dramatispersonae | Guy Cecil's Heart

"... No. Of course not."

[finding a comfortable looking couch and setting tiny Guy down on it, then deinventorying Mary's pendant]

I'm going back.

Guy's eyes go wide at that. "Are you putting that back?"

Peony immediately moves to pick little Gailarida up.

Edited 2012-09-16 08:04 (UTC)

[shakes his head and holds the pendant out]

I'm giving this to you, to deal with how you see fit.

I'm going back to see what happened to Hod.

[... Takes it gently...]

It's a memory... it just belongs where it was.

Hod burned and fell, Vandesdelca.

...I know. I still want to see it.

[looking right at his eyes]

You're certain? Why this way?

...I think it would be best if I saw it through your eyes first, before I must see it through my own.

... What you see is going to be very different.

I'm aware of that.

Whatever you saw, it didn't destroy you in the end. That's why I want to see it.

. . .

[takes a deep breath]

No need to run all the way back there. I can show you.

[...nods.]

Thank you.

You might want to sit down.

[...has a seat on the nearest chair.]

Guy moves to sit beside him, and takes his hand, turning it over - he presses the pendant back in his hand and closes his eyes, taking a breath.

The memory reactivates where it left off, and it's as if you're there. You're trapped under the pile of corpses. You can hear yelling far away, clashes of swords, but the fire is loud. It's stifling and hard to breathe, and sticky from blood. You black out a few times, but every time you wake up, Mary's face is still there, the other women's faces are still there. Blood is still dripping slowly from Miss Aleta's mouth. The pool the drip has made has gotten larger. You can smell meat cooking, and you think that doesn't make any sense. Everything is processed in a disconnected haze. You just assume you're going to die. You assumed hours ago.

Suddenly, your lungs feel full and you cough, hands are on your shoulders, and you're being pulled out. Everything around you is wet. You don't see anything else around. Pere is above you, Sword and shield laid aside, and he exlaims in relief and huge you close.

"You're alive," he says, again and again. "We're going to run, young master. You're going to run with me. I'll carry you, and then you must find your strength, understand?"

He carries you out, and hides you behind some plants. The idea of living is washing over you while he rushes out into the woods, and for a moment you feel despair again when there's shouts and the sound of swords. But he comes back, and gathers you up again, now with two others. It's such a relief you just start to cry, and Pere carries you again. You hang tight to his shoulders.

You run, and eventually you're split up from your company - the view of the battlefield, the sound and sight of bodies splattered apart by heavy weaponry, it's all in portions, an old memory of a child. But it's crystal clear.

By the time the cannons are distant, the memory ends.