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Post by Kari Muffin on Feb 11, 2008 1:11:48 GMT -5
Viola didn't really want to say anything. She just shook her head and cried. She knew that Father was dead. There was no doubt in her mind that he was dead after seeing that much blood. Really, what could she say?
She didn't look up at her Daddy or Uncle Bernard. She didn't want to see their faces at the news. Lani was better at dealing with this than she ever could be. The deer snake choked back her tears a little and looked briefly at her sister.
There was no way to make any of this better. They had been far too late to save the day. If it had been a few moments early, she was sure that Lani could have used her power. But everything was just a hypothetical mess, wasn't it now? And a literal mess. God, her stomach really hurt. This was just so very unreal and bad.
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Post by Nathalia on Feb 11, 2008 1:26:45 GMT -5
Bernard said nothing, his mind was blank. He didn't even wait to hear Lani finish her sentence, just tore off toward his nephew's room as fast as his legs could carry him.
"No, no, no, no...please, please, please...."
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Gaston knealt down and scooped his girls up, hugging them tightly to his broad chest.
"Now, now...hush my girls...I'm sure that everything's fine...Uncle Bernard'll see to that, you know he's great with magic...I'm sure Father will be just fine."
His voice was shaking, he couldn't help it, as he walked slowly toward his Queen's room. His eyes wide, unable to stop thinking what if?
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The scene that met Bernard was exactly what he didn't want it to be. His mind was empty and he walked over to the sprawled form and just dropped.
His knees cracked against the floor, but he didn't hear or feel it and he slumped forward.
Staring.
Serafino....
This couldn't happen. He and his nephew had worked so hard to make sure that it wouldn't happen....
Just like Lin, you let someone take him just like you let them take Lin...
The words repeated over and over in his mind and hot tears began to pour down his face. The wound in his nephew's back...just like the wound in her chest. Just like Lin, just like Lin...
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Gaston stopped moving at the sound that suddenly erupted from the Queen's chambers. Ten feet from it, he decided to take a quick detour to the girls' room and put them back in bed before going to see what had actually happened.
But judging from the ungodly sound he was fairly sure that he could tell...
"Naha...I'm just going to take you girls back to bed..ok? Stay there for daddy, alright?" His voice quavered, he started back to the girl's room, when the sound came again.
A horrible shriek, high pitched and broken, it was scratchy and incredibly unpleasant. This couldn't wait, could it?
Turning back he placed the girls by the door to the Queen's chambers and knelt down to look them in the eye.
"Stay here, both of you, don't move."
He quickly moved into the room. What he saw horrified him.
Serafino...his Queen.
He hadn't wanted to believe.
Bernard was slumped over the still form, screaming as though his organs were being ripped out. Gaston rushed over and shook the Human by the shoulders roughly.
"Bernard! What the hell? This isn't helping at all! You're scaring the children!"
His voice broke as he said it, as he saw up close the body of his Queen. Groaning, he sank to the floor alongside Bernard.
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Bernard felt the other King shake him and it stopped his screaming, but he didn't care that he was scaring the children. Let them be scared. he had just lost everything! He needed to leave...
The children.
Leaping up and stumbling out of the room, his pants soaked with blood he raced out to the girls. Reaching them, his voice raspy and pained, he hissed.
"What did you say did this?"
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Post by The Jenn on Feb 11, 2008 1:36:40 GMT -5
Lani burrowed her head into Daddy's chest, beyond relieved that Uncle Bernard was running to see and that he would be able to figure out what to do. She didn't know, she just didn't know, nothing like this had ever happened before...
But when she heard that sound erupt from the room, she started trembling and just couldn't stop. That... that... oh gods... she choked on her tears and sat where Gaston put her, putting a paw overtop her sister and laying half-on Viola, shaking. What was going on? What had just happened? Why?!
She didn't know how much time passed before her uncle raced out of the room and she cringed away from the blood, still standing over her sister but terrified at the sight. So there was no helping. There- there was only figuring out who did it.
"It was a Highland bird, really big," she said shakily. "I've never seen him before. He looked like a predator type, maybe even an eagle like me, really muscular and with a giant knife in his hand. He- he had yellow hair, sort of curly over his shoulders, and I don't know who it was, I've never seen him before..."
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Post by Kari Muffin on Feb 11, 2008 1:43:15 GMT -5
And everything was rolling down the hill faster and faster. Daddy tried to comfort them but the ungodly screaming was enough to make Viola burst into tears once again. She couldn't take this. This just wasn't happening. She felt her sister shaking, it just made everything so much worse. She didn't want it to be real.
Then Bernard rushed in. Blood. Oh god. Viola's stomach protested as she clenched her jaw shut at the smell and sight of it through her tears. It all just needed to stop already. Her sisters description was exactly what they had seen. Something absolutely awful. Who was the guy anyway?
Oh god... Father was dead. Father was very much dead. What was going to happen now? What was everyone going to do? She didn't even try to hold back the tears. It just hurt too much to watch everything collapse. Everything.
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Post by Nathalia on Feb 11, 2008 16:29:52 GMT -5
Gaston tore out of the room after Bernard, afraid of what the other King might do in this situation. He had to protect his princesses!
The instant he had reached the hall though, the magician had already taken off, pounding down the hallway, screaming at the top of his lungs.
"He's gone mad...I never would've believed it..."
He scooped his girls back up and cuddled them to hs broad chest as best he could, soothing them by singing an old lullaby softly.
He felt like he was walking in a dream, nothing felt real and even the crying of his daughters was having a hard time breaking through the shield of disbelieving horror that was the truth of his Queen's demise.
Serafino...how?
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"Blaine! BLAINE! BLAINE, I'LL KILL YOU, BLAINE!!"
Skidding on the marble floor Bernard crashed headlong into the wall outside of his office, leaping up off the ground as though electrocuted, not seeming to notice the blood seeping through his shirt, he charged inside.
Grabbing up two small books and cramming them into a bag he continued to pant heavily, eyes wide and practically unseeing.
Serafino...Lin...It was him, it was HIM!
"I'll kill you, Blaine. I'll wring your neck myself! I'll kill you, I'll kill you, I'll kill you..."
He repeated the mantra over and over, unable to stop it...unwilling to stop it.
He knew from the results of the quest and the questioning of Talon that Blaine was in the Highlands...he also knew his brother wouldn't leave. He would hide in his home, assuming no one would be able to find him.
Grabbing up one last piece of paper he laughed, a breathy high pitched whimper of a laugh as he read over the sheet.
A transportation spell. He had never been able to get it quite right, it was dangerous, he knew, but he would try anything.
Gripping the paper tightly, he hurried through the false wall to his experimentation chambers. Once inside he began tearing through materials, dropping containers that crashed to the floor and not caring a whit for what became of anything he didn't need right now.
Throwing a handful of ashes into the air and groping in his shirt for some of his own blood from the cut on his side. Dropping to his knees and scrawling two triangles on th floor with his blood, he stood with one foot on either triangle.
"BLAINE! Take me to my brother Blaine!"
The Highlander roared as he focused his mind on his brother's face. If this worked properly then he would appear outside of wherever his brother was staying.
Then the spell kicked in.
Bernard let out a scream of agony as his body twitched spasmodically and vanished from the palace.
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Post by The Jenn on Feb 11, 2008 16:42:14 GMT -5
Lani watched Bernard with wide, scared eyes as he tore off down the hall. She didn't know what he was shouting, if it was a spell or a curse or a name, and she couldn't stop the tears that kept trailing down her face.
At least Daddy was still here. At least Daddy could hold them and sing to them and let them pretend everything was okay for a little while. She wondered if she could pretend that hard. Probably not. She'd always been better at dress-up than make-believe.
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With how long it took to set up for the spell and properly execute it, and the fact that it was a less-than-perfected means of transport, Bernard arrived abruptly outside of the small inn in the Highlands just moments after Conway's departure. Morning would come in a few hours, but for now everything was dark and the sky hadn't even begun its pre-dawn show.
The place was dark, with a sole exception of a window on the top floor. Blaine had lit a candle and was busy studying the crown, making sure again and again that it was the right one. His son's crown, his wife's crown, the crown he'd seen ever since he arrived at the palace so long ago with all the ambition in the world. It was the same.
His son was dead, and no one could attribute it to him. He was safe.
Well, he still had Bernard to worry about. Come morning, he would see about poking a few of his contacts and finding another little village to hide in like he had last time.
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Post by Kiki on Feb 11, 2008 20:08:38 GMT -5
Jenn, Kari and Nat receive 4 tokens each, to be redeemed in Ashwin's Shoppe.
This will automatically be added to your recorded totals in the shoppe.
Congratulations, and keep up the good RP!
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Post by Nathalia on Feb 11, 2008 22:32:20 GMT -5
Bernard hit the ground with a smack against cobblestone, rolling and letting out a strangled yelp he struggled to his feet.
He was breathing heavily and his eyes were watering with pain. Something had gone wrong with the spell...he knew he was in the right place, the light had gone off green in front of his eyes, but...it was just like what had happened with the one Mome Rath he had teleported.
His left leg barely functioned, he could feel that one of his tendons had snapped and that another was being rubbed raw with every movement.
He hissed through his teeth and tried to ignore it, looking around, desperate for any sign of his brother.
Looking up, he glimpsed the light. The pain seemed to vanish.
"Blaine! I know you're up there, Blaine! Get down here, you've wanted this long enough! Fight me, you goddamn imbecile! Stop killing the people I love to piss me off and just get it over with! BLAINE!"
He was shaking from exhaustion, pain he refused to acknowledge, and rage.
Too long! Blaine would probably run.
Never again.
Letting out a hoarse yell, the magician changed into his Biped form for the first time in twenty-three years.
Pure white wings pushed out of his shoulder blades, his arms scaled with gold, talons gleaming white. The only red on him were two slash marks on each shoulder and a red cross on his chest. His mane, still in its ponytail, hung limply over his feathers...the first he had felt it do so in so long.
The scars from his last encounter with his brother evident on his back, belly and face, stark against the white feathers and gold swirls.
Talons scratching through the material of his bag he tore out a book and pushed off strongly with his right leg, wings beating madly as he circled out and then dove at the open window.
A high-pitched scream echoed around the empty streets.
"I'll KILL you, Blaine!"
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Post by The Jenn on Feb 11, 2008 22:53:34 GMT -5
Contemplating the jeweled crown in the light of a candle, Blaine's head suddenly snapped up at the sound of a voice he hadn't heard in... years. It had been nearly two decades since he last heard his brother's voice, twenty long years in exile and hiding, stashed away in a remote little mountain village to lick at his wounds with nothing to salve his injured pride. For years before that he had been the King of Hearts, one of the most powerful men in the kingdom, and there he was reduced to relying on the charity and blackmail of a prior contact to stay alive. Away from his son. Away from his brother.
He hated the man, hated him so much. There were too many grievances to count and by this point, their number didn't matter so much as their whole, the rising bile of bitterness in the back of his throat as he heard that voice scream outside his window.
Should he run? Keep running, forever, now that his son was dead and the only thing to truly threaten him was his shrimpy little brother?
No. He was done with running. This time, he would kill Bernard as he'd failed to do during their last encounter. This time, there wouldn't be a body left to scar. He would obliterate the man. Resolve firm in his mind, he looked outside just in time to see a flash of white flying at the window. Bernard!
In one hand, he summoned the long-staffed poleax, the halberd that was his natural King's ability. He could wield it easily with one hand through practice. Ever since he had reached his present rank at twenty, risen from a Ten, he had cherished this weapon and practiced with it constantly. He'd always been muscular, and constant training with his favorite weapon had only improved his build. For all that he'd been out of the limelight since his son's ascension, he hadn't stopped exercising, training. Sometimes it was out of boredom, and sometimes it was with the conscious decision of being ready for the day he could finally cut his little brother down to size.
The weapon was held at the ready. In addition, he activated his Jack's ability and felt a rush of adrenalin surge through his body, muscles bunching and twitching with the after-effects of being twice as strong as he usually was. And considering his normal strength... that was an impressive multiplier. "We'll see who's going to die, brother," he snarled.
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Post by Nathalia on Feb 11, 2008 23:25:00 GMT -5
Bernard had already dived full out at the window, there was no stopping it. He shrieked again as his body managed to get it without hitting anything, his talons stretched toward his brothers' bulk in an attempt to sink them into his flesh and then tear them out after they had gone in as deeply as they could go.
Then the pain hit.
His brothers' readied halberd had been up in the window as he crashed in. He felt the blade slide into and then through his left wing, the limb sliding off and hitting the floor with a heavy thunk as blood spurted from the wound.
Bernard yelled again, his throat raw and scratchy, the scream broken as he struggled to regain balance. There was only one way to staunch the blood loss. Standing as quickly as he could, he regained his Human form, bellowing at his brother.
"Is that all! You think that's all I can take! I don't care anymore, you can try to kill me, but I think you've had your turn, now it's mine!"
Throwing his left hand forward, eyes narrowed and body shaking in pain and rage, Bernard activated his King's ability and his ignore pain ability. The agony in his back dulled slightly, even though his wings were not present in this form...he could still feel.
A flaming halo suddenly engulfed Blaine's head situated along his collar bone and burning into the feathers and flesh quickly.
"I'll see you dead, Blaine! Even if it kills me, I'll see you dead!!
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