freedom_is_grey | Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause

Bossuet, meanwhile, has also packed. He's packed lunch! For two, plus a few spare odds and ends. Including a flask of brandy, because you never know. And one of those modern flashlight things. And matches and a candle. And some of those clever little sticking-plaster things that people can put on cuts. And a folding umbrella.

Also some string.

When he arrives, he's speaking into his watch, just finishing a conversation with Joly. "--won't need rescuing, anyway, but don't forget to water the mandrake if I'm gone more than a day or two."

He pockets the watch and tips his hat cheerfully to Ysalwen. "All right, then! Shall we?"

"I'm glad to see at least one of us has a timepiece, provided time runs anywhere like linearly in the Labyrinth."

Then she grins at him -- a response to his tipped hat -- dropping one hand to her side to ruffle Liranan's ears as he barks out a reply for both of them.

"I'd say that's a yes, wouldn't you?"

The mabari, meanwhile, is already bounding across the room to the back door. He is eager to go! It is going to be great!

"I'm afraid it hasn't proved very useful in the Labyrinth before, but there's always a first time. But you look entirely ready for adventure." That's good! It's good; someone needs to be. "The last time I went to the Labyrinth I didn't bring anything more useful than a bottle of wine. Which, to be fair, has many fine properties..."

Well! Off they go, then! It's a hilly but not particularly demanding hike to the general area of the Labyrinth entry. Lesgle catches himself whistling jauntily as they go, and shoots his companions an apologetic look. Not everyone loves early-19th-century dancehall tunes.

"I spend a lot of time walking all around the country while things try to kill me. You get very efficient at packing, let me just say."

And then they're off!

She doesn't appear to mind the whistling, just quirks a crooked smile at him and shrugs lightly.

"One of my friends is a bard, I've grown used to traveling music. It's all right. Though don't ask me to sing along. Or hum along. Just -- no."

Liranan barks twice. Definitely no!

"This place doesn't seem particularly hidden. Do we lose a lot of patrons to it, do you know?"

Maybe she should have brought torches.

"A genuine bard! Does he have a lute? --Or she?" Because women can totally adventure too! Lesgle is getting the hang of this gender...equality...stuff!

At her question, he looks rueful. "Not that I know of, but that's not saying very much. Consider the number of people who visit the bar only once or twice, never to be seen again. Or even regular patrons who just stop coming by. Ha, perhaps we ought to institute a sort of weekly roll call! Jean-Bourrache Lègle, present, not yet consumed by library witches or lost to the turns of the Labyrinth!"

"She. Leliana. She's a fine hand with a bow, as well. And a lockpick. It's come in handy more than a few times. Huh. You don't happen to have skill with such things, do you?"

If not, there are going to be a lot of exploded doors in their future. Whoops.

"The roll call is going to take a long time just to get through one name if we all have to list all the reasons we haven't gone missing since yesterday. Though I do plan on clinging to 'not absorbed by the Labyrinth' with my teeth, if necessary. Are we going to need to draw a map on the fly?"

"Neither with lockpicks nor with bows, I'm sorry to say. I would like to know how to pick locks..."

Hmm. They ought to be more or less at the right spot for the Labyrinth entrance. Lesgle takes off his hat and rubs the back of his head thoughtfully, looking around. "Ah! Eureka! Do you see that rock there, marked with a triangle? It should indicate the doorway. --A map? No. I'm told it's useless; all one can do is go forward, and there's no returning to the entrance once you're in."

"Well, Liranan can't do it either, so I suppose battering them down is where we'll end up, if we end up near any locked doors at all."

She shakes her head a little, wearily amused at the thought, then pauses and looks over her shoulder at Lesgle, one eyebrow raised.

"So there's a separate exit? Is it always the same, or is it one of those mystical 'once you have passed your challenge, you may leave' type of places?"

What? Ysalwen has run into those before. There are worse things.

"The latter, I think. Well--I don't know about challenges, per se. But the Labyrinth has its own opinions about entrances and exits."

He'd gallantly hold the door open for her, but it's more of a forbidding gloomy cave entrance from which a cold draft comes to chill the hearts of even the bold. Or something like that. Anyway, it's a cave. He pulls out his flashlight and waves it around. "All hope abandon?"

"Oh, I really hate doing that. It just makes the despair demons so happy, and I resent every minute that they aren't failing at their job. "

She laughs as she speaks, but she means it. Abandoning hope is the worst.

"Hmm. Do you mind if Liranan takes point? He'll probably smell trouble long before either of us hear it coming."

That, and he can take a punch.

He gestures politely to the dog. "Lead on! --Ah, hm, do you have actual despair demons?"

"Oh, yes. And desire, and rage, and pride, too. The ones that aren't horrible are spirits instead. I've met a spirit of valor, and one of wisdom, and very recently one of justice. That has been -- interesting."

She shakes her head again, huffing out a quiet laugh.

"Do you want to go next with the flashlight and I'll take the rear?"

He could be excellent in combat, she doesn't know!

Meanwhile, up ahead, Liranan has already started sniffing around about three feet inside the Labyrinth. So many feet. So many things that are not feet. Hmm.

"A spirit of justice?" That gets his attention; sometimes between Enjolras and Feuilly and the rest of his friends, he feels like he knows one or two of those. "What form of justice? --Ah, as you like, Mademoiselle--"

He's more of the keep-talking-and-maybe-it-will-scare-off-any-monsters school. But he ambles along after Liranan, looking alert if not particularly skillful.

"The kind without mercy, of course. Mercy's a separate spirit entirely, or at least I presume it is. Surely such a spirit exists, though. I'd hate to believe in a world where it didn't."

She only sounds a little tired at that.

"Is that flashlight from your time, or is it something you started using here? I ask because I neglected to bring a torch of my own, and. Well. It's a little damp and cool and eventually we might want warmth as well as light."

She's just saying.

Is this cavern floor starting to curve downwards? Will she have to start lecturing the Labyrinth on what she'll do if it decides to start looking anything like the Deep Roads?

All signs point to no, as the floor levels out again after a small dip. Just normal variation.

Really.

"Justice untempered with mercy is a terrible and wonderful sight." 100% seriousness here, but only for a moment, before he asks, "What did this spirit look like?" Because if it looked like a tall blond Frenchman, the ghost of Victor Hugo is going to be unbearably smug, wherever it is.

"--Oh, the flashlight? It's from Milliways. It works with electricity. And batteries." No, he has no idea what that really means. "And as for warmth, I did bring brandy! And you're welcome to my coat..."

"He's currently inhabiting the body of a dead Warden, which is -- messy."

So very, very messy. Sorry, Victor Hugo. Maybe if Orlais were actually France . . .

"I thank you for the offer, but I'm all right. Our extremities, however, and maybe our noses -- those could be in danger if it gets colder and more damp."

Up ahead Liranan whines, circling back with a slightly halting gait. He's cut one of his paws, and a sliver of glass remains in the wound.

"Did someone bring brandy before us?" It would, after all, explain broken glass.

Right?

"Inhabiting the body of a--say again?"

He's not terribly worried about the cold and the damp; but when the dog comes limping back Lesgle does frown with concern. Once the glass is out of the wound he flashes the light down the passage, and something flashes back. "Hm. --Does he need a bandage for the paw?"

Ysalwen shakes her head, even bent as she is over Liranan's paw. It's the work of a moment to fetch a healing poultice from her pack, and the work of another brief second to affix it to his injury.

"We're good."

Practice makes perfect, after all.

"Though -- it's not some kind of broken signal light, is it?"

She stands, then, slinging her staff down from her back and keeping it ready in her hand.

"Shall we? You and I have shoes, at least, and I'm sure Liranan will be more careful now that he knows it isn't just stones down here."

"I don't think so..." He waves his flashlight again and shakes his head. "Just more glass, I think. Maybe some mirrors?" Windows don't seem likely.

As they walk on, Laigle keeps the light down on the floor ahead of them, and sure enough they soon have to pick around more broken glass. He kicks it aside as much as he can to clear a path for the dog. "Yes, mirrors, I think."

"So someone very vain is lurking in here? Several someones?"

Her smile is bright but fleeting, if Laigle happens to have the flashlight pointed in her direction at any point.

"Though, hmm. I wonder if they're magic. I've run across mentions of them a time or two, magic mirrors. If these are pieces of an Eluvian, though, I know a few people who are going to be so angry."

Would more light help them, or only hinder? She's not sure. By the time they hit the first mostly-intact mirror, however, maybe her decision will be closer to made.

Edited 2015-05-20 12:42 (UTC)

He doesn't see the smile, but he catches it in her voice, and grins back in the darkness. "A deadly nest of dandies! What shall we do? --I'll leave the magic to you, though. It's outside of my realm of expertise. If I even have such a realm... Christ!"

The flashlight wobbles as he jerks away from the mirror, startled; and then he's just plain embarrassed. It's only his reflection, distorted by curving glass. And there's Ysalwen, likewise stretched here and squashed flat there. "Well, that's not good for anyone's vanity."

"No," Ysalwen says slowly, stepping forward to take a closer look. Liranan hovers in the background, tail down and head lowered. He may be growling.

(His own reflection is very weird, and he does not like it!)

"Maybe the dandies broke some of the mirrors that made them look the worst. I can see it happening, or I can imagine it happening, at least. Mystical visions are not my stock in trade, I fear. Hmm."

The air shivers over her extended right hand, and she reaches out to brush it near the mirror's frame, and then its surface.

"It's not -- Maker's breath, did the surface just move?"

Maybe it was just a trick of the flashlight. She can hope, right?

The large growling war-hound looks even more menacing, reflected this way. Some trick of the glass suggests wings. But it's just the way the flashlight casts shadows. Probably.

"I am going to say that the surface did not just move. Given the choice of beliefs, that one suits me better." Lesgle, master of impulse control, reaches out to touch the mirror as well. For a moment it feels...adhesive. Viscous. Clammy. "We could always test the theory about not being able to retrace our path in the Labyrinth. We could turn around and--"

Oh. "--and find that the mirrors have crept up behind us while we weren't looking."

Well.

Well, that's really immensely comforting.

"Well," Ysalwen says, speaking her own thoughts out loud. "That's really immensely comforting. Because even if the surface didn't move, everything else just did, and I'm -- not really in the market for being eaten by mirrors today."

She extends her staff in front of her as she turns to face the mirrors that are closing off their retreat, poking at one with the butt of the staff.

It wants to stick, and indeed if she presses forward it seems to go into the mirror no little way.

"Ah. I see."

At least a flicker of flame along its length seems to let it come back out. Right now she'll take it.

"Onward, then? Because I don't think this is a very good place to make a stand. Though of course there's no guarantee it will get better any farther in, but we may as well try."

Liranan just keeps growling.

"I can walk backwards. A bit. If that helps."

Several of their reflections are taller than the others, and their mouths --

Mouths should not have that much blackness at the center. Seriously. No matter how convex or concave the mirror is.

"I would say mirrors don't eat people, but that would be begging for a counter-example." Lesgle tugs his coat a little more tightly about himself, not that it offers much protection. He doesn't fancy making a stand here either, and nods.

"We'll carry on, then. Boldly. But you're quite sure you didn't bring a torch? I have--oh damn, I'm an idiot, I have a candle as well as matches. Would you like it?" Because there seems to be an inordinate amount of darkness here. Even for a subterranean passage. And some of the mirrors are...inconsistent in how they reflect the flashlight.

"I've heard there are some Tainted ones that can poison people, but at least none of those are here. I'd definitely feel them if they were."

'Poison' is not the right word, but still. Infect, maybe?

Her smile is a tiny thing, clearer in her reflections -- so many teeth -- than in her physical form.

"I'll only have to drop it eventually, but thank you. Though in the meantime, hmm."

She holds out her free hand, the one without the staff, fire gathering in a ball above her palm. She lets it sheathe her arm a moment later, lifting it up higher as if to shed light in a wider pathway. It gives off heat, too, which is more than welcome to offset the chill of fear. And damp.

" . . . I think they're multiplying. The mirrors, I mean. And I really don't like that not all of them are reflecting either your light or my flames. Um."

At that Liranan, who had previously been ranging ahead of them only a little, snarls violently and doubles back, rushing at one of the mirrors, standing between it and Lesgle, hackles raised and teeth bared.

"Poison?" He'd been reaching out ahead of him, feeling his way to supplement the poor light, but now he pulls his hand in. (Of all the times to decide he didn't need to borrow Joly's walking-stick...)

At least it's reassuring--somewhat reassuring--reassuring-ish--to be with someone who can gather up fire with her hand and arm. "Mm, I've always been told there are laws of physics, and while I appreciate a revolutionary spirit as much as the next man, likely more, when it comes to such principles as reflecting light, I--"

He breaks off when Liranan charges ahead of him. "What?"

"Infection, whatever."

Her voice has gone terse, focus on what's happening with the mirrors rather than on modulating her tone and word choice.

"If he's starting to scent whatever's in there -- I think we should start moving faster."

She switches her staff into her burning hand, letting the flames flicker along the length of wood and metal rather than on her skin.

Then with her now-free hand she reaches over and snags Lesgle's arm.

"Let's start with a brisk walk. I don't know if running is going to make this easier for us, or just get the mirrors all excited. Liranan, with me!"

The mabari starts backing up then, eyes and teeth still firmly and definitively between his bipedal company and the less-bipedal-by-the-minute reflections.

Generally, beautiful young women clutching breathlessly at his arm is the sort of thing Lesgle dreams of.

It figures that the reality would be more like this.

He is entirely agreed on the advisability of a brisk walk. He's good at brisk walks away from things, ready to break into a run as needed. "Do you see that one there?" he asks in an undertone. "The one that looks like..." Well, it's not quite human-shaped enough to look like a person. Nor is it quite canine-shaped enough to look like a dog. But it's not mirrory enough to look like a proper mirror either, that's for sure.

At least it's not moving. Visibly. Except for the black hole where a mouth should be.

"Yes," she says, after a long silent moment. "Yes, I do. Here, take this."

She lets go of his arm in order to unsheathe the dagger at the small of her back, handing it to him hilt-first without looking away from the increasingly un-reflective reflection.

"Don't be surprised if it bursts into flame at some point, particularly if these things prove to be afraid of fire. Or ice, as the case may be. Or spirit energy. I'll try to give you a warning if it comes to that."

She may fail, however. So it goes.

Lesgle takes the dagger. Lesgle is glad to take the dagger. Lesgle doesn't know how to do anything very effective with a dagger, but goddamn is he glad it's there. He's also really glad to be with someone who can make nightmarish mirror monsters burst into flame.

The not-really-human-shaped one remains still, looking for a moment flatter and more properly mirrorish. Then it twists to one side and opens like a book into two mirrors.

Edited 2015-05-21 14:04 (UTC)

"Okay," Ysalwen says, as several more mirrors flip, twist, and open up to reveal more mirrors whose reflections look increasingly non-mirror-ish.

"That's it. You two, keep moving."

Liranan doesn't even whine, just slips past her, nudging his nose into the back of Lesgle's leg in order to make him go faster. Then Ysalwen turns, staff twirling in a complicated pattern, gaze gone unfocused and a little bit too bright.

They're still in a cavern, which means if they were trying to circle around and somehow retreat they way they came, what she is about to do would be really stupid. As it stands, since they can only go forward and not back, there have been worse plans.

She stops spinning the staff very abruptly, slamming the butt of it down on the ground hard, three times. The earth under and around the mirrors that are cutting off their retreat starts to vibrate, then tremble, then rattle so hard that stones start falling from the ceiling, larger rocks with every second that passes.

"Running now might not be unwise!"

This emphatic statement is punctuated by the sound of glass shattering. So much glass.

And at this point Ysalwen turns back toward Lesgle and Liranan and takes her own advice.

Gallantry dictates--

--oh, fuck it, he's running, and trusting that Ysalwen knows what she's doing. Lesgle doesn't even need the nudge from Liranan. A loose rock underfoot brings him down flat, but he's quickly on his feet again, never mind the skinned knees and scraped palms. (He does take that opportunity, though, to look behind and be sure that Ysalwen is with them.)

Ysalwen is definitely doing her damnedest to catch up, at least, slowing only fractionally to sling her staff across her back so that she can run faster and more effectively.

Liranan, meanwhile, is keeping pace with Lesgle just in case he is needed.

And behind them there is only the increasing roar of a cavern collapsing on itself.

"I'd say 'whoops'," Ysalwen says, breath coming quick and light as she runs. "But it would be a lie."

And at least down whichever corridor they are running through, there do not seem to be any mirrors.

And it is getting warmer.

And . . . brighter?

Brighter! Yes! Laigle runs for the source of the light, hoping fervently that it's something other than a mirror. No--no--it's a row of low lanterns on the ground, lanterns or candles, little spots of light that remind him of something he can't quite place, not until the ground underfoot turns abruptly into wooden boards.

He skids to a stop at the end of the stage, staring wild-eyed into the faces of a very puzzled audience. To the left of him (or is that stage right?) there's a woman on the ground, clutching her belly, with a showy goblet in her hand. To the right, a man with an unconvincing white beard is gasping and staggering.

The man in the beard glares angrily at the newcomers and says with determination, "Oh, yet defend me, friends; I am but hurt."

"Defend against . . . who?"

There's an audience, which is incredibly -- well, actually not incredibly unexpected, people do strange things at executions, after all. And (almost) everyone likes a public spectacle. It's the unconvincing beard and the overly-stylized speech that's got Ysalwen off-kilter. That and the obviously false sword suddenly in her hand. Um.

"I suppose we could kill everyone here, but that doesn't seem like the point. And -- is everyone here that's marked for death -- clearly dying already?"

That last is in an undertone to Lesgle.

Liranan, meanwhile, has taken it upon himself to investigate the showy goblet to see what the woman on the ground might be dying of.

The 'whoops' this time might be more genuine. Eventually.

Edited 2015-05-21 19:16 (UTC)

"I am but hurt," repeats the false-bearded man pointedly in answer to Ysalwen's first words; when she fails to deliver her line his glare intensifies. "...But...I drink off this poison! Is my union here? I follow thy mother!" He slumps to the ground, because the show must go on.

"--it's Hamlet!" exclaims Bossuet, a split second later. "That is--um--Hamlet, I-- Oh, hell, my English is terrible. Am I Laertes? I-- Have at thee, Hamlet!" He thrusts his false sword at Ysalwen, fixing her with an intent and desperate gaze. It's that or burst out laughing.

Edited 2015-05-21 19:30 (UTC)

Ysalwen, not expecting him to turn on her with his fake weapon, flails mightily and gets her own blade knocked out of her hand.

"Maker have mercy, what are you -- What are we -- Who are Hamlet and Laertes?"

That last really is delivered in an intense hissing whisper as she dives after her dropped sword, coming down on her shoulder and rolling to her feet in a low fighting crouch.

Something certainly seems to have changed. She looks a lot less lost, for one. Except --

"Have at thee, as well, Laertes?"

Several of the other people on the -- stage, is it a stage? -- are glaring at them now, but at least the woman with the cup is too busy fending off Liranan's enthusiastic 'hey, you're healthy!' licking to join in the effort.

And Ysalwen is swinging her shitty fake sword at Lesgle, careful yet persistent. How flashy does he want to be, with this whatever-they-are-doing?

Hints would be welcome. So, so welcome.

"Prince Hamlet," he declaims, trying to be helpful. Oh, God. He and Joly were just talking about Shakespeare, in connection with Joly's new theater project. But what the hell happens in Hamlet besides everyone killing one another? "You--thou--hast--insulted my sister? And--" He drops back down into a whisper. "And we're both supposed to die. The swords are poisoned. Everything is poisoned."

He's having a great time parrying, while he talks! Fake swords are so much more fun than real ones.

("Git," the poisoned Gertrude is hissing between clenched teeth. "Go on, dog. Git!")

Isn't Prince a gendered title?

Ysalwen looks down at herself as if to make sure everything is where it belongs, then swings broadly at Lesgle again.

"I shall not die from such and insult. And see -- I have -- already -- poisoned my other enemies?"

Liranan, from where he is still trying to lick Gertrude, stop with the licking and looks up, barking once. No Ysalwen, everyone is okay! No poison is here! Do not worry!

Meanwhile, Ysalwen trips over the out-thrust foot of the man with the dubious beard and falls forward, whacking at Bossuet as she does so. Since the blade is 'poisoned'.

"Oh no, I am -- betrayed?"

An actress she is not. Wow, no.

"O, I am slain!" He clutches at the spot on his arm where the poisoned blade struck, and lunges wildly at Ysalwen, just trying to make contact. "O, I die! I am dead, Horatio! Horatio, I am dead!"

Wait, are those Hamlet's lines? Well, it's not like Ysalwen is going to say them! He puts a little more ghastly grimacing into his stagger before flopping down into a suitably dead pose. "Good night, sweet prince!"

Yeah, that's all the Hamlet he knows.

"Ow, that was my knee!"

We're back to the hissing again, but only briefly. Ysalwen stumbles again, then falls to her knees.

"Hoist by my own -- petard? Woe is me. Also, ow."

Then she falls over on her side and is still.

Liranan howls, starting to move toward her in confusion. Her hand flutters very slightly, tapping on the stage. The mabari stops, then, and does an incredibly convincing rendition of 'playing dead'. He also makes the stage vibrate a little when he falls.

(Gertrude is relieved. Probably.)

"Okay," Ysalwen hisses again, head tilting by tiny degrees toward Lesgle. "Now what?"

Liranan has a real future on the stage, that's clear. Someone in the audience lets out a strangled noise that turns into a cough of suppressed laughter, drowned out by a blare of trumpets and cannon sound effects.

Unfortunately, Liranan's excellent death leaves Fortinbras and the English Ambassador without anyone to talk to. They cobble together some lines between them--Fortinbras digging his toes vengefully into Bossuet's ribs--and the curtain falls on Such a sight as this becomes the field, But here shows much amiss. Go, bid the soldiers shoot.

Ysalwen taps the floor again, rolling from her side to her front and pushing herself upright. Liranan, too, is scrambling to his feet and moving over to investigate Lesgle, making sure that he, too is okay.

"Maker's breath, but that was a mess. Poison everywhere, honestly, I don't even understand why -- "

Isn't this where people gather together and bow to the audience while they cheer? Because the curtain's going up and the -- well, they have to have been actors, really, there's not another good explanation for all the ridiculousness -- they seem to be gone.

Odd.

"Lesgle? Does that look like the lake out back of Milliways to you? Because if it is, I think we should run toward it even faster than we did when the tunnel was collapsing. Fun as this has been."

She turns to look back over her shoulder at him -- and Liranan too.

"Ready?"

Steady.

Go.

Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause

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