lethevale_ooc | TDM The First

TDM The First

You probably know how this works, but just in case, here's the idea:

You put the name of the character you're testing out in the subject line
You write a starter (or several!) in the comment, with the Lethevale AU of your character.
People respond with their characters. Threads occur. Friendships are made. The world is put to rights.
None of the threads in the Test Drive are game-canon.

Here are some prompts to start you off!

1. Seeking Shelter

You were riding along the mountain road when your horse, terrified by some dark shadow you couldn't see clearly, screamed and bolted, throwing you. Now you're caught in the middle of nowhere, in Lethe Wood, and the rain is getting heavier by the minute.

But what's that? A light? A house? Perhaps if you knock, they'll give you a bed for the night. It'll all look better in the morning...

2. The Beast! The Terrible Beast!

You took all the precautions. You carried a lantern, kept to the safer streets. Or maybe you didn't. Either way, you were attacked by something as big as a horse, with gleaming white teeth and a hideous howl.

When you run into another person, will you warn them? Will you ask them for a hiding place, or stand and fight? If all else fails, maybe you can use them as live bait...

3. Eat, Drink, and Be Merry

Lethevale isn't all monsters and storms. ~~Mostly, but not all~~. Tonight, there's a party in the Black Swan - dancing, music, and of course, an open bar. Take the chance to get to know your neighbours, why don't you?

4. Pay No Attention To The Passage Behind The Curtain

The two of you were just wandering around Lethe Hall, when you leant on a candlestick, and... what's this? The bookshelf's opened? There's a hole in the wall now, and a spiral staircase leading down into the dark. You know, it's probably best to just leave well enough alone - but you have to admit, it's curious...


COMMS	GENERAL INFO	NEW PLAYERS	CURRENT PLAYERS
main writings ooc mods mod npcs	rules setting premise faq/mod contact gameplay	reserves taken latest tdm application au workshop	contact (locked) hiatus/drop calendar latest hmd lethevale

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It is the second howl that draws Francis' attention, sends him darting out into the street despite the danger. The shots make him think that this other man can handle himself against one wolf... or bear, or boar, or whatever that great, shaggy form is. But now?

He cannot bear to stay inside any longer. Against the protests of his host, he rushes out of the pub at the end of the street, snatching up a poker from the hearth as he does so. There is more valour than wisdom in the act, certainly; he is a scholar and not a warrior, and truthfully has little idea of what he can do besides act as a distraction. But perhaps a distraction will be enough.

As the creature lunges again at Boromir, Francis dives at it, swinging the poker like a bat with all the strength in his wiry body. A surprising amount of strength, judging by the sickening, wet thud as the hook of the poker pierces the beast's bloodshot eye and the bone beneath. Breathless, shocked at himself and at his own ferocity, he yanks the bloodied poker back with another thick squelch, staggering back a couple of steps, his eyes wide.

The sound the beast makes as it goes down is terrible-- furious and wet-throated and horribly lingering. It struggles a few times to rise, though it lists to one side, the strength gone from half its body. It raises its head at Faramir and makes a sound that no bear or wolf or boar on the Earth has ever made--

--and Boromir shoots it in the back of the head in a shower of bone and blood.

The silence in its wake feels unnaturally loud. His ears still ring with its howl. He straightens painfully, breathing hard, and looks at the man with the poker.

"You ought to have stayed in safety," he says hoarsely. "I have not... I have never seen a beast like this." He looks back and forth, as though he fears another is waiting to spring from the shadows.

"Stayed in safety and watched as that same beast tore out a man's throat?" Francis' tone is firm, even a touch sarcastic, but there is a tremble to his hand as he lowers the poker by his side. He is not used to violence, nor does he quite know what to do with the shaky, dizzy feeling as the adrenaline begins to fade. There is blood on his shirt, on his hands, and something thick and viscous he doesn't want to think about too hard. "No. My body might have been spared by such caution, but my soul would surely be damned."

He follows the other man's eyes, this way and that, searching for any of the animal's companions. Once he is reassured that nothing draws too near, that no other howl splits the night, he drops the bloody poker with a clatter and moves to the other man's side, to offer some support. This close, even in the darkness, it is clear he has been affected by the fight: under the blood, his olive skin has taken on a greyish pallor, and he is trembling noticeably when he offers his arm.

"We should find somewhere to see to that wound," he says, quietly. "Do you stay nearby, sir?"

As the adrenaline fades, Boromir begins to feel the pain in his shoulder, and the first wash of dizziness. It's not a deadly amount of blood, but it's not insignificant, either. He lets himself lean on the other man's arm, and notes how it trembles-- the man struck a great blow, but it was all courage that drove him, not experience.

"At the Rose & Thorn," he says. He'd been on his way there, taking a quicker, less well-lit path. "I have rooms there."

But he's doing what he's accustomed to do: Already thinking the next steps ahead, imagining from where the next threat might come. "But there must be an alarm." He takes an unsteady step and then another, less unsteady. "We must set a patrol. What if another comes? This one did not fear to enter the town. It did not fear me. The next victim might be unarmed. Can we be sure it was the only one of its kind?"

The thought that someone else should run afoul of a beast like this while he recovers in safety is one he can't bear. And, so long as they're both out in the street together, this man is under his direct protection.

Edited 2019-04-06 23:17 (UTC)

"We cannot." Francis does not sound as though he's trying to humour the other man, nor to talk him down; his expression is grimly serious, and he frowns, looking down at the black mass of the beast in its bloody heap. "I do not doubt that the alarm is already being raised, but..."

But he understands the stranger's concern. It is not in his nature, either, to leave things to chance, to take any less than the fullest responsibility. If it were, he would not be out here in the first place. Passing a bloodied hand across his mouth, he considers a moment, and then nods. The other man is bigger and heavier than Francis himself, but still he tries to steer him on, gently but firmly.

"There must be a constable, a watchman." He nods, as if satisfied. "You should see to your injury, and it will take only one of us to pass on the word. I will go, and fetch a doctor as well, if I can. I do not trust that thing's teeth to be unpoisoned," he adds, grimly, looking back at the fallen beast.

The steering is welcome, if he's honest. He forces himself to slow-- in another time he would have driven himself harder, pressed forward all the more stubbornly, but he cannot exhaust himself before the man beside him has found safety.

"You cannot go alone and unarmed," he says, with a shake of his head. "You struck a hell of a blow there-- if I may say so-- but I won't let you seek danger again for my sake."

Then what to do? A moment's peril, and he's already thinking as though he's posting defenses against a force of a hundred. Trying to command an imaginary army through a haze of pain against an enemy he doesn't even know is out there. He's not in command here.

He battles with himself a moment; and then he lets out a breath, and with it allows the stranger to take a little more of his weight. "...We'll go to the Rose & Thorn," he says. "As you said. We'll alert the innkeep. What messages must be sent can be sent from there."

He adds, as though convincing himself, "You're right. This is the constable's affair."

Edited 2019-04-07 02:19 (UTC)

Francis stumbles a little, only a little, under the other man's weight. Tall as he is, it must be said that he is unused to being the smaller man, and though he is stronger than he looks, he is also still shaking from the fight.

He nods, pressing his lips together. "They will know better who to speak with," he agrees, and sounds all the more as though he is trying to convince himself. It is comforting to think that they may in good conscience take that easier way out; more comforting still to think that they have found a solution. Still, doubt lingers, a sense that he should be doing more than that. "Certainly, I am not long-enough established, and they are more than a touch mistrustful..."

Yes. Yes, it is best. Thus reassured, he nods again, more firmly, and turns the corner towards the Rose & Thorn.

"It is good of you," he ventures, after a moment, "to be so concerned for my safety. I am afraid you would be better-placed to look to your own, though."

"They will want our assistance later," Boromir says, "to describe the beast. Perhaps to track it wherever it came from. We will be of more help then." He seems to have decided that they're in this together now, for as long as it takes to resolve.

He manages a brief smile through the pain in his shoulder, though, at the stranger's concern. "You cared enough for my safety, though we've never spoken, to abandon protection and brain a demon with a poker. Could I in good conscience do less for you?"

The Rose & Thorn's windows are bright just ahead. They'll make it unharmed. He voices the prayer in his own mind automatically: Thanks be to God.

Edited 2019-04-08 05:18 (UTC)

"Not a demon," Francis says, a little reprovingly, though perhaps with a kind of light-headed humour as well. He certainly feels strangely giddy, even now, at what has happened. "Though what it was... I wonder..." But what it is he wonders, he does not say, but trails off into quiet as they reach the inn, offering up his own silent prayer of thanks.

Perhaps it is only the strangeness of the situation that makes the light from the inn's windows seem so unnaturally bright, the sound from inside echo so loudly when the door swings open. Now Francis is grateful for the other man's weight on his shoulder, a solid anchor against the sudden rush of brightness and life that washes over him like a wave.

To explain the situation is easier than he would have expected. The innkeeper simply nods and grunts, tosses his cloth over his shoulder and marches away to call over a man from where he sits beside the fire; this man, he tells them, is the night-watchman.

For his part, Boromir is glad of the other man's support beside him as they enter the rush of light and warmth. It would have been exhausting to a degree he isn't prepared to admit to come here wounded and alone, to have to bear the pain without showing any sign that it has only grown worse, to have to explain what he saw in the voice of someone who can be trusted and perhaps even obeyed. It is a relief, to a degree he is not prepared to admit, to let someone else bear part of the burden.

The night-watchman is not alarmed enough, Boromir thinks, at their news. (Never mind that he's a night-watchman, who appears to have been doing all his watching from inside the Rose & Thorn.) He does not say he knows what the beast is, but he also does not say that he has never seen its like before. When he thanks them for their description and moves off toward the door, it is not with the haste Boromir wants him to.

"Tell me, friend," he says quietly to the man beside him when the watchman is gone-- realizing as he does that they have faced down death together already tonight, and he hasn't so much as asked his name-- "Did he seem less surprised to you than he ought?"

From the way Francis watches the man go, the hardness around the set of his mouth and the frown that creases his brow, he too had hoped for greater haste. But something is better, even so, than nothing - and in a town so small, he is sure word will spread, though it may not be from the drunk night-watchman's mouth.

"He did," Francis agrees, his eyes still fixed on the now-closed door, his expression distant. He is turning it over in his head: the great beast, the gnashing jaws, the discomfiting calm with which the watchman had almost sauntered to the door. It will not fit. He cannot make it fit. And yet, it has happened, and the man beside him, with the blood seeping through his shirt, is proof of that.

He sighs at last, and turns back to the other man. "It is a mystery, sir, for another time. For now, it seems to me that it is out of our hands, and I will rest more easily once I know that your wound is seen to." It is then, belatedly, that he too realises that they have not exchanged names, and almost laughs at the absurdity of it. There is a certain hysteria bubbling up beneath that laugh, though, and he tamps both firmly down, offering his hand to shake - the only thing he can think to do, now, although it hardly makes things less absurd. "I am Francis, by the way. Francis Fletcher. I'm afraid, in all this madness, we quite passed over introductions."

Boromir holds out his hand to shake—and then realizes, as it hangs in the air between them, that it’s covered in blood, both his own and the monster’s. That pulls a laugh out of him, because it’s so gruesome it has to be funny. He has the urge to excuse himself and reach for his handkerchief, which is even funnier.

“My name is Boromir Wójcik,” he says, withdrawing his hand with a Well, nothing to be done smile. “I would say it is a pleasure, but I fear it would fall rather flat, given the circumstances.” Adrenaline is giving way to a bone-deep weariness, one he has felt more acutely in recent years. It was a weariness not unlike this, stretched out over months, that ended his tour in the East.

“I can tend to the wound with what I have, at least until it can be seen to by a doctor,” he says. “I am—I was a soldier. I have tended worse with less.” It’s intended to be reassuring, though his face is drawn with pain. (In the light it’s clear they have the same olive skin, and fear and pain color it much the same way.)

“You should not leave this place again tonight,” he adds. “My rooms can fit two easily enough—or I will rent another for you.” These are, by implication, the only available options he sees.

"Wójcik," Francis repeats, under his breath, and frowns. There is something familiar about the name, something he can't quite place. It doesn't feel significant, precisely, but it nags at him, at the edge of his memory. He feels quite sure that it's a name he has heard before.

But what of it? Boromir is a soldier, but one with the bearing and the accent of the well-bred; probably, Wójcik is the name of some baron or lord, or some patron of the university, even. It feels too easy, in this shifting candlelight, with the horrors of the night so fresh and still giddying, to put significance where none belongs; to sit and stare through a pinhole of the mind at some small fraction of what was said, and take no account of what was meant.

Francis clears his throat, and shakes his head briskly, not in negation but merely to try and bring himself back to the present. "I would not wish to take such generosity, Mr Wójcik," he says, but as he says it, he notes the command in Boromir's tone and, too, the pallor and pain in the other man's face, and he knows that he will stay. Wójcik will not have him leave, and Francis himself is not callous enough to turn away from a man in such a state. Besides, the thought of poison in the creature's bite has not yet left him, and someone, he thinks, ought to make sure a doctor is called if things go wrong. He sighs, and shakes his head again, this time in resignation. "My own lodgings are not far from here," he observes, quietly. "But if it will put you more at ease, then I will stay."

“Good.” He reaches out to rest his hand on Fletcher’s shoulder—and then withdraws it. The gesture felt easy to make, but it is too familiar. It would be an overreach even if his hands were clean.

Well. It’s hard to find one’s way back to the solid ground of courtesy when the acquaintance was born in crisis. Boromir shifts the gesture into an indication that Fletcher should follow, and leads the way to one of the larger suites of rooms in this small place, leaving a request for hot water with the innkeep as they go.

The price of these rooms is, one can assume, higher on account of there being a door that closes between the bed and the rest of the space. The outer room is well-furnished, but otherwise bare; a cloak and hat hang from a peg and a pair of boots wait by the door, but the only other sign that the place is rented is a rosary, finely-made, draped across an end table. It is as though Boromir prepares for a hasty exit every time he leaves the place, or like he never bothered to settle in at all.

“Please, be comfortable,” he says; though while he speaks he falls heavily into one of the chairs, and grits his teeth to pull his arm from his bloodied shirtsleeve. It’s an ugly sight underneath—not showing obvious signs of poison, but still bleeding slowly.

Francis grimaces at the sight, and starts towards Wójcik without thinking, hand half-raising to offer help - then, thinking better of it, he clears his throat and makes himself pull back and sit in the other chair. He has to admit that sitting is more help to his own condition than he cares to think; he had not really realised how shaky his legs felt, or how light his head, until he took some of the strain from himself.

He runs both hands up over his face, leaving smears of half-dried animal blood as he does so, and takes a deep breath. This is not at all how he imagined his night going, and to tell the truth, all he wants is for it to be over; to be back in his own (far more modest) rented room, clean and without half-listening for another howl, and to spend a good hour or two with his books before bed. Or, actually, just to go to bed. Sitting down has also made him realise how immensely tired he feels.

"Do you have bandages?" he asks aloud, looking around the room as though they might be lying on a tabletop or hanging from a peg. "We ought to have asked for those, as well. Drat."

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TDM The First

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lmk if i Presume Too Much

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