Motives

[Glenn]

"So she's in there?" A guarded room, just what the staff at the Remedium loved. One constable inside. One outside, one Governor about to step in. He always treated them well, the staff. Booze. Flowers. Gifts. The sort of things their patients might receive but so rarely them. Burnie greased the wheel, for good reason too. He had been in there enough times over the last five years. Best to ensure he'd get good service however he could. This tried patience however.

He meant not to micromanage this, he really did, but there he was. It was driving him to distraction. It was one thing for the people of Myrken to be hunted like animals, to be attacked from the shadows, to be shot with arrows, but it was another thing altogether if he had no idea why the assailant was doing it. These things usually made sense.

So it was time to get to the heart of the matter. He'd pass beside a Constable on one side of the door and one on the other and look to the woman within. She was bedridden, injured. She shouldn't have survived. She was restrained in that bed, but only loosely. It was a room without a window, however.

"My name is Glenn Burnie." He'd say with a calm smile. "So, I thought maybe, just maybe, you might have something to say for yourself before we ...well, I suppose you saying something for yourself might even help us decide just what we ARE going to do with you."

[Caile]

She hurt. Everything hurt. The fact that she was still alive was a miracle, and not just surviving the injuries. No one had killed her. It had been an error but she couldn't have known what the man would turn into. She should have run when he first charged her but she had been panicked and fought instead, until the tree had disintegrated around her shooting her full of splinters. The landing had been the worst, from twenty feet up she had fallen but the man, thing had somehow stopped her from dying.

It would have been better than this.

She had regained consciousness in this room, this stone without windows. This room with the man standing guard over her, tied to the bed so she couldn't escape. If she'd been able to move more than a few inches at a time she might have attempted it but she'd broken nearly every bone in her body in that fall and the subsequent chaos and even breathing hurt. Still, she had snarled at the constable until it had proven useless, the man wouldn't even react to her being there, he might have been a statue. The staff that came to attempt to help her, any that were male she attempted to bite, weakly kicking and flailing at them with the few bits she could actually move and when Burnie himself walked in it was much the same reception. She had no intention of answering anything.

[Glenn]

Lovely. Snarling. Kicking. Hurting herself more. Just the sort of person he loved talking to. "This could get bad for you," He began, trying, at least, because that's what he did: he tried. "It could get a whole lot worse than me. I'm just going to talk to you. We get Ariane or Agnie in here and it could get a lot worse. You've hurt people who didn't hurt you. Unless you're saying that the boy you shot with an arrow hurt you? Or are you denying that you shot him? If someone else did, you can tell me that now, and it's the sort of thing that might buy you your life."

All smiles as he advanced a bit. What was she going to do? Stare arrows at him? "I can help you. Just give me something to work with."

[Caile]

That was all she could do, much as she wished otherwise at the moment. Yes, staring arrows, teeth bared and as he advances the snarling grows in volume and ferocity. She was a caged animal, unused to being in a building much less tied to a bed frame. Hurting herself more didn't matter, what she did or didn't do didn't matter either. She has said what she meant to say already. Questions would be asked, reasoning and logic attempted but she cared for none of it. The woman was rage incarnate, hate made flesh and all she desired was to see those emotions sated and fed or to have the peace of the forest with nothing to intrude.

Here none of those was possible. She did not care if they understood why she had done what she had, she only cared to be away from this place.

[Glenn]

What was it lately? Why weren't people at least trying to reason with him? He was a flexible Governor. He tried to find solutions that benefited everyone the most, yet here he was, with a woman who he did nothing to, nothing, and and she was glaring at him as if he was the devil incarnate. And it's not like there weren't people who he did do things to. Because there were. She wasn't one of them.

So he would lean in closer, his voice soft. "Whatever led to this, we've all had such things happen. This is Myrken." He wasn't that far away, his gaze dripping compassion. "It may not save your life but it could well give what you did meaning. If someone wronged you, tell me, and I will see justice done."

[Caile]

What she did was the meaning. It required none from other people. She required no compassion, she was long past that and there had been so little of it in her life to begin with. The man leaned closer and lacking more violent means she resorted to the last effort that could communicate her feelings.

She spat at him.

Justice. There was no such creature, an illusion created to make people feel safer in their world. There was life and there was death. It didn't matter if some deserved it and others didn't.

[Glenn]

Compassion and kindness immediately gave way to something more tempestuous. He offered her a chance to explain herself. He offered her a chance, period, and she returned his charity with... with this. Glenn Burnie may have had those who disliked him, strongly even but it had been a long time since someone had spit in his face, a long time indeed.

Teeth grit, his hand opened and turned to the side. His backhand slap flew at her, meaning to break her face completely, only to stop at the last second. Control. "You..." It was a near hiss as he drew his hand back. Control. "You would have been better off with me. You would have been so much better off with me." Control. He exhaled deeply and whipped about, storming out of the room. Someone else could have a try at her.

[Waldemar]

He'd heard, overheard, quiet conversations between the Rememdium staff about the room's occupant, about a connection with the recent influx of dead and wounded; add to that the Constabulary guard on the door, and it was not hard to make certain deductions.

The archer.

The miller is not a vengeful man, not normally, but there are some things he will not abide. Matters which demand punitive measures. So it is a quiet, sombre figure who haunts the Rememdium's halls, taking a seat and observing for a time. He'd watched the Governor enter the guarded room; watched him leave again a short time after.

The officer on the door is a stoic sentinel, diligent in his duty, all grey tunic and watchful eyes that track the miller's unhurried approach. A visitor, perhaps even a patient seeking treatment for some ailment or other. He mutters soft words under his breath, fingertips flexing and twitching at his side as if palsied. It is only when he draws level with the guard that he stops, murmured words falling silent as his hand lift to pinch at the bridge of his nose, tips of thumb and middle finger rubbing the inner corners of his eyes as if to dislodge grains of sleep-grit. A matter of a second to flick those fingers the Constable's face, fingers then folding as if he snatches a mote of thistledown from the air.

"See me not."

The Constable blinks, frowns in brief uncertainty, before his attention slides from the man like water from oilcloth. The miller nods, satisfied, and steps past to enter the prisoner's room, the door closing behind him with a quiet click.

The officer inside the room is unexpected, but not catastrophically so. A few sharp syllables, a quick wrenching gesture, and the guard stumbles back a pace with a gruff challenge fading unspoken on his lips; he slumps heavily against the wall and slides slowly downwards, head nodding.

"Sleep."

He crosses to the woman's bedside, making a dispassionate inspection of her tattooed features, noting those bonds that keep her immobile. Yes, good. That makes things simpler.

[Caile]

Generally speaking when someone uses magic to sneak into your cell they are either there to break you out of jail or do worse. She didn't know this man but that he was a man period suggested that he was not there to give her aid.

That was just fine by her.

He approached and she growled, bared her teeth like any wild thing caught and chained. She had spoken not a word since she'd been taken here but that wasn't uncommon for her. Words were something she so seldom uttered in her life and it was an effort to bring them forth into her mind. One corner of her upper lip twitched the nearer he got as if she was about to bite the man should he get close enough.

[Waldemar]

No protests. No questions. Not even any words. Only that feral growl, registered with a lifting of his brows in mild surprise. Not exactly what he'd anticipated, but somehow fitting.

She is correct in her assumptions, in any case. He has no intention of assisting her in the slightest. Quite the reverse, in fact.

Inspection complete, he settles into a steadier stance beside the bed, left hand braced upon his cane, right hand lifting, rolling at the wrist, fingers clenching and stretching for a moment. A slow breath drawn in, held for a heartbeat, and exhaled.

"Let it begin."

His open hand sweeps in a broad cirle, palm down, a foot or so above her breastbone, describing a flat plane in the air; further, smaller gestures follow, brisk and businesslike. Fingertips dip here and there to inscribe marks, gentle arcs and harsh angles that cross and overlap and intersect, strange and luminous hues lingering faintly in the air like the afterimage of a lightning strike. The miller's features are intent, focused, lips moving ceaselessly as he whispers shivering syllables in time with the motion of his hand. The temperature in the room drops sharply, the slumbering Constable's breath clouding before his face.

It is a matter of mere minutes before his work nears completion. A final muttered word, his hand stretched out above the centre of the web of traceries hanging over the bed. Two fingers and thumb extended as he pushes sharply down upon the archer's breastbone, a gesture that drags those subtle lines like a net to sink quickly into the woman's flesh, taking with them a sensation of brief but immense weight.

He steps back immediately after, another deep breath drawn and expelled, warmth slowly returning to the room. His gaze seeks her face again, cold and dispassionate; when he speaks his voice is solemn, steady.

"Bound to your bones, Death-dealer, you shall know your death; no long sleep for you, no final escape, even after your last breath. Crows strip you, worms gnaw you, fire consume you; you will know and suffer until you are dust, and less than dust."

His cane thumps heavily on the floorboards with all the grim finality of a judge passing sentence; the sleeping Constable draws an abrupt breath and begins to stir.

"It is done."

[Caile]

He draws symbols upon the air with his hands and she writhes as best she can in her bonds both external and those created by injury. She writhes to free herself to fight, to attack. She spits and snarls and none of it is to any avail, the spell presses down upon her chest and her breath catches as it had when the man-god pressed his foot upon her and then it is gone and she can breathe again.

The words he speaks make little sense to her, she does not know magic, does not understand what spell he has created but she does understand this one thing he has said, that death will not be an escape.

She screams then, loudly, a banshee shriek of rage and hatred and struggles against that which ties her to the bed heedless of broken bones and pain. She thrashes and pulls at bound wrists, bound ankles in an attempt to leap from the bed and tear this man to pieces who has removed her last hope of solace.

[Waldemar]

The woman thrashes and shrieks, and that is answer enough. She understands.

The miller's work is done, complete, at least as far as the renegade archer is concerned; all that follows is merely aftermath. He takes a moment to watch as she wrenches at her bonds, adding yet further hurts to those already inflicted. The woman's cries of rage have clearly carried, as in the next moment the other Constable bursts into the room, glaring at the prisoner before spitting an oath and hurrying to aid the officer climbing groggily to his feet.

Amid such tumult it is a simple matter for the miller to step calmly into the hallway, and to pull the door quietly closed behind him.

[Carnath-Emory]

The swordswoman had anticipated some degree of disturbance. A murderer of children, after all. Of grown men, too, or very nearly so; the archer had made good enough an attempt on that Jason's life that he'd spent some time in a bed not far from where she herself presently sweats and suffers. It would be generous to imagine that this is why a reluctant Marshall had so delayed this necessary visit: an unwillingness to intrude upon what passes for Myrken justice; a suspicion that it might involve Catch somehow, and that prudence would be to allow his hurt and his outrage to run its course, knowing that things might be better mended after than during.

It would be generous, and it would be incorrect, the fact being simply this: that the swordswoman shares Catch's dread of the Rememdium, and nevermind that its cause is wholly different. To walk here is to walk amongst very old bloodstains and the memory of a sister's slow death.

She's been three days in coming here; has paused very near to its threshold more than once; has been intercepted on her way towards that threshold almost as many times - by a madman's shrieks, or by the very real need for a preparatory drink or two. But to step through that doorway now is to discover that a dread postponed is a dread magnified, the wait having done absolutely nothing to dilute her loathing for this place, and the end result of it all is only this: that she is very likely the only woman present who could consider this little tempest a welcome sort of distraction.

This is how old Waldemar comes to be greeted not with a Hello, but this dubious lift of the brow and a tilt of her chin towards the archer's door, as: "Is she murdering them from her bed, now?"

[Waldemar]

He is surprised, as he turns from the door; he conceals it quickly, but it is there in the stiffness of his spine, the brief hunching of shoulders. By the time he faces the woman fully he has straightened, smoothed his features into polite neutrality, every inch respectable as his gaze sweeps from head to toe and back.

It is as well, for his inspection notes her garb - the hat, the multitude of scarves, the blade at her hip and intricate metalwork gleaming at her wrist. Most of all he notes that badge redolent of authority, of government, and his gaze is wary in one instant and then immediately closed.

"She might wish to, sera, but her struggles harm only herself."

The swordswoman has an interest in the prisoner, that much is clear; this being so, he wastes no time in stepping smartly aside that she might enter the room and see for herself.

[Carnath-Emory]

The garb is innocuous, the metalwork not quite so; the badge was another woman's and now it has become briefly hers, but what glitters at her wrist will never quite suit any other hand. It's interesting, though. Not the miller, whose face she does not recognise and whose own trappings indicate nothing more than that he's a man of at least modest means. Not even the miller's words, which are much what you'd expect, under such circumstances, from any townsman at all. Perhaps he's a touch more well-spoken than most. Only that.

No, what's interesting is that he greets her with the caution a well-armed woman ordinarily expects - but that by the time he speaks it's become something else altogether.

Perhaps she watches him a little longer than is proper: chin slightly lifted throughout that initial once-over, eyes mild the moment after it except that there lingers some small, halfway-curious frown. Perhaps she lingers a little too long entirely, and all of it concluding in the dullest way: some non-committal little sound, as he steps aside and she steps past, drawing the door open to reveal a furious patient and three agitated Constables. He might leave, right now. He might simply walk away -

"Which one was yours?"

The stablehand. The other boy. Perhaps even Jason, and these are only the three she knows of. None, perhaps. She might as easily be mistaken. But asks it anyway and almost idly, back across one shoulder and paused so absently in the doorway yet.