The #Broken_Dagger Forum

WARNING! This is a Sequence Complete: Kylerryth thread. There may be any and all of the following involved: physical, mental/psychological, emotional, and/or landscape/widespread violence; mutilation; threats; nightmares; sundry illnesses; and general strangeness.

ATTENTION: If you are interested in participating, please visit and read in full this thread.



You are asleep. You are dreaming.

Or are you?

Is it real? Is it a dream?

You decide.



Surrounding you is a wilderness.

It is quiet, as quiet as the yawning mouth of an open grave; it is as wide and deep as that mouth can at times seem. If there are other living things in the uncultivated, untamed forest that has closed its jaws around you, perhaps they have been swallowed in turn; have slid down its slimy esophagus and are currently digesting in its vast stomach, waiting to be expelled via its terrestrial asshole -- into the waking world, presumably. Are they asleep and dreaming, too -- like you? Or are they awake like you, and you've found yourselves simultaneously in a surreal gyre?

But we digress.

The wilderness is not, however, as cold and forbidding as that open grave appears. Nor is it so final in its meaning and/or its context in relation to life. Quite the opposite, actually.

Death is a surrender. Death is stoic, unrelenting. Death is both fickle and finicky -- "Am I in the mood for a grandfather on his deathbed," says Death, the scythe-wielding, robed skeleton chuckling at his clever choice of words while tapping a distal phalange against his nasal spine, "or a sleeping infant?" Death is a state of ignorant complacency and the acceptance thereof in the face of the living experience. The omnipresent black of dreamless slumber; the monolith of death in all its macabre, graven eloquence -- these are embraced and worshiped when one dies, idolized and preferred to the scintillant, pulsing globe of life, the warm combination of joy and misery it both exudes and contains.

Unlike death, however, the wilderness is, as its name implies, wild; it thrives and grows, albeit in patient, expectant silence, reveling noiselessly in and because of its raw, untouched, chaotic beauty. It is always in a state of flux; it is delicate; it carefully balances order and disorder on the head of a pin, where angels praise the concentric dichotomy even as they samba, as they waltz and then tango and then salsa, as they pirouette and as a group perform a jeté. The wilderness is tireless in its pursuit for that balance; it is specific and brooks no nonsense from its inhabitants, be they flora or fauna. After all, it's always something else, an exterior agent, that fucks things up for the wilderness.

The wilderness is like that globe: it is warm, pleasantly so, with moments of brilliance firing sparks hither and thither, illuminating the miraculous and banishing the ridiculous, shedding light on life and in turn enhancing it, transforming it. Into what is another matter entirely. What does matter, on the other hand, is that it is alive and experiencing life, even during its transformation -- think of the larva, the pupa, the imago. That is an accurate representation, except that the wilderness is forever changing. Just very subtly and very gradually, with its fragile synergies of light and dark, beauty and ugliness, order and chaos, life and death always in mind.

Let us return to the present, however, for the setting has been altered slightly.

Now, on occasion, the soft, playful hands of the wind stir the leaves of the countless trees, prompting them to exchange their ancient secrets and expansive knowledge of the earth and air. To our ears, this exchange of information is aught more than a din of rustling, leafy whispers. Too, your clothes -- yes, you are clothed; you're wearing whatever you wore last -- and hair -- if you have any, that is -- are caressed and combed by the wind. And while it isn't an especially strong wind, it has enough gusto to penetrate this deeply into the wilderness, and that should speak volumes about what it would be like beyond the relative protection of the trees.

Daylight filters through the canopy, brighter, more intense in some spots than others but always painting the world with the same washed-out color palette, playing tricks on the rods and cones in your eyes. Exactly what hue or shade of green is that leaf? The precise brown of that tree trunk? (Or is there a hint of gray in the wood, too?) Any movement will cause these colors to shift with you, as if they and what they are visually linked to are drawn to you, forced to accompany you on both physical and spectral levels. Wiggle your fingers in front of your eyes, friend, and you'll see tracers; the ghostly visual echoes of your fingers will briefly exist as light, vanishing in a blink and leaving dazzling phosphorescent lines in your vision for several moments afterward. If you will, envision the world through a pane of frosted glass. That is an accurate representation, except that the wilderness isn't a winter wonderland, not yet, and the pane isn't just in front of you. Like the wilderness, it surrounds you.

By the way: there is a knife on the ground in front of you.

It is just a knife. It isn't a special knife, or even a particularly pretty knife. It consists of an unadorned, squarish pommel; a leatherbound haft; a slightly larger yet equally unadorned, squarish version of the pommel makes the guard; a double-edged, eight-inch blade with a blood gutter that runs along three-quarters of the blade's length. Half of one edge is serrated. Both edges are razor-sharp. It balances perfectly in your hand. And should you inspect the knife further, you will find the following words etched into the flat bottom of the pommel:

Use me.

But ... how?

That's up to you.

And whoever else may be in the wilderness with you.

Bryce had gone to sleep frustrated and with a lot on his mind, and it wasn't a grand suprise when he found himself dreaming. He's wearing nothing more than some drawstring pants, and as he looks around the thick forest he wonders what inspired this dream. There is nothing to distinguish any particular recent event, no people, no landmarks, and no symbol of what might be troubling him.. as most dreams tend to bring. It feels more real as well, more complete somehow than most.

Nothing to be done but move onward. His short blond hair was a mess to begin with, and the gentle breeze does little to further disrupt it. On his bare chest and arms, plainly visible beneath tanned skin, are long twisting scars. They wind along his torso in snaking lines, remains of an attempt to heal a friend that went poorly. He also wears two bandages. On his left hand, a strip of cloth wrapped tightly around his palm to hide the branded "NC" burned into his skin, and on his right arm another length of cloth to protect a recent cut from a sword.

As he looks around, he notices the knife. He kneels down to inspect the weapon, eyes searching the surroundings to see if anyone or anything is around to explain the presence of the blade. The words are meaningless to the son of a farmer, but he'll pick the weapon up all the same. It's the only thing that seems to stand out from the rest of his surroundings, and it might have a purpose for being in the dream. When nothing further immediately presents itself, he'll start exploring.

It is a wilderness.

She's not wearing a cloak, just dark leather pants and bright red leather vest. And, of course, those belts hung with daggers, daggers strapped to thigh and wrist, and likely hidden in other places as well.

She's not entirely sure where she is, doesn't remember how she got to wherever here is. But, such gaps in memory are not exactly unknown to the slender female, and so she does not pay it much heed. Of more interest is the dagger at her feet, a blade she leans down to scoop up in ungloved hands.

Use Me

Well, and perhaps she would. The woman did, after all, favor daggers as her weapons of choice. Of course, those she was currently armed with were generally of better quality than this one... but she had an empty sheath on her belt, the blade that belonged there having been lost. So there was no reason not to slide this new knife into the empty sheath.

She strode off into the wilderness, only to stop a few moments later. She had not, until she moved, noticed the spiders. Many spiders, a wave of spiders, all seeming to follow her movements. This was odd, and she paused to consider it for several moments. What conclusions she drew, if any, were locked in that ebon skull of hers. Though, once she started moving again, there was a wild, sadistic grin on her lips.

The dull hint of blue light surrounding her..nearly blinded her at first. Throbbing, as thought struggling, the faint outline of the Djinn behind Elil seemed..almost to claw at the air with desperation...it's bearded, blue features twisting into wicked snarls and rageful grimaces. It was he who shed the light, nearly blinding the Japanese girl..until she got used to the glare of her own visible Avatar.

Black hair swayed in what little breeze there was..braid bumping against her backside as wide eyes turned to gaze at this outline of her being. The bottle in her hand seemed..cold. The dead weight of the alcohol which had brought her here hung on her arm near..painfully so that she rolled her shoulder in reaction before turning away from her own more..primal face.

Wide eyes roam the landscape, sucking in the beautiful face of the wilderness around her..until they land upon the crude blade lying on the ground before her.

When an Awakened mind wishes to grow and expand it's knowledge, it often puts itself through rigerous testing. Was..this one such test? Elil certianly believed it to be so. Especially when cold fingers curled around the handle of the knife that demanded to be used.

Thanks to her more unhealthy habits of drinking into slumber..Elil..was fully clothed, and fully armed.

It was comfortable to sleep this way, relaxing even. Though it did often have a few flaws in its use. Such as having to stir quickly and act in a rush. Or when one finds himself suddenly in the woods.

The tailor stood there, hands on his hips, weight heavy to one foot as the other tapped against the soft soil beneath his bare feet. And his feet, interestingly, were not the only things bare today. The tailor traditionally slept in the buff, save a wristband kept about his right forearm, and this night had been no different. In a moment of lacking propriety, not that he currently had any, he reach behind himself and scratched his pale little backside absently.

Without his loose clothing on, one could see how slim he truly. But more importantly, the collection of scars. Some were significant, such as the large, shining blotch on his left shoulder, or the ugly snatch of ruined skin on the back of one thigh. A large, old gash across his right side, and a multitude of smaller cuts scattered here and there. Some of these wounds were even still fresh, as if made only an hour ago.

Eyes drifted over the wilderness around him, the random trees, flora he wasn't familiar with, and eventually down to the floor of the forest. A dagger, a damnably ugly dagger, but a weapon none the less. He had no idea exactly what was up... but still, best be prepared. He reached down by bending at the knees... thank you... and wrapped the weapon in his grip. With nowhere to keep it the knife was held loosely in his left hand, flipped around in a quick examination in which he found the inscription.

He didn't smile, frown, or purse his lips. His eyebrow did rise just a touch, and with one final glance around he started to saunter off into the forest... utterly carefree for his lack of dress, and far more concerned with making his hair not stick in funny directions.

Dreams; fleeting memories of times past, amalgamation of oddity and sense, truth... and vision. Some even claimed to see the events that had not yet come to pass. They were fleeting visions, both a joy... and a curse.

They could be as terrible as they could be benevolent.

His was a fight for control; a fight for attention, to envelop his senses and completely claim them for their own. The scenery was a contantly shifting thing, to reflect the scenes of murders - amd yet, fickle as a candle's flame, they would shift back to hazed, grey-toned wood, the aura of wind overwhelming the eyes. Back and forth, in constant struggle.

The nightmares, or the thus-far peaceful dream?

Biske's mind would have to settle for both.

He had crouched, the mudied hem of blue longcoat pooling about his form; he himself was an oft-changing thing, flitting from one image to the next. Now he was a man, as he is - and here, a tail shifted and grew, and there was the man who he had once been - human, but with the touch of wolf that marked him.

And now it was not a hand that reached for a knife, but a *paw*, tipped with razored claws... and then it was gone, a normal hand once more as long fingers clutched the knife's hilt. Fingers that sprouted blood, spattering across his face, his clothes, as he straightens - eye (brown to black to gold to brown) - and sometimes *two* - intense upon the forest.

He would move, then - boots shifting to paws, shifting back. It was a stuttering thing, as if the man (wolf; man-wolf) were a hummingbird, flitting from tree to tree. Sometimes it seemed entire steps would be *missed*, the man in place one moment - then skipping yards ahead, with a swift jerk.

The knife. Did he need the knife? His hands were clean, then dripping with gore; and then it was claws that did so. He moved on two legs, on four; he moved in a daze, overwhelmed by the shifting landscape. Was it a forest he entered now, or his own house? Perhaps stone walls lined with spiderwebs? The rustling of gentle leaves, the howl of distant wind; the roar of fires that had long died.

Fluctuating, upon the whims of a Dream and inescapable Nightmares.

He'd been in the woods a fairly undetermined length of time as yet, and had no seen anyone. The saving grace was the weather was no unpleasantly chill, or perhaps he'd be far less eager to enjoy the stroll. The dagger was still carried lightly in one, though by the blade now. His feet were growing soiled and blacker from walking without shoes.

He was fairly certain he was dreaming, for things simply did not seen to congregate right in his mind... and he was fairly certain he'd seen that particular tree at least three times....

... but perhaps not that.. other thing. A rippling shadow he caught through the trees, at one moment a beast, another a large tall shape, the next a shorter scraggly man. It didn't stay one thing for long, and the odd lurching of its movements only reinforced his opinion on the false scenery. However, curiousity still tickled at his mind and left him wondering what precisely it was he was seeing, closer inspection was due.

He pushed his way through a low bush, a thorn cutting his leg and leaving it to bleed slowly as he moved after what he did not yet realize was Biske.

His own senses were muffled, confused; they switched almost constantly, between familiar nightmares and foreign Dream. He did not notice the tailor; he did not *sense* him, until his face mutated to canine, and keen nose picked it - wind swirling visibly into his nose.

To Suede? Everything looked normal, save for the tortured man himself. But to Biske?

The Tailor was *changing*, a creature of black skin, of flowing, silver hair - he was *naked*, though no sex betrayed him, his crotch as smooth-skinned as a girl's doll. Audmathus.

"... This's a dream." It had to be, for Suede was not Audmathus; he went under a *different* name, didn't he? And look. Even now the tailor-councellor was growing taller, his skin paling. Yes, it was a dream.

Use me.

In the manner of dreams, he realized it was such; he *knew*, as all do, that in reality he was lying in the earth, surrounded by iron and cold walls - stretched on a cot barely able to contain his tall frame. But were not dreams also wishes of fulfilment?

He was *naked*. Biske could see no weapons, no armor. There is hesitation; and here, long enough for conversation, should the tailor wish it.



But then there is none - he is lunging, skipping, a horror moving almost in slowmotion - that knife lofted by hands stained with old blood, that shifted to claws; muzzle and mouth widening, uttering both cry of vengance and howl of animal triumph - primal want, primal *need*, driving him to leap at the man, to tackle - claw-hand seeking to *rend*, that knife seeking to thrust into the tailor's most tender areas.

Is this not what he had hoped for for such a *long* time? To sink blade into the flesh of one Suede Roschen?

And it has been so long since he has had a happy dream.

Agnieszka Kaczmarek, aspiring right hand of vengeance, needs not the ability to read in order to understand what a knife is to be used for.

Not when paired with the conversation that has been haunting her for days, that echoes still --

It helps, of course, that she had spent a year of her life with a kitchen-knife strapped to her hip by a length of rough cord; a knife that had seen blood, that had been cast aside in favor of a weapon that now lies at the bottom of Silver Lake. A simple knife. A knife very much like this one.

Before, she'd been sleeping, curled on her barracks-cot in the pretty blue embroidered shirt and pants she'd purchased in the marketplace, slightly tipsy off Dauntless brandy and unwilling to change out of the most beautiful clothing she'd ever owned; her sword in its casing clutched in her bed beside her like a lover. She doesn't remember how she got here, but there must be a reason.

Beside her, a small boy clutches at her pants-leg, all mist and blurred edges and blood-flecked cheeks and chin.

"...he's right, Aggie," Jozef says, his dead eyes staring up at her. "Not you. Aggie, I hurted so much, and now he hurts like me, and you gotta help him. He's right, Aggie, he's right!"

Before her on the forest ground is her father Karol, forty-five and just a shade of the man he had been before Curin; thin as a rail, scraggly, ill, unwell, sick with a wasting disease that had twisted his lungs, caused him to cough up blood, and turned him into a lethargic invalid with death coming before Yuletide, unable even to fight it thanks to the blow that had crushed his ability to walk two years ago. And here he is, the laborer and patriarch laid low, dragging himself through the forest with arms that can no longer haul hay or lift an axe or even, some days, his own weight, and Agnieszka tugging on Jozef's hand to draw herself forward, crying -- "Papa!"

She had been provided with a knife, and, there -- he was her reason, she realized.

What else could it be?

"Agnieszka," says her father; grateful, and struggling to a position where he can turn and grasp her. A knife much like hers is stashed in his pants. "Agnie, your mother ain't here. What we talked about -- now," he whispered, hoarsely, before collapsing into a coughing fit.

Her voice breaks; her heart cracks. "Help him," urges Jozef. "Yer a good girl, Agnie. Do what yer father tells ye to do."

She kneels. The knife feels cold in her hand; the rapier, in her other hand, burns her palm. "Papa, I can't."

"I can't no more," he wheezes, and pushes himself back against a tree. A hand fumbles at the knife at his belt. "Y' will do as yer told -- you will, daughter, or I will. I got to. While your mother ain't here -- Agnie, we always understood each other more'n anyone else, haven't we, Agnie? We done said our good-byes.""

"Yes, Papa," she says. Whatever light there is, wherever it comes from -- the knife glints in front of her, and there is dead Jozef's breath on her ear, watching them, and there is such a light in Agnieszka Kaczmarek's eyes as there will never be again; and such a light on the knife in her hands, as if reflecting it. And then, there are tears.

"Aggie, please," pleads the lost voice of a dead child. "Or he'll die like me, not like he allus said he should -- Aggie," again, petulantly, high-voiced.

A long, long moment passes.

Naked and exposed. With skin fair enough to leave him easily exposed to Biske's altered sight in this dream, perhaps. When the man turned his way.. when the wolf peered at him... when the beast hesitated, the tailor smiled knowing.

Was Biske's mind imaging things, the changes in appearance, colors of the skin... length of hair, shape of the tailor? Maybe not, because it was black lips pulling back into an almost feral grin.

"What is it then Shaggy of my dreams? A delightful romp in the brush?" Perhaps this was the Vet Biske dreamt of, or perhaps it was the tailor trying to take his own enjoyment from his own dream.

For it was a dream, right? Something for him to enjoy, or perhaps loathe. Biske charge, he took a step back to ready himself for the attack, and tried to strike back. But this was no man he stood against, it was something feral.

His eyes widened in suprise as weight came against him and his balance faltered. The tailor collapsed beneath the changing, uncertain, altering mass, back grinding into the soil, a root stabbing into his spine, driving his eyes wider just before his blade likely met Biske's side.

But it would hardly be enough, for claws, teeth, knife, fists, nails were all digging against his skin, drawing up welts one instant, trails of blood the next, and finally tearing away chunks of flesh and pieces of organ. For a man who enjoyed pain, even he had limits... and he screamed, fought back feebly, beating his hands against the side of the abomination's head.

This had to be a dream, right? Of course it was, but it -hurt- more than it should.. and then it was going numb as more flesh was rent from him. He passed out.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

A scream ruptured the otherwise silent room the tailor slept in. Jirai was there as well, clothed and asleep in one of the chairs, but he didn't notice. All he felt was the ache in his stomach. Unbearable, overwhelming. He rolled over onto his side and fell from the bed in a mess of sheets, fingers digging into his stomach to try and dull the pain, to convince himself that his intestines, skin, liver were all still there.

He whimpered and curled deeper into the wood. He didn't see the tattoo of the wolf-man's name on his stomach.

She had been wandering through the wilderness forever, it seemed. Or perhaps it was only a moment. Time was meaningless. There was just herself and the woods, and her attendant spiders. And that was all she cared for. But then, then there more?

Sounds were first - words, a voice she recognized. "What is it then Shaggy of my dreams? A delightful romp in the brush?"

More than just sounds now, now there were two in her sight. The slender female came to a halt, trying to make sense of what she was seeing.

There was the vagrant, a tall figure twisting, writhing human-then-wolf-then-both, a confusion that twisted at her senses.

There was the tailor, the councilor, familiar scars, scars she had dealt unclothed.

There was Biske, once-wolf, once-lover; now hated for all he had been and all that he was, all that he had done to her, and all that he had refrained from doing.

There was Suede, lover, companion, co-conspirator; and suddenly her vision doubled, and again she saw the man sprawled on the floor, her own blade deep in his back, twisted into his vitals.

There was Biske, knife and claws and teeth, lunging.

There was Suede, against the ground for real this time, the knife no longer hers, but Biske's, the scars she had dealt the man reopened under the urging of claws and teeth, vitals torn and shredded.

There was Jirai. And she was behind them.

Use Me

A throwing knife would announce her arrival, the thin blade hurled at the vagrant's back. Right behind it came the small drow and her swarm of escort. Knife in one hand, a dagger in the other, both trying to dig deeply into Biske, one for his back, one to reach around for his throat. And all the while, the spiders swarmed.

Is it real? Is it a dream?

You decide.

His side had been peiced, an aching pain and dribbling blood that belied everything. But he knew this was a dream; and yet, the Nightmares took him. They *twisted* the man under him, the... thing, now. He didn't resemble a man any longer, in more ways that one - for under flickering claws the tailor shifted. For a moment, he was *away* from the forest, and here instead was a ragged old house; home and comfort to three generations, spattered now in blood.

A woman; her hair a dark brown, sightless eyes stretched wide in horror.


"No!"

It was the fae forest again, *inescapable*; *pain* had brought him out of his reverie, a blade that sunk into what meat there was of his back. He arched, fur meeting Jirai's hands, her arm - then nothing more than blood-spattered clothing, the very thing he had been wearing in jail.

And the ultimate horror. For spiders swarmed him; they *crawled* past his clothing, they writhed against his skin. He screamed as Suede had, even as another dagger dug into his back. His terror cut cruelly short; that knife slid across his tortured neck.

She was holding onto bucking wolf one moment, and writhing man the next; his scream turning to nothing more than a moist gurgle, his hands clawing at his clothing, *everything*, in last attempts to rid himselves of hated arachnids as his eyes glazed, his blood a waterfall that cascaded down his body.

Daisy... !


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"DAISY! "

He screamed until he was hoarse; he writhed upon plush furs, efforts to sit up thwarted by the nausea he felt whenever he moved. His hands tore at his clothing, at invisible spiders that still clung to him; they pressed against his ruined throat, and now he was able to *stop*, to think, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling of roots and earth above him as fingers pressed against his throat, his side; his aching back unable to be reached.

He could not *move*, not yet; blood that had spurted forth from him in dream had abandoned him, leaving the man with a ghastly pale pallor, with a weakness that could not be recitified until his tortured body responded.

In the dimness of the tree's underground, he could not *see* the marks left upon his hand, or the one that now lie drunkenly across the thick scars of his throat; skin puckered, an angry red - branded as neatly as an iron.

Jirai Barran'ar.

Vet Barran'ar.

It begins like this:

Snow had fallen heavy overnight; the black dog that sometimes loped through these woods left a churning path where it had trod. The clean, crisp tang of snow in the air; the scent of pine as well, from the tree her back was pressed against. The burn of his fingers around her throat, for this was how they stood: crushed against that rough bark, each with hands locked at the other's throat, so near that his every furious breath scalded her cheek. Her eyes were wide because she was dying; her hands trembled against his skin because she was terrified, and because this was not a doom to which she'd condemn even him.

"This was not what I wanted," he whispered. "Never this," as her world sunk into greyness. But this was how it had begun ten years ago, in her husband's bed, and this was how it ended now, dying a gasping death beneath the hands of Thadius Dhrin --

And this is how it begins again:

Here. Now.



Snowfall has given away to gentle sunlight, winter to hearty warmth, and she's glad of that; Ariane was born to the cold of perpetual grey skies, and has never regretted fleeing for warmer climes. Her vision may be a little off, a little blurred, but the fact troubles her little -- for it is so very warm, and that breeze is refreshing upon her cheeks, and this is a woman who generally does find dreams more pleasant than reality, these days.

It's been a ... difficult month.

But here she is, smiling to the sunlight, raising her bare arms to it; the shirt's sleeves have been torn away, the trousers cut at until they reach only to the knees, making both perfect for sleep. And noonday wandering, it seems. Oh, she stretches, ease marking every subtle line of her -- until she catches a glimpse of what sparkles in the grass before her bare feet.

Until she'd seen the knife, the woman hadn't realised that she was unarmed.

It finds a comfortable home at her hip, by side of the satchel that's bound there, and its small weight is a comforting accompaniment to the stroll which follows now. Naturally follows: really, why else would she be here? Between the trees she wanders, beneath sunlight and shadows, and eventually restless fingers tire of exploring leaves and petals. Eventually, they creep into that satchel instead, delving within to draw out the mask that Hajmat had given her -- oh, weeks ago. It's quite different from the porcelain one that it had replaced; the wood's grotesque contours offer far more for her touch to explore, and it does --

A mask's ugliness could not sully the serenity of this wilderness, but a scream surely has. Roschen's -- she recognises its timbre, but only after some moments of thought, for Suede is not a man given to shouting his pain. And someone else, something else, for that shriek is starkly bestial. She is motion then, swift and quiet upon bare feet, brushing through ferns and foliage as if she meant to actually seek out the source of such agonised cries. It's only as the swordswoman nears, that she slips the mask onto her features -- for the porcelain one had shown her the souls of the recently-murdered, and there is only one way to be sure if this one does the same.

It does not. The wolf-thing is writhing itself to a gruesome death, but an unremarkable one. The drow is destroying it with a blade not unlike the one Ariane had found -- but this doesn't yet strike her as particularly unusual. Such knives may be bought anywhere; perhaps she'd even stumbled across one that Jirai had dropped. They are left to their demises; she eases quietly back between the leaves, to retrace her steps. It has rained recently, she notices -- quite belatedly; shallow puddles dot her path here and there, small pools of water trapped in the cleft valleys of broad leaves. Each one of them reflects a miniature Ariane, one distinguished from the next by the degree to which the water's ripples distort it.

Each one of them catches her eyes.

He screamed.

It was a beautiful sound.

He bled.

It was a beautiful feeling.

One moment it was a wolf beneath her, the next a man, but she did not care, for his hot blood was running over her hands, scream fading to gurgle fading to silence as the man died. She did not notice Ariane, so absorbed was she in her task. Biske had died. Died as he should have long ago.

Died as Suede had.

The woman rolled off of the bodies, straightening. Blood stained her blades, her hands, blended into the red of her vest - for that was what the color was meant to do. Blades were calmly cleaned, returned to sheathes. Then she looked back over at the bodies.

They were gone.

Bloodied hands pressed against the sides of her head, heedless of how it stained pale hair crimson. Eyes closed, opened again.

Still gone.

She could not explain it. She did not need to explain it, even to herself. The memories were all too clear - dead, both of them.

Again, she pulled the knife and dagger from their sheaths. A last look at the bloodstained ground and the female turned, resolutely striding off into the wilderness, spiders mimicing a cloak.

They had died.

Now more would.

There was certainly something to be said for the oblivion that whiskey finally managed to bring Curin. Without it the woman never slept. The last she recalled was being sprawled in a chair in the room she rented at the Broken Dagger. Feet bare, no stockings, but snug trousers and rumpled tunic in place. The bastard sword was out of its harness and nestled in the crook of her arm, leaned against her shoulder while she nursed her bottle--no glass--with the opposite hand.

But here she was, deep in a forest. It was Curin's way to take things in stride, and the stranger the better, so this development was met with simply a raised eyebrow as she levered herself to her feet off a decrepit stump. Around her was silence except for the passing breeze, but on that wind came snatches of voices both familiar and foreign as well as the sounds of violence. These she knew well.

Dropping her empty bottle she started off, bare toes flexing into the loam of the ancient forest. Instead of the soft thud she expected she heard the clink of glass on something hard... metal? Dark eyes flick down, and before she sees the blade its silent demand screams in her mind. Use me. Never one to disregard such things she stoops down to take up the blade, tossing it in her hand a few times before slipping it into her boot.

She moves on again, the bottle glinting in the faint light that filters in from above. Behind her an aura of red, flickering like flame, jagged like lightning flows from her head and shoulders and in her wake it leaves false images of her face--one screaming in rage, one sneering in contempt, yet another crying bitterly, all mute. The disgraced guardswoman is oblivious to the display. She had learned long ago that to look back was to be lost.