milliways_bar | (no subject)

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(no subject)

[From here.]

She walks, with halting movement, into the bar through the lake door. Deep crimson marks her white cloak along her left hip and side, and scorch-marks are visible along the hem. Her left hand is hidden in its folds, and her right hand is pressed tightly to her ribcage, covering a slowly spreading bloodstain.

Despite all this, the White Rider does not look particularly displeased-- until she spies Merriman, who jerks to a halt at her entrance. Her ice-blue gaze as she looks at him is cold and arrogant, and then she turns away without a word.

Limping slightly, she starts for the stairs.

[OOC: Warning for violence in this post too, now.]

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Merriman is just getting to his feet as Will nears. He knows that Will is there, without needing to turn or look round.

And so he does neither, keeping his gaze fixed on the charred grass.

Fire, he says silently, after a long moment. Fire to burn away the Dark.

Will is silent, too, staring at the ground.

Fire and frost, flames and wind and a mad howling laughter swirl at the edge of his senses, tilting crazily and full of rage and hate. The grass is charred black, spring flowers charred to cinders. His memory throws up an image sudden and unbidden -- Cafall snarling, teeth bared and silver eyes flashing. It's gone a bare instant later, leaving Will to realize his fists are clenched.

Who?

Not Raven.

He knows this, confirmed by the fading ghost-images of the struggle that continue to repeat themselves in the periphery of his mind. These, too, he sends to Will, a flurry of manic movement and frenzied emotion.

Coyote. The fire came from within, not without.

Will nods. It doesn't matter if Merriman sees the movement; the agreement and understanding are in his mind.

I never met her. It's an absent comment. The feel of her savage burning rage, like Raven the Wild Magic tinged faintly with deserts and high mountains and wind scouring sage-scrub, is clear anyway.

An observer would see only two figures, an old man and a young, standing by a circle of charred grass. A more perceptive observer would see the likeness beneath: the tension in their postures, and the blankness of their faces, as if they were listening to something just beyond hearing, and the icy, implacable fury in their eyes.

Will says nothing, for a long moment, aloud or between minds.

Then, What now, Merriman?

Gradually, the residual heat is fading from the circle, in the May breeze. To the outside senses.

What indeed. A flat, emotionless statement. The situation has gone beyond the appropriateness of irony. We report this, of course, to start. And afterwards....

There is really nothing more the Old Ones can do out here. There is no trace of either combatant, save the charred area of earth that will be left undisturbed. And once word of this spreads -- as it doubtless already has -- the Wild Magic will not be inclined to let the matter drop.

Neither will the Light, for that matter, but that goes without saying. Or thinking.

And afterwards, he continues, with a finality that rings like a chisel striking in stone, we attempt to prevent anyone else from thinking to take matters into their own hands. This cannot be allowed to continue.

He tilts his head back, eyes half-closed and unseeing.

Or we will have a war of attrition on our hands.

And the battlefield here is everyone.

Most of the measures an Old One might take to prevent that are curtailed by the bar's rules against outside business. The bitter irony does not escape Will.

He shoves his hands in his trouser pockets, frowning at the charred patch of ground.

You have been talking to Bernard, you said. Word can be spread, though people will not all listen to it. And Security will have to act on this.

What Will does not say, but they both know, is that getting around Security seems to be very easy indeed.

Will they, though. It isn't quite a rhetorical question, and doesn't try to be. They will at least have to be informed that we will keep to the rules -- with regard for our position here. But if others insist on making things more difficult for all concerned...that position may, after due consideration, have to be re-evaluated.

He looks down at the ground again, and the next thought that drifts between them carries a good deal of frustration, and more than a hint of rueful reflection.

Never before have I looked back with any real measure of fondness for the days of the old battles.

Will grimaces in equally rueful agreement.

Fondness is not the right word, but... then, at least, their hands were not tied.

And, though the Old Ones spend a good while longer conferring by the circle of Coyote's pyre, that is as close to a real plan of attack as they can come: to spread the word, and to reassess their tactics as they can, and to wait. As the bar's rules insist.

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