kore_logs | Consequences

Entry tags:

Consequences

Who: Dilandau Albatou and Open
What: The escape plan ended in failure. The humiliation is almost too much to bear
When: Day 77
Where: Various locations about town
Notes: Be warned, Dilandau is in a massively foul mood, though Castiel's beating means he won't be able to physically react like he would usually. Prose or actionspam are fine.

01: House 15 in the morning

Dilandau's sat at the kitchen table, glaring into the cup of water he'd come down to pour as if it were the cause of everything that had happened. The bruises and the broken lip he could see reflected back at him disgusted him.

Like a fool he'd fallen asleep after Castiel's beating and he'd woken up stiff and swollen. He'd barely managed to get into the acceptable minimum of clothing and he'd not bothered yet to put up his hair. The deep bruising on his ribs and back were clearly visible under his brief undershirt.

02: The bar

The pain and humiliation were too much to deal with sober. He forced his armour on despite how it made him hiss and, though he was unsure if he'd be able to swing it, he carried his sword unsheathed. He wanted it to be a warning in case anyone else wanted to add to his bruises.

He entered the bar with his head held high, moving stiffly and scowling as if to challenge anyone who dared get between him and the sour vino he'd hidden behind the bar.

03: The edge of the woods

He regretted walking out this far in his current state by the time he arrived at the edge of the woods, but he couldn't turn back until he'd seen how much damage he'd been allowed to inflict. He'd never been good at not poking at his own wounds.

He leaned against a tree for a long moment to catch his breath before heading into the forest.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

She's not necessarily looking for Dilandau when she enters the bar. In fact, she's looking for Booker, or even Rat, but that isn't who she finds. Instead, she sees the man responsible for the explosions and she's angry, suddenly, because he promised nobody was going to get hurt. She shouldn't have trusted him, but she did.

Elizabeth is not oblivious to the fact that she's unarmed and small in comparison, but she doesn't care. She scowls at him, arms crossed across her chest, a few safe feet away from where he's standing.

"Do you see why the explosives were perhaps a bad idea?"

The arms, her look and the remark spark off Dilandau's rage. His grip tightens on his blade; if his ribs weren't possible cracked he'd have swung for her

"What do you know about it, you condescending little slut?"

He stomps forward stiffly, closing the gap.

"If someone hadn't stated putting out the fires the explosions would have wiped out half the woods which was exactly what I wanted. You don't have the knowledge to judge my decisions."

She isn't accustomed to name calling like this, which means when Dilandau stalks forward with the words he does, she flinches a little. Taking a step back, Elizabeth clenches her fists and stares right up at him, a little frightened but standing her ground.

"There were people in the forest, were there not? I saw them go in! You were going to allow the explosions to blow while there were people inside!"

Edited 2013-06-02 21:56 (UTC)

He steps forward again, deliberately getting into her space so he glare down his nose at her.

"Who do you think set them off for me, you stupid bitch? I can't fly across space in an instant."

Stubbornly, Elizabeth pushes herself up on her toes and glares right back at him.

"You did not inform me of that, Mr. Albatou, when you requested the explosives from me. You said that you did not intend for people to be hurt, only our captors, and yet you seem to have no regard for those who helped you." She keeps her arms folded tightly across her chest. "I will not be lied to again, and I will not be called names by an overaggressive toddler."

She dared to challenge him?! His free hand shot out and he grabbed a fistful of her collar to pull her nearer.

"Then make me stop, you empty-headed little whore."

His teeth are clenched in pain and anger as he hisses at her.

"If you hadn't been such a bleeding heart I'd have told you the truth. Have you ever been to war? Do you think anyone wins by coddling their soldiers and keeping them from harm? They knew what they were risking when they volunteered and if we'd have escaped it would have been worth it!"

Edited 2013-06-02 22:39 (UTC)

Oh, okay, so Elizabeth doesn't like that. In fact, the second he grabs her, she's trying to squirm away.

"Let go of me!" She says loudly, and it's instinct to kick, punch, and headbutt her way out of his grasp. She hears what he hisses at her, and it registers, but she won't think about it until later, when she doesn't feel threatened. If she does manage to wriggle out of his grasp, she stumbles back, away from him, and instinctively opens the first tear she sees. That would be a bunch of barrels with holes in them - nothing dangerous, just something to put between her and Dilandau so that she can run.

Her flailing would have made little impact through his heavy leathers on most days, but his grip was already faltering from the pain, so when she whacked his swollen face he let go with a loud curse.

The barrels were just a cap on an already terrible day. He stumbled as they poured out in front of him and fell against a table. By the time he looked around for her it had been long enough for her to have fled.

Dilandau hasn't gone too far into the forest when Balthazar comes into view, leaning against a scorched tree trunk with his arms folded. It's a nonchalant post, and his expression is smooth and emotionless. If Dilandau knew him better, he might see that as a danger sign in and of itself, but the angel greets him neutrally enough:

"Hello. I'd like to have a word with you, if you don't mind." He can tell someone's been at him already, but can't guess at who it would be.

Truth is, it was hard finding Dilandau. Balthazar's trueform is still half-blind and off balance. The woods were a lucky guess, and he's not looking forward to trying to chase him down if he runs.

He pauses, but doesn't sense danger yet. Raphael's irritation had been overpowering and that's what he expects to encounter from these gods in their rage. He leans against a tree himself and inclines his head.

"You want to discuss the failure, Balthazar of the heavens?" His lips twist at having to say that out loud. It was a failure, a nasty one he'd not expected. He'd promised this god success and he'd not delivered it. At least Balthazar seems calm.

That's an archangel for you. When they're pissed off, you'll know it. Balthazar doesn't have as much power to spare, and he's prepared to give Dilandau a chance to explain himself before he lets him have it, regardless, if only because he's so young.

"In a manner of speaking. Perhaps I should have been more vocal beforehand, but I've noticed a number of tactical flaws in the entire enterprise." His voice is dry and distant, but his eyes narrow as he focuses on Dilandau.

"Let me start with a couple questions: To begin with, did the fire go out of control by accident, or did you intend for it to go up like that? And second, was it your idea to place a middle-aged musician in the middle of the woods--in the path of fire and robots, mind you--armed with only a garden implement?"

"Do you mean Rat?" He makes a small sound of annoyance at the man's makeshift weaponry.

"No, I meant to place him in the woods with nothing but those long legs of his. His job was to spot stray bears, call that friend of yours to go make them explode if they came and to run away. I couldn't take one of those bears myself and I didn't want him to think he had a chance if I put something in his hands."

But that's only a minor irritation and something that on a good day he'd have rebuked Rat with a sharp slap for and then forgotten. The fire is what's really making him grind his teeth.

"That wasn't out of control, it was the distraction! It might have had a chance at drawing away from that barrier if someone hadn't flown about and put it out for them!" He slaps the tree beside him. "The fire should have been here in half an hour of lighting. They'd have had no choice but to stop and put it out if they wanted to salvage anything."

Balthazar makes a small, thoughtful hum. He's angry on the man's behalf, but Dilandau's explanation actually gives him pause. It's logical enough, and an angelic perspective is different: even the weakest of the Host is trained to fight. Humans, not so much. "All right," he concedes. "It's not a decision I'd have made, but I'll give you that one."

The fire is a different matter. Balthazar rubs his chin, frown deepening. He's not liking what he hears, although he can see the logic here, too. It's just incredibly reckless, desperate logic. "You don't know our captors well enough to be certain of that. Depending on how fine-tuned their control of this location is, fire might have been an amusement rather than a concern for them."

"That's what bothers me about this whole disaster. The Doctor made assumptions about this place with no backing evidence. So did you. And both of you acted without consulting or listening to anyone else." Pushing off the tree, Balthazar stalks at an angle to Dilandau, not threatening violence, but slowly invading his space. "So, your plan was to destroy the entire town, and anyone caught in the woods was collateral damage, too bad for them?"

Though Balthazar isn't overtly threatening, Dilandau steps back warily, keeping their distance. He doesn't want to fall into the hands of another god.

"Do you think I'd risk setting myself on fire too? I timed it with the Doctor's signal to gather at his machine. The barrier split in minutes after it began. The only people who would have burnt would been the idiots who'd rather stay imprisoned."

"That's a poor technique for an evacuation, I think," he says quietly. "Tell me about strategy. What was war like for you? You've been brought into it young, by my standards, and by your own account you're something of a prodigy. Are you a good leader? Do you grieve when you lose a soldier, or only when you lose a battle?"

He's still again, standing within arm's reach of Dilandau, but his arms are folded, and his intent doesn't look aggressive.

His eyes narrow slightly as he works out what it is this god wants to hear. Given his concern for civilian lives Dilandau decides it's best not to boast directly about the number of countries he's laid waste. Still, he's not going to downplay himself.

"The usual age for joining up is fifteen. I gained my diadem when I was twelve. In Fanelia, slaying a dragon in single combat earns you a throne. In Zaibach, it just earned me a reputation grown men envied. I lived up to it. They gave me my own command when I beheaded an enemy general on the battlefield at fourteen. We were entrusted with capturing the greatest enemy of the Empire because I shown myself because I'd shown myself to be able to think in the field."

But that final question makes Dilandau's mouth twist.

"Soldiers don't have time to grieve. In war you succeed or you die. There's no other choice."

If Balthazar was just a man, he'd have left it at that and defended those words. But this is a god, who could pass judgement far worse than an offended man could. He looks away and admits what shames him.

"Yes. Even though they failed. They were mine." A sick fear creeps over his face, but not from Balthazar's presence; his gaze has turned inwards upon memories he'd been trying to suppress. "I led them after a man. We ended up fighting a god."

Edited 2013-06-09 01:16 (UTC)

Balthazar is silent for a long moment, staring too intently at the young man before him and wavering between revulsion and compassion. Angels call themselves soldiers, warriors of God--and they are. He's seen difficult choices made. Desperate gambits. Brothers lost.

He's also watched war change angels themselves, making them colder and more calculating. There are few ministers of mercy left in the Host. It's one of many reasons he left. He thinks he won't mention his own status as a deserter to Dilandau. That would lose him any respect he's got.

He takes a deep breath and releases it slowly. "There's no glory to be had here, Commander. History won't record your successes or your defeats, but the people whose lives you've risked won't forget they're collateral to you. You'd be wise to rethink your approach. You don't want to be friendless in this place."

He moves away a step or two, watching the shift in Dilandau's expression. "You come from a harsh caste in a harsh world. I don't envy you that, but you're not in that world, now. If you don't learn to adapt, you're going to end up destroying yourself, and no one will mourn the loss."

Dilandau's gaze sharpens back to the present in a glare, though it's far more subdued than it might otherwise be. Balthazar's reaction is part of his reason for denying possessing any softer feelings; he's unable to understand compassion.

"Don't pity me for what I am."

Still, the god has given him sound advice to consider. Learn more. Lay low. Earn the trust of these people before showing his true capabilities again. Don't show his hand until he learns how to hunt demons like he did dragons.

"Would you have been the one to destroy me if I'd displeased you?"

"Pity and sympathy are two different things, and I wasn't necessarily offering either." He gives him an arch look. Balthazar always thought Dean Winchester was defensive and stubborn. Dilandau is several hundred times worse, as far as he can tell.

Mercifully oblivious to the fact that the young man has drawn exactly the opposite conclusion of what Balthazar wanted him to understand, he settles against a tree again, considering his judgment pronounced. The question makes him frown.

Looking him over pointedly, he says, "Apparently someone else got to you first this time around. Really, it depends on who you'd hurt. I have my friends and my favorites, like anyone else. I've already said this to someone else, but I would very much prefer we all escape here alive and sane. We can't do much about our kidnappers choosing to damage us, but we can keep from turning on one another."

He shrugs. "The short version is I'm not very smite-happy, but I won't say it could never happen."

Mercy isn't a trait that he approves of in the people he works with, but he isn't ungrateful to have someone merciful with such power over him. He inclines his head.

"Still, I thank you for not striking me down as well. Tell me who's under your protection and I'll avoid harming them."

It's part mercy, part laziness, and maybe a dash of general distaste for violence, but Balthazar's unlikely to admit to the last. Better to frame it as sheer practicality, and it's certainly true that in the Cape, someone too injured to work could become a liability.

"I'd rather you refrain from harming everyone, if possible," he says dryly. "But if you find you can't handle that, let me know and I'll give you the short list."

Brigid hates the smell of burnt plant matter. No telling how far away they'd driven the game either. The burning had been a bad plan. She sneezes when a bit of ash tickles her nose.

She kicks at a fallen tree, watching it crack and throw up another puff of ashes. Another sneeze escapes her.

She can't smell any game at all and wonders how hungry they'll go before the game comes back. They're going to be eating a lot of fish.

Maybe she can find some clams or something down along the beach. A heartbeat reaches her ears and she turns to find it. She knows it and, frankly, she's a bit annoyed with him.

"Were you really so mad at me as to try to kill me in the woods?" She hadn't meant to ask that.

He shoots her an incredibly irritated, absolutely unremorseful look, though it's diminished somewhat by the heavy bruising.

"Do you really think I care about you enough to change my plans round to kill you?" He makes a small noise of disgust. "You're alive, just like you claimed you'd be after joining in with the demons' roles. Don't complain."

The irritation is lost on her. He isn't an Alpha she has to bow her head to.

"No, I think you're arrogant and misogynistic enough not to care if I died in your little conflagration." She shoots back. "I'm alive by luck, and you know it." She kicks up a bit of the ash.

"And do you realize how hungry we're all going to be? The game isn't going to come back for a while." And there are people to feed.

He's heard this complaint enough times today that hearing it from this glaring girl immediately sets off his rage.

"If that bastard god hadn't decided to work for our captors and put out the fires for them then the distraction would have been enough to stop them fixing that barrier!"

He slams his fist into the tree beside him and then then grimaces in pain as the blow reverberates through his ribs.

"You shouldn't have stepped onto a battlefield in the first place if you're going to whine about coming out unscathed. If your father didn't teach you that then he's as pathetic as you are."

Bastard god? She's not even sure who he's talking about. She remembers smelling a couple of the angels around, but hadn't seen anything.

His pain surrounds him like a cloud. Brigid wishes that she'd learned more about taking pain from animals. She really could help with that.

But then he insults her Da. Her eyes flash blue and her claws are out without a single thought. She grabs him by the throat, slamming him into a tree and ignoring the pain that erupts. Her fangs start to grow but she stops them.

"Do. Not. Ever. Insult. My. Da." She growls the words around her fangs in a voice far deeper than normal. Brigid doesn't even realize she's doing it.

The shove slams the air out of him. The sight of her changing into something obviously not human stops him from even trying to gasp for air, as his sudden fear freezes his throat.

She lied to him, again, and he'd fallen for it again. He clenches his hand around her wrist and yanks at her arm as he suddenly whoops in a deep, painful breath, and then screams.

"Demon! Get off of me! Let go!"

Her eyes are still the bright blue of a wolf. His screaming barely penetrates. It's the pain that makes her back off.

Her claws retract and she shakes her head, pulling in the fangs. Fighting back the rage and the need to kill, she sets him down almost daintily.

Then she takes a pointed step back from him. She curls her hands into fists, piercing her own skin with her claws, when they threaten again.

"Not a demon." She says quietly, still pulling in her temper and the wolf. "Not a demon."

As soon as he's let go he half falls, half leaps to the side to get the tree out from behind his back so she can't pin him again. A useless gesture, since there's no way he'd be able to outrun her, but he needs to feel as if he's at least got the option to flee.

Her denial wrings out a slightly hysterical laugh from him.

"But you're a fucking liar."

The growl is ripped from her before she can stop it.

"Is it a lie to protect your family? Is it a lie to keep private information private so that no one hurts you for being different? Is it a lie to simply want to live in peace and not see yourself as the monster others would see you as?" She doesn't approach him, doesn't raise her voice.

"St. Raphael said it's not. My priest said it isn't. My Da said it isn't." Brigid jerks her chin up to glare at him. "I'll trust their words over yours."

It's difficult for him to keep the hysterical giggles under control, because this stupid girl of a demon really believes the lies she's been told to make her feel better. She's a child, but she's still a monster who could tear him apart.

He'd be spitting in contempt if he wasn't so afraid.

"You've made your point." He bares his teeth as he backs away further.

She can smell the fear. The same fear she's always worried about smelling on others, when she was too fast, too good, too uninjured to be human. Brigid can feel the tears gathering behind her eyes.

It's stupid, she knows. But to have someone afraid of her is her worst nightmare. Brigid has never seen being a werewolf as anything different. It's just a different genetic code, like having two differently colored eyes. She doesn't want him to be afraid.

Brigid turns away and says nothing as she walks away. The smell of his fear is bitter in the back of her throat. It overwhelms the stench of ash and refuses to leave her.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Consequences

the bar

The bar

Re: The bar

Re: The bar

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

the woods

Re: the woods

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

The woods, of course

Re: The woods, of course

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject