lex talionis

griss from fire emblem engage mercenary affiliated with the officers academy penned by ree

[encantresse]

[ ♫ ]  ─  * 𝐛𝐞𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐞, 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐬𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡

excavation / +1 any skill

[encantresse]

there's no protest when griss shoulders her out of the way, and wordlessly dorothea releases the girl's hand so that she can step back and allow him the space needed to cast. she's just as thunderstruck as the rest of the children, her eyes widening at the sight: it's the first time she's seen him like this, focused and illuminated by light rather than how he usually appeared to slink in the shadows. it's ironic considering their environment, but even in this dank and dark space, he somehow looks more like a man than the dark specter she'd thought him to be in the woods all that time ago.

in the spell's flickering light, griss's features appear more human. he is human, after all, and always has been, but watching him, it occurs to dorothea that there is more to the one she's written off as a frenzied man with bloodlust. she thinks to question where he's learned, and why he's learned, considering the sort of things he seemed to gravitate toward, though it's better saved for a time when the hourglass' sand isn't steadily pouring before their eyes.

"you're our best bet out of here," she tells griss. there's no trace of flattery in what she says; merely the truth. even from where dorothea stands, she swears the youngster's dark circles look a little lighter, and the abating cough gives her hope that the child's feeling stronger than before. "guess we really will have to swim. do you have enough energy to cast on the others?"

no sooner has she said this than a sharp jolt sends the platform teetering, wobbling unsteadily like an unmoored ship before it begins to vibrate. "--!!?"

A UNANIMOUS DECISION HAS BEEN REACHED, the disembodied voice bellows. whether it sounds pleased or disappointed, dorothea can't tell. but whatever it belongs to, it's clearly kept its word, for she watches on as an arched door materializes in the far left corner of the room, illuminated with enough light to make out strange carvings on its wooden paneling as well as a large brass knocker. WILL YOU LIVE TO REGRET YOUR JUDGEMENT?

overhead, and all around them, echoes the awful screech of metal grates scraping open. if that in and of itself isn't ear-grating enough, then it's the deafening roar of water as massive jets of it rain down and pour out from the sides of the walls surrounding them. the blood drains out of dorothea's face. even under these circumstances, she'd hoped for a small buffer—enough time for griss to finish healing the kids before the water levels rose. she looks to him in alarm, and then to the children, who all appear petrified by the turn of events.

"there's no time to lose! i'll start swimming them out to the door," she hollers to griss over the noise. dorothea motions to the healthy boy, and then to the girl griss has just worked on, to join her where she stands on the platform. the children exchange uncertain looks, but seemingly at a loss for what else to do, they shakily stand to join her. "do what you can with the other kids! i'll swim back to help with them."

she only hopes they can pull this off.

drawing as much air as she can into her lungs, dorothea jumps into the water feet-first. a loud gasp tears from her as the temperature registers: it's colder than it was originally—no doubt the bastard behind this was trying their damndest to make the swim as difficult as possible—though she wills herself to don a placid expression for the kids' sake. it takes some convincing, but by the grace of all that's good, both plunge in with her, and she quickly slips one arm underneath the weakened girl's to help her stay afloat. thankfully, the healthy boy appears to be able to tread water on his own, and she yells out her next set of instructions to him specifically.

"swim to the door! hurry!"

[twistedisciple]

So that was all it took to trigger whatever trap had been set on this platform: just a minor healing spell, hardly enough to cure any of these children of what ailed them. Griss teeters and nearly seems to fall as the rising water buoys the platform underneath him, but by some miracle of flexibility, he splashes his hands through the icy water before pulling himself back up like a doll on strings. If the children had been watching him, the stunt might have pulled a scream out of one of them at least, but their eyes, wide with panic, were all fixed on Dory and the two she'd decided to save first as they half-swam, half-trudged into the water.

The remaining two are weak, and one falls to his knees out of his chair in some desperate attempt not to be left behind. Tears beginning to spill over the corners of his eyes, he crawls over to the edge of the platform and looks as if he might tumble right in head-first when Griss snatches him back by the collar. The boy falls backwards and begins to cry.

"You better be thanking me," Griss snaps. The kid doesn't hear, and truthfully Griss isn't sure he's anyone's savior here. He'd cast that healing spell on the girl because he wanted answers, not because he intended to break the rules of this torture chamber and make her healthy, but now they were paying for it. Dory's certain they can make it out with all the kids. Griss looks back at the one girl that'd been left behind, still sitting in her chair with her head lolling back and forth, and seriously doubts they'll get out of this in one piece.

"Hold still." Standing around won't get him any closer to the door though, so he grabs the boy on the ground by the arm and jerks him up into one of the chairs that hadn't been overturned yet. He needs to think, and doing something is better than doing nothing, so he starts pulling magic into his fingertips again anyway even though he'd been serious from the beginning about killing these kids. The boy squirms in his grip, but Griss grabs him around the back of the neck like a cat to keep him from wiggling too much as the magic seeps in through his back. His attention is elsewhere though.

The gate. If Dory managed to get all four kids to it, what about him? Maybe he'd be stuck in this room as a sacrifice, and he had no intention of being left behind. His eyes flick toward the girl in the other chair. She hardly seems to be aware of what's going on around her. If he tipped her chair over, maybe she'd just drown and then they wouldn't have to worry about her anymore. But then there was this boy he was working on, who was still hiccuping and sniffling, his face bright pink with fever and emotion. Pinch his nose shut and cup a hand over his mouth and maybe--

Another pipe opens and pours more water into the room. It's risen so high now that the platform has started to float and wobble beneath them. What's more, the gate that had opened has now started to close again. Slowly, but nonetheless still pressure to get moving. Griss snarls so ferociously in the fading light of his spell that the boy cowers under him and starts crying again.

"Quit your blubbering, you snotnosed brat," Griss snaps again, which does the opposite of shutting the kid up. Griss doesn't care though. He rises to his feet and glances around the bobbing platform, then to the gate. It's about an eighth of the way down and Dory hasn't even reached it.

"Wh-what's-- wh-what's gonna h-h-happen to us?" the boy whimpers through his tears, but Griss shoves him back down into the chair when he tries to stand up.

"Shut up," he hisses. Healing these kids was a waste of time, so instead he stepped off the platform. The water was up to his waist and ice cold, but other than the crazed grin that had taken hold of his face, he didn't even react to it. With a big breath, he dove underwater instead. If Dory turned around, her partner in this rescue mission would be nowhere to be found.

[petalblight]

bad manners.

anniversary 2025 | axe +1 ft. griss

[petalblight]

TSUBAKI BLANCHES. Whatever wrath possesses him dissipates the moment that an authoritative voice enters the scene. Whatever advantage seized from spontaneous audacity is just as swiftly lost; their stomach drops. Throat dried, the grip on Griss's mullet loosens, obsidian tresses nearly freed from their ivory cage as the sky knight merely stares, owlish. His skin crawls— not because of the oil coating this man's scalp— but because of the scrutiny that unfolds before him as the elder's gaze analyzes the scenario before him. Tsubaki becomes aware of the courtyard stares searing his skin, of the whispers piercing his eardrums, of how how impressions of him plummet as everyone tries to make sense of this scenario.

He does not respond to the elder beyond an obedient nod, unaware of the cord now in his palm in exchange for Griss's freedom. He does not dare to speak until it's the elder's retreating figure he now gazes upon and the curious bystanders have ceased their buzzing.

Griss speaks and its as if the cotton has lifted from Tsubaki's ears. His senses spring forth again with new life—-

And, unfortunately, Griss is still just as aggravatingly perverse as before.

"Of course, my good friend~!" Tsubaki chirps with an emphasis on friend— just to make it clear that someone as impeccably perfect as him could never, ever, ever let vexation foolishly consume him! Yet, even though he clears up the air by associating Griss as a fond companion— Why are people raising their eyebrows and giggling childishly at the term!?

"Now, where were we~?" The knight hums in theatrics. He retires the chord; there's no point in reasoning with a madman. Swallowing his frustrations, Tsubaki beams bright: "Oh— Right! We were at the part where you said you were giving it to me— And by it, you meant your complete devotion to the art of mochitsuki! And my cord."

Tsubaki waves down a student carrying a seiro with fresh, steaming mochigome; they promptly put it into the usu between the two knights. Tsubaki's fingers tighten around the kine again.

"That is the mochigome," he says once the mound of rice is placed in the basin, "You wet your hands with the bowl of water to the right, then knead it." A pause.

"And don't be weird about it," Tsubaki frowns, "I will play the role of tsuki-te, the one who pounds the rice with the kine. You are the kaeshi-te, the one who turns the mochigome between each pounding with your hand. I will shout as a signal for when I pound, okay~? That's when you move your hand away quickly or else you will get hurt and ruin our mochi~ And we don't want our mochi ruined~" As for Griss being hurt however, debatable. Not that Tsubaki is one for violence or a fiend who seeks it! It's just—- Well, sometimes, people deserve what they get.

"Now— Listen, listen! I'm starting~" Tsubaki dips the mallet's end in the water, then brings it down onto the mochigome with a shout: "HA!"

[twistedisciple]

The professor coming to check on them hadn't been enough for this obviously high-strung nutcase to throw in the towel, but there are plenty of things that Griss can say to make this scene worse for Tsubaki in front of all these students. Too many too choose from, in fact, that he's not fast enough to pull one on his partner before the redhead charges on ahead with his facade of companionship. So he just smiles and steps back to watch the student bring out the-- well, to Griss' eyes, it just looks like some soggy rice. But what did Tsubaki call it? Mochee-gone-nay?

Whatever.

Griss steps up to the mortar only half-listening to Tsubaki's instructions until a single word piques his attention.

"I'll get hurt, huh?" He doesn't look up, so right now Tsubaki can't see the devilish look that's taken hold of his face. Which is for the best, really. For Griss, that is.

He lets Tsubaki work the rice to get a feel for his rhythm, and before long it’s starting to look a little more like lumpy dough. Now’s his time to shine, so he reaches in with both hands and—

The gathered students gasp out of instinct. Griss laughs out of a similar instinct. The mallet had hit him right across the knuckles.

"Hah! We're gonna be here all day if you're just tickling it like this. I barely even felt that! How d'you think the rice feels?"

[seadasu]

𓍯𓂃𓏧⏾ how to cuɾɾγ fɑvoɾ

☆ mission board pearlescent ☆ + 1 any skill ☆ seadall/griss

[seadasu]

Sun. Stars. Spirits. Nothing truly answers when Seadall stares beyond where Griss is walking and asks what have I done to earn this streak of misfortune? Nothing other than dull throb beginning under his temples. He expects nothing less, either, made to follow the path paved by their choices. 

“Can you be quiet?” He hisses back, mindful that his own voice rattles his skull dangerously. It doesn’t help that the ill-fitted armor digs into his skin in the wrong places. Weighs down his steps such that it takes effort to catch up. “We’re still- this armor doesn’t make us invisible.” 

If anything, it makes them more visible. Weighier steps that leave a trail in their wake and the shift of metal that Seadall has always found to be pleasing when it was attached to the footfalls of others. “The key may not be significant at all.” He muses when they’re a good distance away, circling the property like blind vultures. “The wealthy often don’t part with things of value, you’re right about that.” The key could just as easily be for a broom closet over a treasury. And with the way the day is going? 

There are several locked doors. The key fits in none of them. 

“Hmm. I think-” Seadall doesn’t know what he thinks, has little to offer the situation or the man at his side. So he’s grateful when the deafening creak of some internal mechanism finally gives way in a door crafted from what looks to be solid iron. “Oh.” Oh. He peeks at Griss from the corner of his vision, startled that the door in question doesn’t open to the villa beyond. No. Instead, it digs downward on stairs that look like they’d been forged in a different age entirely before the darkness beyond swallows even that much.

Alarm is a shiver of lightning that creeps up his spine. “These don’t appear to be servant’s stairs. How did the guards plan to fit here either?” The passageway isn’t a normal width at all, where someone with broad shoulders might need to turn sideways to keep their armor on.

It still could be just a storage shed, Seadall knows. Some outdated and forgotten thing. But…gestures to Griss. “Are you going first?”

[twistedisciple]

By now, Griss has taken to swinging the key around his finger whenever he starts itching for something to do with his hands. Not enough blood on them for his taste, but if there's any sense in his head, it at least restrains him from gouging his own skin - or Seadall's - just because he doesn't find this whole mission very interesting at all. He stands at the top of the stairs peering down into the dark with the nonchalance of someone who's seen his fair share of spooky, underground passageways; they're practically a taste of home for a fell disciple. And it's not like he expected a backdoor to this place to open right up into the backyard of some noble's private villa. Stepping right down into the dark without a second thought sounds like the most naturally thing in the world to him.

Trepidation trembles in Seadall's voice just loud enough for Griss to notice and his foot stops right over the first step. He's like a wolf scenting blood, and turns a sneer on his companion that suggests all manner of mischief. That he might push Seadall in first and lock the door behind him, or that he'll trail just a step or two behind so that it's Seadall who springs whatever traps must be set in this place. Or, if there are no traps, then he'll play the part of a persistent spider tickling the back of his collar, disappearing into thin air whenever Seadall slaps his hand over his neck just to come back again when the coast is clear.

But a flame appears over the palm of his hand and the look changes suddenly, like it might have just been a trick of the light.

"Yeah? What-- you scared of the dark or something?" Rolling his eyes, Griss lets his foot drop down to the first warped step, then the next, and down he descends into the claustrophobic darkness that awaits them. Even for Griss, who isn't very big, his shoulders with their ill-fitting pauldrons graze the stone walls on either side of the narrow corridor, and he finds himself stooping a little beneath the low, earthy ceiling.

"My guess is that this leads to the wine cellars. Or the sewers." His voice bounces off the walls and comes back to his ears sounding strange - too close and too alone over the sound of their shuffling armor. There are no sconces mounted on the walls though, no candles along the floor, and no other sign of life even as they reach the bottom of the stairs and peer into a straight line of darkness. The cold winter sun from the open door at their backs has already been swallowed up by most of it, so it's only by the light of Griss' fire that they can see even two feet ahead of them.

They make steady progress until the corridor finally opens up to a larger, square room filled with barrels of a uniform size. Griss scoffs and parts from Seadall to make his way over to a stack of them.

"See? What'd I tell you." He goes from one to the next, rapping his knuckles on their faces to try to tell how much each one contains.

"Where there's wine barrels, there's gotta be bottles of the stuff, too. Hunt down a few and that'll be our in. We're supposed to be working in some guy's kitchen, yeah?"

[dcggersedge]

festival of the hunt

pearlescent | riding +1

[dcggersedge]

Griss twists and turns but eventually - unfortunately - finds his way out from under the hulking mass of "dog". Her eyes briefly linger on his arm before it disappears into the mass of ragged fabric that he wears. She doesn't comment on it. The brief grimace on her face is probably enough.

In the silence, neither of them move. Yunaka looks from him back to the dog. She doesn't regret killing that thing. It was better off dead instead of what it was now. But does she regret doing it before it finished chewing Griss's face off?

It's easier not to think about that, and he makes it easier not to think about it when he breaks the silence with complaints instead of thanks. Not that she wanted them anyway. Yunaka rolls her eyes and sighs, walking over to the corpse to yank the knife back out of it's back. An attempt is made at wiping off what she can of the blood on the dog's side, but ultimately it's still stained when she slides it back into its holster.

"You can go try to find one of the other ones if you're not satisfied." It's bait. She knows it's bait, and so she might twitch a little at the mention of a lucky strike - as if her master hadn't made sure to force the idea of leaving things to luck out of her - she doesn't look back at him, instead turning her attention to dog kennel.

She rests a hand on the door frame and leans inside. It's dark, but it doesn't stink nearly as bad as the dog does. For horrible monstrosities, the wacko running this place seems to at least keep their kennel clean. Which means somebody has to be coming in here to take care of things.

She steps back from the doors and moves over to the side of the kennel. More of the hedge fence…wait. There's a bit of the wall near the kennel that looks different from the rest…rather than one continuous thing like they've seen so far, it looks like there's a transition there from one bush to another.

"Hey, c'mere before you bleed out and die." It's only half an insult. At this point, she's not totally convinced he isn't going to just suddenly drop before they get back. She points over at the bush in question. "Can you light that one up? It looks different from the rest."

[twistedisciple]

Some people - Yunaka among them - probably wished that Griss wasn't half as good at the healing arts as he was. It was the only reason he'd ever managed to survive this long with his specific... hobbies. Even in the fell church, his self-harming practices were unusual and unsettling, which meant he couldn't really turn to anyone to help him out when the wounds he'd inflicted on himself started festering. He couldn't cast his healing spells on his own injuries, but he'd learned all sorts of ways to keep himself alive. Staunching blood, makeshift stitches, most of the plants and other substances that could stave rot off from a puncture - all self-tested, of course, without anything to numb the pain. That was the most important part of the whole ritual, after all.

So while Yunaka is checking out the kennel now that they don't have a giant, disfigured dog to deal with, Griss is ripping strips of cloth from his robes, which, frankly, already look to have been used like this a few times. A sizable part of the grey layer peels away to the plain black cloth underneath, and he works with a loose, unexpected proficiency to stop the blood from continuing to spill from the mangy mutt's parting gift. Especially considering how he has to do it one-handed. With his focus mostly on keeping the rest of his blood in him, he doesn't notice that Yunaka has already turned her attention away from the kennel until she calls for him. By now, he's got a cloth tourniquet tied around his upper arm and most of the blood mopped up, and he ambles over to Yunaka to see what she's found so leisurely and nonchalant that one almost wouldn't notice the fact that his arm still hangs at a strange angle by his side.

"You hit your head or something on the way off that barn?" Griss quips. "The walls grow back! Remember?"

But that's when he notices what she had, and maybe he can blame the blood loss for missing it at first.

Suddenly, Griss grins and his eyes narrow with pleasure. He cups his good hand around his ear and leans down toward her.

"... Heh, I think you're missin' something."

Say please.

[rafent]

✦ 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐌 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐄 ✧

Continued interaction, Griss & Rafal

[rafent]

Even the smallest details didn’t escape Rafal in the realm he knew best. The misty motes of something that might have resembled weakness, the shrinking image of Gregory which flashed for the fraction of a second, all the awful, quiet hurt lurking unseen beneath the surface; these were the Fell Heir’s familiar pieces of victory. In another world, they would have pleased him like nothing else, caused his twisted heart to sing evermore with rhapsody. Righteous, vindicated, glee.

Even someone like you cannot escape my effects; I am an ineffaceable evil with which you have foolishly enacted a bond. Behold that natural result.

What should it matter, who it was? To court closeness with brambles was to be pricked, to subject oneself to an indiscriminate force without recognition for friend or foe. No amount of hope would temper Rafal's edges, do away with the clods of his vicious nature - a nature that had trampled the very world beneath his heel. There was no exemption to his destruction, not even for Griss. If there were anyone to blame, in fact, it would be him. Griss who chose this lord; Griss who stamped the seal on his own suffering, by his own hand, and by his ready choice. By their fateful first meeting.

"And what need have I for anyone else much less a monkey?" Rafal sneered, beautiful as all children of the Fell Dragon were beautiful, wan and striking and unnatural, white upon white. Harlequin only by dint of two searing, mocking blazes of scarlet. "I spoke of you as convenient. You were. Upon stepping foot into this land, I hardly needed to search for a knight to fall into my lap."

He squared his shoulders, pressed himself into the cast of a figure unstoppable and untouchable, a curling shadow against the garden walls. Within their isolated corner of the yard, Griss alone would know it had shook at the behest of a laugh. The movement shifted his shoe; a flower, crushed beneath it in the same breath.

"—Imagine my surprise when the analogue of Gregory brought himself before me! When he offered to serve? How sickeningly convenient, I thought. How utterly amusing. In arriving here, I thought there would be punishment to meet my sins." Beautiful as all children of the Fell Dragon were beautiful; terrible and ugly as the lot of them, too. Uglier. Those same contemptuous eyes regarded Griss, the whole of him, the scars of him, the places where Rafal had touched.

Those places, especially.

"Instead, I was rewarded."

[twistedisciple]

Griss narrowed his eyes, a rare silence having taken over him as he studied his lord's face, now an inch or so above eye-line with the haughty effort to stretch himself taller than his monkey-made-knight. His amusement. His reward. Being any of these things didn't bother Griss; he'd spent his life bending, breaking, and debasing himself to fit molds just to draw a glance long enough to notice him. And it wasn't the first time that Lord Rafal had spoken of ownership either, of possession and unconditional loyalty. A brand sat square in the middle of his exposed chest, although among scars and stripes, metal bits and leather binds, only the one who had left it there would notice the faint indent. Griss could feel Lord Rafal's eyes lower to it and stay there for a moment, like a sculptor finding a subtle defect in his creation.

All of a sudden, he snapped to the side and wandered a step or two from the table, forcing those contemptuous eyes to meet the careless shrug of his shoulders.

"Oh yeah? Fódlan's paradise for all the sinners tossed outta their own worlds, if you haven't noticed." You're not special, said the tone of his voice, but now he wouldn't even honor the fell dragon with with his attention. The mantle across his back with its symbols of his devotion to a long-dead god lifted slightly as he set his hands on his hips and gazed out at the dining hall towering over the courtyard's edges as if admiring the architecture.

With an irreverent toss of his chin, the barest glance back over his shoulder was all he the effort he made to entertain Lord Rafal's presence. He'd hurt him in all the ways he knew how; if not with tooth and nail, then with the same embittering neglect.

"We both got convenient placeholders. A disciple without a god, and a god without a disciple? Heh. Couldn't've dreamed up a better match. But the problem with you is that you think hurting people's something you gotta atone for, and that's not the kinda fell dragon I cut myself all up for."

For once he was matter-of-fact. Provocative, but levelheaded, maybe even resigned. An artificial smile made each word sound as though he formed it with lips he'd pulled back with his fingers as far as they would go.

"Now Zephia's here and if we're talkin' about rewards, she's got you beat. 'cause pain's her love language, while you're over there trying to recruit those do-gooders right out from under the Divine Dragon's nose. It's like you think surrounding yourself with 'em will make you a better person or something."

[fellsparks]

wild turkeese chase

Hunting, Bow +1 w/ @twistedisciple

[twistedisciple]

"Whatever!" Griss rolls his eyes, dragging himself out of the thorn bushes. They rip new tears through his robes and claw streaks of fresh red across his skin. Who cares about innocents? Who cares about the nearby village? They were just supposed to be out here hunting these huge birds. If their methods ended up causing harm to nearby villages, then maybe they shouldn't have their houses so close to these nesting grounds.

"The snow's slowing the fire down, so don't get your scales all ruffled." And Lady Nel had taken out one of the bears, too. Griss eyes the heap of bloody fur lying in the snow nearby. A second too late and that might have been him, actually - a thought that twists his mouth into a morbid smile. Then he blinks, shakes his head a little, and frowns up at Lady Nel. She's already turned her attention back to the fire. Before long, the smoke from the trees would be carried on the wind toward the village nestled in the hills, and they'd probably start evacuating on their own. Griss doesn't understand what's made her so huffy about it all, but he shrugs and follows her with a slight limp. That goose had got him good, and the way he'd fallen would make him sore for days, but he wasn't about to let savoring it now go to waste.

"Now what d'you think they're gonna say when a dragon shows up on their doorstep? The fire won't even matter anymore!" He glances over his shoulder at the bear again. Its friend has already disappeared through the trees, likely to escape the smoldering forest, and the injured turkeese is still flapping its broken wings like it can take off again. Griss flicks his wrist and sends it flying into a rock face with a sharp crack. It stumbles around for a second or two longer, then slumps into the bushes. Probably dead now.

"And all this meat's gonna go to waste, too. If you wanna know what I think: forget the village! We gotta gather what we came out here for, and if the fire really bothers ya, then you 'n me can probably send it in the other direction with some strong wind."

Unfortunately, the dormant trees are prime kindling for the fire once it reaches the canopy, but it's slower on the ground where the snow cover is thickest. They can safely walk near it for now, but before long they'd have embers dropping on their heads if they weren't careful.

[fellsparks]

A rumble of dissent trills in the background as he complains in the same manner that a petulant child would, Nel's draconic eyes shutting for just a moment as she wills herself to simply endure-- Griss isn't entirely incorrect, but the meat won't spoil over the short amount of time it would take to redirect these flames. The tip of her tail twitches for a moment as their options are quickly gauged... and the answer she settles on certainly won't be the one that he would want to hear. Ruffled scales, he says, yet she merely wishes her irritation remained only surface-level. She'd never have expected this reflection of Gregory to be so... obstinate. So difficult. In his own ways, however, her old companion did have his own brand of stubbornness; one that played in to his never-ending will to survive. "Unnecessary destruction was never a part of our mission," A hiss comes as she pivots, all three eyes opening to peer down at him. He's hurt enough for concern to flicker for the briefest of moments, and though he's still manage to stay on his feet, she'd rather not watch as he practically dragged himself through the snow. "Stay. You are injured- I would prefer bringing you back to the Monastery alive." Besides, she can make quick enough work of his idea without the assistance of his magic. As expected, a few beats of her wings has the fire curving away from its slow crawl towards the village-- she's not convinced that it's enough to keep civilians out of danger, but it'll have to work for the time being; a simple task that's turned into an absolute disaster, thanks to reckless action... but dwelling does nothing to change the tide of their luck. Once she's satisfied, Nel huffs once again before lowering her head near Griss's injured form. The blood spattering against the pristine white of the snow brings cause for alarm, but instinct tells her that his hardiness is very much like the man she knew before; perhaps that thought should bring her some sort of peace, but... The temptation to simply snag him by his cape and haul him away to avoid protest is strong, but wounding his pride serves no purpose other than to make their trip far more arduous than it needs to be. She still intends to check on the villagers before gathering their kills- but not by forcing him to continue his trek in the pathetic manner he moves along now. Even with his calloused approach to the innocents that now sit in danger because of their actions, Nel can't quite bring herself to allow his needless suffering, though he does appear to be rather content with his current state.

"Come. We gather the birds, and I can surveil the village from above. There is no need to startle the little ones on foot." Well. On claw. "Should you make any further irresponsible decisions, you may very well find yourself returning to the Monastery on foot. Understood?"

(Much, much later, once Nel is expected to explain the absolute mess they'd made of things... she never once mentions Griss's name, instead citing the cause as a split-second decision to preserve their safety. The defense comes out before she can stop it, the wrong face flashing in her mind-- but perhaps next time, she'll know better than to shoulder the burdens of a man who doesn't care in the slightest. Of a man who's done nothing but cause her problems... and a man who still manages to catch her attention despite it all.) -- End!

@twistedisciple

[dcggersedge]

festival of the hunt

pearlescent | riding +1

[dcggersedge]

Yunaka hauls herself up over the edge of the roof and sprawls on it, taking a moment to catch her breath. Haven't had to do that for a while, she thinks with a grimace. She should maybe make it a point to make scaling things part of her training again when they get back to the monastery.

…why's she thinking about him going back like it's a given?

She rolls back onto her knees, leaning carefully over the side to check on the situation. Should she have expected that idiot to end upon his back with the dog snapping at him? Probably. She still sighs with disappointment anyway as she reaches for her knives.

Midway through the gesture though, she pauses. It's not a question of if Griss can keep that dog from his throat, but just for how long. If she left things alone, the dog would probably kill him. It wouldn't be her fault if he just so happened to die and even then, would anyone really blame her for that? She could just let it happen.

The dog's bark echoes off their surroundings. Yunaka grabs her knife. Rather than risk her throw not being hard enough, she aims before jumping off the roof and onto the dog and Griss both. Her knife sinks into the back of the dog's skull, right where she can see the bones of its spine threatening to break through the skin. More than anything, it's a mercy blow for whoever this person used to be.

She braces herself, but the dog doesn't suddenly spin or lash out. It just stays as dead weight under her weight on top of Griss. Yunaka huffs softly and tightens her grip on the handle before yanking her knife back out. "Not very durable, if these things are meant to be weapons…"

She braces her feet on either side of him and stands. She makes no move to move the dog off of him. In fact, she stays standing over him, frowning as she squints at what bits of green she can see beneath gross, fleshy dog. "Did it get you at the last minute?"

[twistedisciple]

With his free hand, Griss manages to wrench his fingers underneath the loose leather collar and twist until its tight around the dog's bloody neck. It makes a startled yelp that ends up strangled in its throat when it tries to throw its head back, but Griss keeps twisting. It won't hold for long. The leather is old and weathered, hardly able to withstand much force without snapping, but once the dog realizes that simply ripping Griss' face off will solve all its problems, that's it. Still, it buys some time. For Yunaka, if nothing else.

"Any day now-- ngh!" The entirety of the dog's weight comes bearing down on his chest, forcing the rest of the air in his lungs right out of him. Something cracks. He's lost track of where his arm is under this thing, but that's really the last of his worries now. He can't draw a breath, can't move, can't even twist his head away from the rancid, slobbering muzzle pinning down his shoulder right beside his face. Then he sees Yunaka again, and the weight lifts just slightly. He realizes then that the dog has stopped moving entirely. Its massive paws sprawl lifelessly out on either side of him.

Groaning, Griss manages to turn a little toward his other side and use the motion to roll the corpse off of him enough to free his arms. Another few seconds and he's dragged himself laboriously back to his feet, streaked in blood, thin dark hair, dirt, and who-knows-what else. The arm he'd been using to defend himself is the worst off - hanging limp, still bleeding from the gashes making two jagged lines from elbow to wrist. Dressed in ragged robes to begin with, this really doesn't look anything out of the ordinary for him, and anyone who knew the Hound even as an adversary could probably guess that he'd break his own arm for fun if he got bored enough.

The exertion from the struggle is clear under his eyes though, and for a moment he doesn't say anything. Just looks at the place where the knife sticks out of its back. One single stab was all it took. He supposes Yunaka had picked up a few useful things as a thief, efficiency being one.

One could almost anticipate a somber thank-you on its way to end this silence that's lasted a beat too long, but all that comes is an exaggerated tch.

"Just when we were having some fun, too!" Griss shakes his head in disappointment, as if he hadn't just been struggling to kill this beast himself. "You sure know how to shut 'em down quick. Gonna guess that was a lucky strike though."

[twistedisciple]

Til Death [Griss & Rosado]

Excavation | Gauntlets +1

[rozyrne]

EVERYTHING HAPPENS REALLY FAST.⠀✩⠀griss raises his hand with that wicked grin and rosado ducks with a gasp on instinct, hands flying to cover his head as a sharp swoosh sails by, one he knows would've chopped him in half in some other life. immediately thinking to check whether he's still in one piece or not, he doesn't expect a sudden scream right on its heels. head snapping up, there's the girl, the bride-to-be, throwing herself panic-stricken at callen, who's on the ground, and——then the huge bird screeches too, thrashing and upset, and it turns with its head lowered and tears across the rocky clifftop right at him.

yelping for the second time in just as many seconds, he hurriedly backpedals, eyes wide as his life flashes before his eyes, ending, what it'd seem like, at the business end of a huge chicken's beak that was as big as his forearm. it snaps inches from his chest several times as the bird postures and threatens, serrated edges catching fabric ; he loses his balance, landing on his butt and still trying to scurry back like a crab, one arm extended to try and calm the animal down. "h-hey there, easy! easy——"

and if that wasn't enough, a different screech rends the sky, pulling his eyes up. a big shadow, pink and pastel-colored. carmilla?? ' when did she break free? ' coincides almost the same instant with ' did i even tie her up? ' he has no idea how she'd thought to come here, but can't help but be grateful for it.

but if he thought carmilla's much bigger shape would drive off the chicken-lizard as she comes to a dust-kicking landing, it turns out he's got a lot of rethinking to do. instead, she shrieks again in what sounds like a challenge, nearly ripping out his eardrums so close, and rosado has to curl himself in as small as possible and roll as the two mounts get into a snapping match right on top of him, which wouldn't be that bad except that they're both way bigger than he is and several thousand pounds each⠀(⠀carmilla anyway ; he thinks he remembers that birds are lighter, but who knows about this one⠀),⠀and a single misstep would crush him without even noticing like twigs underfoot.

heart hammering fast, hardly able to believe he's not hurt, rosado scrambles to his feet and hurries to put as much distance as he can——before remembering that carmilla's his wyvern and she could get hurt and half-starting to lunge forward to try grab her reins instead without getting caught in the crossfire. "carmilla! stop!"

and what about the bride-to-be? it's impossible to see anyone on the other side through the two huge shapes and the cloud of shedding feathers, but she's got to be trying to do the same thing, right?

"get 'em, lyra!!"

or not. rosado's expression falls as the monster's reptilian tail swings around like a tree branch and tries to lash at his wyvern, who roars and beats her wings until she manages to catch said tail under one foot, pinning it to the ground.

[twistedisciple]

The entire forest trembles with the shrieks and screams of reptilian beasts. Trees split and fall under wingbeats and tail lashes, risking to crush all onlookers beneath something, whether it be wood or scaly flesh. Griss picks himself up from the base of the tree he'd been thrown against, which now bears a splintered indent in the middle of it, and takes stock of his injuries. Bruised for sure. He'd fallen on his left arm wrong and now he couldn't move it, so he'd have to finish the rest of this job with just the other one. If there was even still a job left to finish.

Wyvern and chicken-lizard scramble over one another in a flurry of feathers and wings, Lyra screeching and snapping at Carmilla's leg to free her tail from beneath her claws, and Elsa shrieking nearly as loudly for Lyra to "rip that ugly lizard to pieces!" And Rosado's stuck in the middle of it like a kid his size had the strength to pull apart two fighting monsters, let alone a pair of dogs at each other's throats. Frankly, it doesn't look like Griss' problem anymore, but unfortunately he'd like to get paid for this whole mess. What a headache.

The whole stand of trees is going to be flattened by the time this fight is through, and Griss has to climb over fallen logs and splintered branches just to get closer to Elsa. She's got one of her high heels in hand and waves it like a pennant at a tournament; the fight's suddenly a lot more exciting to her. Forget the game of chase she'd been playing with her husband-to-be.

And forget her husband-to-be, too, apparently. At first, Griss can't find him, and then he sees him only because of the way he falls. He hits the ground some feet behind Elsa like he's lost all consciousness, and his wife doesn't even notice.

"Tear 'em up, Lyra!!" she's shouting, and Lyra swings her neck around to peck at Carmilla's softer underside.

"Just great..." Griss mutters, picking up the pace. The guy must have lost too much blood from that cut when he'd stepped in front of excalibur. He whistles with his fingers. Elsa doesn't hear him, so he does it again, and this time it distracts Lyra enough for Carmilla to knock her over onto her back.

"Yo! Your man's not lookin' so hot," he shouts once he's near enough to Callen's unconscious body to see the blood. There's a lot of it, and his sleeve's nearly soaked through.

"What did you say?!" Elsa turns on him like he's the nuisance interrupting her fun, and then she puts two and two together. Her own white dress has smears of blood across it from their earlier tumble together. Her eyes suddenly widen with open worry and she rips off her other high heel to run over to where Callen lies. Griss has come to kneel beside him. Even Lyra has given up the fight and has started to limp away from Carmilla, so the whirlwind chaos quiets so abruptly that it lurches everyone off their feet. Elsa falls to the ground and starts blubbering.

[umbralward]

weekend at burgundy's

+sword || infamous -> game doc

[umbralward]

The day begins with a frantic bell ringing as the head maid rushes through the hallway, demanding attention. 

“Wake up! Wake up! Emergency!” she shouts in her hurry, ringing a large bell to ensure her efforts will be heard. She makes two laps of the manor and then herds everyone present into the parlor, and only then does she put down the cacophonous bell she’d employed in her efforts.

She allows a tense silence to settle over the people in the parlor, guests and staff alike. One person is missing, but the silence grows before his absence is truly felt.

The head maid is a gaunt woman, bony yet sturdy, with graying brown hair pulled into a tight bun and her thin lips pulled into a tighter line. Even without the knowledge of familiarity, it’s clear that she is a severe, no-nonsense woman.

“Our Viscount Burgundy,” she begins seriously, once she’s determined that the group has basked in the awkward silence for long enough, “has seen his fears come true.”

Some of the staff gasp, others don’t seem to understand the implication. A din of chatter begins brewing, before the head maid’s hand reaches for the bell again, and it silences before she reaches it.

“Dead,” she continues. “And you lot -”

Her eyes, sharp as knives, move from each of those paid as weekend bodyguards to another, harshly judging their perceived incompetence. “Didn’t do your jobs.

“To make things worse, the carriage will be here in four bells, and you’ll all get off scott-free. The Viscount’s niece has already sent word she’ll be arriving before you depart, and she’ll be anxious to get the family affairs sorted. You couldn’t have made a worse mess of it!”

Her hand moves to pinch at the bridge of her nose, but she doesn’t allow the gathering a break from her icy glare. “And don’t expect you’ll be paid for this transgression, any of you!”

She assures the group of those from Garreg Mach that they’ll receive no compensation and some strongly worded letters to whoever they answer to about the situation. Four hours, and the carriage comes to seal their fate thus, with the church making the final decision on how they might be punished for the murder of Viscount Burgundy.

Maybe there’s something else they can do…

[twistedisciple]

They got a real murder on their hands after all.

Griss grins through the announcement-turned-lecture like he can't believe his luck, and when they're begrudgingly dismissed to await their ride home, he sidles up to Zephia off to the side of the gathering in the foyer. His smile hasn't changed in the slightest, and there's mischief in his eyes when he addresses her loud enough for everyone else to hear:

"The killer's not even gonna come out 'n claim his work." He shakes his head to convey the disappointment his face won't. "If it'd been us, they'd all know by now. Only shame in this whole mess is that I didn't get to the guy first."

As if they're the only people in the whole room, Griss keeps talking just to Zephia, but his voice projects to the rest of the guests. Maybe he simply doesn't have volume control. Maybe it's a story tailored for their captive audience.

"Besides, we've been together pretty much since we got here, and there's no way I'm gonna let you have all the fun without me. Like last night--"

They'd been rifling through the cabinets in the kitchen an hour after dinner in search of something to drink. Something stronger, that is, than the mild table wine they'd been served every night these past two nights. Griss was certain that rich folks like these had to have some good stuff on hand that they just weren't willing to serve to a bunch of hired bodyguards, and he was determined to find it. They did indeed. Two whole bottles emptied between dinner and midnight, as they went next to the empty dining room to lounge in the plush velvet chairs around the long table the servants had cleared some hours earlier.

"The strong stuff wasn't even that strong," Griss concludes with another disappointed sight, "'cause the only ache I got in my head is from the damned bell that old crone keeps banging."

[seadasu]

𓍯𓂃𓏧⏾ how to cuɾɾγ fɑvoɾ

☆ mission board pearlescent ☆ + 1 any skill ☆ seadall/griss

[seadasu]

High and mighty, the man says it as if there could be any room for it down in the dirt, kneeling next to their enemies. Well. He’s using the word in its vaguest sense. The guards weren’t anything Corrupted. Only men willing to raise weapons in the defense of this place…Seadall’s expression is a full frown by the time he pulls his attention from the unconscious to Griss.

The Hound (former?) looks like a disaster. “Hmm…” No, it’s worse. Blood streaked across his face, on his hands - at first glance Seadall can’t tell if all of it is his or someone else’. “Putting on their armor will be pointless if you look like you do.” The embroidered scrap of fabric he tosses in Griss’ direction isn’t meant to soak up blood…but it would do the trick.

He’ll miss it later. For now, he draws a deep breath for balance.

(Asks the Spirits for clarity. The air hums back to him, disinterested.) 

With a huff, Seadall falls to a knee near the other guard, hands searching for buckles and clasps. The guard’s uniforms wouldn’t be the best fit, but armor had the benefit of bulkiness… “Don’t kill them. We can drag them into the guardhouse, and if they wake and raise an alarm we can slip away. Even if we are both capable of killing, we aren’t at war. We’re supposed to be…” Not stripping and hiding bodies as evidence, Seadall’s tone dips lower, “Laying low.” 

That ship had sailed away. Seadall couldn’t even say for sure if it had ever anchored. “We won’t be cooks, that’s certain.” The greaves weren’t as heavy as standard, but still felt wrong layered over his own breezy clothing. Not at all padded enough to save him from metal digging in. “Your keys…maybe they’ll lead us somewhere else that will give us what we need.” He shrugs, the pauldron halving the motion. “With luck, no one will question a pair of guards. We can play from this angle. Help me drag these men into the guard tower.” 

He doesn’t wait, grateful that the high walls meant to keep outsiders away have also shielded them from other eyes. For now, anyway. “An unguarded entrance won’t be overlooked for long but…it gives us incentive to be purposeful.”

[twistedisciple]

Griss swipes the cloth Seadall tosses to him out of the air and then looks at it like he has no idea what to do with it, oblivious to his bloody nose. It's even been embroidered, but so has the scrappy mantle draped over his shoulders, and if Seadall had cut a piece from it to pass off as a handkerchief, Griss might not have even noticed.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he pretends to be offended, pout and all, but it turns out he knows exactly what Seadall wants him to do. Absentmindedly, he wipes the cloth across his face as he watches his partner-in-crime join him in undressing their unwitting victims. The blood's mostly gone by the time he throws it over his shoulder, but his grin still reeks of danger.

"Those stuffy knights from the monastery wanted us to blend in. Heh, we're just following orders."

Chuckling to himself, he goes to check on the other guard, and within moments both unconscious victims have been stripped down to tunics and trousers and dragged into the guardhouse.

It's a small room. Not much in it but some wooden chairs, a table, an unfinished card game disrupted by Griss and Seadall knocking things around when they'd hauled the two men inside, and some stale bread. A weapons stand holds a few polearms and swords against one wall, but the room is otherwise devoid of anything Griss finds interesting. He swings the key idly around one finger as he admires their handiwork: both guards slumped down in their chairs look like they've fallen asleep in the middle of a card game, except they're both a little bit bloody and bruised.

"Doesn't look like they got any locked boxes in here. This thing's probably for a back entrance somewhere," he muses, and then smirks. "Rich people hate it when the servants use the front door."

But now they have options: pull the lever to open the front gates and stroll right down the middle of town, or spend some extra time hunting down that back entrance that may or may not exist. Griss knows his answer, and without waiting for, or even asking what Seadall thinks, he turns on his heel and heads back outside in his borrowed armor to hunt for whatever this key belongs to.

"You gonna keep hanging around 'til someone comes 'n finds these suckers, or what?" he calls over his shoulder.

[mxlusine]

as a shrike to your thorn

« anniversary 2025 » — reason +1 — zephia & griss.

[mxlusine]

Too far.

He is still too far, remaining beyond her reach just as he had back in Gradlon—well within her line of sight, but not close enough to hold. Not close enough to grab and twist and mangle; not close enough to treasure and keep and swallow. Each rattling breath he exhales should push against her heart and remind it to beat. Her teeth should haunt his every pulse. She should devour him and he should love her all the more for it. He should bare his throat to the cage of her hands and she should leave him vibrantly purple and indelibly hers.

So, where is he going? Did she not command him to come to her? Did his years with that Rafal dull his obedience, cracking his fangs and soothing his wounds?

Zephia exhales slowly as she brings a hand to her head, pressing down against it to rein in her thoughts. It doesn't feel like her breath leaves her, even as she sees the rise and fall of her chest, but that is second—third, fourth—to how the words jumble haphazardly in her head, birthed from her yearning and disfigured by the hunger of her instincts. She might have felt like this a long, long time ago, when she was foolish and young and smothered by the fears of her tribe, but—

She doesn't remember. It doesn't matter.

"What," she says, but the word feels thick and ugly in her throat, like she's swallowed honey that has turned into tar the moment it touched her tongue. "...are you talking about?"

She shouldn't be the one approaching Griss. (But that's false; she'd been the one to approach him, all those years ago.) She should gouge his eyes for daring to look away. (And keep them, bury them, cast spell after spell until she finds one to make them last.) She should leave him for such impertinence. (Except she doesn't want to.)

"Griss." So she calls, but his gaze remains elsewhere—at the woods that surround them, at a great nothingness blanketed by the ever-stagnant fog. She doesn't like that. And she—can't tell what he's feeling, either. Is he happy? Angry? What is he looking at? Who? (The Divine Dragon? Rafal?)

The air is still sweet. She feels sick. When Zephia emerges from the springs, she feels the weight of a thousand years pulling her down, dripping to the too-perfect, too-soft soil and gathering at her feet. She reaches for him—hair; neck; heart; hand—and finds his shoulder. It's broad, and warm, and scarred, marked in ways she hadn't allowed.

"What is wrong with you?"

(What is wrong with her? It feels impossible to focus.)

[twistedisciple]

Touch. His shoulders - his entire body - tenses like it hadn't in years, with a long-lost fear of being struck. They had colored him black and blue yellow. They're why he wears the color of blood on his skin now. Instinctively, he shrinks from it like a kid from pain (or the childish man who shares his face in another world), but the weight of it follows him until it settles comfortingly on his shoulder and grounds him back down into the present.

Griss blinks. The space between the trees is empty, except for the thick fog that's rolled when they hadn't been paying attention.

"What is wrong with you?"

Zephia's voice comes to him like recalling a dream. Griss hears the words, but he can't quite make sense of them at first. He stares between the trees for an eternity folded into the span of a second.

... Wrong? ... You?

"There's--" he starts, and tries to finish it with 'someone there,' but it sounds silly when he doesn't see anyone. And Zephia doesn't see anyone either, or else she wouldn't be asking him what's wrong.

"-- something wrong with the air," he slurs instead. Then he shuts his eyes and suddenly slams the knuckles of one hand into the rocks surrounding the pool. Laughter bubbles from his throat as blood trickles from the fresh scrapes across the back of his trembling hand. The pain is real, and he focuses on it to pull his mind back into his body.

"Heh. Seems like someone might be peeking on us." He jumps back up to his feet, although it's not as graceful or fast as it could have been, and he nearly falls back into the water. Yet he doesn't look at Zephia again, believing instead that she doesn't need his attention to shake the spell off.

For a long while, the air remains stagnant and the forest, draped in a sudden, early twilight, watches on silently. Fog thicker and denser than all the rest rolls over the rocks on the other side of the hot spring, almost unnoticeable until-- Splash!

Griss twists on his heel, jerking his shoulder out from Zephia's grip and sends off a blast of wind with both hands. It's far stronger than it needs to be, the force of it nearly send him backwards off the rocky ledge, but there's for once a flash of something so uncharacteristic of the Hound it seems like a trick of the light: fear.

[rafent]

✦ 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐌 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐄 ✧

Continued interaction, Griss & Rafal

[rafent]

As if it were he whose head had recently spun on its axis, Rafal's cheeks grew hot, the inside of his chest tight and cold. His dragonstone would blush less at the unsparing inspection of its jagged edges beneath a loupe. Confrontation and a deep holder of secrets were like oil and water: diametrically opposed. For one with preference for indirect communication, to be placed under direct leer and spotlight instead was nothing short of an attack. Beholding Griss' theatrics, a furious expression swiveled between the several faces of rage and humiliation and. . .fear.

"—Ridiculous," he muttered, stiff as a board. On the cusp of atavistic instinct, a small inch of foot slid him backwards, guided not by the fear of unknown but of being known. And through that singular motion, he considered others.

Old pathways cycled through active mind. Ridiculous, he could say of Griss, so very and irrationally, tie a neat ribbon on their farce with his usual dismissal and derision. He could do here as he always did and exercise finality as his power - press his heels into an escape that would never again see him before the same conversation. Entered and left on his terms; Rafal to speak the last word, Rafal to seize a comfortable out. With the Hound's likeness to Gregory, the Fell Heir could be like, too; treat Griss as he'd ever, and never hesitated, to treat his sniveling mirror. It would be easy. It would be safe.

Except there were no decisions of the sort. Rafal went nowhere, stayed right here, and with a change in temperature, already his voice shifted to reflect what he'd become.

"Ridiculous," repeated, spit, colder, crueler, "do you think yourself so deserving of my utmost attention, Griss? That I want so very desperately to own you as you believe? Heh. . .what misguided heresy."

A mocking, bruising, dissembling laugh sailed through the air. Whether Griss, whether Gregory, history repeated itself on the resurgence of a mask, the icy declarations and believable bravado only one certain kind could produce, neither Nil nor Rafal but someone in-between. That new, old, creature stood above Griss and looked down upon him. 'Guided not by the fear of unknown but of being known', was it?

"You who are both wrong and right, allow me to make clear. It is not only unequivocal ownership I seek. Absolute loyalty. Endless entertainment. Such is the basis of what I desire! The labors of those who toil to amuse me, undivided in body and spirit."

On this preamble, the last prince of Gradlon straightened in the distillation of ancient pride, towered in all his scant human inches. His scathing gaze suggested that Griss were such a force of mere pleasure; that no dragon would suffer the taste of another's leavings, least of all, he who was grandly titled Lord Rafal. "In other words, you are the convenient amusement I prefer to keep on hand. Nothing more."

[twistedisciple]

"... huh. Is that right?" Just like his lord, Griss's expression underwent a change of its own. As nearly as imperceptible as a change in light, the sun lowering ever so slight behind a stand of trees and drawing the shadows out just a smidge longer, he blinked and lifted his eyebrows as if Lord Rafal had struck him a second time. Or struck a less perturbed man, who was apt to flinch at pain and not invite it. For a split second, he resembled his cowardly mirror image, the only sharpness to his face being the metal in it, and the stains jagged over scars.

Griss knew, of course, that he was playing with fire. He did it for the thrill of being burned, and when Lord Rafal had leaned back just a step, he'd thought he might be reeling back for a second, harder slap across the face for his impudence. Punish him for these words and the muddled feelings behind them, for dividing his indivisible loyalty between past and present, for the seed of resentment and the fruit of something sweeter. There was no greater love than that.

What hit him instead cut straight through the decades of toughened scars and hemorrhaged in the deep, dark parts kept well out of sight.

"A convenient amusement," Griss echoed absently. Convenience was nothing special. Nothing that mattered. Easy to replace and forget. Was he not the bent and rusty old part filling in Gregory's place until he could resume his knightly duties himself? Good enough for a fix, but only because there was nothing better.

It took only a second before he recovered himself and sneered again, every one of his teeth like the fangs of something more beast than man. "Then what's all this nonsense about loyalty? Sounds to me like any sad sap within arm's reach is good enough for His Majesty Lord Rafal."

After another moment without whip or claws to bow his head, Griss started to stand again.

"Shoulda said sooner that all you wanted was a monkey to dress up and make dance on command, 'cause I know just the stuffy, forgettable knight for you."

[twistedisciple]

Bringing the Hot Topic to Pearl Shoals

Pearlescent | Faith +1, Griss & Panette

[classybrawler]

Chasing down the man may not have done much to change the gawking or how irritating it gets, but Panette can hardly focus on that when at least something is going on.

Or, at least, that seemed to be the case until they lost him once more at the worst tailor’s she had ever seen. She was going to suggest potentially loitering around; not like she wants to spend more time with Griss, but anything that could potentially lead to them being done in this craphole of a community faster would be a blessing.

And then all the blinds close at once in quite possibly the most suspicious act she has seen here yet.

“I do not know how well acquainted you are with tailors, but that is certainly nothow they usually operate.” She shakes her head, before lowering her voice. “As much as I would love to simply eavesdrop, all these prying eyes are a bit much. Let us see if we can approach this from a different area” She says, entering an alley at the side of the tailor’s without waiting for Griss. She’s doing this regardless, if he wants to join, he’s certainly, if reluctantly, welcome to do so.

The back of the tailor’s is walled off with quite a high brick wall. Whatever’s behind there, they probably don’t want the public to know. Thankfully, it also seems to have no prying eyes. Works for Panette, and makes the place even more suspicious. Looking for a good angle to approach the wall, she finds a loose brick that’s perfect to use as a foothold. Turning towards Griss once more, she gives him a smirk.

“Are you game for some good old fashioned breaking and entering?”

[twistedisciple]

Was he game?

Griss grins wide and follows Panette down the alleyway. That should have been answer enough, but he gives voice to it anyway:

"What kinda question is that? Beats doing whatever domestic crap we were signed up for in the first place."

The knights who had deployed them would disagree, of course. They'd been sent in here for reconnaissance and to track down the stories of some kind of relic, but with such a highly guarded community, sneaking in was the only way to do it. They didn't have very many chances before the security of the place got wise and realized that the recent slew of hired help wasn't actually doing the jobs they were brought in for. And here Panette and Griss are squandering one of just a handful of chances they had to get inside.

But who's to say this guy in the gold suit isn't a person of interest? Maybe he knows more about the secrets of this place than anyone else.

... which are both questions that Griss is not thinking about in the slightest as he ambles over to the brick wall. Rubbing the back of his head, he scans the top of it, then tries to stand on his toes to see over it into the alleyway, but he's not nearly tall enough.

"Why would a tailor need a wall like this anyway?" he muses. Another stone wall runs along the back of the shop, separating it from the buildings of the next street over. A wooden fence could have done just fine if they were trying to keep people off their property. But brick-- now that was an expensive job, and made sure no one could see through it to the other side.

"Here, I'll give ya a boost." Suddenly helpful, mostly driven by his curiosity now, Griss kneels and laces his hands for Panette to step into. "Make sure you make this worth my while though. Step down hard. Heh, stomp my fingers with those heels of yours if you gotta."

[fellsparks]

wild turkeese chase

Hunting, Bow +1 w/ @twistedisciple

[fellsparks]

"You-" It's too late for her to voice any of her dissent at the flames that quickly jump to life, though crimson eyes narrow with the addition of a low rumble. They're too close to settlements for a raging forest fire to begin here, Nel knowing well enough how quickly that heat will travel even through the icy snow. Regardless, it's a problem she'll have to deal with as it comes-- as Griss is knocked from her back with a turkeese in his place, her tail lashes and curls before reaching up to pluck the bird from her scales. A handy appendage on rare occasion, one of those occasions being right now.

A quick flick sends the bird sailing into the bushes before that same tail twitches upon hearing Griss's directions. Perhaps it will be enough to spare this village from certain destruction, but there's no time to think and only the time to act; with a quick pivot of a form that would appear to be unable to move that quickly, one wing beats hard enough to send snow flying into a makeshift dam-- another beat, and it becomes more akin to a hill, which seems to have stopped some of the progress for now. There's more on the other side of the clearing slowly creeping along, and a huff escapes through serpentine nostrils. Fire in the trees won't be stopped so easily, but there's problems that arise in other ways, namely the bear that seems to be bearing down on Griss. Their mission has long since been abandoned in her mind, and eyes flicker between the spreading flames and the splintering of wood behind her companion's back-- and there's only one choice that makes sense in her mind. Maw opening to reveal razor sharp fangs, Nel lets out a roar strong enough to shake the trees around them and enough to cause that bear to pause; after all, animals have an instinct to recognize their betters, but it's too late for it to make any move to retreat now. She bears down on it faster than it can change its mind, the strike of a cobra sinking into flesh and bone with alarming ease. By the time she raises her head once again, her prey remains lifeless in her grip, dripping red onto the otherwise mostly pristine snow. All it takes is a tilt of her head to spit the body to the side before turning her attention back to Griss. "Reckless," It comes as a hiss, her tail curling in a desperate attempt to curb more of the flames' spread. "Your rash decisions have endangered innocents- the mission is no longer of our concern. Instead, you have created a new assignment for us: the evacuation of this village, or the prevention of certain ruin to it." To that end, she glances down at him; not Gregory, for certain, but hard to release the idea that he is a reflection of the other in appearance alone. "Accompany me, or do not. I will see to the mess that has been created."

@twistedisciple

[twistedisciple]

"Whatever!" Griss rolls his eyes, dragging himself out of the thorn bushes. They rip new tears through his robes and claw streaks of fresh red across his skin. Who cares about innocents? Who cares about the nearby village? They were just supposed to be out here hunting these huge birds. If their methods ended up causing harm to nearby villages, then maybe they shouldn't have their houses so close to these nesting grounds.

"The snow's slowing the fire down, so don't get your scales all ruffled." And Lady Nel had taken out one of the bears, too. Griss eyes the heap of bloody fur lying in the snow nearby. A second too late and that might have been him, actually - a thought that twists his mouth into a morbid smile. Then he blinks, shakes his head a little, and frowns up at Lady Nel. She's already turned her attention back to the fire. Before long, the smoke from the trees would be carried on the wind toward the village nestled in the hills, and they'd probably start evacuating on their own. Griss doesn't understand what's made her so huffy about it all, but he shrugs and follows her with a slight limp. That goose had got him good, and the way he'd fallen would make him sore for days, but he wasn't about to let savoring it now go to waste.

"Now what d'you think they're gonna say when a dragon shows up on their doorstep? The fire won't even matter anymore!" He glances over his shoulder at the bear again. Its friend has already disappeared through the trees, likely to escape the smoldering forest, and the injured turkeese is still flapping its broken wings like it can take off again. Griss flicks his wrist and sends it flying into a rock face with a sharp crack. It stumbles around for a second or two longer, then slumps into the bushes. Probably dead now.

"And all this meat's gonna go to waste, too. If you wanna know what I think: forget the village! We gotta gather what we came out here for, and if the fire really bothers ya, then you 'n me can probably send it in the other direction with some strong wind."

Unfortunately, the dormant trees are prime kindling for the fire once it reaches the canopy, but it's slower on the ground where the snow cover is thickest. They can safely walk near it for now, but before long they'd have embers dropping on their heads if they weren't careful.

[grxstnnefealltoir]

does disaster lead or follow? || griss & darios

aphotic // madame grimsbane

[grxstnnefealltoir]

"Considering who it was that did us in, I can't help but hope this scratches the itch that exhibit was meant to." At the offset, it seemed more promising than the make believes the departed archeologist's assistant weaved. Such detailed notations surely meant it was better, no?

The manager called out to them and Zani is the charge they're tasked with. Testy? He hardly wanted to see what a creature like that was like when in a foul mood. Griss' chuckle, admittedly, made Darios jump a bit. "Well, at least we're aware." Not that it made the task any less dangerous.

It was the pain that excited him?! "I feel like it's simply dissolve a hole straight through you-" He's glad he followed along on Griss' heels, else the pit in his stomach would be given time to settle. Which of the two was the worse outcome? If someone's literal bone alone got dissolved, maybe that could at least be fixed, but it wasn't as if it was impossible to live with a hole in your limb either.

No- why did he think about that to begin with?

Darios barely caught himself before running into Griss' back. His attention drew to the seemingly endless array or carts before them. He cautiously took a step forward and walked around the back but even as he rounded the other side, once he returned in front of Griss, a deep scowl crossed his face. "Not a single label on any of these it looks like. If we call her name she might sound off."

She might also try to spit venom at them but who's to say really?

[twistedisciple]

"You think these things even know they got names?" Griss scoffed. "The manager wouldn't be hiring any ol' sap to go around delivering buckets of slop the the stars of the show if they were anything more than sacks of gold to these guys."

Although delivered with a crooked smile, there was a vitriolic bite to his tone that suggested he had personal experience with something like this. Being a commodity, a freak show attraction - while it wasn't the same kind of life, he knew firsthand how gold drove people to destroy another's personhood. And how when everyone was standing around to watch and see what you'd do next, they never really cared to get close enough to learn a name. It agitated him, but not enough to seem that out of the ordinary for someone who tended to behave as erratically and unpredictably as Griss.

Instead, he redistributed the weight of the board across his shoulder and started toward the nearest shuttered carriage.

"But go ahead: call 'em if you want," he threw back over his shoulder. "Only good it's gonna do is make all these other dumb saps think you're the sappiest of of 'em all."

Each of the carts in this ring looked more or less the same, except for a few signs of wear and tear. Rusted wheels, claw marks here, rotten wood there, broken chains, tarnish on the silver bits-- Griss thought that maybe this one had promise, since the metal that made up the skeleton of this carriage-turned-house looked like it'd been dredged up from the bottom of a lake. Maybe it was Zani's acid that had done it. Whatever the cause, he climbed the two steps that led to the door built into its side and undid the metal latch.

"... huh?" Griss blinked until his eyes adjusted to the gloom inside. The whole carriage was big enough to house one person comfortably for an extended period of time. If it belonged to a human, that is. There was enough room for a bed, desk, wardrobe, some other furniture and knickknacks - in other words, it could be real cozy with the right decor. But what this one housed instead was a single set of bars separating 3/4ths of the carriage from the other 1/4. Behind the bars, a big, mangy cat rested with its chin on its huge striped paws. Its ear twitched at the sound of the door opening, but it didn't even bother to raise its head.

"Doesn't look like a monster to me. I dunno who'd pay to come see some kittycat in a cage," Griss mused, then glanced back at Darios. "You think this one spits acid? Hey!" He whistled, and the cat raised its head. One of its eyes was gone, and the other one stared back at him with a glassy look.

"Zani?"

After a moment, the cat put its head back down, heaved a sigh, and settled back into its nap. With a shrug, Griss backed out of the carriage.

"Don't think that's our guy."

[dcggersedge]

festival of the hunt

pearlescent | riding +1

[dcggersedge]

Something is definitely dead. Yunaka's eyes follow the birds until they fade into such small specks in the sky, even she can't see them anymore. It's the kind of omen that would send some people running right back the way they came. She sighs heavily in Griss's footsteps. Life would be easier if she believed those kinds of superstitions…

The stable swims up to meet them as the maze finally breaks enough to let them go. She thought maybe this would be where her precious dogs were kept, but seeing the state the place was left to fall into, she finds it hard to believe that her so called poopsies were living in this kind of luxury. Whatever is living in there clearly sounds right at home.

She glances briefly at Griss before, reluctantly, nodding. Her knives slide out silently as she takes up position on the other side of the entrance. They had the advantage, at least. If they get the jump on it, then can hopefully-

tink. tink. tink.

Yunaka shoots Griss a withering look as he throws their ambush away. Bastard. The snuffling turns to a low growl that grows in intensity before, with heavier steps than she expected, the source emerges into the light.

It's bigger than the monsters they've seen so far. A bloodied maw drips with drool as it stalks forward. It's muscles look like they're straining, like they've been contorted into a shape they were never meant to take. It's grotesque to witness, but still falls short of being the worst part. The most damning part of the thing before them are the extremely human eyes that meet hers for a moment before it launches forward with an open mouth towards her throat.

She catches the edge of the door with her foot and kicks out as hard as she can. The sound of the rusty hinges squealing in protest fights to be heard over the sound of the dog's head colliding into the door. By the time it comes rushing around, Yunaka has already started scaling the wall, clinging to whatever wooden beams she can get a hold on.

"C'mere, ugly!" The dog snaps at her feet just as she yanks them up out of reach. If she can just get a bit higher, she can pull herself up onto the roof…

The dog launches itself at her again, but comes short and bounces off all the wall. Rounding itself for another attempt, it finally spots the mage in question. It only takes a second for it to go tearing off after him instead.

[twistedisciple]

Griss isn't as fast as Yunaka. Not by a long shot. And what's worse: he's in awe of the hairless, doglike thing that smashes nearly through the stable doors in its slobbering gallop straight for her. Long, dark claws extend from each foot, long and thin and almost fingerlike - five in total, too - and its ears, though pointed, are still close to its head. A collar made of leather hangs loosely around its neck, but the skin beneath it has been rubbed raw. Who knows how long it'd been chained up in here before it'd finally been let loose. Or maybe it'd broken loose all on its own. Whatever it was...

It gives up on Yunaka the moment she's out of range of its foamy mouth, and Griss simply stands there by the door, grinning, until it barrels into him with its rock-hard head. Griss hits the dirt with his back and the thing pins him down, snarling and spitting all over his face. And he's laughing, of course. Laughing where any other person would be screaming or, at the very least, trying to intimidate this huge abomination off of them. From Yunaka's vantage point, it'd look almost like a man playing with his own pet dog.

"This lady's crazy," Griss manages to shout to Yunaka between breaths, in a sort of dumbfounded reflection. He kicks up into the beast's belly, but it hardly even flinches against the flats of his shoes. They're not meant for that kind of thing anyway, and unlike Griss, the beast doesn't waste its time. With a wet growl, it lunges for his face with every one of its yellow, inch-long fangs. Griss wrenches one arm out from under its paw and twists sideways, elbowing the thing in the side of the muzzle and catching two of its fangs down the side of his forearm. Blood wells up from the long gashes and spills over them both almost immediately.

For a split second, he catches sight of Yunaka on the roof behind the dog's hunched back.

"Are those li'l knives of yours just for show or what!?"

[twistedisciple]

All the Soft Things [Griss & Marni]

Epiphany post-event reunion

[machiot]

The abrupt stop to the back and forth feels like an awkwardly taken step; heart catching at the expectation of a sensation that doesn't happen quite when it should. But the body is able to right itself quickly. Even if it takes a moment, finding the rhythm of normalcy isn't that bad. It isn't hard to return to the state you used to be in once you figure out how to right yourself.

You can even pretend as if there was never any misstep at all, so long as no one who saw it says anything.

"What, so that was it?" Marni visibly deflates. "You were doing all that bragging just to say your head got messed up and you killed a bunch of monsters? Your head's always been messed up! How's that any different than usual?"

She wants to guess at what memory it was, to taunt Griss back into the play biting between two Hounds, but she comes up completely blank. Logistically, he must have memories that he doesn't want dredged up. Of course he must. He's not one of those mindless monsters he'd just talked about. He's human. He didn't just... appear out of thin air one day, fully formed. Nor did he cease to exist the second he stepped outside of her line of sight. He had his own thoughts and feelings. Obviously. Obviously that must be true.

...And yet it still feels bad to think there are still things she doesn't know even about the people she thought she was the closest to.

Marni huffs, "Yeah, well, you wouldn't be saying that if you knew how boring it was! I couldn't go anywhere and I didn't know what happened to anyone! It was like"—the hefty pause as she struggles to come up with a comparison lingers longer than it should—"being stuck on a boat in the middle of the sea! By myself! You really think that was better?"

[twistedisciple]

"My head's not messed up!" Griss wrenches his fingers into the ribbons around Marni's collar and drags her nearly face to face with his snarl. "This was different. Visions."

He waves his other hand between them.

"What if someone made you see Zephia's disappointed face again and again, huh? Right before she stabbed you so you don't even get any of the fun out of it." Because obviously that had been the best part of that whole dying thing. It must have been. Griss had looked away, but she had to have been smiling, and he can't think of anything worse than all that lead up for nothing. Over and over again. That's how it'd felt for him to see what Pasithee had confronted him with, and there wasn't anything that these punches and kicks were going to do to come close. His fingers clasp just below her throat like it's the only thing to keep them both grounded in reality. This reality, where they're both still alive.

"So yeah, being stuck on some dumb boat is better."

For Griss, maybe, but Marni had always been his opposite in almost all the ways that mattered. He doesn't consider what loneliness is to her, because being dead is worse. Being dead means he can't shake sense back into her kiddie brain, or tell her that her stupid boat is a stupid analogy.

"It's all over anyway." With the shake of his head, Griss finally releases her again and his stormy frown calms into something a little more neutral when he glances over her head at the rest of camp. "They're gonna be finding bodies under the rubble for weeks."

But at least you're not going to be one of them.