THIS PART HAPPENED WHILE THE OTHER PARTY MEMBERS WERE ALL COMING TO THE CAPTIVES' RESCUE. THE LOGS MERGE WHERE THIS ONE ENDS.
Esther's captors took the direct and violent route, instead of trying to figure out how many drugs would be needed to knock out a woman of her size. When she finally comes to, she is nauseous and head-achy, blinking to get the double vision out of her eyes. The sting of the iron clears her head a little as she peers around the group and mumbles around the gag. She flexes a little, testing her bonds.
Haruki wakes up, groggy, tied to this stake, groggy and... first he looks around, gaze darting to take in as much of the situation as he can. Gag. Ropes. Easy peasy. The audience? That's slightly trickier, they're going to be a tough crowd, looking at his every movement. Still, he's small and defenceless and this isn't fun. Who's here? Is there any way to communicate with them. How stable is this post they're tied to? So many questions. He flexes a bit too, testing his bonds, taking stock of the situation. Anywhere to run?
Coming to slowly, Edmond pretty accurately assesses before even fully aware of his situation that he's bound and gagged. So he doesn't move visibly. He's lost time; he knows exactly how much time he's lost, and it makes him irritable-- and that, he tries to keep a lid on, because his Mantle suddenly rolling with Travancore Storm Warning would be a dead giveaway as to Summer Boy being awake. So he listens past his headache, and since his head is down anyway, he opens his eyes a crack and peers to either side of him. A lady he doesn't know. Kelsey. Haruki, poor dove. And there are going to be massive backaches and neck-cricks all around from being tied standing and unconscious like this. HOW UNCONSCIONABLY RUDE. ... iron. Can't Separate out. Feet everywhere. He can wait until someone else causes a distraction.
Likewise, there's no sign given when Kelsey wakes. Their breathing stays shallow and slow, their lashes don't so much as quiver. They don't risk even the tiny crack of eye-opening that Edmond does; instead, they listen and breathe, tasting the air, listening to the faint mumbling nearby, and the sounds of the heap being sorted. And the small sounds that some of the ostensibly-living things might make. Iron is almost a good sign. Iron means that whatever is actually going on, it's not at all the worst alternative.
The posts are very stable, very heavy, planted deeply into the soil. This place has the scuffed up air of somewhere used often enough that it never quite recovers between uses. There isn't really much grass on the ground, anymore. Just dirt, especially near the posts.
When one by one, two of the captives begin to awaken, one of the watchers, a fellow with tusks and really horrible nose hair, elbows a taller man wearing a yellow scarf. The taller man is quite handsome, in a swarthy way, though the scars slicing across his face do add a rather rakish air to it. "Well, well, well. Our little coneys are awake. What do you have to say for yourselves?" He mocks listening, then claps a hand to his mouth. "Silly me..."
A third man, with glowing red eyes but few other signs of being fae, steps up to the quartet with a dreadfully-sharp looking knife in hand, eager, all but quivering for action.
The handsome yellow-scarf Fairest holds a hand out in abeyance, silkily commanding, "Not yet. The buyers don't like damaged goods."
Red-eyes subsides, but licks his blade, meeting Haruki and Esther's eyes in a 'I'm watching you' sort of way.
That's valuable information to have. Haruki doesn't do well at eyecontact at the best of times. Nope. He closes his eyes and listens for the others breathing, trying to gauge their status. Can he hear any buyers approaching? There's time then. Someone's going to have to cause a distraction and he really hopes it's not got to be him. He can afford to wait just a little while longer.
Esther stops with the flexing when the catchers notice that she and some of the others are awake. A low growl rumbles in her throat, but she catches herself. There are others here, and they might be hurt if she goes full suicidal ogre on these catchers. She watches, she waits, but she does not lower her gaze from the red eyed one. He's trouble.
Red-eyes seems almost thrilled that Esther is so energetic, her low growl prompting a step forward -- and a sudden stop when a green-skinned man pointedly clears his throat.
"Leave off it, Marv," the fifth changeling mutters, sharpening a sword by their low fire.
The green-skin, or Marv as he seems to be called, jerks a thumb at Yellowscarf. "You want his high and mighty highness's friends skewering you like they did Scarlet?"
The sword-sharpening fellow doesn't speak again, though he does shake his head, an easy 'whatever' gesture.
Yellowscarf, meanwhile, ignores the lot of them, going over to the hobs to confer.
Kelsey remains apparently out cold, quiet. He's pretty lightly built. Maybe they hit him proportionately harder.
Mmph. Everyone else is being docile, too. Or at least not making any moves. Kelsey has to be awake by now. Has to be. Has to be faking it maybe. Maybe. Or maybe not, and they just pledged to protect each other and this is not being very fucking protective, is it. So: Edmond picks the moments when the assholes are talking to each other and picking on the obviously-awake to call on Stone for extra strength, and then again, to wriggle his wooden hands around sneakily behind him to get a grip on the post he's bound to. He manages it!! And then every muscle in his body flexes as he tries to pull the goddamned thing out of the ground.
Up! ...UP!! An inch-- another-- he must have their attention by now but for godsake he can't not try--
Anoth-- nope. It thuds back into its post hole. It's wobbly, at least, now, but-- well, okay, yeah, they're gonna notice anyway, so he lets his temper build. The hum of cicadas is obnoxiously loud and anxious for a second, and then goes eerily still in the suddenly oppressive heat, air sounding dead and smelling heavily of low barometric pressure.
Esther feels that change. She'd smile through her gag if she could. That growl comes back, as she flexes and strains and pulls in an attempt to loosen her pole and chains.
Why, yes, they did indeed notice. Redeyes in particular has been giving Esther such lovely looks, and when Edmond's chains start clinking, when the post starts groaning and creaking, when the grit of the soil starts scraping against the wood...weeeelll... let's just say he has everyone's attention.
Everyone except for the Quiet Guy, that is.
Quietguy calmly lifts his sword, eyes the keenness of the edge, then points it toward Haruki, who has managed to get himself free of everything except his ankle-chains (and that only because the shoes are too big to fit through them). "You don't want to do that, boy. Yours wouldn't be the first liver I've spitted."
Yellowscarf stays back, arms folded, while Redeyes, Marv and Tusk Guy advance on Edmond. Redeyes gets there first, holding a knife near his throat while Tusk Guy reaches out to painfully wrench at Edmond's shoulder. "Here, you! None of that! You get that post out of the ground, we kill your pretty friend." Tusk Guy jerks his head toward Kelsey. "They paid us for three, see. The fourth's a spare."
Pretty friend. Pretty friend who opened his eyes at 'here, you.' Pretty friend who breathes once, eyes flickering without moving his head to see where the others are looking. To trust that they'll keep their eyes on the problem, and not on the object of the threat. The others, though, especially the ones that want blood? They might be looking. And therefore Kelsey draws a long slow breath, and lets the air feed the fire. The sense of flame around him flickers, quietly, the pale tail of his hair growing almost hypnotic. Hard to look away from. If he's lucky ... maybe it'll distract the opposition more than it distracts the other prisoners. Buy a few seconds, maybe, for someone to make another try.
Haruki could easily slide off his shoes, but that would mean running barefoot. Not something he's actually inexperienced with either, since bare feet help with his parkour, but still... time and a place. He's going to need to wait for the next distraction before he can get completely free. So he just gives the man with the sword his biggest, wide-eyed absolutely innocent look possible. Poor defenceless Haruki, he's so smol and cute and he'd never, ever, dream of doing anything bad. No. He remains still, quivering like a frightened rabbit. Please don't hurt me mr fox. Not that he speaks, what with being gagged and all. He's just a poor, innocent mortal. Nothing special. Not like these others.
Esther heaved and strained, but was only able to pull the pole up a little before it thunked back into the ground, loosened but not enough. She breathes heavily, glaring at the catchers.
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