TRIAL IV

[lesmodsalouette]

Trial

Another Saturday, but this Saturday is your last Saturday. If everything holds, if everything works out. After all you've been through, are you capable of being an optimist? The carnival calls regardless, furniture arranged around as they always are with banquet table and pit in the middle.

This week's new offerings are: a fluffy loaf of a certain type of rye bread, a hearty beef stew and an assortment of fresh pies with candied fruit and cream.

For the last time, find out who killed two of your own: G'raha Tia and Sariel.

(( OOC: Welcome to your first trial! You'll have 7 hours (until 8 PM EDT/5 PM PDT) to vote one (1) person guilty of murder. As this is scapegoat style, a correct vote is not necessary. Please remember to vote unless otherwise discussed with the mods, as that is our AC for this game ))

Locations Profiles Investigation Voting Main Nav

Comments

me crying in how I don't have icons for this but IT'S FINE

[oncefallen]

["Please calm down, Wrath." He can almost hear Mere's voice in his mind now, and that only serves to make him more furious.]

Shut up, SHUT UP!

[He doesn't want to hear anything-- from Hwyl, from Junior, from anyone. Just a few minutes ago his anger had been simmering quietly as he'd listened to Angelo rant about how hideous and cruel the world was, because a part of him had still wanted to believe in Cain's rebuttals.

Now, though, he finds himself agreeing, and he raises the dagger - now red and wet with Hwylryn's blood - again.]

describing actions is hard it turns out

[antemeridian]

[ You know the 14 year old at your back that you're pretending doesn't exist? Yeah, she's going to haul him back harder for a moment—

then let go, and in a motion almost too quick to follow, spin herself around and to his front to sharply backhand his raised arm in a way that knocks it wide, letting it draw a harmless arc.

then take hold of the wrist (and elbow)of the hand holding the dagger, aiming to twist him arm behind him in a way that forces him to give up, drop the dagger, take a moment for everyone to just stop— whatever she can get.

(she'd probably thought to try to knock him out, briefly, but perhaps this is better.) ]

Drop. It.

[oncefallen]

[Vanis has almost a foot on her. He's also underweight and has no muscle tone to speak of, so when combined with the weakness from running low on mana, it doesn't take much to wrest that arm behind his back even as he struggles and rages.

He's not giving up, though, even as his energy starts to flag. His anger is still burning, and that's all he needs for the moment.]

Let go of me...!!

[antemeridian]

If you want to do anything useful for Sariel [ because she doesn't trust the Witch, she doesn't trust his goddess, she doesn't trust that the dead have their side of things handled, ] then drop it.

[ 'whose side are you even on?' 'i am an ally to the rational-minded, and an enemy to those who would pursue pointless conflicts.

'which one are you?'

not that she thinks he's really in a state for anyone to reason with, right now. no one short of Sariel, anyway. but she'll try anyway, futilely, for a moment, to give the blaze of his anger a chance to burn itself out, because that's what she does these days, she tries, and tries, and tries and tries so that someone else won't have to.

but if he really won't stop, she'll do it for him. you don't need strength to knock someone out— you just need to know where to hit them, and given that she's shorter than him, his jaw makes for quite the target. ]

[oncefallen]

[He will not stop, alas, not when Hwylryn keeps saying things that unintentionally hit right at all of the spots where he's already wounded, wounds that are still raw and festering even centuries later, torn open anew by the events of the past day.

And so, when she strikes, he'll drop like a puppet whose strings have been cut, all of that anger extinguished for the moment along with his consciousness.

It's probably for the best, honestly. He buried "Wrath" 1600 years ago when he fell.]

paps gently

[coldseep]

( Hwyl hasn't minded letting Vanis vent his anger with that one stab, and he did predict there would come another - an endless amount, if anger had its way, probably - but he doesn't want to bleed out here, so he will pivot back on his heel, not as far away as he could've gone if he wasn't carrying Junior, but uhhh he isn't putting him down if Junior is Vanis's real target. )

He'll be back. At least, I hope he will be. It's what Ish has been working so hard for.

( He'll keep stepping back and away, like a dancer, for as long as Vanis seems to need it. If he doesn't let up... well, we'll play by ear. )

[oncefallen]

And that's supposed to make me feel better?

[His pupils are pinpoint pricks of fury now as he tries for another swipe and misses, only to have Homura grab onto his arm with a grip surprisingly strong for one her size.]

You killed him! Tortured him! Why did you have to make him suffer? He never... he thought of everyone here as friends!

[He can't simply let this go, not when he had to sit there and listen to all of the gruesome details of Sariel's murder.]

[coldseep]

He was my friend, too.

( A step back, a step to the side, hair flowing in the wind - strands cut, as Vanis's knife might slice through them. )

He wouldn't have had to suffer if he stayed still enough to be shot. All I wanted to do was stagger them. But, well...

( Sariel got aggressive; G'raha kept speaking; and then... and then... )

... This is how a Northern dragon shows their love. I'm sorry I can't be like you.

( He says "sorry," but he doesn't mean it as apology. It's simply a gesture of sympathy for Vanis's grief. )

[oncefallen]

Don't use that word to refer to him.

[The rage is still bubbling hot like lava, flashing momentarily brighter as Hwylryn has the nerve to call Sariel his friend. And the explanation (excuse? Does it even really matter in the end when it changes nothing?) only serves to infuriate him further.

(How can you say these words when you took him away from me??)]

... and don't speak to me of love.

[Maybe he was the one who was a fool all along, to think that love could ever do anything other than hurt and destroy. It hurts. It hurts, and yet he'd wanted it so desperately, wanted to believe that love was something other than Mere's attempts at playing a happy family, that maybe there could be something real and genuine.

He'd found that. Sariel had given that to him, and now he's gone, and Vanis feels as though someone has torn his heart right out of his chest and ripped it into a million pieces.]