End of the Line [Complete]

[Nathalia]

Hitting the floor again was practically pure murder. Bernard felt all of his nerves sing with piercing pain and his vision was completely clouded by blood and tears.

He had heard Blaine's scream and seen him lunge, it was by pure luck that his brother hadn't barreled right into him but had hit the wall instead. This had caused Bernard to lose any semblance of balance he had retained, crashing down onto his wounded side. He was just getting enough breath back to try to roll out of the way when he felt his brother's beak sink into his back below his shoulder blade.

He choked, blood from his burst eye rolling into his mouth and causing him to gag. He felt the beak point driving into the muscle, barely missing the bone, the acid on the beak burning fiercely at his flesh. It wouldn't eat at him as quickly, burning was more likely due to his casting it. Highland hills! If only this was a spell that he was imbued with from birth! Then he would be immune to all of the effects! He let out a terrified squawk as the burning became more intense.

He could feel the effects of the blood loss...it finally hit him how bad off he was...oh god...he was going to die, wasn't he?

Then the hard resin knob was shoved into his ribcage, he felt a rib crack and gagged again, nearly to the point of retching. The shove pushed him back, out of beak range and he reached out with his left arm, dragging himself as best he could, one of his fingernails prying backward with his effort. The knob jabbed into him again, then once more. Driving him farther away from his brother, but furthering his injury. His lower stomach burned horribly.

No more...I can't...oh god no more! Lin....

He focused as best he could, trying to repress the bile rising in his throat. He had one last spell...this was all he could remember..his book...his book was somewhere. Gone...

He tilted his palm outward, his shoulder screaming and managed to mutter.

"B-break..."

Then he retched. Vomiting up blood and bile, whimpering, unable to tell if the spell had affected his brother at all.

"Lin, Lin, oh god...help me...someone help me..."

((OOC: The spell is very much like Pravus's, it should break his brother's fingers...it would have broken his whole arm but...honestly? Bernard doesn't have that much strength to put behind it... </3))

[The Jenn]

The halberd fell with a clatter to the floor as Blaine's fingers crunched and splintered, the bone going to hell and back as the spell tore through his hand. He didn't have the breath left for screaming, could feel the acid soaking his hair and head and back and front, burning and hissing and eating away at anything that it touched... which was an awful lot of him, an awful lot.

He didn't have much time. He could feel the intense pain in his head, the burning as it ate through bone and tried to reach his brain. That would kill him, he well knew. He would die as soon as the cursed stuff hit that most vital organ and began to eat at it as well. The thought was enough to make him gasp once more as he struggled, fingers screaming, body screaming with pain, agony unlike any he'd ever felt before.

Couldn't... he could not let his brother live. Not after this. He could NOT let Bernard walk away from this. He would do anything... his dying wish... kill the bastard! Die, he had to die...

His attacks earlier had jolted Bernard further away, moved him up so that Blaine's beak was no longer pressing against his upper back like before, and in his blindness he didn't know where he would hit, but his brother couldn't have moved that far with his weight pressing down on parts of him, and he blindly stabbed with his beak, his ruined face, anything to cause damage. He could still faintly smell his brother's blood, even through the pain... blood was everywhere, soaking them both, so it may have been illusion on his part... he hoped he stabbed the bastard in his stomach, caught an intestine, anything...

[Nathalia]

Bernard felt Blaine's beak hit him in the back again. He couldn't differentiate between the new pain and the old, he could just feel the change in pressure on his back.

His brother at least seemed to have lost the ability to stab at him with the end of the halberd, but it wasn't enough...everything was spinning or shaking somehow, and he felt his brother's beak sink into his back again, this time hitting a nerve and causing Bernard to gasp and twitch pathetically. He tried desperately not to vomit again, afraid that if he did it might choke him, he was in an awkward position...and was unable to rectify the situation.

The full horror of his situation began to dawn on him as his brother's attacks began to slow...horribly.

They were both going to die...right here. In an inn in the middle of nowhere...and no one knew where he was...or probably cared.

Serafino was dead.

Did he even want to live anymore?... His mind drifted slightly as the pain consumed him, unable to see and barely able to breathe.

Yes.

He didn't want to die, he was terrified as the thought hit him full force.

No, no, no, no...oh no please...let someone find me...

He wasn't sure he believed in an afterlife...at least here he could remember Lin...Serafino. If there was nothing after...

"Someone help....help me, please. Please, please, please. Help me..."

He whispered over and over, unable to stop shaking his face stuck to the floor.

"Lin..."

[The Jenn]

Blaine got in a good stab, felt his beak pierce the flesh of his brother's body and would have let out a triumphant noise if he'd been able to do so, to think clearly, to acknowledge anything besides the pain searing along every nerve and singing through his brain. He was losing so much blood, felt it seeping from his arm and all along his body, wherever the acid ate into him he couldn't clearly feel, it was just a blinding void of pain that he couldn't wrap his mind around.

He couldn't distinguish the moment when the acid ate away through his skull and entered his brain, just noticed himself slowing, stopping... dying... a world of pain.

And then it was over.

Ten minutes later, the proprietor of the inn would feel it safe enough to knock on the door where the King of Hearts had been staying. As a Nine of Diamonds himself, with no one else in the inn higher, he hadn't wanted to so much as touch the doorknob until the terrifying sounds and screams from above had been long-quiet.

[Kiki]

Jenn and Nat receive 1 token 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!

[Nathalia]

The owner of the inn was a skeezy looking Highland Corvie mix, clearly a Rat with a missing ear. He pushed the door open slowly and gazed around, eyes wide.

There was blood everywhere, splattered on the walls, smeared across the floor, and dripping from nearly every surface.

"Holy shi-"

He stopped speaking as a whisper caught his ear. Moving hesitantly over to the bodies lying prone, he peered at them, feeling his stomach clench at the thought that either of these badly mangled people could still be alive.

He leaned over so as to see past the Eagle's large, half spread wings. He felt nervous, he knew for a fact that this Eagle was a King...he had paid upfront and everything...who would be dumb enough to take on a-

He froze, eyes popping as he bit his lip in an attempt to keep from vomiting. The King's regal curly-haired head...was half dissolved. He stared at the full extent of the damage.

"Oh nooooo...no, no, no...not now... I can't have cops here now..."

The Eagle was missing an arm too...no...

He finally allowed his gaze to slide to the other form...a Human, he couldn't tell the rank, and the hair was so soaked with blood... The man was badly mangled and bleeding freely.

And whispering. Still talking.

He couldn't make out the words, but the man's lips were moving and he still seemed to be alive...

Damn.

Kneeling down, he tried to get him to talk louder, his missing ear impeded on his hearing. He tried desperately to avoid getting blood on his fur.

If he could keep this guys alive...then the cops might be distracted enough to ignore the rest of the place...

"Hey...hey buddy, can you talk? Can you hear me?"

He leaned in a little further, there was blood dripping from the Human's mouth onto the floor, wrinkling his nose, he pushed in closer. The man didn't respond...but he could hear him...

"Oh god, oh god, oh god. Help...help me please, please..."

The words were being repeated over and over, it didn't appear the the guy knew he was there.

Sighing, he reached a long-fingered paw down to the man's face, touching gently on the side that still had an eye and muttering a few soft-spoken words.

Running a less-than respectable Inn sometimes meant learning a little magic, being half Corvie helped too...

Slowly, his spell began to staunch the flow of blood. The eye, the scratches on the back, and the chest stopped bleeding. But the side wound...that thing wouldn't close, it was beyond the little power he had...but maybe...if he called someone. Rushing out of the room and down to the front desk, he grabbed desperately for his mother's Mome. She had left the stupid creature to him in her will...he hadn't know about the telepathy the thing had until after she died.

Calling that odd doctor...Temmin? Sounded like a good idea...

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Bernard couldn't feel anything anymore...it was a nice relief. He couldn't tell if he was still talking...or even still breathing. He just knew that he was tired, so tired...

[The Jenn]

Though Temmin was certainly surprised to get a call from this particular contact at this particular time, not really speaking to the rat except when they had business to conduct, he agreed to fly over and take a look at the situation the man was half-describing in his worry and high-pitched panic. It honestly sounded like something he would be interested in or have some knowledge about, especially considering that one of the participants was a King of Hearts. There really weren't that many of them running around and he had a pretty good grasp on the machinations of his own suit.

He certainly knew enough to spot the old King of Hearts when he saw the half-dissolved head, and his breath caught when he saw the current one. Or, well, maybe the old one there as well... since Queen Rai hadn't had time to officially take on any Kings in the few hours of his reign. The palace was still reeling from the aftershocks of the Queen's murder and likely would be for some time.

The bleeding at the side and kidney he was able to stop, though only just in time with how much blood was pouring out of it, but he would need to take a serious look at that wound later. It may have nicked an intestine as well for how deep it was. He took in the man's entire series of injuries and winced, taking a deep breath. There was a small chance that he would live through this, but a larger one that he would not. The Corvie would have to work fast.

"I'll have someone come for the other body shortly," he told the innkeeper in a low voice. "Expect someone from the palace and keep your head low. Be nothing if not polite." He would send one of Serafino's Kings if he could, maybe Gaston... he was hefty enough to carry Blaine's corpse back to the palace, large as it was. As for the heron, he had a King of his own to worry about.

[Nathalia]

Bernard regained consciousness slowly, his head throbbed angrily...he thought at first that there must be someone nearby running up and down stairs or something equally awful.

He couldn't hear much of anything, just an odd distant buzzing. He couldn't feel most of his body either.

Am I dying?

Now he felt ill...at least that meant his stomach still worked....if anything.

He couldn't move his limbs and he felt drowsy...god...now what?

"Please...I don't want to die..."

He whispered, shivering slightly, fear clenching his insides painfully so that he squeaked. He really didn't want to die...at all...

Managing to force his eye open, he was given an even worse headache. The bright light lanced through his skull...damn. Once he was able to focus, he found to his shock that he was in his own room. How in all the Highland hills had he gotten back here? He recieved an even bigger shock when someone to his right, out of his feild of vision, grabbed his wrist.

He jerked, then hissed in pain.

"Your Highness...I beg you to stay still..."

Came a familiar voice, it sounded overworked and irritated.

"T-Temmin?"

"Who else, stop moving please or you might very well die...it was damn hard to close up your side. Thank you"

Bernard lay as still as he could, his heart rate calming down, trying to relax.

"My brother...?

The Heron leaned over him so that his face was in view of the King's remaining eye.

"Is very dead, don't worry about him, he's gone...you made certain of that. I am impressed, your highness..."

"You know I prefer names to...titles, Temmin."

Bernard managed with a half-hearted grin. He might live? That was more than he had hoped for...how the Heron had found him he would ask later...for now...all he wanted to do was sleep.

"It's an aspect of the job, Bernard. Damn your leg...you might not be able to do a lot of running after this...or seeing, or eating spicy food...why in hell didn't you call someone to help you fight that dough-head? Gaston would have loved to at the very least, I'm sure."

"I...I don't know, Temmin. I guess I was just..."

He didn't know...

"Hurt, it's understandable. If you try to get up before I come back, I'll nail you to the bed. Good afternoon, Bernard. I'll come around again tomorrow."

"Thank you, Temmin..."

He couldn't think of anything else to say. The door swung shut and Bernard stared at the ceiling.

Serafino and Lin were dead.

He couldn't stop the tears.