[log] I JUST DIIIIIED IN YOUR ARMS TONIIIIIIGHT [closed]

[devoutish]

Characters: Alfie Solomons, Emily Kaldwin, Fiona, Royce Melborn
Location building 41
Date: evening of 157 through morning of 158
Summary: Alfie bleeds to death in the blood house, for maximum Snowhell fun
Warnings: graphic injury, death and dying

Step into the only remaining room in this house and you'll be in for a shock--at first blush, it looks like you've stepped into a room that has blood all over the floor and walls. Look closer, though, and it's actually paint. This was once an artist's studio, judging by the canvases stacked up in the corner. It seems like there were paintings on the canvases once, but now they're muddy or blacked out entirely by thick paint. Some of the paint on the walls has been scraped away, revealing yet more paint. Some of the canvases have had their paint scraped off, or have been taken apart entirely.

Comments

[devoutish]

[I mean, let's be real, Royce and Fiona are probably like inches away right now too.]

Thanks, sweetheart.

[empireofrats]

You're welcome. [She thinks she would want someone to stay with her if she died, too. Corvo in particular, but here, in this place, Royce or Alfie or Tifa.] Duster says people come back, so I know you will.

And we'll be here. And I'll have another picture for you.

[devoutish]

[He exhales, then nods at the book in her hand. She can go on reading if she wants.]

[empireofrats]

[After a moment or two, Emily settles back with the book half in part of her lap and Alfie's arm half in the other.] For now, Jordi and Verath are safe in the glade. The firepit they make for later in the night is tiny, hopefully unnoticeable. Jordi bathes in a stream, and they eat the violet berries of a thorny bush instead of the poisonous red ones hanging low from the tree.

Jordi tells Verath about living in Mallowmill, about the light-flies in the early fall, the pinefruit pies in the winter, the feeling of Mother's linen sheets after they had dried in the spring sun.

And Jordi tells Verath about their family debt, about being given to a sorcerer so it was forgiven, and about crying the first night on the cot in the small room in the attic.

And Jordi thinks, even though Verath can't talk, the dragon understands.

[But Goldlea to the west isn't as pleasant as the name sounds, it turns out. Goldlea is full of radical God-fearing people. Paladins seek out and destroy all who give themselves over to the Blight, magic. Dragons are guardians of it. Swayers. Untrustworthy snakes, sinking their claws into the innocent. Wicked, cunning.

A nosy villager harvesting in the glade spills their whereabouts to the Ivory Mark. Verath can smell the blue flame of their coarse coal as the paladins come for them.]

[devoutish]

[Alfie isn't so much paying attention to the story as he is taking in everything that's around him - the way Emily's voice sounds, the feeling of Fiona's hair under his hand, the knowledge that Royce is sitting nearby. It feels homey, or at least not lonely.

Eventually, his fingers stop moving through Fiona's hair, and his arm falls slack around her. His other hand slips off of Emily's knee. He's still breathing, but it's shallow and rattling. Not long after that, it stops entirely.]

[empireofrats]

[Emily's voice stutters when Alfie's arm goes slack. Looking, she can see that he's still breathing, still alive, but she can also tell it won't be long.

Wearily, she reads a little more of the book like it'll help them all forget it. The paladins draw close, and Jordi and Verath fear for their lives. Jordi is only a girl, and Verath is a young dragon that Jordi is sure the paladins know how to kill.

Alfie dies before she can get any further. For a long time, she sits and stares distantly at the pages of the book, fingers the corners of the pages.]