estdeus_innobis | Entries tagged with npc

catherineknight.livejournal.com

Late Morning, June 7th,
Day 372
The Abbey

When I woke this morning, my first thought was that I was still dreaming. It had been summer when I bedded down, and now I look out to see the Abbey's gardens blanketed in snow. The training yard and the lawns and the trees, all coated in white. I dressed rapidly and rushed out....it was no illusion. Snow, covering the ground. In June.

My first thought as I walked to the stables was that this must be some trick of the Devil's. The snow is lovely, soft and shining and white, but the Devil's tricks can be hidden under a guise of beauty. Perhaps he plans to destroy the town's crops, or ruin the growing season, or blight the farms, or...

But a loud whinny distracts me from my thoughts. Devil trickery or no, Hirondelle still needs to be fed.

The stables are still warm, at least, and Hirondelle is prancing at the door of her stall, stretching her neck towards me. She, at least, doesn't seem disconcerted by the weather. In fact, as I fill her grain bucket and water, she looks longingly towards the door. Boaz is already out in the paddock, and Hirondelle obviously wants to join him...well, why not. I need time to think of how to approach this, anyway. I let Hirondelle finish her breakfast, and then lead her out to the paddock.

God gave man stewardship over the animals, but that does not mean that animals have nothing to teach us. For it is Hirondelle who shows me how foolish I am being. As soon as I remove her halter, Hirondelle whirls and charges through the snow, sending great clouds of it shining through the air. She rears, prances like a filly, then drops to roll, kicking her legs in glee. I can't help laughing as I watch her, my great and dignified warmare, as she cavorts and kicks up her heels like a new foal. And it is watching her that makes me realize...whatever this is, it is no Devil's trick. It is a gift from God, meant to bring us joy.

I turn my face up to the sky, and I smile, and I give thanks, and my mare leaps with joy.

[OPEN]

Current Mood: thankful

catherineknight.livejournal.com

Current Mood: thankful

sapphira-ststep.livejournal.com

[Afternoon of Monday, June 7 (day 372)]
[Down on the Pontarlier]

...well I was certainly not expecting this, I must say.

I could wonder, or I could fuss, but it comes to me that when such weather strikes, some actions are more appropriate than others. So I dress as warmly as I need to, find something appropriate to wear (shaped and painted leather, the colours of warm oak and berries, and thin brass tags at one temple), and set out to town. The air smells of evergreen and snow, and is full of the squeaking crunch of snow under boots and slightly confused laughter. I make my way through a light peppering of snowballs in the park, and head down to the river.

I wouldn't think it was cold enough to freeze, but the ice seems quite solid. Someone is sharing out or selling mulled cider; I'm not exactly sure as I didn't actually speak to them, but a young woman handed me her cup when a friend called her over, and it's very good.

I don't have skates, but I head out onto the ice, take a few quick steps for speed, and manage not to lose my balance or bang into anyone. The tags on my mask are jingling a little, and I'm laughing as I go sliding out across the Pontarlier.

Vive le vent, vive le vent,
Vive le vemps d'hiver...

[Open! (don't slip)]

Current Mood: happy

sapphira-ststep.livejournal.com

Current Mood: happy

beyondexcolo.livejournal.com

South of Excolo
May 5th-9th

Walking for five days. Walking itself is awkward to begin with, stolen flesh uncooperative. The body's bare feet are tough, but the roadway makes them sore. When they start bleeding I rip the shirt and wrap them in it.

The body moves, sweats, voids itself, sleeps. It carries its own memories. Sun burns it, rain wets it. I am indifferent. I have no memories, only a sharp pull onwards. I have no curiosity about what I am. I think perhaps I am a temporary thing, pulled into consciousness for some purpose, but what it is I neither know nor care.

There are few people on the road. I ignore them until the third day, when the body is too hungry to go on. At twilight there is a man sleeping by the ashes of a fire, and I make the body's hand pick up a rock and strike his head. What is left of the youth whose body this was resists, but it is not strong enough. I do not think the man is dead, but I take his food and his boots.

The boots chafe as I walk. I walk through the night, through the day, sleep when the body fails. I am close: I can feel it, the pull growing stronger. I walk faster, through the pain. (There is something like a memory here, but it does not come. If there was something before this consciousness, I cannot reach it.)

By the fifth day the pull is almost unbearable. There is a sign on the road: Excolo, and a distance. The distance means nothing to me, but the name is like a bell, a struck gong. I will make this body rest one more time, and then I will find why I am here.

Closed

beyondexcolo.livejournal.com

South of Excolo
Recently

Coalescence.

There is a young man working a small plot of land, a very young man, a youth. Night is coming on, the light fading, but he wants to finish breaking this soil for spring wheat before returning home. He pauses in pulling his rough wood ard and wipes sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. His shoulders are brown and narrow, wire-muscled and sun-worn.

A gleam from here, a thread from there. Light reflected off dark glass. A curl of smoke.

Behind him a light glows in the window of his new house, where his wife waits in the one big room. They have been married only months, the house raised only this spring. He must work hard, provide for her and the baby that will come in summer. The evening breeze, rising, carries a sharp wild smell.

Somewhere in hot dark the shadows peel away from forest floor. Somewhere high the stars lend thin cold shards of light. The sharpness from the edge of a knife.

The passing of time. Things drawn together.

He rubs the back of his neck, feeling the hair there prickle. Perhaps an animal is prowling, but his wife will have brought the chickens in at twilight. He is anxious, though, in his first spring as a man with a wife and a house. Perhaps they should get a dog.

I -

I am.

And the dark closes in.

Closed

npc-excolo.livejournal.com

{elsewhere}
Oh, don't deceive me,
Oh, never leave me,
How could you use
A poor maiden so?

Sunday, April 25th, the Carnival.

Early one morning,
Just as the sun was rising,
I heard a young maid sing,
In the valley below.

A bright sort of morning, is it not? A perfect spring morning, The lark's on the wing; / The snail's on the thorn, haha, just so. To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven, and not just under heaven.

A great many things have happened of late. Zann's fracturing, a great shame. Such a dear girl. We could show her how to reset her cogs, but our dear friend would not like that, and this is a delicate time. The passing of the Night Wind, that is unfortunate. And very rude of him to leave us without so much as a token. He was still ours, was he not? And we think on that, and we laugh. We wonder. We wonder. It has been done before, has it not?

Possession is nine-tenths of the law, and we cut our teeth on the law. Figuratively speaking, haha. (We may have cut teeth on lawyers. We may indeed. If they were lawyers, we were teeth. Just so. All things to their season.) If we wanted it. And we could give it to our dear friend, could we not? Think of what we would be owed. But our dear friend is not naturally given to gratitude. Not a gift to count on, then. A bargaining counter. We shall think of it another time. It may be a sleight of hand to conceal our current purpose.

There is a time to plant, and that time comes right soon. Our dear friend grows more erratic, and we have things we must see done. If you want a job done properly, give it to a busy person, haha. (We found that one in a motivational handbook. A man who needs a handbook to be motivated deserves to eat the pages, no? We think so.) We are a busy person, oh yes. Busier these days than we have been in a veritable age.

There is a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted. We will see Nu again, and remind him of how gracious was our offer, how kind. And should she refuse again, well. There are ways, there are always ways, we were at Troy and we know better tricks than wooden horses, haha. And then -

Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?

Come, reap.

npc-excolo.livejournal.com

{elsewhere}
Oh, don't deceive me,
Oh, never leave me,
How could you use
A poor maiden so?

Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?

Come, reap.

npc-excolo.livejournal.com

Dream.

There is a great sea. The sky is grey, the water green, and the seafoam is the flecked white of milk on the turn. The shore is stone and shingle, and the cliffs are bone-shades. Will you wake on the little fishing boat that rides the waves, wary of great beasts that lurk beneath the surface, or on the cold and stony shore? Or perhaps as some watery thing yourself, breathing in water as cold as ice and with a salt-iron taste like blood?

[OPEN TO ALL]

npc-excolo.livejournal.com

Time has little meaning here, though your body back home may disagree.

Dream.

A forest.

A forest of the oldest sort, thick with brambles, trees snarled with centuries of life. It stretches for miles, many of them very dark, because the trees grow so close that it is hard to see. From a high vantage point, on one of the hills of the forest, one may glimpse a tower at the heart of the forest, a great graceful column of grey stone. Here and there there are clearings, bright with sunlight, and streams running with clear water. But mostly there is dark.

In the distance, the howl of a wolf.

[OPEN TO ALL]

npc-excolo.livejournal.com

jaeresteade.livejournal.com

[Day 227, 22nd February]
[Monday night]
[Whitechapel Bar]

Monday nights always seem slow after the weekend, but we’re doing well enough tonight, steady but not bustling. Maybe it’s on account of the cold. No one’s ordered more than three drinks at a time for a while now, and we’re halfway through the night. There’s no one in I know well enough to talk to about anything of substance, so I’ve been making the rounds with a little small talk every half hour or so, working on some stubborn spouts behind the bar the rest of the time. Not many people sitting up here, either, and the ones that are seem more interested in their drinks than in talking to me. That’s just as well. I’ve got enough to think about from the end of last week.

Spent Thursday and Friday nights down at the brothel trying to look intimidating when I wasn’t making conversation with some of the nicest prostitutes I’ve ever had cause to be around. Their cook insisted on feeding me with the rest of them at midnight, even though I told her that wasn’t part of the deal I’d set with Miao. Not that the food wasn’t welcome: the woman can cook as well as anyone I’ve ever known. I’ve broken bread with odd groups of people before, but none quite so interesting.

Had to set straight a few customers making demands for things that weren’t up for sale, and redirect another who seemed a little too happy to be in the wrong room. A couple more didn’t want to leave when their time was up, but helping them out the door was no great hardship. Miao doesn’t let anyone in who sounds drunk or violent, which makes my job a lot easier. Not a bad way to make a living, all together, and I can’t say I was shocked by anything I heard or saw. Still don’t like it as much as tending bar, but I’ve worked places I liked a lot less. Glad to be back here for a couple days, though. Looks like we’re going to have a quiet night, as well, which is just fine with me.

~~[Open to Verite and possibly some NPCs]~~
[CLOSED]

jaeresteade.livejournal.com

tarquinexcolo.livejournal.com

Early morning, Friday, February 12th, day 257

So, I no longer really know what to do. Or who I am for that matter. Tonight was different, bad, probably the worst night of my life. Half dying is never a nice experience, nor having my life saved, owing a debt for that, ending up in a police station, and spending the night in the cells. Or maybe a not so bad night, it was my first night in the warm in a long time, and the cell was far more comfortable than a park bench. Not that I'm gonna try and pick up guys outside the Whitechapel again, I've learned that lesson, I've learned that that's a big enough mistake to get you killed. I've always been charmed before, nothing has touched me, whatever I've done I've come out in one piece with bruises, cuts and scrapes.
This time, I guess I wasn't so lucky, but at least I got food. Maybe there's a higher price to pay for food, but was it worth my pride? This much of my pride? I pride (hah) myself on my body, my fitness, and my strength, and I got steamrollered there, completely. Not got much to be proud of there, have I? I had to have someone wade in and dispatch the two guys for me because I couldn't handle them. Not that I was trying, so I guess that's no surprise, I'd rather decided that they were built like brick shithouses, and I'm better at 1-1 fighting when my back isn't pinned against the wall, and when I'm expecting it, rather than it coming out of the blue, out of some friendly flirting. Still trying to figure out whether it's because I'm gay or because they thought I was a Carnie, or maybe both. I get that there's some bad feeling towards the Carnies, maybe that was thrown out at me because I was there. And the guy who saved my life. I can't stop thinking about him, not in a "oh my god he's gorgeous" way, because I understand that that's not how he wants me to think of him, he sees me as younger, and several shades of an idiot, which I was last night. I suppose I shouldn't drink. Leastways, not until I've got a bed of my own without needing to fuck my way into somebody else's. That way my judgement might be a little less dire. Maybe, anyway.
It's cold in this cell, but not as cold as outside was, even if my clothes are wet with blood (mine) and sticky. Maybe I'll get a shower before I go. The Sheriff was nice enough, he seemed a friendly guy, but asking would incur another debt, and I think I've got enough of those right now. I want to be clean.I'm used to being pretty fastiduous about my appearance, it matters a lot to me that I can look good, and right now I look like a freak and a mess, and this really is doing wonders for my self esteem, I assure you. I might ask Jarmyn. It's not like I could owe him more, after everything he's done for me, and his offer to teach me to do stuff with drinks. That's drinks for other people, not for myself, I'm not doing that again.
I can't lie still tonight, everything hurts, my body is mottled with blues and greens and purples,and great streaks of blood, my head is pounding, and my collarbone (because that's what I've heard it is) feels like there's a knife stuck there. Not a night for getting much sleep then, I just hope Jarmyn is, because he was tired too. He gave me a hug and didn't expect sex. That was a shock beyond belief, I'm used to them being a precursor to me paying off debts, not just solid comfort. Looked a bit awkward about it, but he was really pretty nice, I guess I'm lucky to have had such a protector, maybe I should stop fretting a bit. I doubt he's gonna demand my life in payment, anyway, and if he did, it'd be no more than I deserve.
It's got to be morning by now, I'm tired, sore, so sore, but it's not like morning brings me any relief, any release from this, except to end up back in the park too broken to fight back at all. I'm Tarquin, I'm proud and sasssy, this is the second time in 24 hours I've been crying my fucking eyes out about stuff I can't change. I'm just tired, you know? And it seems as Jarmyn pulled himself out of this, maybe I'll get a chance to do the same. Who knows. Until then, I'll lie here awaiting a knock, waiting to see what happens.

[Was open to Jarmyn, Lucien, Jack Hollow, anyone with business in the Sheriff's office]
[CLOSED]

tarquinexcolo.livejournal.com

Wall outside the Tavern, mid evening of Thursday, February 11 (day 256)

I'm drunk tonight. I don't get drunk that often, leastways, not like this, but he was plying me, not really my type, but like I said, anything for a warm bed. When he said "d'ya wanna go t'park, hev some fun like" I was a bit unsure, and realised he probably figured on me owing him summat after all the alcohol. Cheap alcohol, but I'm a cheap drunk, I get pissed on a bit of whatever's going round and this was decent stuff, for cheap. Reckon mebbe it's worth hanging here more often, if leaning up against this wall's gonna get me drunk. I know really that what I owe him's in the order of next to no coin, but to him, he's gotten me drunk to get sex with me, and I'll only do that for a nice warm bed, sick of this cold weather and it isn't gonna get much better for a good while yet, I'm not stupid enough to freeze. Still, he's not my type, so I'm gonna brush him off I think. Or maybe not. I don't appreciate hands on my (admittedly impressive) junk without explicit permission. I ran.
I don't run. I'm Tarquin, I'm not a coward, but I ran for the second time in a few days. The first being when I saw the riots. Last time there was a riot I was in the middle for being a ... well, pick your word for male prostitute, somewhere several towns back, so I decided I would steer well clear. I waited til I could, then snuck across the bridge, hiding amongst the carnival. I'm not from these parts, if they're gonna crucify the Carnies I haven't nobody to prove I'm not one of them, so I thought I'd wait out there til it all calmed down. Didn't think I'd end up running again today, but the teeth on that man. I like them rough but he had damned serrated knives in place of teeth I swear, and his motives were clear. I outran him, anyway.
Anyway, I hid on t'outskirts of the Carnival, not really wanting to see the Carnies - not like I knew what was going on in town but I reckon more than one person was half-killed, and maybe more at that. If a Carnie got hurt they're not gonna much like me for being a townie, and the townies won't be more friendly when for all they know I could be a Carnie. Once wolfman had gone, I wandered back over the bridge. Didn't think what it'd look like, didn't think at all. There was a decent looking pub with a load of cute men around, rugged types. Real men. I want some comfort. I'm thinking all this standing up 'genst the wall outside, hoping someone will buy me a drink. I unbutton my shirt. It's cold, but that makes me look more alluring.
Here's to hoping!

[CLOSED]
[Expecting Violence]
[Homophobic Violence]

Current Mood: predatory

tarquinexcolo.livejournal.com

Current Mood: predatory

al-shairan.livejournal.com

“The silence often of pure innocence persuades when speaking fails.”
- Shakespeare

Monday lunchtime, near the sheriff's office, on Main Street

This has proved almost too easy. The clouds are rolling in, air heavy with the promise of rain, and I stand in my Danika body wearing an old coat with the collar turned up against the cold, jacket short enough to show a few inches of a tidy, worn work dress and a calflength of wool stocking. My shoes wear the signs of good, honest farm labour, and my blonde hair is frizzing round my face in the damp air. I look very distressed.

"Did - was there really a man arrested for... for beating on a girl?" I say to an old woman gossiping with her friend on the street. My fingers flutter together anxiously.

"Oh yes," she says, "it's a horrible thing. They think also he did in a girl as worked at - well, the brothel, my dear," she says, lowering her voice over that salacious detail, eyes gleaming with prurient interest. "They think he chopped her up."

"Oh," I say, and I faint very neatly to the ground. It's not long before I have half a dozen people round me - offering water, saying they will take me to the Dormouse, fussing with my coat collar to let me breathe.

"I should've said something," I say, and I burst into tears. That gets me sat down on a bench, an old woman's arm around my shoulders, and a very handsome young man crouched at my feet. "I should - "

"What is is, dear? Do you know something about what happened to those girls?"

I shake my head tightly.

"I know - I know - him," I say quietly. "He - We went out a couple of times, and he was - he was real nice to me, and -" The old woman gives me a handkerchief. "You know, I ain't really dated much," I say, shamefaced, "cos my momma's sick a bunch and I'm busy out on the farm, and he just - he was real nice, and when he -" I turn my face away, and I can feel the vibrating tension from the boy at my feet, his desire to be a hero. "He - I thought it was my fault," I say, and then there is a furious chatter rising from the little crowd, and the conversation spreads in ripples.

"Some carnie's been carving up our girls," one man says fiercely. And there is discussion of me and of Melania - ah, yes, that explains some of what I saw in her - and how we're hard working girls, salt of the earth girls, and who is this monster and why hasn't he been strung up? What the hell is wrong with this town that a murderer and molester can be caught redhanded and he's cosseted in jail? And did you hear that he attacked that nice Mrs Beddau (I wonder if at any other time Glass has been described as nice) when she went to visit him in prison? He should be put in the old stocks in town. People would show him how they felt, alright. They'd show him very clearly indeed.

I manage a brave, trembling smile for the boy at my feet, and he springs up, ready for something, anything, if it will make me look at him like that again. And I nestle in against the arm of the old woman as the crowd grows larger and voices grow louder, and I wait for the storm to break.

[OPEN]

Current Mood: devious

al-shairan.livejournal.com

“The silence often of pure innocence persuades when speaking fails.”
- Shakespeare

Current Mood: devious

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EXCOLO

Est Deus In Nobis

Entries tagged with npc

Do you see what I see?

Do you see what I see?

Of all the trees that are in the wood, the holly bears the crown.

Of all the trees that are in the wood, the holly bears the crown.

Walkin' through the cities of the plague

Everything that rises must converge

To every thing there is a season

To every thing there is a season

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

We're all dodging out a way through the world

We're all dodging out a way through the world

When winter comes, next year I'll be holding on

When winter comes, next year I'll be holding on

Hot... sweat sweet... wet

Hot... sweat sweet... wet

I predict a riot.

I predict a riot.

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January 2014

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