"Erskin," you say hoarsely, and hug him as tight as you can. You don't want to ever let go. How can you leave him even to get help? "You're not stupid. You're not stupid, baby, it ain't your fault, it's sumpin she's doing to you. You ain't yourself since she got her fangs into you."
"No, no, that's— not right, that's not how it is," you say, stroking his hair. "I've been falling apart for a lot longer than that, love, and I only met her a— a— a few— perigees? ago?" You frown. It feels as if you've always been here, or that you just arrived a few days ago— you're not certain. "Perigees," you repeat. "And I lost my— I lost myself a sweep ago. It's alright. It's alright, though, isn't it, we'll just, we'll all figure this out, alright? We can work everything out, you'll see. We'll be fine." ((does jethro know that cloris jumped from lu to erskin right away, or does he think she invaded a lot more recently?))
"Perigees?" you say incredulously. "Is that what she told you?" You cut yourself off, shake your head slightly. Detach yourself gently from him. "It don't matter. You ain't yourself. I just... I can't be in this hive. I'mma go back out to the tent, keep an eye on your lusus so she can't drug 'im again." You gather the food items up in your arms, wishing you'd brought your bag in. "Which reminds me, I had another prezzie for you, I made you a scarf, but I don't reckon Cloris'd let you keep it. It'd clash with her green." You give his swishy hivecluster-dweller scarf a scathing look, and push past him to stomp out.
MEANWHILE: Now the thickening snow is your ally; it shields you from the front windows of the house as you approach the drone. It’s one of the older models, oversized and at least half biological, and instead of proximity sensors like a car it just has sensitive hairs on its legs. Which means if you can get underneath it without touching those, it’ll just stand there and let you access its maintenance panel. As a bonus, it’s dry underneath, so once you’ve got your tablet hooked up to the output cable, you can put on your glasses and not have them get spattered with slush. The drone pushes the disconnected gate buzzer three times while you key in the series of commands Pancho dug up for you. Before the last one, you wait… wait… it pushes the buzzer once more, and as its forelimb lowers from the button, you hit enter. Then you have thirty seconds to disconnect, pack the cable back into the hatch and shut it, stow your glasses, climb up on top of the drone, and find something you can hang onto. Your heart is pounding, and you feel like you’re taking way too long, but as it turns out you end up counting to twenty while you sit atop its shiny carapace with your hands around its vestigial antennae and your toes hooked under its wing covers. You’re actually beginning to wonder if you just turned the every-30-seconds routine off instead of altering it, when the big gangly thing lurches into motion. It was surprisingly easy, as it turned out, to change its evaluation of the gate as a boundary to respect, like a door, with a bit of rough terrain to be surmounted, like stairs. And now it’s going to go ring the front doorbell. You hang on tight as it clambers up and over the electrified fence, making unhappy clicky noises at the shocks. But a drone this big isn’t going to be incapacitated by something like that. It keeps going, up, up, over, and down the other side — pauses to groom its milky eyes, giving you a perfect opportunity to slip from its back — and then creaks off across the lawn. With Acre’s Battery over your shoulder, you crouch-run along the line of a severely trimmed and winter-leafless hedge, looking for a good vantage point.
You're tremendously hurt, so you give him a bit of lead and then limp stubbornly along after him. He's your moirail, he's upset, you upset him, you can't just let him go off like that, angry at you, it's no good. You'll— you'll sit outside the tent all night, if you have to. Eurgh. It's snowing. You hesitate on the edge of the stoop, a wave of—of— of revulsion washing over you, distaste and unease and fear, and you do an awkward, anxious shuffle before plunging out into the cold after him. "Erskin!" Cloris calls after you, and you glance worriedly over your shoulder. She sounds— angry, admonishing. You suppose you did just rather drop her flat— you look at Jethro, still heading out into the gardens, and take another, more tentative step after him. You're saved from further ire by the doorbell. The front door of the hive chimes, and Cloris makes an irritated little growl in her throat and turns on her heel to go answer it. You resume picking your way along Jethro's footprints, and then— BLAM. Oh, god. Oh no. Oh, stars, fuck, no, no. You turn and race, keeping your feet out of sheer furious desperation. A pizza delivery drone is buzzing furiously off into the gray sky and Cloris is pushing herself up to sit and from behind— from behind— an exit hole bigger than your fist, chips of bone blown out across the green spatter of viscera like stars. "I just put in new carpets," she says, looking back at you. Her expression is— is puzzled, is only faintly upset. She's in shock. And she's, she's not dead, yet, she's a rainbowdrinker, they can come back from things like this, it'll be alright. Everything will be alright. She'll survive. "Get into the hive, love," you order her. "Run. Call for help." You plant yourself in the doorway, covering her, brace with your cane to hold steady, and draw a flintlock. Against whatever behemoth-killing devices he's packing your one-shot pistol is an absurd gesture, but you can't let yourself die for your Lady with empty hands.
The snow swirls thicker, and then parts, and Erskin is standing over your target, dressed up fancier than you ever did when he used to make fun of you for it, looking like the prettiest belle in the cancer ward -- pale as paper ash. Trembling and hopeless. You clench your jaw and aim at the ground. "Get out of the way, Erskin," you growl. "I won't let her keep killing you, even if you never forgive me."
Your pistol dips as you work through what he told you, frowning. "I'm not—" you glance back, your Lady just starting to pull herself up against the wall. Does he want to kill you himself? Is that what all this has been about? But how do you buy her life like that— "Al—alright," you say, "don't shoot, just don't— please don't—" limping a step backwards, your knee buckling so you have to catch yourself against the same wall. You pant with pain and fear, and curl your shoulders in. Your pistol drops to the floor.
You can't see what's going on. You heard a shot, turned in time to see Erskin run back in, and you can see him silhouetted in the open door, but you don't know who's shooting or why. Some drama of Cloris's, no doubt, and Erskin will be playing meat shield, because he's noble like that, even if she didn't have him dancing on strings. A heavy but soft thudding comes thundering up behind you, and you throw yourself to the side, pointing ahead: "Paw, protect my moirail!" Your lusus roars. You haven't heard that sound but a handful of times before; you'd forgotten how loud it was, and in an enclosed hallway it's deafening. He drops a little white bundle (Reggie, he was carrying Reggie by the scruff) and takes the last few yards at a shockingly fast gallop, leaping over Cloris to land on the front stoop in an explosion of snow. He rears up over Erskin, bundles him into a gentle but inescapable bear hug, and flops down to pin Erskin underneath him, protected by a ton of muscle and blubber and hide. "Good job, Paw," you say under your breath as you reach the doorway. Cloris has a hole through her, but she's still getting up. And -- oh. That's Bel, looking like an avenging angel. A kind of grimy, unkempt, baggy-eyed avenging angel, but still scary as shit. And he's got one of those freaky military shotguns with the big-ass drum magazine. You put your hands up and try to edge back into the hall. "I'm gonna just..."
No, NO, you were supposed to— you were luring him in, you almost had him! "Get off!" you yell, frantic, and squirm. The ice bear is huge and heavy and determined to keep hold of you— keep you away, keep you lying here like some bloody unhatched wiggler while they slaughter your Lady— but he's used to wild animals and his own midblood charge. You pry his great big arms loose and shove him over, then swat his muzzle when he snaps for your jacket. He gets a mouthful of your scarf and you shed it easily, running across the snow. You hit Bel with everything you've got.
With your hands full of tactical shotgun (not a small or maneuverable weapon) and your determination to not shoot Erskin by accident, you're slow to evade. His attack sends you rolling ass over antlers across the snowy lawn. You club him off you with the butt of the shotgun, spit out a mouthful of snow, and prepare to meet another charge. He comes at you again, and you flip him over your shoulder, but he catches the hood of your jacket and pulls you down after him. You have no choice but to drop the shotgun and fight him for real. Even though he's making a pretty serious effort to wing you, it might be fun rolling in the snow with him and trading bloody noses under any other circumstances, but right now it's just sad and frustrating. Tether Bel is having a hell of a time holding all these emotions. They're leaking down on you and impairing your combat effectiveness. This is just not on. You've got a split lip as well as a bloody nose, and Erskin's limping from a foot-sweep that tagged his ugly new prosthetic, and Cloris is probably getting away, but you can not bring yourself to use lethal force against your beloved rival, no way no how. And then you hear a scream of anger and pain, which stops you both cold. You both look at the doorway at once. Cloris is sinking her fangs into Jethro's neck. He's doing his best to get away, but his psi-knives cut too shallow, and his open-hand fighting style doesn't seem to be much use when his feet are dangling six inches above the ground. You dive for your shotgun, but you don't know what you're going to do once you've got it.
Your moirail's scream is the worst noise you have ever heard: it goes into your guts and yanks, and you orient to him like a needle snapping north. Your Lady is— but he's not— he's not willing, she's— she's biting him in a way you didn't know she was even capable of. Her actions are fathoms from the intimate, adoring treatment you enjoyed this evening, it's not even caliginous: she simply clutches at him as if he were an object and feeds, ravenous, devouring, worrying the bite deeper when it's not enough for her, and for the first time in your life you understand why trolls fear rainbowdrinkers. Underneath the grace and beauty, the calm confidence and aged wisdom, the fine clothes and playful affection, this is them: no better or less murderous than any other troll. No less prone to use and discard, to lie and betray and she knows how much you love Jethro, she knows you told her and she doesn't listen no one FUCKING LISTENS TO YOU and she's draining him dry. "Lady," you say, stepping forward, hands out in supplication. "Lady, please— put him down, you're killing him! Please, please, don't, let him go, give him over—"
She screams right in your face. There is simply nothing of her in her eyes, no hint that she acknowledged your plea even slightly. She snarls out a horrible, rattling hiss, your moirail's lifeblood dripping down her chin as she drags him closer--
The noise staggers you, and then you— you keep on staggering, the violent explosion of green and grey in front of you blurring into nonsense pieces of color. Your fins go numb and the world goes very quiet and you are aware only of gathering Jethro into yourself, then your knees hitting the floor.
You feel sick, and you're afraid you're going to puke. You're afraid you're going to puke on Erskin. Also he's got his hand on your neck where she was biting you, which stings. Other than that you're really not clear on what the hell's going on. Everything's all sparkles and nothing makes sense. Something warm and wet swipes across your forehead, accompanied by a huff of nasty fishbreath. That'll be Paw. You try to greet him but can't make your mouth work right. You think you might be dying. You're not scared, but Paw and Erskin are gonna be awful upset.
As Erskin gathers Jethro out of the way, you step over his sprawled legs and put another massive slug point-blank into the drinker's chest, just in case she'd managed to heal her heart by biting Jethro. Then you consider the scene before you, the pietà of seadweller and oliveblood with upset lusus; consider the volume of blood still managing to dribble out through Erskin's fingers even as he holds the wound shut. There's no time to get them to a medic. Fortunately, Tether Bel has finally decided to do his goddamn job and keep his feels out of your way while you work. You put away your shotgun and get out your earpiece in the same motion. Hook it over your ear; troll Pancho. Get out your medkit and go to one knee beside the stricken pair while she answers. You talk over her greeting: "Cloris tore into Jethro's throat. He's alive but he looks shocky; no telling how much blood he lost. Erskin's holding the wound closed. What do we do?" Your moirail, being the best medic and the best moirail in the history of ever, doesn't waste even a second on exclamations of dismay. She just starts giving you instructions in a clear, calm voice. You get out the items she says you'll need -- and are grateful you still have the tools from renovating Galley's kitchen, as you use a nail gun to make a place to hang the plasma bag from. It takes you a couple tries to get the dripline into his arm. You soak a gauze pad in antiseptic and offer it to Erskin. "We can save him," you tell him firmly, trying to get your words through the haze of shock. "I have Pancho on the line. She's telling me what to do."
You take the pad of antiseptic, blankly, and then the smell kicks a process into motion. You pull your injury bag out of your sylladex one-handed, flip the satchel flap open, go for the clotting powder. This is a mauling, a bite wound. You know how to close up bite wounds. Antiseptic, pack the holes with clotting powder, sew. Dermal tape and padding. You tolerate intrusions into the steps of the work when they seem helpful— you've only got one hand to spare, so you appreciate jars being opened, wipes and pads being unpeeled, one of your curved needles being threaded for you with the proper suturing fiber. The rest of the things happening you ignore, or push out of the way.
Pancho tells you just to let Erskin take charge, when he seems to know what he's doing; firsthand experience is much better than following instructions over the phone. So you take the nurse's role, hand him what he needs and take care of things like disinfecting the needle and wiping Jethro's skin clean so the tape will adhere. You narrate for Panho, and she keeps you up with Erskin's speed. You actually make a decent team that way. Jethro's looking less dead as the drip bag does its work. He's struggling to keep his eyes open. Pancho says to keep him conscious, so you talk to him from time to time. You can't think of anything to talk about, particularly, so you talk about food. "What do you like on your pizza?" you ask him, and, "How do you take your coffee?" Inanities, but they keep him present and responding. At one point his eyes focus on a point behind your ear, and he mutters something about not eating in the house. Which makes a lot more sense when, somewhat later, you look around to find Cloris's corpse gone, along with Jethro's lusus. The bloody drag trail goes out around teh side of the house. So Paw is like Loggan that way, is he? You'd planned to burn the body, but this is just as good. She's not coming back from an ice bear's stomach. At last you raise your eyes to meet Erskin's. "I have a hotel room booked. Supplies laid in for a recovery. I thought it'd be you recovering, but.." You shrug. "You should take my flyer, get him comfortable. Then send it back for me. Okay?" There's a lot you want to say to him. You might never get the chance. He might take the flyer and vanish. But now, at least, it's his choice.
There's an aircar. You're urged up and towards it, holding Jethro very carefully— he's smaller than you but not by so much it's easy to carry him with one arm, and you need a stick, you can't risk tipping over. You move deliberately, steadily, one step at a time, only pausing when you stumble over your discarded scarf. It lies in the snow like a splash of blood and you can't, you can't-- just step over it, everything else you have on is just black. You kneel, very carefully, very slowly, and drag the jade scarf over your shoulders. Then you get back to your feet, go to the flyer, climb up into the passenger seat, settle Jethro securely into your lap. Your Lady will drive you to— to wherever the aircar is going to be driven to. But she's not here. She's dead. So you sit, and comb Jethro's hair very gently with your claws.
First things first: you follow the trail of jade blood to its terminus, and snap a few pictures of the ice bear with its muzzle busily working in the corpse's soft bits. It's disturbing, but it's proof. Paw growls a warning when you get too close, so you don't even consider slicing off any trophies. Her horns aren't there, though -- the whole top of her head is gone, in fact -- so you go back to the entryway and examine what your 10-gauge slug wrought. You collect what's left of the horns from the spray of brain and bone matter and wrap them up in case Lu and Galley (and later, perhaps, Erskin) need something a little more tangible. At this point, Tether Bel reaches capacity, and you have to go dry-heave in the bushes for a while. Coming down off the adrenaline high while still standing amongst the gore is always a bitch. After that, it's mainly just looting. You grab Cloris's electronics and paper writing materials, so you can look for the names and addresses of the drinkers who tormented Erskin at that party. You take anything that can be readily converted to cash; jewelry, bottles of fancy liquor, fur coats. And you take her coffee maker, because it's better than yours. Everything else, you leave for her 'friends', who will no doubt descend en masse as soon as they discern that something's happened to her. Your final task is the one you truly relish. Lu told you what Cloris's lusus is; one of the search criteria when you were tracking down her hive was a basement big enough to contain the thing. You picked up a special treat for it. When you get back to where you left your flyer, the still-unconscious Reggie under your arm, expecting to have to wait a while for Erskin to send it back, you're dismayed to find it still there. Does Erskin not know how to fly one? Jethro's lusus is there too, poking his vast head through the window to lick Jethro's face. Erskin is sitting in the passenger seat with Jethro on his lap. He's got a thousand-yard stare and is, if such a thing is possible, even paler than when you arrived. Okay, maybe driving a flyer is a bit of a tall order for him right now. You can understand that. It'll be a tight fit with the three of you but you don't have far to go. You pat the ice bear's shoulder to get his attention; he turns his green-stained face to you with a quiet growl, as if he thinks you're going to hurt his charge more. You say, "You're not gonna fit in the flyer. Can you find your way back to the hotel?" The snuffing noise he makes means nothing to you, but he pads a couple steps back, leaving you room to take off, which is good enough. As you strap yourself into the driver's seat, you try to think of something to say to Erskin, something that might bring him back from wherever he's gone, but nothing comes to you.
