end is near {bran}

[Guinivere Marcel]

I can change everything about me to
fit in

Guinivere paused outside the door. She knew enough about faerie to know caution. She knew enough about faerie to know that caution wouldn't really help her in the end. She didn't want to be found in this tower without a good reason. But going in there could easily be more danger than it was worth. 

She slid her knives into her hands. It was foolish, but they were iron. That should help, if it didn't get her thrown out for carrying iron.

She stepped inside the room, dimly registering the St. John's Wart. Curious. And then she saw the figure inside. She paused, taking in the whole scene. She didn't drop her knives, just her glamor. 

"You're mortal." she said. It wasn't a question. 

Bran Viola
Outfit + Music + Makeup

☽LIA☾ + PUNKI

[Bran Viola]

By the time she'd entered the room he had already moved in behind her to block the exit. He rested his hand on the hilt of the blade at his waist and appraised her.

"I'm not, but you are."

Bran found a mild bemusement in the obvious lie. It was an ironic way to confirm something, lying outright about it.

"Try for the door and I'll cut your head off. Jump off the balcony and I'll skewer you before you reach the ground. Don't give me a mess to clean up for no reason."

He should just kill her and be done with it, but it could attract attention, a guest gone missing, and in the rare event she could last against him for more than half a minute things could get complicated.

"Either way, you aren't leaving this building until the revel's end, if you get to leave at all."

[Guinivere Marcel]

I can change everything about me to
fit in

Guinivere listened to his threats with more amusement than anything. He really didn't know who he was speaking to, did he?

Well, wasn't that the idea?

When he was finished, she could help but smile. It wasn't an inviting smile at all.

"Either way, you can still die." Her knives were at the ready. And she got the feeling she would enjoy this quite a bit.

"Maybe it's better for me," she said. "I've had more practice killing fae." With that, she flung out both of her knives towards him. She was going for the shoulders, not the heart. Maybe that would kill him faster, but incapacitated was better than dead, as far as she was concerned. And if he was telling the truth, then that iron should burn him either way. And if he wasn't, well, then her poison would just have to do the work. 

It was a small space. She worked better in them. Honestly, most of this situation was to her advantage. He had prepared for the fae. But she wasn't fae. She was a living blade.

Guinivere rounded her shoulders, a third knife in her hand. The points of her ears had softened The points of her smile had hardened. "Perhaps we should continue this conversation in a more civilized manner. Or we could always see which one of us leaves the revel... how did you put it? At all."

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[Bran Viola]

Bran registered metal flashing towards his left, and sidestepped into another flash that caught the top of his right shoulder as he brought it to the edge of the doorframe, the surprise carrying him back a pace. He crouched. It had barely nicked him, fortunate enough, but he could feel the skin around the shallow cut, burning and raised. A sensation between pain and an itch. Poison? It was irritatingly typical in the fae courts. This was bad, a sudden unperceived threat jolting open his awareness as the world was submerged in the pressure of the air around him, he couldn't get hit again. He could sacrifice what he'd come here to do but if he didn't he'd have to kill her, in as little time as he could.

An elegant, robed animal seemed to be speaking to him from across the balcony, self righteous venom in its latrations. Bran couldn't hear it. He wouldn't worry himself with an initial decision, his first move would be the same regardless, and would become his decision in the next moment based on instinct, that method would be appropriate for this.

Bran scooped up the knife that had clattered off the wall in his left and hucked it directly at the girl's face as his right flicked to his belt and detached the length of iron chain that hung there, the taloned end of which soared out along the floor towards her left leg. If he brought her down he could either disappear, or be on top of her with his own knives before she looked away from the ceiling.

tags Guinivere Marcel

[Guinivere Marcel]

I can change everything about me to
fit in

Guinivere ducked to the left and caught the chain. With a flick of her wrist, she twisted it and dropped to her knees, pulling him with her. Now they were both eye-to-eye. She dropped the chain. Iron would have no affect on her, or him either. Two mortals. Two imposters.

It had been a while since she had spoken to someone who could lie. 

Knives had clattered to the floor. One more throw and it could sail out the window. Would it rain chaos or would the fae not notice? Violence was inherently fae. She wasn't fae. This assailant knew what it was like to live without a birthright, without rules, without anything at all.

Or perhaps he didn't. 

Guinivere watched him carefully. She had more knives. They could continue this fight. But she wanted answers. She had been taught that information was the greatest power of all. But she had learned knives did their fair share of talking. She dropped the chain. Her knife was at his throat. 

Guinivere smiled, and like the mortal liar that she was, she broke the rules. "Let's make a deal."  

Bran Viola
Outfit + Music + Makeup

☽LIA☾ + PUNKI

[Bran Viola]

Bran had already produced one of his throwing knives before she'd pulled him down. He'd only detached a single end of the chain wreathed at his waist, the sudden tautness of it dragging him down by his hip. Using the momentum he fell forward into a roll to loosen the chain attached to him, not considering the shoulder he'd rolled on until it wailed as it scraped the floor. Bad. Very bad. Adrenaline and focus could carry him through pain, but exasperating the wound could lose him too much blood, and he didn't know if such strain could catalyze whatever was on her blades. He came out of his dive with his hand grasping at her waist, the knife in the other prepared to open it as the original hand held it fast. 

His hands stopped. There was a knife to his throat. It hadn't pierced him, but it was already slightly damp.

He heard his chain clatter to their feet, cold disgust seething in dull waves behind his eyes. She had him. He could try to gut her like he'd wanted but he'd need to be fast, her knives were poisoned, and he was already suffering the effects from little more than a paper cut from one. This close he'd need to tear her entire midriff open and then get up before she moved so much as an inch, and shed already proved she was fast enough that no matter what he did, he wouldn't get away unscathed. The floor, not to mention her other hand, was only a few feet away in the direction he'd need to move to get away, and he'd grabbed her, like an idiot. 

"...You don't seem to like killing much."

It was a stupid observation to make, even if it was correct. She'd offered a deal to him? while he was at the edge of her knife? This was patently ridiculous. what on earth did she want? Through gritted teeth and the haze of a world dulled by quickly fading adrenaline, he found himself missing Lucio again. Bran probably wouldn't need to worry about all this had he brought him along.

"What do you want from me."

[Guinivere Marcel]

I can change everything about me to
fit in

Guinivere didn't bother to drop her smile. She just dropped the joy. Her eyes shifted darker. Her knife dug closer to his neck. "I don't like doing more work than necessary." She didn't have to kill him. That poison, untreated, left long enough, would do it for her. "I have an appointment, see." Was it proper to say she had an appointment with death when she felt like death itself? Could one live in their own shadow?

"I want information." Nothing about her had changed. Everything about his perception had. And perception was reality. Guinivere was gone. Belladonna was back. Some people might not understand the difference, but those people didn't live very long. 

The faewild was all about words and their power. Perception, truth, knowledge. Creation and destruction, all held in the words of a bargain. Guinivere had made bargains good and bad. But she was no one's fool. Not anymore.

"This is what we're going to do." she said. "You're going to explain what you're doing here, with your lovely little St. John's Wort and iron weapons. And then-- how did you put it?" She paused, like she was trying to remember. She wouldn't forget. "You leave this building at the revel's end, if you get to leave at all. But I'm kinder than that. Tell me what you know and you're free to go. Just don't try to tell anyone about me. It would be... unfortunate." The threat wasn't implied. It was obvious.

If only St. John's Wort really could ward off the devil. 

Bran Viola
Outfit + Music + Makeup

☽LIA☾ + PUNKI

[Bran Viola]

Bran had left it mostly to instinct whether or not to kill her or simply disappear. His instinct had chosen wrong. Trained reactions and impatience with this new problem had brought him to the knife of some girl, one he had severely underestimated. Bran suppressed something between a sigh and a tisk. The fact that someone had stumbled upon him should've encouraged a bit more caution. As much as he hated to play along, it didn't really matter, he supposed, if she was told what he was doing here. Even if he was killed, the process he was privy to would continue unabated, perhaps with an interval of about nine months if they felt like a proper replacement needed to be made. What a disgusting system. Bran suddenly kindled a newfound discomfort with how close this girl was to him. He let go of her waist.

"I'm just watching. I will say it's probably a bad idea to let me leave that's what you're curious about, though given your 'appointment' I could be making the wrong guess about your motives. I guess I'm not in the position to ask."

Brans knife flipped between his thumb and forefinger to point away from the girl. He slid back slightly in her grasp, letting her worry about supporting his weight as he turned slightly, as far as he could without slitting his own throat, to look with dull eyes over the balcony to the pavilion. The girl had taken most of his attention by force, but his intended quarry was still thrashing about in rapacious throngs on the blue moon revels floor. He redirected again, something was happening, the heavings of the crowd was subsiding, the high king was moving about the pavilion. someone was about to speak.

"Shut up and listen. This might be valuable to you too."

He hadn't provided anyone Lucio's name. Lucio wouldn't be able to give it himself. If Bran was replaced Lucio would probably just be put down. Maybe they'd try to capture another accomplished fae. Though Brans situation was unique from general fae use in his family. They couldn't replace circumstance.

They'll probably put him down if I don't return.

Brans chain was on the floor to the girls side, still attached to his waist on the right. His shift in weight had turned them slightly, he could see in the corner of his vision the clawed end of the chain veiled by the cut of her dress. It was just behind her, between her legs. If they moved any more he'd be able to grab it. Brans gas mask muted a slow exhale.

Wait...


tags-Guinivere Marcel,

[Guinivere Marcel]

I can change everything about me to
fit in

Guinivere raised an eyebrow. "Nothing the high king has to say is valuable to me." It was all empty words and useless flattery. The only thing that mattered was if he drank. And knowing the fae, there was no way he wouldn't.

It was curious. She was holding him at knifepoint, and he hadn't yet broken a sweat. No tears. For a mortal boy "just watching" that told her more than anything he might have said would. 

Now, if the king switched glasses with someone, it would be unfortunate. Guinivere would have to settle for a knife or something much less showy. So long as he was dead. 

She could have poisoned every cup in that revel and it wouldn't have touched her. She could have drank the deadly wine to its dregs and it wouldn't matter. She wondered if he knew, this boy before her, everything she had fought and sacrificed to get here. She wondered if he knew her first murder was herself. 

"You're not in the position to ask." she agreed. "You're a mortal in faerie, so usually you're not in the position to offer, either. But we're both liars here. I won't hold it against you. If it really is such a poor idea to let you go-- and I'm inclined to listen to people when it comes to causing less problems for myself-- then why shouldn't I kill you?"

Maybe he would be honest. Maybe he would prove that mortal could tell the truth. But it had been long enough since Guinivere had heard anyone lie that she was willing to entertain that too, so long as it was interesting. 

Bran Viola
Outfit + Music + Makeup

☽LIA☾ + PUNKI

p.s.
You got the nice threader for the other thread but not this one haha. 

[Bran Viola]

Brans expression soured under his mask. She was still talking? She was right, the high king's words were essentially worthless but it'd be a lot harder for bran to escape her grasp if she kept talking at him.

"You must love the sound of your own voice. Oh- enmity for the high king? I guess you are mortal. Maybe there's something else involved..."

Bran's idle musings trailed off to silence as he remembered that he was still at the knife of the girl he was taunting. Damn it all.

"If you're so disinterested in the asinine games of the high court maybe it is in your best interest to keep me alive. Judging by your skill it seems we've both been sent as killers. I'm not here to kill anyone, not yet. That being said, I can't exactly interfere with whatever you're up to, and it sounds like I wouldn't want to. I'm not going to tell you who I am or who sent me, we're both well aware that theres no point in that when you can't know if I'm telling the truth. Look at him. Alaric Enigma. Someone's going to kill that man, and someones going to kill whoever replaces him."

There

As Bran neared the end of his response, his hand, silent running, shot between the girls thigh and calf, connecting with the chain behind them. As this system was completed, Bran stood up and back with violent speed, raising the chain with him, its thin iron line catching the back of the girls knee. Bran pulled the chain free of this axis, sending her back and down from his throat. The veil of tensity was cut, and Bran continued several steps back in the new silence between them as he returned his chain to its place, simultaneously reorienting his sword back towards its target, his back now at the balcony. 

"That's the system of this place. Not a very efficient design, nor are you. Whoever made you didn't do a good job getting you to follow orders. Haven't you heard the phrase curiosity killed the cat?"

Bran's eyes flicked to the door, no use escaping that way, but a shame he wouldn't be able to clean the seal he'd placed. They'd know he was here. It'd be better to let this girl do as she pleased. She was a formidable opponent, and Bran saw no reason in dying to someone who seemed to have goals that only helped him, if they even meant anything at all. He prepared himself for her first move.

"This'll be our deal, mortal doll- we have our purposes, let's keep quiet about each other. If you remove that St. Johns Wort, I'll do you a favor of your own while I'm here." 

Tags-Guinivere Marcel,

[Guinivere Marcel]

I can change everything about me to
fit in

He slipped free, like running water. Should that bother her? It didn't.

Her leg stung, but he was never the prize. Now they were facing each other, and it seemed the jig was up. No deals or promises, just a knife, a chain, a fight. A brawl. Something distinctly undignified. Not at all like faerie. 

Guinivere quirked an eyebrow up, trying to ignore the irony of the situation and failing. "I'll be sure to warn them." Maybe he had some sort of prophecy on his side or maybe they needed no omen at all. Bad rulers invited gruesome deaths, and faerie was a perfect place for tragedies.

If everything Julius said was true in the best sense of the word, then soon that land of tragedy would be hers to command. She knew it wouldn't be so simple. Her opponent had proven that death was no easy thing to control, slipping out of her hands so neatly. The fae didn't leave tracks, didn't leave footprints, but mortals did. Snow, rain, forces of nature washed them away. And when that nature was in her hands?

The High stopped speaking. Toasted. Drank. She could see it in her peripheral like she was looking through glamour. She wondered at faking surprise. Claiming she didn't know. But if the fae had taught her nothing else it was how to avoid the question.

She felt a little like a broken record, trying to force him to agree to something he wouldn't, twisting the knife every time. Now he had broken free, and all her otherworldly lessons meant very little because it wasn't a war of words or hearts or poison, it was just a fight. He could call her all the names he wanted and he would just be a boy who was scrabbling for power who she didn't really know and she would just be a murderess who still wondered at the fact that the fae couldn't lie when one of them claimed to love her.

Whoever made you Should that phrase make her angry? Defensive? She was mostly just flattered that he thought she was made at all, something built up rather than the truth-- she was something broken over and over again. She was obsessed with correcting him, with setting the record straight, but when her only value was that she could lie, why bother?

That was the thing about lies-- they were so much more powerful. They had so much more potential. Not confined or defined or chained down. She could claim that the High King was still breathing, that she didn't kill him, that she still loved her father and no one would know which one of those things was true. She could argue that she wasn't mortal or wasn't a doll or wasn't a thing so easily broken and nothing would stop her. It was potential. It was energy.

It was useless. This was just a fight. 

"And what's my favor, and why shouldn't I just kill you now?" Push him from the balcony or spear him to the wall. Invite him over for drinks and watch him collapse while wondering which glass was poisoned when really, they both were. The most fae thing of all. "Maybe we both don't like the High Court, or maybe I like it too well. What's it to you?" She had spoken, and she had argued, and she had told her story. It was his turn to answer her questions. "Anyway, why do you want your St. John's Wort gone? Has it proven to you it won't really ward off the devil?" Her smile was all teeth. There was nothing good here, nothing sanctified or holy. If it couldn't ward her off, it wasn't really worth anything at all when it came to protecting from evil.

Bran Viola
Outfit + Music + Makeup

☽LIA☾ + PUNKI

[Bran Viola]

The heels of Brans palms passed onto the railing as he pulled himself up to sit on top of it. I'm playing. That's not why I'm here, that's not what I should be doing. Even beneath his mask his thoughts were easily betrayed as they slid into position over his eyes, the traces of a dissatisfied curl in his lip in the sudden wrinkle below his left eye.

"I was hoping you'd have an idea for a favor, people from the fae are supposed to be the terrifyingly adept negotiators right?"

Damnit all, why'd he even offer something like that?

"The wort is evidence, and im not gonna get rid of it myself if the devil's standing so close. If we fight again im not getting so much as half a meter closer to you."

Bran brought one leg across the other, what's it to me?

"Nothing I guess. I hope you are just an assassin though. If you're more important than that you'll get yourself killed. If you aren't just someone's pet then the next time, I'll have to bring mine."

Bran didn't wait for her to move or even speak, he'd been an idiot to even suggest a deal in a place like this, and even more of an idiot to waste so much time on some girl. Bran swung his leg back across his shoulder and released his grip on the railing as he did so, his body rolling backwards off the edge. by the time his feet were facing the earth again he was already out of sight, and by the time anyone could make it to see where he'd dropped, he'd be gone from there too. The Fae, raising human assassins? given the Violas predilections it felt like a sick joke. Was this an intentional countermeasure against hunters? Maybe just a hidden ploy for the intrigue of the court? Maybe he was wrong and she'd infiltrated the place like he had, albeit with an impressive subtlety that bran felt reluctant to admit. Bran circled the perimeter of the pavilion as sudden commotion broke out. Another assassin? who even knew. as long as he could report how the night ended, he wouldn't make the mistake of involving himself again. The emptiness of his job settled on his shoulders again, a flock of birds scattered by momentary danger. Why was he here again? Ravens were omnivorous. He didn't have to feed on carrion.
 
tags-Guinivere Marcel ,