However long it has been since the bug began his search today, it is nearing dusk now above the tangled trees, and long since twilight beneath their moss-dangling boughs, the air scented with lingering hints of clove and growing things.
This is not a good sign.
Deep, deep, and deeper in the trod will go, bordering Eight-legged Endings and the trees so precious to the spiders who dwell there.
Still, Rorschach's sense of Where Thudlump Is continues to tug this-a-way...
Byron got the Obligatory Heads Up from Inkblot, and after remembering exactly where he left his pointy and expody stuff while Ashe gave him 'Are you going to be the woman who cant decide what to wear' look more than once, finally gets his big stony butt moving to catch up. Meaning the Bug has a huge obsidian gargoyle and a small Crowned One lumping their way through some of the Hedge to catch up with him, "He said he was out here, but he could be hiding right underfoot and I wouldnt see him until he started bitching about how my feet stink."
'It's black track suit or other black track suit, come on!' is how that went. Ashe is indeed out here with her husband looking for where Rorschach is searching, "He's not that short. And neither am I." she points out. Okay she's not that tall either. She's carrying one of Polk's assault rifles over her shoulder. Because she's gotten attached to it. Yes. It's sorta like a small child. It needs to be taken on walks and things.
Dielle gets smart this time and borrows some damn armor from Polk, since he was kind enough to loan it to the Harvestmen. She's also got the gun, the bow, the arrows, hallelujah, and a backpack with a few odds and ends. Oh, and a knife. She's grumbling to herself about the armor, she really needs to get her own. "That's only because your feet stink, Byron," she says, a little belatedly. Because sometimes, you just have to needle someone. It's a thing.
Rorschach called the cavalry.
This was his nemesis, and more so, a plague to the safety of the people. Thudlump had been peddling hot merchandise that could upset any freehold. That little rat bastard cursed the Roach back in April and he'd swallowed that bitter pill grateful it wasn't Damion or Tom. The truth was he was tweaking hard, but he was doomed anyways, if he could do one thing for his people, he'd help them suffer less and weirdly, found balance with his burden. However... the Moon Court was full of monsters and Rorsch was no exception and this shit threatened his swarm. Two months he spent tracking him and finally got a reliable bead to hunt him and thus, we came to now.
Tom feels responsible for the bug. It's a totally unfamiliar feeling, guys. In the history of all things, has there ever really been a cat with a sense of responsibility? It beggars expectation. Still, he was there when this Thudlump was met in the first place, and while he was comparatively not cheated by the rogue trader, it still weighs that a Moon of good standing and troublemaking has suffered at the hands and avarice of this hedge dealer. The cat is weirdly...quiet. It's surprising because he's usually such an enormous presence in the room. But this is the Hedge and a hunt; he's sniffing at the air in a way that suggests he's half a heartbeat from turning to a Maine Coon and sneaking about.
Where there's a bug, there's a shadowsnake. And so Zillah is right there behind him, all darkness and slither. Blue-black eyes flicker over Ror, taking in his current state. An anchor, when she needs to be. The other Moon present gets a greeting of silence, but there is a handsign used for him - That of Cat, with the horns thrown in.
A chill breeze whispers through the leaves of the trees as the travelers continue on, puddles of darkness gathering in huddled shapes against trunks and beneath the needle-spined canes of the twisting, hungry Thorns. It bears the scents of cloves more strongly, trods wending nearer the Endings.
While Byron MIGHT have a firearm strapped to his hip, its the huge axe he's got in both hands. Even if he knows Ashe can blow huge holes in things with the rifle, well, there you go. When the group manages to bunch up a bit, he arches a brow and grunts, deferring to Rors, "I guess you're leading the way, Inkblot, or point me a direction and use me for a shield when we get close? I'm not exactly the sneakiest fucker in the 'hold."
Dielle snickers, softly, and throws a grin at Tom. She nods, in echo to what Byron says, but for the moment, there's not a huge amount going through her head. It can get curiously quiet up there, when she's trying to actually be all observant and shit.
Ashe gives a look to Dielle and just smiles, real big, pulling those stitches, "They do sometimes. Especially when he's been in the Hedge all day." she chuckles. Then there's a Buggo up ahead. She goes quiet though. Letting people talk as she reaches up and pats the black apple pendant that's on the chain around her throat. Once that's done the pendant starts filling up with blood. She sniffs at the clove smell, "That's interesting." she murmurs as she looks back to the others.
Rorschach felt better with Cat. Bug and Cat seems to bring out the most wily in one another. Moon Court was a family, as weird and terrible as they are. Fingers signed back to Byron <<Yeah, you'll be the first one I'll be hiding behind, pal>> He looked back to Dielle... good. She was good. Ashe was solid. He looked back to Zillah though and while she was fine there was a part of him was not. He turned and took ZIllah's hand and pressed it to his forehead and took that moment to try and ground himself. Too long in the hedge. Too long.
Byron mutters softly, "I can live with that." A moment, "The hiding. Not the stinky feet." Because everyone needed to know he wasn't agreeing with the second thing. His brow furrows as he slows down and looks around, as if something had bugged him out of the corner of his eye, but it's followed by a slow shaking of his head. Wasn't there, whatever it is. Instead the gargoyle simply grumbles under his breath and picks up moving again, following Buggy's lead.
"I'm glad that we've got hiding-behind options," Zillah muses, giving a grin that flashes those thin fangs of hers. And while there's a tense set to her shoulders, the fact that there are people here she trusts with her back - and more importantly, front - takes some of the edge off. When Rorschach reaches for her hand, she gives it, presses that cool skin to his forehead. There's a soft chittering, followed by a sweet coo, before she brings that hand down to the side of his face. "We'll go home soon, love," is near-whispered. "Really get to..." She pauses, in those words, head swinging around a little. Putting a finger over Ror's lips, as if the ink blot ever needed to be silenced. "I hear something."
Tom turns about and then pauses, and were he in four-legged form, he would no doubt set about his butt-wiggling pose as if to aim himself most directly, though he's momentarily distracted by Rorschach's little gestures, pulling him out of hunt-and-kill mode. His voice stays low, a bit of growl. "Old spider-sign. On the edge of their space." It's hard to tell if he means the sign is old or the spiders, though his hackles aren't raised and he doesn't appear to be ready for a dustup, so perhaps not sensing an immediate threat. Still, then Zillah hears a thing. Tom stops abruptly and waits.
Dielle is looking around, and she points her bow up, at some wispy pieces of spiderwebs. She apparently saw them at the same time as Tom. Then she pulls out an arrow and holds it loosely against her bowstring. Just in case. She looks to Zillah, who heard something and waits.
Uvall flits down to Ashe, "Spiderwebs." he whispers. "They look like they are old." Ashe states softly in reply. Then she also quiets so that she doesn't spook anything.
For a few heartbeats, Zillah just...listens. "It's a bit far off, but I hear something feminine. Almost crying." A glance towards her two Moon Court homies at that. "Faint enough to barely hear it. But it's ahead of us. In this direction, the one we're going."
As the group comes around the latest twist in the trod, it broadens somewhat, a wild Hollow dug who knows how long ago by who knows what almost entirely consumed by Thorns. A young, female Changeling is caught in a spider's web, though the owner doesn't seem to be present. She yanks and tugs, struggling, breath escaping in airy whimpers of fear and desperation, but to no avail. At the sound of SOMEone stomp-clanking through the Hedge, she freezes, head whipping around to stare into the shadows. "Who is it? Who's there? Help me, please! I'll, I'll make it worth your while!" She looks farther off down the trod, fearful, then squints into the darkness to try and make out the source of the footsteps she heard, expression silently pleading.
Byron tightens his grip on hia axe when the voice starts in, a little grumble escaping him, "That's it, scream like dinner waiting to be eaten..." His voice trails off as he glances at the others with him, then finally rolls a shoulder at Rorschach, "She might know something, or this could be a trap on a trap. Your call, man..." He pulls up there to wait to see what Rors wants to do, shooting a questioning look at Ashe while he gives that a moment.
Dielle winces and having previously nocked her arrow, draws back on the string. She doesn't let loose, though. She looks over at Rorschach, waiting to find out what he wants to do. But there's pity on her face, and she says, "We can always kill her if she turns out to be a bad guy."
Rorschach looked back to Ashe. and then back to the changeling. He left one hand on his blade. Fingers signed back to them, <<What we do with her? Not my call. Hers. I'll make sure we're not ambushed. We don't know who she works for.>> Her livlihood was not his primary concern. He signed back to Dielle and Ashe. Those two were better equipt for diplomach. Looking to Tom and ZIllah he pointed to teh various sides to make sure they weren't being snuck up on.
Tom is Cat Subtle. When finding prey, even not his prey, he makes a noise. Probably doesn't know he's making it. It's that rrrroooogh noise of a cat studying an unknown element, the threat-chirp which he only interrupts by a growly suggestion of: "Shut up, web lady!" This is meant kindly and helpfully, in his weird little way.
Ashe's shadows draw around her, letting the darkness settle in. She keeps herself still. Until she sees Ror sign and there's a nod. <I'll come talk.> she signs back to him. Then she's heading up that way, because it's a bit easier to be the target if your armor and stuff is high, right? "If you could lower your voice it would be helpful is what my feline friend meant to say." she states.
Zillah's head gives a quick little cock, as she looks to the woman in the web. <<Can't tell if she's lying. Desperation doesn't seem faked. But I could be off>>, her fingers move to sign, before she takes position to watch their six. And her buggo.
Byron mms and nods once at Rorschach, "Fair enough. Avenge us if she bites our heads off." He winks at the others and waits for a moment before stepping forward, following behind Ashe with the axe hefted up, clearly meaning to communicate they MIGHT be able to cut her free if she says the right things to the Crowned one in front of him.
The young woman stops struggling, though she's still quivering, sweating, and can't exactly turn around very well to face the group. Point in fact, half of her face is stuck to the web. She just whispers a heartfelt, "-Please-. In, in my pack. The left pocket. It's a stone. A token. Take it? Please? It's the last thing I have to give." Her breath catches on a wobbly hiccough of terror. "Just get me out of here! I swear by the ever-changing moon, I mean no harm."
Dielle looks at the woman for a long moment, then nods. "She's a Lost, not the spider in disguise," she calls out, pitching her voice to carry without being loud. Then she keeps an eye out in the darkness for the actual spider, taking a sentry role without being asked. She assumes everyone else is doing the same, so she doesn't mention it.
"How did you get stuck in the web?" Ashe asks the girl as she looks up. Uvall is asked to take a quick look around, just in case. "Check her bag." she looks to Byron. "What's your name?" she asks as she looks to see where they can start releasing her from. Then she gives Dielle a thumbs up from where they are before pulling out a knife.
The young woman doesn't answer at first, and in the shadows beneath the trees, it's difficult to see that she is blushing. "I...wasn't paying attention to the ground. I'd heard the spiders liked the higher branches, and..." And that was that, it seems. Ashe's question about her name elicits a vaguely bemused 'did this stranger REALLY ask that?' look before her eyes lift far enough to spot, you know, the CROWN above this stranger's head. Those eyes widen in immediate dismay before she blurts, "Holy smokes! You're--oh, fudgesicles, please don't kill me! The hobs said freeholders were all murderers or suckers and I swear I didn't believe them oh please don't make me wrong!"
The pack can't come off until her arms are free, but Byron can easily open the catch. It's almost empty. There's a loaf of cloth-wrapped bread, some wax-coated cheese, a bit of what looks like the Hedgefruit version of granola or hiking energy-snacks, and, in the pocket she mentioned, a glassy stone which looks black in this light. It's about the size of a chicken's egg, though it's too irregularly shaped.
Tom looks faintly chastened for two seconds when Ashe translates for him in the language of someone who isn't a jerkbutt feline. But only two seconds or so. From there out, however, he's also playing sentry, echoing Dielle, if without ranged weapons to hand. The girl's speech about freeholders and spiders earns a cattish sneezing sound that might be amusement.
Rorschach made clackng noises at Byron and snapped his fingers three times darting over to him. <<If it looks funny do nooooot touch it>> He waded back shaking his headmaking a nad to squint at it. <<No spiders in teh area right now. THe network is quiet. Ask her if she knows what that is.>>
"I just wanted to make sure that you weren't injured by a spider or anything like that. I don't think we have a healer with us. But we've got fruits with us should we need it." Ashe tells her as she starts cutting strands. There's a quirk of her eyebrow, "Oh, I'm full up on my murdering today. Sorry about that." the Shadowsoul deadpans to the stranger as she goes about making sure the threads don't stick to her.
You'd think Byron learned his lesson before considering the LAST time Rors found something and offered it to be touched, so when the Bug calls out a warning, the gargoyle does hold off and doesn't really wait for the bag to be offered, instead turning it a little so Rorschach can see. The fact that it might still be attached to the girl when he moves it is a minor detail that doesn't seem to concern the Hedge Warden, "You can do all the touching you want, friend. Though maybe not a good idea to hang around and wait for them to show up."
Standing very still while Ashe is, you know, wielding a knife in her vicinity, the young changeling does nothing which could be construed as threatening, keeping her hands clearly visible -- once they are freed -- and allowing herself to be tugged around by her backpack (leather, worn, old-fashioned) however Byron wants. She does try to watch him, and Rorschach, but Dielle's question distracts her. "I.. um. Most of them? I mean, I've been out here a while, and freeholds sort of have a reputation for humanocentricism -- or, um, our equivalent."
Rorschach carefully, very very carefully, reached into the bag and was careful not to touch that black stone directly. He shouldered the bag and signed back to tehm <<<He's close. Real close. You should look at this before we send it on. If it's like that other thing we don't want that floating around. She seems nice. She shouldn't walk around with TNT in her pocket.>> He looked to Zillah and Tom <<That asshole is close>> which is where his attention swiveled back to finding his bearings.
Tom reacts much more to Rorschach's indication that the target is close than the young woman and the things she carries, though there's no objection to those that are getting her free and asking some questions. The buttwiggle again, this time overt, which looks ridiculous on two legs; his shoulders come up like he's getting ready to hunch and hunt and stalk and pounce, as if he can pick up a signal from the bug and get on the track of the real quarry.
"That was a joke." Ashe states as she cuts the spider web away carefully. "Also, our Freehold has a bit of a different take, we have Fae-Touched and Enchanted etc that work with us. Most of us don't mind them being around. Those that do are entitled to their opinion though." she admits as she finished the last of the webbing. "And there we are. All set." Ashe states. "Do you know what the token is by chance?" she asks the girl.
While Ashe speaks to the freed girl, Byron is paying attention to the warning and turns slowly to put his back to the Queen and the girl, drawing his axe up a little while panning his gaze around, "This is potentially a bad place to get cornered...as if there are good places in the hedge, but, you know. Inkblot, you got a good bearing?"
The young woman notices the heightened alertness of the group, immediately lifting wary eyes toward the shadowed treetops overhead, then dropping her attention back toward Ashe at the Queen's words. "Oh. It's a finder. You just say someone's name, and it sort of tugs you toward them."
Dielle looks disappointed at the girl's answer, initially, until she says what the stone is, and then she brightens up. So much for that poker face. She's still keeping an eye out and looks to Rorschach, then Ashe and Byron. Then back to looking around. We don't like spiders, precious. No, we doesn't.
"Thank you for the token. We would have let you down without it though, we aren't monsters." Ashe tells her. "Make sure to keep your eyes on the road as well." she states. "And you never gave us your name." she adds as she starts to move to head with the others.
Byron murmurs, "Hey, being a monster can be pretty fun..." though the gargoyle seems to be letting that go for the time being, trying to keep an eye out for the Badness that is supposedly close. SOMETHING needs to be hacked at. Soon. Glancing back at the group, he clears his throat, "If that stone works on this asshole, I say lets do it."
Tom's reaction to the token explanation is momentarily suspicious. He tips his chin up, maybe an agreement with Byron that monstrosity hath its perks, but he growls: "Pretty convenient a thing we could use right in our road. It have drawbacks, downsides?" Someone's gotta be that paranoid. Invisible bugs are everywhere.
Rorschach was not one to trust strange women and foreign doodads. Trinkets might have memory of who asked, what you wanted, where you were going. No. Compasses with memory were bad. He shook his head and sniffed the air, picked his bearings and were off. Paranoid bug was not about to trust convenience.
And it's a good thing it's Tom because Dielle hadn't gone there. Maybe it's time to start getting that suspicious. She chin-uptips at Tom with a big smile.
Running her hands through her moss-touched hair to try and pick out any lingering bits of web, then scratching more off green-touched cheeks, the young woman shivers, tension not abating in the least, though she seems deeply relieved. She keeps one eye on the trees and one on the party, wary. Metaphorically. She can't actually make her eyes do that. She's not a chameleon! At the cat's question, she blinks, stares at him a moment in blank incomprehension, then seems to come back to the present time. "You forget your home for a little while. Like... can't find your way back, don't know what it looks like, that kind of thing. Maybe an hour? Ish?"
Byron murmurs, "Random thing we found in the Hedge? On someone about to be devoured by spiders? What possible downsides could there be?" That was sarcasm, right? Its so hard when the speaker talks in that gravelly tone. Either way, for now he seems happy to bring up the rear, lumbering after the group when they begin to move, leaving it questionable as to what the hell they might be doing with the girl that's just been freed.
Ashe retakes her place towards the back, "We could possibly use that to find the quarry if needed." she tells them. Then she gives a look to Byron and there's a bit of a smile to the man as she resheathes her knife.
Rorschach looked to Ashe and twitched one antennae, and then signed to Tom <<Fine we'll try thte thing but if it makes me lose my mind only you get to ride around o n me like a pony>> He pulled out the 'finder stone' and pressed it to his lips and whispered to it. Now wether any sound came out or not was another story, but he gave it a go.
No matter how Tom is behaving for small few moments, he is still Tom. His response to Rorschach is to suddenly do a giddy-up dance, bowlegged, one hand on imaginary reins and the other waving in the air like a bullrider. Ror gave him PERMISSION, and it means the anticipation just takes him over for a little while. He has to make up for being useful somehow.
Dielle opens her mouth to object, but nope, too late. She sighs and then keeps an eye out for the spider and one eye on Rorschach. "If he starts havin' a seizure, I'm votin' Byron restrains him. Robbie bites."
The stone does as requested!
The moment Rorschach powers it, a deep, steadily welling glow of teal-shading into aquamarine light sparks to life within it, and it tugs firmly, but not painfully in his hand...
...directly toward the young woman.
Unless the buggo tries to think about his home or getting back there, he is otherwise unmolested. Seems the planty woman was honest.
Byron mutters softly at Dielle, "Id prefer we not go through all that fun again, so here's voting he's fine. He gave me nightmares for two weeks last time he got me into trouble." There might have been a slight tinge of amusement from Byron at that, more rueful speculation, closer to it. He does at least stop there and reaches out to offer an idle, light scritch against Ashe's back.
Ashe looks to the girl they just let loose, "That's interesting." she states with a bit of a frown.
Rorschach turns and points <<The woman. She's our target. GET. HER. NOW.>> He turned on heel and folloed the tiny rock looking like a bug on a singular mission. Goddamn it. She could have been any natur of mirrorskin. damn damn damn.
Not speaking sign language, the young woman seems puzzled by Rorschach's sudden about-face, his emphatic gestures eliciting no more than an earnest attempt to decipher them.
The bug is the radar, as far as Tom is concerned. He's never been the deepest of thinkers. So when Rorschach turns and points, he gets a tailwiggle on; two steps in the direction they were leaving, only to whirl where pointed back to the girl they freed. "Bug, that doesn't look like the guy," is his only observation. Straight-line reasoning, Tom has.
"Please stop right there, Miss. I wouldn't like havin' to shoot you. Much." Dielle's voice is very polite, almost genteel, like she asked the girl if she wanted a cup of tea. She's already aiming at the girl.
Byron blinks when the bug does his about face and attention turns back to the girl. The gargoyle frowns and half turns on his heel, that axe still hefted up at the ready. He doesn't look like he entirely believes this is the guy, but Bug never jokes about this crap, especially.
For the record, the young woman hasn't moved. It's the group who has moved. She frowns at them, confused, then shakes her head and tells Rorschach, "I don't know who you're looking for, but I'd really like to survive, please. Why...um, are you trying to make me not-survive?"
Rorschach tried to walk wide to see if the doo-dad would follow her or tug past her. He looked to Tom waving a hand in front of his face and tapping his teeth. <<Mirror face. Shapeshifter. The per we're looking for is a gnhangeling, but they were maybe old man when we wnated to see one. and again in peril, oh hey, help me help me, but let me give you shit? ANY of this sound familiar, TOmmy?>>
Ashe levels the assault rifle at the woman, "Looks like my murdering isn't done for the day. That's if you move one more step that is." she tells her with a big old stitched smile.
This is good enough for Tom. He spreads arms, and crouches, and gets in position like a feline football linebacker. While others bring out the pointed objects and boomsticks, he opts for a different threat: "I don't wanna have to just tackle you, but I will," he tells the girl. "You messed up my buddy first, man."
The young woman seems genuinely bewildered, and, upon having an -assault rifle- leveled on her, afraid. "What the -fluff- are you going on about?"
Byron frowns a little at the woman's response and stops, tilting his head a little as he listens. No, the axe hasn't been put down, either, though he murmurs, "Inkblot, you sure that thing does you think it does? Or maybe she has a way to get us to him and doesn't know it..."
Dielle just smiles and says, "Nice to meet you, Miss Thudlump. That little rock you gave us sure turned up handy. Maybe we should escort her somewhere a little less webby?" She looks thoughtful. "Or maybe take some of the web with us for tying her up?"
Rorschach signed back to teh group <<Byron's got a point. Anyone have a goblin contract to discern truthiness? we don't know that's what it does. Could point away from teh target. And this is why I hate artifacts and no one listens.>> He handed the rock to Dielle and went about trying to use his own contracts striking a deal with wind and earth instead.
Upon hearing her name, she holds her hands up in a T for time-out, objecting, "Whoa, whoa, wait a minute, nobody needs to tie me up. Could SOMEone explain WHAT on god's green earth I'm supposed to have done to you people?" She frowns, staring at Rorschach, then at Tom, as if trying to remember something. "Do I know you?" After a moment, she seems to recollect something, eyes flickering off toward the Hedge behind them. "The market...you.. oh! Was, was there a scaly guy with you before? The mechanic?"
Rorschach winced and looked up up up and down grabbing his antenna making the sign for <<here here here>> over and over. Looking to the tiny 'woman' his head tilted owlishly to the side and he signed <<Start talking, kid>>
Byron does not look happy at this turn of events, but he's not putting that axe down either. Shuffling a step to the side, his wings are brought up a little, presenting a little more of a looming figure like some twisted angelic monster that stole away from the cathedral he ought to be perching on, "I don't know what the fuck is going on but this is not a good spot to play twenty questions. Your name is Thudlump? Inkblot, are you sure that's the guy's name?"
Dielle takes the rock and puts it in her pocket. "Oh, this is gonna be fun. Can we PLEASE go someplace less likely to be invaded by giant spiders?" She looks from Rorschach to Thudlump and then translates, verbatim. It can be assumed that she's going to do this whenever Rorschach signs to the girl.
Tom bobs his head at the woman. "Yup. That's you. Busted cart, kicked out of Market, everything must go, all kinds of stuff, and -- I'll let the bug tell the rest, but Thudlump, you got some 'splainin' to do." He maintains that 'gonna knock somebody down' crouch, ready to spring, little twitchy moments that imply the pounce. "I can pick her up all sack of potatoes," he suggests to Dielle. "We should go, sure. But this is the guy. Girl. Interrogatee?"
Increasingly frustrated, Thudlump demands, "What do you think I DID?" before blanching and quickly shaking her head at the prospect of going back somewhere else. "Oh, no. No no, I can't." Almost panicking, she explains, "You took it, and I can't. We. Um. Which of you took it first..?" Stymied briefly, she frowns, muttering, "Fudge, fudge, fudge," under her breath in a hasty string. "You don't understand. I -can't- go back, or the pledge will break, and he'll know, and they'll -die-."
Now that the dam has broken, words practically leap over one another on their way out, her explanation urgent and increasingly teary. "He sent me out with that cart of stuff, said I had to sell or give away a hundred things, and bring the hundredth buyer back. He took my family. I'm, I'm REALLY sorry."
Pulling off her amulet, she throws it at the ground in the middle of the group, releasing a minor concussion of misty blue-white force -- and teleporting each and every one of them to a location far, far less ordinary than even that forest had been. The area around them only offers the barest nod to human-accepted laws of nature, trees impossibly attenuated, thorns lacy, impractical, with needle-like spines of crystalline glass. An archway rises in the midst of the thorns, tall enough for a stag with a full rack of antlers, but only broad enough for two slender people to pass through at once.
Hi, Arcadia. Again.
Ashe gives a look to the group when the exchange begins. Then when Thudlump takes the pendant off and tosses it there's a bit of a look towards it. She wasn't sure what it was going to do. Then there's a gate to Arcadia. Oh to hell with that. The Legate looks to the others, "Back up, I don't know what's going to come out." she tells them.
Rorschach snapped his fingers at Tom and signed <<Grab the stone and get home. I'll follow!>> He looked to Byron seeming to actually /gain/ lucidity closer to Arcadia like he had left his common sense in there and was close enough to access it, <<Byron get her out of here!>>
Byron freezes for a moment when the pendant hits the ground. It really takes a few seconds for it to just register How Close They All Are, but then Ashe's voice is piercing his thick skull and for just a second, he looks like he's going to protest leaving her in the lead, but he latches on to Rorschach's words and reaches out to try and grab the Queen with one arm and anyone else that just happens to be close enough to his wings or other arm, and tries to pull back. Because Fuck This Noise.
Dielle is trying not to flip out. There isn't TIME to have a full-on hysterical episode. Instead, she's already aiming at the gate as she backs up, step by slow step. Pulling back isn't ever a bad idea. She glances at the traitor and tries to decide whether it's worth it to just go ahead and shoot her. She makes the decision not to waste the time or arrow. Probably a good thing she didn't have her gun out: she'd be a lot more likely to shoot her with a bullet.
Tom first springs forward, and stumbles when the scene changes; then he pulls himself back upright and scrambles and squirms like the cat who fell in the bathtub. WITH WATER IN IT. He skitters, not quite registering Rorschach's emphatic directive. "No! But yes! But -- NO! YOU!" He points a clawed finger at Thudlump. "Betrayer, I will curse you SO HARD you'll wish you were betraying your own ass, betrayer!" he spits. Yes, that's the poetry of the glory of Faerie for you, folks.
"Remember what my job is when I'm not wearing a crown!" Ashe hisses to them. "Damn it." she grumps. She doesn't pull any weapons. Attacking doesn't work with tricks in Legate ways. She needs to be unarmed to do this. If anything does come out. "I'm just trailing. I'll be fine. I'm keeping up. Keep moving." she waves her hands.
Well, it IS the Queen telling him to let her go, damnit, but damned if the gargoyle doesn't really want to. Shaking his head a little to try and clear it, Byron backs up further, loosening his hold on the small crowned one, but really to instead place both hands on that axe. By god, he'll kill something if he has to, but is TRYING to make sure they are bringing up the group, and not leaving anyone else behind. Cept for maybe that Thudlump person. Not getting Retaken over him.
Thudlump hurries toward the gate, heedless of the thorns which cut her arms on her approach, and calls, "I brought the hundredth buyer to your gate! I fulfilled my oath!" the instant she passes into Arcadia, desperation choking her voice.
.: So you have... :. comes the unearthly reply from within. The voice is largely devoid of emotion, and in a moment, the earth roils from below, seedpods the size of cars rising up, then splitting with a moist sound to divulge the amber fluid-covered forms of a naked older man, woman and two younger children, younger than Thudlump by far.
The source of the voice is difficult to discern, until one notices that the very trees have developed knotty eyes...mouths...and, passing the gate, an impossibly mobile set of roots. The Hedge around the Changelings begins to warp, obliging the Fae's will, trod closing off to prevent them from fleeing down the path.
Can't hyperventilate. Bad time to hyperventilate. Slow that breathing down. Holy cow, what the ever-loving...Dielle continues to backtrack, but she's no longer aiming at Thudlump. Now she's aiming at the gate. And she opens her mouth to say something all quippy and witty and nope! Nothing there. She is never gonna be a Hollywood action figure at this rate.
Rorschach was, at the end of any given day, an insect and he was hard wired to protect his hive and his queen. That said he was a cockroach and roaches were not bees who build, they only occupy. When his hands went out to try to push his will to shape teh gate closed it didn't go as planned. The area started to react off his wyrd even worse than it already did suffering radiation heat death to teh lesser plants of the hedge around them. He reached up with blood stained fingers, and viscous puddles of red left in his footsteps as he moved a hiss. She sold nothing. A hell chitter of an angry insect came back in protest to her claims. Was there to be litigation on this it wasn't his to do. WHat he did learn was he was shit at shaping hedges. Eat them? yes. Make topiaries? Well... at least he still has his day job.
Byron widens his eyes at that voice and forces himself to turn away from it. Trees moving. With eyes on them. Thorns closing in, and Byron...has an axe, and might NOT be willing to accept that they are boxed in. Instead he just roars at some of those eyes, "Fuck YOU, we are not going back!" and starts swinging. Does he have a plan in mind? Violence isnt a plan? Have you MET a stonebones before?
Tom goes from friendly stray to feral survivor altogether quickly. The very ground is vomiting up people? He yowls as he backs up, "Worse, I'll nail your FAMILY, motherfucker! I will lick them so hard they won't remember you FOREVER." Still threatening their sell-out Thudlump, in...his own inimitable Moonbornish Moon-cat way. It makes sense in a very fuzzy brain that is scrabbling for a place to flee.
Ashe has exactly five minutes to work with. Five. Fucking. Minutes. And GO! "I'm Legate Ashe Whelan. Autumn Monarch of Fate's Harvest Freehold." she states to the Gentry. "I'll ask who I am addressing as it is polite." she states. Then there's a look back to her Freeholders, "Everything will be fine." she tells them.
There's no violence in the Fae's movements. It's rather slow, really, but it's slow the way the roots of a tree are slow when they crack the granite face of a mountain. Patient, herbaceous inevitability. The longer it is in view, the more obvious it is that the Fae is -not- a plant. It may look like one, sometimes, and move like one, sometimes, but there are mathematical vertices and angles and planes and its body seems almost a world in miniature, mountains and the semblance of rivers blithely ignoring gravity between the cracks in its rough 'bark'y flesh.
Or is it a stone?
It could be clay.
When Ashe introduces herself, it holds off on doing anything worse than silently weaving the Thorns into a nigh-impenetrable wall in their vicinity, dozens of eyes winking into existence over its massive-not-massive tree-like-not-tree-like flesh. .: You are of symbolic value to your people, :. the voice remarks, though where exactly it is coming from is difficult to judge. There, ah, are a lot of places on this thing which could qualify as a mouth. .: I am Many. :. The eyes wink out, limbs extending, roots growing in place in an oddly stop-motion jerk, sudden, then not-sudden, slow, crawling through the air toward the other changelings. .: You are many. Who? Who is the hundredth? :.
Dielle is staring up at the being, and decides, somewhere within herself that nope! This isn't happening. This is not particularly possible. She's forcing herself not to go to la-la land, but when they get out of this? Mental vacation, for sure!
Ashe waits for the reply and there's a nod, "Then I shall point out something." she steps forward. "In the talking it has been brought to my attention that Mister...errr...Miss Thudlump had to get rid of 100 items and bring the last 'buyer' to the gate to fulfill his...now her oath. Miss Thudlump, however, wasn't sure which of us qualified. Then you, by inference, only want the one hundredth person." she explains as she approaches. "So if none of us are proveable as the one hundredth person, none of us qualify by the desired metric." she nods to this. Then she switches her tone, "Which means that we will be taking our leave. Thudlump's business with you and his oath is something that he has done and not something I can speak on. But I'm sure you can hash that out with him." she states. "I will be taking my people and going now." she nods to this.
When Ashe starts ADDRESSING the Fae, well, that's certainly enough to get Byron to stop thinking of taking other action and just turn back to her instead, though he's absolutely trying to back away from the Other, holding an arm and a wing out as if he can coax others back in the process. Is he going to accept what the Apple has dictated? Or are they all about to become dinner? Hard to tell!
Tom is not doing the composure thing very well. He's breathing hard -- no. He's hissing, all right, fangy teeth just bared and hair standing up everywhere. His ears are flat and he looks like he's preparing to punch someone, anyone. Friend, foe. Tree. Himself. Just for the pleasure of beating on someone or something so as to stave off the rush of antipathy the Gentry just carry with them. He's at least not interrupting, other than that under-the-breath ffft-noise.
Rorschach signed objectivly, <<There is no 100. She did not sell. Also we never agreed to anythign we kidnapped her. She's terrible at sales.>> Really it'd be easy to go that's the broken one, but for all of that he was remarkably calm. There was something to living life entirely derranged. Most of the crazy shit he saw day to day wasn't real. This? This was crazy so it was definiatly jsut a hallucination too. Dilirium is sometimes bliss.
Dielle says that very quietly, for the benefit of anyone who's not watching him sign. Her voice shakes, but it's pretty automatic, her translation.
Stop-jerk-smooth extending tendrils of plant-stone-soil-water toward Ashe, the Fae encircles her, but doesn't touch, studying, palpating the air touched by her body instead.
.: Truth. Ambiguity. :. It goes utterly still, and stays that way, though the Hedge doesn't, more and more tendrils of glass-thorned vines creeping up from the soil to ensnare anything and anyone unlucky enough to be nearby.
And it stays that way.
And it stays that way, tick-tocking the time away as it considers the Legate's words.
Eventually, long after human conversation would have dictated that it speak again, eyes open on its limbs and trunks, observing Thudlump with emotionless analysis. .: The oath was fulfilled. The hundredth was brought. :. The eyes wink out, reappearing at different angles, in different places, as limbs stop-motion jerk and slow-creep toward the other changelings to observe them, as if something will magically indicate which one was REALLY the one hundredth recipient of its items. When it reaches Rorschach, it lingers, considering the bug for an extended review. .: Your home (can only)is(will be) here, :. in a dozen alien voices, hoarse whispering winds and the echo of stone, the rush of water and all-devouring flame.
Limbs retracting, it retreats toward the gate, accepting the loss of months' worth of work on the part of its unwilling minion without a word. Eyes and mouths crack open, all facing Ashe as it moves into its realm, one impossible shape at a time. .: Yes. :.
And, with that agreement, it is gone. Thudlump, too, is nowhere to be seen, the soil on the other side of the Arcadian gate as untrammeled as before.
Byron just...stares...for several seconds. He blinks once, then finally finds his voice in a soft rumble, "I think...we need...to get the fuck out of here. /Please/." He even had to glance at himself to make sure his stone hand't turned white over that little incident.
Tom flings up a paw. "Aye." Another paw. "Aye. The ayes have it. Don't get me wrong, that was brilliant and shit, let's never EVER do that again. I hate this place. It smells like dog. Like dog butt. Are we sure we're home free? Not until home so let's motor." There's one last hiss aimed at the gate like a wasted curse.
Ashe is still and silent as the Gentry goes about its work. Because she knows what's about to happen. And she feels bad. She doesn't take her eyes off of of the Gentry as it departs and when it and Thudlump are gone there's a moment she closes her eyes and remembers how to breathe. "I'm sorry." she breathes out. Then she turns to the group, "Let's go, quickly." she tells them.
Rorschach stood thereand lifted a long pale finger at the tree, antennae twitching. No. Nooooo nono. aaaand no. Those hollowed dark eyes squint. This was not his destiny. NO aand no. He made a promise if he returned he's chew that gentry up like an angry terminte and topple the whole fel place. He waited following them back out and waved Byron ahead fishing a small 1" mirror out of pocket and breaking right of the group leaving the gate. Where he rain was abeacon of ruin; heat death of vegitation and a ground stained red where water gathered. Anything following them would at leat not be headed for the group. Ecape plan? Always.
Dielle nods. Then she nods some more. It'd be helpful if she could STOP nodding. She's still backing up, slowly, her eyes very wide, and she's sweating. Still not good with the words, it's easier when she's being Rorschach's voice.
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