taxonomites | oo3 → my heart heard it and all to pieces fell [ accidental visual / location: castello petrana ]

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oo3 → my heart heard it and all to pieces fell [ accidental visual / location: castello petrana ]

All Hallows Eve doesn't mean much to Petra, hailing as she does from Elenia and Deira and no place that celebrates this holiday; the festivities pass her by and she spends her evening in front of one of the library's fireplaces, not really reading and, by a certain point, almost dozing. The insulation of a sprawling castle's thick stone leaves her mostly unaware of what's going on outside her walls, and thus wholly unprepared for the footsteps that don't belong.

...it is moments later that the tablet is knocked on by her scrambling hands, wineglass shattered and spilled across the floor as she retreats from the fireplace and hits the table behind her with her back. Whatever she's reacting to is obscured by her skirts and the poor angle, but the high, harsh note of fear in her voice is unmistakable.

"-no, I don't understand, he wrote to me-" she flinches and the tablet is jolted again, and her voice is quieter when she continues moments later, lying, "No, I didn't, of course I didn't, why should I?"

What Petrana sees is this:

He is tall - above six foot but perhaps a shade less so than her own husband - and his cloak is folded over his arm. His hair is long and prematurely white, catching the firelight like a blasphemous halo and he smiles at her, with a distance in his eyes (almost black when he is lit from behind) that followed her for years after their parting. In her mind's eye he's still the poised madman of the downfall in his youth, not yet thirty and so cold, and to see him stroll into her library as though he owns it, as though he owns her and is merely returning to see to her health and loyalty, she's too thrown to see the discrepancy with even the time that passed before his death.

He speaks to her quietly, with narrow focus, and it might be puzzling to anyone observing how she could be jerked forward when it becomes clear, as she no longer blocks the view, that there isn't anyone in front of her - and yet the jet locket that she wears is broken and the snap of it has marked her neck. She hears his footsteps fading toward the door, and kneels in her pooled skirts to try, with shaking hands, to collect the beads that fell.

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This is place is odd and people tend to leave all manner of things public on their tablets, but Doul suspects that this is something more.

"Lady, are you well?"

It sounds as though Petra is crying, just barely loud enough to be picked up - she half-chokes when she hears Doul and realizes the tablet must have been on.

"He broke it," she says, helplessly. "The bastard broke it."

...give her a moment or seven to compose herself.

"So I see. Has he left?" He, it, whatever is there and causing her distress. Does Doul need to come and scowl at some invisible thing?

Petra takes a deep, shuddering breath and then another until she thinks she can answer that safely. Her voice is quiet and she sits back on her heels, just barely in view of the tablet and apparently not presently interested in giving it a better angle.

"I don't know," she says, pressing her hands to her face. "I don't know. He went to look for something, I think-"

If he'd just been here and then gone, then she'd realize sooner that it was only some sort of hallucinatory haunting. Only, her imagination and this place conjured a man who would go seeking something away from her and how frightening that would be, too - Petra won't be settled until she's searched her entire castle, top to bottom, and found no trace of him.

Even then.

"Do you need someone to come and get you out of your house?" It would be too time consuming to search her entire castle, but Doul is relatively confident that he can get in and remove her before either of them came to a nasty end.

Weighing her options - the thought of Martel coming to get her her vs the thought of being right here where he can find her - Petra wipes the tears with the heels of her hands and nods. ...at which point she realizes the tablet's poor angle and says, "Yes, I - yes, please, just for tonight, I can't - just - yes."

She's a little less eloquent than usual under pressure.

At which point she recalls why she was shutting up the place to begin with (and thinks how did he get in?) and protests, half-heartedly, "-oh, but the fog-"

"I will be there as soon as possible. If you don't feel that you can safely leave your home, hang something out the window, and I will make my way to your room." Perhaps his calm, confident manner might ease her worries just a little?

"I'm in the library," she says, clutching the jet beads tightly in one hand and pulling herself up from the floor. "I'll hang my shawl out, so you can see where it is."

While generally unnerving, the various crawling, floating, and flying horrors actually serve to reassure Doul that Taxon is not quite so sterile as it first seemed. The wyrmen, or whatever their local equivalent are called, can be a bother, but not one that's difficult to dispatch.

He enters the castle with his sword drawn before making his way to where he hopes the library is located.

The Extras in the castle are quietly occupying their duties, and otherwise the place is quiet - the library itself isn't very hard to find, with only the lights leading in that direction on and considering the amount of space it takes up.

The fire has gone out, and Petra is sitting - perching, really - on the edge of the armchair she'd been in earlier, her broken locket clutched in her hands and her shoulders not quite shaking under her strenuous attempt to be calm.

There isn't really any evidence of anyone here that oughtn't be, except for the obvious signs in the library itself of Petra having briefly struggled.

"Lady, are you ready to leave? The streets are a mess, but I came here safely and can bring you somewhere secure." Provided you're not bothered by the fact that Doul is a relative newcomer standing about with a unsheathed weapon. "I would suggest that we go quickly before full dark falls."

...of course, this would be when the skies properly blacken and fill with thunder. If we're going to have the cliché of two people alone in a large house with only a few lights, then we might as well go all the way.

As disturbing as it may be from the outside looking in (or any other perspective, for that matter), to Petra he seems the most normal person in this city. She knows that saying - better the devil you know - but she'd rather not renew her acquaintance and she has no illusions about her ability to protect herself, alone.

Sometimes, you really do just have to hold your breath and jump, hoping for the best.

"I'm ready," she says, then, standing up and only wobbling a little. "If he's gone to the tower to find - if he's there, he won't notice us going."

(She is running from a ghost, she thinks angrily, and a bead slips in her hand and silences her protests.)

"Good. When we go into the street, remember that most things cannot actually harm you, they're just meant to look frightening." Doul doesn't actually believe this, but he doesn't want a hysterical woman to contend with. "We're not going far, but if we do get separated, wait, contact me on your tablet if you can, and I will come and get you."

Petra takes a breath to steady herself and nods, stoic - she's a dramatic little thing, but not what anyone would ordinarily call hysterical, so there's that. When she has her terror under control, she's even sort of good in a crisis - at least good enough not to be too much of a burden.

"Yes, I understand."

With a nod he turns his back to her and begins to lead them out. He's going to take his time leaving, not just because they ought to be quiet, but in part to see if whatever it was will attack them now, so he can kill it and be spared the trouble later. The little yellow cottage isn't much, but after only a few days of occupancy it would be a shame to move because the blood stains wouldn't come out of the floorboards.

The fact Petra hasn't actually explained what transpired yet isn't an accident; she hasn't had time yet to sort through it in her mind and she doesn't want to blurt out anything unnecessary if and when she does speak of it. Martel is altogether too much to deal with at once.

In the meantime, she follows quietly, the pearl-grey shawl she'd hung out the window now back and wrapped tightly around her shoulders as they move down through the castle to get out. Nothing stirs.

He's sure that in time Petra will tell him whatever she needs to, but for now, going over the event would only serve to upset her and slow their progress. While unnerving, empty hallways provide no challenge, but the silence of the castle contrasts with the howling of monsters and the storm itself.

"Has this sort of thing happened before?"

"Not to me," she says, softly, and then in a clearer voice - doing her best to match his calm, "I haven't been here for very long. I don't think so, but I- I couldn't know."

Petra anticipates that outside will be...different, and it is telling that even so small and so defenseless, she'd rather brave that with a perfect stranger than stay with whatever it is that broke her locket and sent her to her knees.

Other than the occasional mobat (who may or may not meet a messy end), there's nothing but the fog to slow their way back to Doul's cottage. Admittedly, it's not a castle but the door has a heavy bolt and the main floor is habitable.

"Do you want something to drink?" After motioning that she's welcome to one of the two chairs there, he crouches down before the hearth and rekindles the fire. "I've a kettle and tea, but not much else in stock."

When the door is bolted and Petra has caught her breath - she doesn't think she could venture out into that again, even if it was preferable to staying in her home with a madman - she sinks down onto a chair and straightens her skirts out of mindless, comforting habit. "I - yes, I would be- very grateful for tea. Thank you."

On his way into the kitchen, Doul tugs the curtains shut and fastens them: with the way the city is tonight, it might better than no one know they're home.

"Is there anything else you need?" There's a blanket over the back of her chair and a few books on the mostly bare shelves.

If she thought she could, she might think about sleeping - she doubts she'll manage to, though, and so she shakes her head and keeps her eyes on the fire for something to steady her.

After a few moments in silence, she changes her mind-

"Do you have paper here, or charcoal?" Easy enough to hatch, if he doesn't.

Once the kettle is filled and heating on the stove, Doul goes and fetches her a sheaf of loose paper, some pencils, and a knife to sharpen them.

On the low table beside his chair rests a book he's chosen at random and a pistol, turned to point toward the doorway. Only once he's satisfied that he'll be prepared in the even of unwanted company does he unclip his sword and gearbox, settling in to read and wait out the storm.

By the fire while they wait on the kettle, Petra sets to sketching; it'll occupy her hands and keep her quiet, and it's the best method she can think of to organize her racing thoughts. To draw what she'd seen, of course, and examine it closely with a little distance.

When the tea is ready he brings it and a plate with a few biscuits on it over to her. If she eats those and decides that she's hungry, Doul has a few things in the icebox.

The combination of silence in the home and howling storm outside force Doul to miss Armada with something strong enough that he can almost physically feel it inside his chest.

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[ location : out on the streets of taxon ]

[ location : castello petrana ]

[ location : castello petrana ]

[ location : castello petrana ]

[ location : castello petrana ]

[ location : castello petrana ]

[ location : castello petrana ]

[ location : castello petrana ]

[ location : castello petrana ]

[ location : castello petrana ]

[ location : castello petrana ]

[ location : doul's cottage ]

[ location : doul's cottage ]

[ location : doul's cottage ]

[ location : doul's cottage ]

[ location : doul's cottage ]

[ location : doul's cottage ]