first before settling onto Zafika, and he draws a sudden breath through his teeth. His hands ball up into fists, he knees bending as if he could leap out into the dark and strangle the Protector right here, right now. But there's nothing he can do, an awful snarl in his voice as he barks, "He killed all three of them!!"

This is too damn much.

By the time Luka starts walking towards him, Garrot's already getting to an awkward sort of stand. But he watches Gyre make a beeline towards the dead Knights, no restraint, no recognition of their emotional states. Granted, he'd have done the same thing if he could walk in a straight line. But it makes his stomach drop, his ears droop, and a large, nearly comical frown form on his face.

If Garrot weren't fucking high right now, he might be right there with Gyre, screaming and frothing and raging. But he's high, he's holding back a grief-induced mental breakdown, he's pushing himself to his physical limits, and this? This?! It's threatening to topple the entire house of cards, to send him deep into shades of his past he thought were long dead. So he pushes off of those stairs as he dismisses them, giving Luka a gentle pat on the shoulder as he soldiers right on past. His uneven, wobbling steps land with deep thuds that broadcast his intent as he approaches the elf.

"I need you to take a deep breath, okay?" There's an even, neutral sort of serenity to his words, a stark departure from the laughing and jokes. A shuddering sigh rattles out from his throat as a hand slowly, delicately moves to roost on Gyre's shoulder. His hand's shaking, too. "For me? P-please."

He can't handle grief and rage right now. He won't.

Luka stands back for a minute feeling utterly useless.

He can't see the bodies, can't search the the scene for any clues that might serve as small reassurances. Luka can't even tell what Gyre must have seen to be so sure of the Protector's guilt. He doesn't know how to console the two knights - when it came to the topic of death it seemed like Luka's words only ever ended up hurting people.

He instead moves silently in the direction of their voices. It was another delicate situation: people all reacted very differently in moments like this. Shock, grief, anger - they were all volatile emotions and dealing with those going through them was made even more precarious by Luka's inability to read body language. So as he moves forward he's prepared for the possibility of being lashed out at or outright rejected.

Luka finds Garrot first and reaches to place a gentle hand on the man. He can hear Garrot's shaking breaths and feel the strength and restraint he's channeling. His other hand moves to find a place, clumsily, on Gyre's back.

Luka opens his mouth to speak but any words he could think to say die in his throat. Instead, he indicates physically that he wants to pull them, either one or both, to him in an embrace. Touch was more comforting than words, right? He just hopes he isn't somehow committing a terrible faus pax.

Unfortunately for Garrot's precarious mental state, Gyre is a wild elf. He doesn't hold things like this back. Maybe he would have tried if he knew exactly why Garrot had sedated himself, why he looked so stressed, why he was driving himself so hard. Instead, he has no reason not to just let this happen.

He hears the man approaching, and feels that hand on his shoulder. In different circumstances, he might try to push it off, to get himself some space, but he can feel it shaking. He assumes Garrot is just as grief stricken as him, and that his grief is for similar reasons, and he reaches up to cover his hand, wrapping fingers around as much of it as he can and squeezing. He takes the requested deep breath, and he holds it for just a moment.

And in that moment, the weight of this past week collapses on top of him. He was barely holding it together earlier while talking to Luka, but now it all crashes down onto him even harder, useless misery filling him so fast he chokes on his held breath. Chokes, and then sobs, his shoulders crumpling down so that when Luka gets to them, his hand meets Gyre's back bent nearly in half.

"Fuck," he manages brokenly, and then again in Amarosian, "《Fuck!》" The worst part is that he doesn't feel like he should be crying. Death should not be sought out, but it happens when it should. They will all return to the earth eventually, and crying over that is as absurd as crying over the animals he hunts for food. It's all a cycle, perfectly natural. He shouldn't be so upset.

But nothing about this is natural. All he can think about is forty years of bodies floating in the dark, undiscovered, whatever they learned of this game passing back into obscurity, again and again. All he can think about is that there were thirteen of them and now there are barely seven. All he can think about is Zafika being allowed free so that they could die at the hands of a coward. It all hits him at once, and all he can do is sob wetly, whispering this litany of phrases he's heard other people say over dead bodies in his own language. The sounds is soft and nearly musical, a pattern to the words like it's a prayer.

He is easily moved at that point, his body shaking but pliable. When Luka tugs at him, he slumps back against him, turning to sink his shoulder into his chest. His head drops forward, forehead pressed against the princess as he lets all this wash through him.

For the briefest of moments when Luka touches him, Garrot had hope that he'd regained control of the situation, and of himself. He takes a moment to look at Seth's wound, how it's exactly the same as Joanna's and Zafika's. But as Gyre chokes and sobs and swears and breaks, Garrot finds himself starting to break as well. His eyes go wide, his pupils shrink into thin, feline slits.

The elf collapses into Luka, and the good doctor... has to stop himself from shoving both of them into the pit. Make them hurt, make them pay for making him think about his father and the Protector, about grief and rage. It's like he's regressed thirty years worth of humanity and progress and it's a terrifying, helpless sort of feeling. But then he realizes the sedative is keeping his emotions from boiling over and dulling his movements. There's still time.

"N-no!" Garrot gasps, stumbling backwards from both of them and landing flat on his behind. He can't take this out on them if he can't reach them! A hand reaches into one of his pockets, pulling out his phone as he speaks with the shakiest, closest-to-hyperventilating voice he can muster.

"I-I need to leave. You're-" He pauses, words catching in his throat as he starts typing out a message. "You're not safe here. With me. We'll tell the others tomorrow but I-" And then he switches gears, focusing entirely on typing out the message as he starts... sniffling.

"Take me to my room in far haven PLEASE ITS URGENT"

Here's hoping he can keep himself together for another eight seconds.

Well, that's one way to phone a friend.

There's a gust of warm air that billows up from a portal that opens up directly beneath Garrot. How was that so accurate? What the heck? Gyre will get to see Garrot fall directly into a glowing orange portal that deposits Garrot heavily into his room. Everyone will get to see and hear and consider that the portal was at a diagonal angle.

Which sends Garrot out, into the wall, and then right down onto his bed. It would've been fitting if pinball sounds had played while it happened.

But all that's left after the portal closes is the gently lingering warmth and scent of the Far Haven air that had filled Garrot's room for the brief moments the portal was open.

Wild.

Garrot's reaction was surprising, but not entirely so. Luka had readied himself for resistance. As he feels Garrot retreat, Luka only thinks about how much worse that could have gone. It was far from the effect he had hoped to have, but if Garrot's pulling away was the alternative to him lashing out, Luka would have to accept it.

Of course they weren't safe here. They weren't safer without Garrot. He might have said it aloud if they were in any other situation, but he lets the thought perish in his mind. They hadn't really been safe since they'd come to the island. No one's been truly safe for the past forty years, he thinks.

His hand around Gyre's back curls into a fist, clenching the fabric of his shirt between his fingers.

"Gyre, did you see everything you need to see here?" He asks, his voice quiet and soft. The cavern around them felt bigger and emptier than ever. "If there's more to be found here we should find it now, so we don't have to come back again until we're ending this whole thing."

Edited 2020-02-11 23:36 (UTC)

Garrot is a blur around the tears as he stumbles away from them. His guts twist as the man falls over and starts... declaring that they're not safe? He doesn't understand, and it pulls his head out from under the waves of emotion that keep hitting him. He blinks tears out of his eyes, squinting around them as Garrot falls into the portal and disappears from this room. It's too abrupt. Something horrible is happening, but he doesn't know what it is. He wants to ask but then he's gone.

He tries to straighten in that moment, trying to reason himself out of sobbing. This does him no good at all, his whole body slumping back against the princess as soon as he feels that fist against his back. He turns in the man's grip, burying his face into his shoulder and bringing his arms up around him. He clings for uh awhile, taking deep, shuddering breaths until he feels like he can talk again. He doesn't actually release him yet, but he's clearly finding equilibrium again.

"No, no, I-I--" sniff, "There's s-something with the monsters. I want to look at that," he murmurs, but he doesn't uh move at all, sunk against him and apparently comfortable for now. He continues to sniff, occasionally sneaking a hand up to wipe at his eyes, but otherwise he's going to stay here for a bit.

"Okay." His reply is simple and comes easily. "When you're ready. Tell me what you see, too. I want to help."

Focusing on accomplishing what they came there do so that they could leave it behind, if only briefly, seemed like the best course of action. Luka relaxes his grip but makes no effort to move, instead bringing his other arm around Gyre and pulling him closer.

He thinks back to the times he'd told the Protector that Gyre's empathy was a weakness. Maybe in some ways, it was. Ruthlessness and efficiency do play nicely together. But without Gyre's empathy they may very well have been playing the Protector's game still, perpetuating that doomed cycle of misery.

"There will never be another body here again." He says. Another promise spoken into the universe with as much confidence as he could muster put behind it. He just hopes he'll never have to eat those words.

He makes a low whimper of a sound when Luka pulls him closer, mirroring the movement by pressing his hands into his back. He breathes deeply, steadying himself more and more with each breath.

That last statement is the thing that finally gets him to pick up his head, his eyes settling on Luka's face. It's... incredibly hopeful, but he says it so firmly that Gyre almost believes him.

"That's right," he murmurs, beginning to straighten up. His hands linger around him for a few moments before he reaches up to clear his eyes one last time.

"Let me..." he starts, clearing his throat and finally pulling himself away from the princess. He runs his fingers through his hair, and turns to look up at Seth again. His attention darts momentarily to Zafika, and he almost feels himself breakdown again. He does sniffle miserably, mumbling to himself, "Okay, we'll keep them safe."

It's another moment or two before he clears his throat again, and finally clues Luka in on what upset him so much in the first place. "Remember the red line, from yesterday? Over Joanna and Zafika's hearts? Seth has one too," he offers, turning to tap Luka on his chest over the same spot.

"It has to be... it has to be his rapier. When Seven attacked me, they cut me all over. See?" He reaches out as he's speaking, taking Luka's hand and guiding it first to three parallel cuts through the clothes on his shoulder, then to a big, long slice through his vest. The skin underneath is repaired, of course, but his clothes are still torn through.

He hopes the image is clear enough to him with that, emphasizing, "I don't think they were capable of precision."

Luka nods wordlessly as his hands feel the tattered slashes across Gyre’s clothing. He recalls his own encounter with Seven, and how violent and wild they were. Luka hadn’t been nearly as thrashed around by the monster but he’d endured enough to know that surgically precise stab wounds were not their style.

“They don’t look burned at all either? That would have been impossible to avoid in a direct attack from Seven.” His words are somber and heavy with the weight of the truth he was now blatantly facing. “Were any of the ones who were murdered... aligned, with you?”

Not that their alignment particularly mattered anymore. Seth had walked into a scene he shouldn’t have, they now knew. But had Joanna or Zafika known the truth? Why did they have to die, in the Protector’s eyes?

“He’ll probably blame the Wizard for this. Even though she was dead, according to him. Her return is enough for him to shift the blame again.” Luka sighs. He wants to confront the Protector, to force him to explain himself. But Luka knows that he could throw the truth in the Protector’s face, scream it at him even, and the Protector wouldn’t bat an eye. He would regurgitate his same lies and Luka would end up another body in the mountain.

Edited 2020-02-12 17:15 (UTC)

"No. No burns. Just the one mark," he confirms, before falling silent for a moment. Gods, he wishes this was easier.

"I can't say whether they were or not. My voice is, ah, restricted," he says, sounding just as disappointed as he feels.

This feeling doesn't help as Luka speculates about the Protector there. The idea that he is so utterly incapable of telling the truth makes his skin prickle. Uncomfortable fury fills him again, and he angrily clears his eyes. He doesn't have time or energy to start crying again ugh. He can't believe this man has gotten away with this for so fucking long.

"He already tried to tell me it was her," he says, sounding almost amused by the idea. Amused or incredulous. He obviously didn't believe him either way. "Then he tried to kill me, too. Again. He's not a very convincing person." In his experience anyway.

He’s just nodding along as Gyre confirms what he had suspected. That is, until he mentions being restricted, and Luka’s brow knits as he snaps his attention to him.

“What do you mean, restricted? By magic? By him?” The concept makes Luka’s blood boil. Restricting the Wizard’s words was one thing, but the Knights should be able to speak freely. “He can’t even abide by rules already rigged in his favor?”

Luka scoffs, disgust and contempt boiling up inside him. He realizes Gyre may not be able to answer any of the questions that he’d just asked due to those very restrictions silencing him.

“It’s not something you had the Wizard do for you, right?” He asks, to be sure. Luka can’t imagine choosing something like that but it was possible there were things at play he wasn’t yet aware of.

"I... don't know. It may be part of the rules of this ritual they've set up," he says, clearly picking his words carefully to get around the block he knows is there.

"There's a sign in front of her house that says we can't reveal each other, only ourselves. Maybe she made the rule to keep other knights safe in the past." Safe from allies with loose lips. Safe from the Protector trying to torture the other name out of them. He can see why it would exist.

"I can only tell you about what I've done there. The o███████████--" His voice dissolves into sudden garbled static, and he stops as soon as he realizes, making a low frustrated noise. He doesn't know how else to talk about this so he retreats from it, going back to what Luka said.

"Does he restrict people? What they can talk about, I mean?"

The Weather

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