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scrivenerofmossflower · 6 years ago

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fear the reaper

Word Count: <700 read on ao3 Summary: Nightmares never allow rest. Written for week two of Redwall fic month. Prompt: Nightmares.

(gonna just put it all under a cut because it’s not that long)

The furred bulk of the wildcat loomed over her opponent, a mad green light in her eyes. Armed though she was with only the weapons nature had granted her—tooth, claw, and the savage strength and cunning of a predator—she nevertheless outmatched the small warrior who had chosen to set himself against her. A tiny figure clad in bright armor like liquid silver in the gloaming, the warrior mouse stood upon the bank. Dark waters to the left, dark forest to the right, he faced the wildcat. He faced the wildcat, and he did not back down.

They clashed, once, twice. The sword pierced a paw, claws ripped helmet from head and cast it into the shallows. Blood and water turned the shore of the lake to mud, churned to chaos by paws. The mouse staggered. Fell. Dug his sword into the ground and struggled up right again.

The green light in the cat’s slitted eyes flickered for the first time with a breath of fear.

Again they met in a flurry of blood and fur, both sorely wounded, neither about to back down. The cat struck the warrior’s back, deepening wounds she had already inflicted; the mouse cut into her side, the blade meeting the ribone. She heaved him into the water, snatched up a piece of driftwood to push him further in, but he came at her again, again, again—

Bloodied but unbowed—

The mouse who would not lie down and die—

The contest had never been fair. Trapped, the cat crouched down, paced at the waters edge, retreating, afraid and retreating—dark water at her back, Dark Forest before her. Retreating as the water and the mouse advanced from both sides. Retreating until water and fear surged up and dragged her down to drown, filled her mouth, her eyes, her nose, filled her lungs until she couldn’t breathe—

He thrashed awake, gasping for air, writhing like a madbeast against the paws holding him down. They vanished, and he rolled over, curled tight, and panted for air, eyes squeezed tight. There was a hiss and the smell of burning—a candle.

“Nightmare?” A single tight nod. Paws rubbed against his back, and he unwound slowly. “The same one?”

“Aye.”

She clucked her tongue against her teeth, sounding like a fretting mother. That as much as anything coaxed him into relaxing, rolling over to face her, their breath mingling. Outside the leaves of Mossflower wood whispered in the late summer wind, but inside, in this tiny island of peace and warmth, blankets cocooned around both mice, he could ignore the world. “I’m all right,” he whispered.

“So is Martin,” Columbine whispered, nuzzling his cheek. “Mother Germaine says he’ll be on his feet in another week. He lived, Gonff, and so did you.”

“I… know,” Gonff said quietly, and sighed. “I know.”

He’d been the first to find him, the first to see the crumpled and collapsed form—the first, too, to track the pawprints and reconstruct the battle on the shore. He’d only wondered later at the fact that Tsarmina’s tracks went into the water backwards while Martin’s had stayed on the bank. He’d wondered why that was, why she had retreated, what might have scared a wildcat, a tyrant, a cruel madbeast like Tsarmina so badly that she drowned herself rather than face it—

He’d stopped wondering later, when he’d overheard the Salamandastron hares whispering to each other. That Martin had fought, had won, had survived, and how odd, how strange that truly was.

The mouse who fought like a great male badger—

Bloodwrath—

Gonff shivered, and hugged Columbine closer to him, burying his face in her shoulder. No, he couldn’t say that much. Let Columbine think it was fear of Martin’s death that brought the imagined scene to his sleeping mind again and again. There was truth in that, after all, though not the truth entire. Better to fear Martin’s death than the Death that walked so quietly and easily beside his friend.

Outside, the trees whispered to each other, sparks from the fire flicking upwards to wink out of existence like stillborn stars.

#my fic #one shot #redwall #Martin the Warrior #Gonff #Tsarmina #Columbine #someday I will write fic that doesn't focus on Martin and Gonff #but today is not that day

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earlgraytay · 7 years ago

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"The shittiest, most entitled, out of touch clients I have ever had are the ones who think that art is just a function of having time and materials and has nothing to do with skill or effort." Even though I know it's wrong, my intuition has always been the opposite: that a skilled artist can just whip themselves up into a frenzy of creativity and be done with anything in a week without any regard for the actual time and resources necessary.

See... okay, there is a grain of truth to that. Or at least, in the myth of the Tortured Visionary Artist, which is presumably where you got the intuition from.

... A lot of artists, and creative types of general, are some flavour of sick. Could be physically, could be mentally, could be ‘just’ a childhood illness that they got under control or could be something they’re gonna have to deal with their entire lives. Some kinds of illness correlate with creativity- I know off the top of my head ADHD does- and some kinds just give you the time, boredom, and isolation necessary to start making something out of sheer desperation.

This doesn’t correlate with commercially successful creativity, mind, because successful creative people work their asses off and illness/disability get in the way of you being able to do that. But there is a correlation.

So a lot of the time, what looks to an outside observer like “this person stopped caring about anything and has whipped themself up into a frenzy of creativity” is one of two things.

1. Hyperfocus. ADHD, autism, and a number of other things can make you focus like grim hell on one thing at the detriment of everything else, including sleep, food, and basic hygiene. You get started on doing The Thing and you cannot stop even if you want to.

If you’re hyperfocusing on something, the odds are good you’re going to look like a man possessed to any rational outside observer. (or a woman possessed, or an enby possessed, or... you get the idea).

2. A condition I call “a bad case of the fuckits”. As in “fuckit, I have to get this done, there’s a deadline, I’m going to ignore everything else until it’s finished and work until I’m completely out of spoons.”

This is a thing that I personally do more often with housework, because it is hard to force creative work. But if you’re on a deadline, sometimes you have to put all of your (limited) spoons into getting The Thing done before the deadline hits.

...And yes, inspiration exists, and people can often start projects (and even get them mostly done, if they’re short) buoyed by inspiration. But if you see someone working like a madbeast on a creative project, often one of these things is going to be behind it.

#i gotta finish the unicorn thing #thank you for reminding me #on writing #wirehead-wannabe

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noonmutter · 7 years ago

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Final Acts

(( Fair warning: This got really long at about 3600 words. ))

Deliverance Point was abuzz, more so than it had been in a while. Everyone was feeling that mix of excitement and bone-chilling terror that preceded a major change on the battlefield. The Tomb would crack open any day now, and everyone was ready, and no one was ready. Most of the time, this problem was addressed by drinking, going to a brothel, gambling, and in some cases, deserting.

He’d gone with option three, and had come out actually profiting a little bit, but it didn’t really help all that much. Of course he’d cheated, but so had everyone else at the makeshift table; winning wasn’t the point, the actual game was whether you could keep the other guys from guessing your trick. Fair games were dull and people who took offense at basic loaded dice rarely had enough money to be worth the hassle anyway.

Option one came afterward, once he had the coin for it. His tolerance was far too high for going to bars unless he was willing to go broke until next pay day, especially bars catering to soldiers. He needed a lot of drink to get a buzz, but at least the mixed nature of the forces on the Shore made price gouging dangerous territory. You could get away with that sometimes, but not when a too-sober Tauren paladin was standing in front of you with six friends and a mug half full of water.

Option two... he wanted option two very much. He was lonesome, and there was an abundance of company to be found on the floating city, one short flight away. But he was spoken for, and he wasn’t a dishonorable man where it mattered. Even if he’d been willing to entertain the idea for more than a few minutes, he knew Shedwyn would be crushed. And then castrate him. And then Leon would probably show up and kick his head in...

Terry didn’t respect the deserters, but he understood them.

His reverie was broken by a poke in the side, and it took him a moment before he thought to look down. The goblin courier scoffed at him, then held up a clipboard and a package of simple brown paper and twine. “Sign here, mac.”

“Sign?” Terry couldn’t recall the last time he’d had to sign for mail.

“Yeah, sign. Y’know, pen to paper, scribble somethin’? Usually yer name. I ain’t picky, whatever’s fastest.”

Already tired of listening, Terry took the clipboard and scrawled something that might have been his name, but had even odds of being a bunch of swear words. To judge by the goblin’s expression, he interpreted it as the latter. He hung around a few seconds, looking expectant, but Terry had already started walking away. With an irritated sigh of “Cheap friggin’ Gilneans,” he took his leave.

Rather than returning to the hustle and noise of the Point proper, Terry walked out past the edges of the More-or-Less-Safe Zone. His personal campsite wasn’t too far from the point, but far enough that he could avoid most of his night terrors. Some of the dreams were stubborn and came to him regardless, but he chalked that up to general fatigue.

Sitting down in front of his tent with a soft grunt, he took a proper look at the package and clucked his tongue in disapproval when he found the address was printed, rather than handwritten. The sender’s address wasn’t one he recognized, and he hated not knowing where things came from. It didn’t stop him from opening the thing, but it made him somewhat wary. Turning it over to find the knot in the twine, his nerves settled when he found a letter held flush against the box, addressed “Terry - Read First” in Vember’s tidy hand. He didn’t recognize the wax seal holding the envelope shut, though.

Dutifully, he set the box down without unwrapping it and broke the seal on the letter. Although some of the phrasing sounded like Vember, the handwriting was not hers. It was even cleaner, almost like a printed script, and clearly painstakingly pored over to minimize spatter from the quill and avoid mistakes. He wouldn’t have been surprised if the writer had been using a ruler.

“Terry,

I hope this letter finds you at an opportune time. If you are not already, I would suggest that you be seated and, knowing you, alone. Following the events of our initial raid on the lab in Gilneas, a large number of notes and materials were recovered and sent to the Kirin Tor for further study. Among them were a series of objects revealed to be data storage devices, the functionality of which is best left unwritten.

The Kirin Tor were recently able to translate the information on these devices to a less primitive medium, and upon review, deemed it nonviable for research purposes and returned it to us.

Enclosed, you will find a Draenic crystal recording device, in which one sequence has already been stored. Upon realizing what it was, Vember and I determined its fate would be best left to you to decide. Please be assured that we did not play the recording in its entirety, out of decency and respect.

You are free to keep this device and the data on it, and I have included instructions on how to operate it. It is also possible to delete the data, or to record over it if you deem it necessary.

Respectfully, Lady Neun Shadhemir Vember Marlon Shedwyn Mair Lias” Just below that, in Vember’s own handwriting, was a single line:

“You have my word that I will not breathe a word of this to your brother. But you should. - V”

His hands were trembling once he’d gotten through the second paragraph. By the time he’d finished reading it, he nearly lost the slip that explained how the device worked in his rush to open the box.

The device itself was...underwhelming, a pleasant but bland quartzlike rectangle about eight inches across with a faint bluish sheen to it. Arcane energy arced between it and his fingertips for a moment before settling to an almost imperceptible warmth in his hands. It took him a few minutes to figure out he was holding it upside down, but once that was sorted, getting it working was a matter of seconds.

On activation, the device glowed bright blue, and most of the flat surface shimmered before turning a deep, pure black. The display was wobbly and unclear at the beginning, but clarified after a few seconds, until he was able to discern a set of hands--his hands--opening a door...

“Wha’ d’you mean you shot ‘im?!”

“Only in th’ leg, mate!”

“WHY DID YOU SHOOT ‘IM?!”

Diggs’ face was white as the hunter, barely out of his teens, pushed back his antlered hood and rubbed frantically at his scarred mouth. “I-I-it were a--there was a bloody--’e was a madbeast, Terry! Y’din’t say nuffin’ bout ‘im bein’ one o’ those!”

[Eyes wide, Terry mumbled “Oh god” to himself, but did not stop watching.]

Terry swore for the hundredth time in the last minute and a half, picking up his own rifle and moving his rucksack next to the doorway. He was glad he was already dressed. “You bloody nit, why were y’even carryin’? Y’were just sposed t’ watch ‘im!”

“Don’t put this on me, bruv! Yer th’one din’t fink t’mention I might be starin’ atta ‘ell’ound!”

The impact of Diggs’ back on the wall was loud, and he let out an undignified yelp when he felt something pop. Terry’s grip on his shoulders was like steel--angry steel--as he got in close and snarled, “Leon could be dead right now, you fuckin’--”

“What th’ bloody ‘ell is goin’ on in ‘ere?!”

Terry’s blood ran cold all over again as dad’s voice rattled both their brains. The man could really boom when he wanted to, and the tiny Duskhaven cabin they’d been given already amplified every footstep. He wasn’t the least bit surprised that Diggs bolted into the night the instant he could, leaving Terry standing alone, rifle in one hand, pack by the door, as his parents came inside. Bettany reached out to stop the fleeing man, but missed by a wide margin when he actually juked around her.

[A weak, mournful laugh. ”You cowardly prick.”]

They’d been away at their own party, but it was the old-folks’ party, so they were dressed a bit nicer. Mum’s hair was still done up the fancy way she liked, and she’d managed to keep her one good dress pristine for another day. Dad’s suit was already trying to split at every seam again, after a dozen trips to a dozen tailors. He already dwarfed his wife, but that suit made it even more obvious just how big he really was.

[Terry wished, as he watched the scene unfold all over again, that the suit didn’t fit because his dad was fat. It would’ve been easier to deal with him if he was fat.]

Graeme set one huge hand on his wife’s shoulder and stepped around her, not letting her get between him and Terry, though she’d already started to try. Bettany knew what was coming and her expression had shifted from confusion to determination almost immediately. The younger Ambroce stared up into his dad’s face [Terry noticed the way the image seemed to pinch at the edges; he’d been trying to look stern, and ended up scowling instead] as he came close enough to make out every stray whisker around the bush of a beard he wore.

I can still do this. It’ll still work. Just please, please, let it work fast.

“We’re leavin’. T’night. I already sent Leon a’ead.” The focus shifted for just a second to Mum’s worried frown, then back to Dad, just in time to catch his mouth twitch at one corner. When Graeme didn’t say anything beyond a low harrumph, Terry continued, voice audibly quivering this time. “I’m takin’ mum with me. It ain’t safe ‘ere.”

“What was tha’ rat bastard friend o’ yours screamin’ about b’fore ‘e ran like ‘e stole somethin’?”

“I--’e was--sposed t’ be... guidin’ Leon through th’--”

Graeme wasn’t having it, scoffing and beginning to pace back and forth across the narrow hallway while keeping his eyes solidly on Terry’s face. “That slag was Leon’s guide outta town? Th’same dipshit ‘o wanted t’ fight Kormac stone sober an’ couldn’t tell th’ dif’rence between moss ‘n’ poison ivy?”

Rather than trying to defend one of the weakest lies he’d told in his life, Terry bulled ahead, raising his voice to be heard over his dad’s. “We’re already packed in too tight, there’s more people filt’rin’ in ev’ry day, an’ there’s things in th’ woods out ‘ere! We ‘ave t’go b’fore there’s no way t’get gone!”

“I am not leavin’ my ‘ome be’ind just so you kin feel like th’ big man in th’ouse, boyo!”

Again, Terry’s eyes shifted to mum, looking to her for help. She just barely nodded her head to him before stepping forward, reaching for Graeme’s arm. “Love, it’s not safe ‘ere. ‘E’s not wrong about th’woods. You know tha’ better’n anybody ‘ere.” She was trying to force him to look at her, but he wouldn’t stop pacing, and eventually swatted her hand off of him.

Terry growled under his breath, moving closer to the door and holding out his hand. “I’m not doin’ this all over again. I’m--we’re leavin’, with or without you.” He held out his hand toward mum, but her eyes narrowed and then went wide. “Is that blood?”

Terry looked down and saw the dark red smear across his palm. It must’ve gotten on him when he’d shoved Diggs around. Saying nothing right away, he pulled a handkerchief from his shirt and began wiping it clean.

“Terry, what ‘appened?” Now mum was rushing forward, grabbing for his hand and intent on inspecting him for damage. He managed to dodge her once and once only before she whapped him over the back of the head and took his hand anyway. “It is blood!”

[”Don’t say it!” Cringing in almost physical pain, he knew what was coming.]

“Nothin’ t’worry over, it’s not mine.”

That, of course, was not the right thing to say, causing both of his parents to stop moving and look straight at his face. He knew what he’d done as soon as it’d left his mouth, but there was no taking it back. Bettany didn’t have a chance to say anything else before Graeme had crossed the room to shove Terry back a few feet.

“Whose blood is it then, boy? What’ve you done?”

“Dammit there’s no time fer this shit! Leon’s waitin’ fer--”

[Now, of course, Terry knew why he hadn’t seen it coming; he’d been talking, angry, panicked over his brother bleeding out somewhere in the woods. But it was plain as day on the screen.] As soon as the word ‘Leon’ reached his ears, Graeme’s eyes flicked down to focus on the rifle Terry still held. The stubbly parts of his beard began growing, and his eyes shone yellow for just a second.

Terry was still talking when Graeme picked him up and threw him across the room, and Bettany was shouting at her husband to stop by the time he’d gotten back to his feet. Face already becoming distorted and dark, Graeme paid her no heed. He was a walking cacophony of cracking bones and fleshy squishing as he stalked toward his fallen son, and growling--actually growling, bestial, impossible--from somewhere in the depths of his enormous chest.

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!”

[He nearly dropped the crystal when Graeme lunged forward, a monstrous wall of black hair and yellow teeth. This part, he still remembered very clearly. He remembered thinking he was going to die, and that if he didn’t, he was going to turn into the same thing. He remembered thinking that mum was right there. That Leon was still outside, probably dying.]

The first few seconds were brutal and bloody, as a man pinned by a raging worgen always was. When he raised a hand to shield his face, one of Graeme’s claws went straight through his palm, nearly gouging his eye anyway. At one point, he’d managed to draw a bowie knife, but all that did was give the beast something to chew on and scrape up his muzzle with.

[Terry was confused. This wasn’t right. He’d had his rifle. He’d had his rifle, and they’d grappled over it, and he’d used it to block the worst of the damage--]

BLAM.

Graeme toppled sideways with an unmistakably canine yelp of pain. Terry turned his head to see Bettany holding his smoking rifle in shaking hands, eyes streaming, expression hard. She was clearly holding herself together as tightly as she could, and just as clearly, it wasn’t quite enough. “Graeme. Get up. Please.” When no response came, she cocked the rifle and took a single step forward, half-shrieking, “Give me back my ‘usband, you devil-dog bastard!”

He turned again, stunned, to look back at the thing that had been his father. As he took in the sight of the hulking brute laying in a rapidly spreading pool of blood with a gaping hole blown out of his side, everything shook for a few seconds. There was a distant rumble like thunder, but not quite the same, and the wolf finally stirred. Terry started to sit up, but fell down almost immediately with an agonized gasp. The sound shook Bettany out of her momentary lapse in control and she started toward him, only to stumble and drop the rifle when the world shook again.

This time, there was a shrieking sound, like trying to twist a wet branch until it snapped, amplified by ten million times and only growing louder. [Even muted by the playback from the crystal as it was, the sound was an assault on the ears. Still he watched, transfixed.]

He could barely see straight for how wildly the world around him shook, but he was able to see the black wolf rise. They both looked up when they heard splintering wood above them, and both saw the hole forming in the roof. Graeme looked at Terry for a moment--barely a quarter of a second--and bellowed something [he could almost make it out over the din] as he ran forward to shove Bettany out of the way. The beam fell scant seconds before the rest of the roof, and then the entire world tumbled into roaring darkness around him.

It suddenly went silent, not even white noise, and stayed that way for a few seconds before the display flickered again. Grey text, numbers, and alchemical symbols began scrolling across a solid blue pane, too numerous and rapid to read. The variations began to dwindle until it was just repeating two words: “ERROR” and “SOURCE.” At the very last moment--the last frame--of the feed, another single line flashed and then disappeared. It took a few attempts to freeze it long enough to read.

“SRCMEMDUMPT101 COMPLETE. EDIT MODE? Y/N”

Terry spent almost an hour rolling the recording back, playing it again, listening as hard as he could, rolling it back, playing it again... It was too damned loud and the controls on the bloody thing weren’t fine enough to isolate the voices from the noise. In spite of himself, Terry had picked up and run all the way back up to the Point, bothering every Draenei he passed in hopes that one of them would know how to manipulate the recorder.

Once he’d nearly gotten his ass kicked for bothering the same guy a third time, he forced himself to go back to his campsite. Nearly willing to admit defeat, he caught a glimpse of his commstone sticking out of his bag.

First step: Call Darlain.

...That was the only step he had, really. He was just kind of banking on her knowing somebody who could do it, or knowing somebody who knew somebody. Thankfully, one step was all he needed; the dwarfmum pointed him to Nirahsa, a name he didn’t recognize until Darlain finally fell back on ‘Draenei woman who says ‘yes yes’ a lot.’ Driven by an almost mad need to know, Terry shelled out for a portal jump to Stormwind, rather than using the mail or, gods forbid, waiting till later. He figured nobody would miss him for a few hours.

Nirahsa didn’t have a lot of reason to want to do him a favor, and he knew that, but he was desperate, sincere, and willing to pay her every coin he had to his name if she’d do it. He assumed it reminded her of Leon (actually, she just also didn’t have a lot of reason not to do him a favor). Whatever the reason, she finally relented and told him to come back in an hour. It was a diversion from her actual work, but she needed to take a break anyway, and easy work like that counted, right?

He still insisted on paying her for the work, especially once she handed him written instructions on how to use the little remote she’d put together for him. Had he been in his standard state of mind, he would’ve asked how much she had watched, but his concern was firmly on finding privacy to pore over the recording again. Terry did have enough sense to make sure he sent a message to Shedwyn, telling her he was back in town and to find him at the barracks.

Once he got there, he settled in to get to work.

[With Nirahsa’s tweaks, he was able to mute the background noise almost completely in a matter of minutes. It was with some trepidation that he pressed ‘play’ once again. He wasn’t quite expecting the voice amplification to work as well as it did; it was picking up things that weren’t even shouted. The sound was distorted from the effects applied to it, but functional.]

Graeme rose and grunted in pain. As the wolf’s head lifted to take in the sight of the building in the beginning stages of collapse, he growled “No” to himself. Then, he looked at Terry, and began to run.

[Yelling with almost no sound around to muddy it up, his voice made the crystal vibrate noticeably in Terry’s hands, almost startling him enough to drop it.]

“I’m sorry, Terry! I’m sorry! I love you! Find--”

Whatever else Graeme had hoped to say was cut off by another yelp and a scream as a beam almost as big around as he was slammed into his back, and the feed ended shortly after.

Terry didn’t watch it again, dropping the crystal on his cot and staring at nothing. At some point, his eyes began to water, but he didn’t move save to blink and breathe. When it finally progressed to tears, he didn’t make any attempt to wipe his face. In the next hour, he only moved once: to pick up his pillow, bury his face in it, and scream until he couldn’t anymore.

Just after dusk, Terry’s boots made soft squeaking sounds as he walked slowly through the damp grass. He came to a stop at the foot of the lilac-strewn graves, took one breath, read his father’s headstone, and froze. All the preparation he’d made in his head--things he’d rehearsed a dozen times over, words he wanted to say--dropped away in an instant, bringing him to the ground with his head hung so low his chin nearly touched his chest. His hands rested limply in the grass by his knees, and he wept unrestrained.

All he could bring himself to say were three tiny words, tearing themselves free of his painfully tight throat, filling the little clearing with ache and regret inbetween wracking sobs.

“Me too, dad.”

( @darbiebot @nirahsa @shedwyn @vembermarlon @neun-deserrat )

#and so arrives terry #fathers' day #mum #dad #mum and dad #HEY WHO WANTED TO BE SAD TODAY #I SURE DID #tw: blood #I GAVE MYSELF FEELS #AGAIN #my writing

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nightbloomnest · 8 years ago

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Short Story - A Crow and Bull

((Oh look, another prologue. :’>

Basically these things only happen on a spur of the moment and are only possible if I have roleplayed/interacted long enough with people. All under the cut of course.

Some features may not included with your Bull. Like brakes. @grinnauxdedzemael ))

She knew little about Ser Grinnaux, her only source of information were from the mouths of gossiping citizens.

A son of Dzemael, a peerless warrior of immense strength pair with a beastly temper. He was responsible for sending many knights to infirmaries, or to their deaths depending on how he felt at that time. It was obvious that such a man should be avoided at all costs, and yet here she was bearing a basket of treats. Why was she doing this? Well Ser Grinnaux was responsible for saving Ser Haumeric from his fate against a dragon on their assignment beyond Ishgard. The cleric was a dear friend of her’s so the least she could do was show her gratitude by thanking him personally...and small gift of thanks may be enough to quell the man that she would likely leave without injuries. Maybe.

At the moment she was left in her puzzlement, standing in front of what appeared to be an unlatched door revealing an empty room....what sort of man was careless enough to leave their quarters exposed?

With a sigh she slipped through and placed the basket of bread and letter upon the desk, placing the gift and leaving was the only alternative, and one she wouldn’t object to. Though panic soon filled her upon hearing the sound of approaching heavy footsteps. She retreated behind an armor stand and soon enough the sound of armor and gruff breathing indicated that The Bull had returned from his business. From her hiding place she could see him, and his form would pause for a moment before walking his desk where she left the gift. A moment would pass, the sound of a sealed parchment flying open as he was reading the contents of the letter. He was currently distracted, and Svanielle would look towards the open doorway. She had to come to a decision whether to remain or to run.

And she chose to run, and by the Fury did she run.

The maiden knew that her movements were still loud enough for the Warrior to hear. Instead of running down the hall, she immediately press herself against the wall adjacent to the doorway. Sure enough, the Bull charged out of the door in a blur, shoving the door open and thundered down the hall like a madbeast. A brief moment of relief would fill her seeing that her quick thinking saved her from being stampeded down by this man, but she knew she can’t linger here any longer. Grinnaux would eventually turn back when he figure out he was chasing nothing, but in her haste she would collide against the heavy wooden door that hung opened thanks to the Bull’s brute force. Her vision now disoriented, she would stumble down a random direction and eventually ducked behind a pillar to recover her senses and shield herself from eyes. As she placed a hand over her throbbing head, she felt around through her hair and realized that her rose was missing. However, her ordeal was about to get worse when she heard a deep voice bellowed from the hall.

“I know you’re still here. Show yourself, and I might go easy on you.”

It was Ser Grinnaux, despite her efforts she knew that he had sharp senses. Usually she would hold her ground, but after all of the stories she had been told of The Bull’s temperament, she did not want be added to that number of fatalities. And yet she felt that she still had a fighting chance if she could escape him...she would have to come back for her barrette another time if this was the case. The woman closed her eyes and muttered a prayer to herself, and with a surge of aether she conjured an aero to propel her forward and the chase begun anew. She didn’t need to look back to know the man had begun charging after her, the sound of his armor and the thundering footfalls were getting closer. She didn’t even want to think of what would happen if he caught her.

...Then a very loud blunt noise echoed behind her, like something hitting large against wood. Harshly. It was followed by the a clattering of metal on the floor, and a string of curses. That was when she turned to see a temple knight had opened the door, flinching as he held the stricken door steady in its place.

“What lout decided to put themselves right near the door like some idiot--!!......................”

The knight would sternly speak out, his head looking behind the door’s assailant...only for him to jolt in fright and with care and silence, would slowly return inside and shut the door back in its original place. The retreating door would reveal Ser Grinnaux sprawled on the floor, clutching his face and hissing in pain. He was so hellbent in chasing her down that he didn’t have time to register the incoming obstacle and immediately slammed into it.

A Bull indeed.

Svanielle noticed a familiar red item off to the side, believing he must have picked her rose up and dropped it during the collision. She would take a few cautious steps, and quickly snatched her hairpin from the ground. Pocketing her barrette she would turn to leave, but the man’s groaning would cause her to stop in her tracks...guilt filled her as she heard the painful sounds emanating from him. If she didn’t run the first place he probably wouldn’t be reduced to this situation...but she wasn’t sure what he would do once his pain ebbed.

She sighed and began to cautiously approach the fallen Knight.

#A Crow and Bull #grinnauxdedzemael #|| Stories of a Crow;#It's Not Easy Being Grinn

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