sir rictor cassul, korporal. (templars) wrote in emillion, @ 2014-06-01 10:53:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !log, rictor cassul, violet black |
and to have a soulmate, you need a soul not born of men.
Who: Feldwebel Violet Black and Hauptmann Athos Hauville, then Korporal Rictor Cassul.
What: Two scenes: preparing for their upcoming mission and learning a bit more about Siri D'Albis,
Where: The Grande Cathedral.
When: Recently, before her post.
Rating: Tame.
Status: Complete.
There were long corridors and hidden rooms under the Grande Cathedral that few knew of and that fewer could find. More often than not, it was in these secret places that Violet Black and Athos Hauville met. Certain tasks required privacy, certain mission briefings could simply not be overheard. And so they met in a small room deep under the Cathedral, candlelight keeping them from sinking into complete darkness. There were no other lights here and even if they’d had magic to use, they wouldn’t waste it for such a meeting. Violet couldn’t be sure how old these rooms were, but they’d definitely been built before any sort of electricity had been wired through them. Violet was out of uniform, sitting in a chair that was a bit too large for her, and glancing curiously at the folder that Athos had laid out before him. With all the chaos that had befallen the city, it’d been some time since she’d last been given orders or anything resembling a mission that wasn’t a simple, protect the city. “What news, then?” she asked, light eyes moving from the folder to the glowing face of her oldest friend. In response, he thoughtfully scrubbed at the corner of his jaw, where his beard had been growing in thicker than usual—stress had been nicking at the edges of the Hauptmann, his usual clean-cut facade whittling away as the months dragged on and the city seemed to crumble around them. But the folder on the table was crisp and new, the handwriting impeccable in the report as Athos flipped it open. “That holy artefact we’ve been keeping an eye on,” he said. “It slipped off our radar with everything that’s happened in Emillion lately, but as of last month, the reports from the friars suddenly stopped coming. I thought it might be trouble on the roads at first, but then we sent a scout...” The man trailed off, crossing his arms in front of his chest. The report spoke for itself as Violet started reading it: mutilated corpses charred to a near-crisp, holy silver melted on the cross. Their surroundings were quiet as the grave; no one else would be venturing down here tonight. Violet frowned as she read the writing. “That’s unfortunate,” she muttered, mostly to herself. It’d been a streak of bad luck in and, now it seemed, outside of the city. It took Violet a few more moments to finish before she looked up at her superior. “So you believe that now’s the time to move?” The question in her voice was present; she wasn’t entirely sure they should abandon the city in the midst of cleanup and repair. But Violet was a soldier and it was her duty to follow orders. If Athos was going to send her out, it wouldn’t be without consideration to the state of Emillion. Athos nodded, his expression still grave. “We’ve put it off long enough. It needs to be retrieved.” Then he caught the concerned thoughtfulness in her voice—he still read her like a script, even now. “You wouldn’t be gone for long. It’s only about a day’s overnight journey out into the mountains, up to the pass, to the ruins. But it’s become too active, too volatile. Reports say that it’s a… decorative casket of some sort. Quite large. We need it safely retrieved and set into storage here at the Cathedral, where others won’t stumble across it.” And where it’ll be under our control went unspoken. His scarred hand found another slip of paper and moved it closer: on it, a small handful of names. “Thoughts on other devout Pharist mages you could bring along, to supplement your knights. We’ve seen them in church often.” Violet glanced at the list of names, stopping at one in particular and frowning deeply. It wasn’t like Violet to typically give herself away just with a look, but it was clear what she was thinking just from the lines etched into her forehead. “Siri D’Albis?” she said, moving her eyes to meet Athos’. “We can’t be that desperate for magic users.” A pause. “I’ll take the rest, but not her,” she said, the sort of firmness in her voice that meant a fight would be imminent if Athos pushed her on the matter. To drive her point home, she added, “I have no interest in babysitting a mad child. Especially on so dangerous a mission.” She looked at Athos darkly. “The girl is a lunatic, at best. At worst, a heretic.” “Is this going to be a problem?” Athos said, lip twitching in what was not quite a smile. He could be a bastard sometimes, Violet knew. When she spoke, it was after a long pause. There was a hint of danger in her voice, a low warning. “There’s no point in her joining this mission. I will not charge any of my Blades with making sure she survives. It’d be a waste of resources.” “Your concerns aren’t unfounded.” His next words were carefully-selected, heavily-weighted with a significant look: “But you’re taking her with you. She could do with... observation.” It was a diplomatic phrasing that she knew well; a half-dozen thoughts flew between them at that moment, a symbiotic understanding brewed from years of fighting by each others’ side, carrying each others’ secrets. The fight went out of Violet. It would be annoying to keep the girl around, but if it served a higher purpose, if she was meant to do surveillance on a possible heretic, Violet could accept the task. Bowing her head in understanding, Violet exhaled quietly. “Alright,” she said. Quickly, she added, “You could have started with that.” Her lip curled into a smirk. “I knew we’d get there eventually.” The man’s expression echoed hers, the berserker’s grizzled face splitting into a smile in the gloom of flickering shadows and candlelight. But then there was a pause. “Though be careful out there, Violet. It’ll be dangerous, yet you must come back alive with all of them—and the artefact.” As concerned as he would be for her safety, failure could not be an option. It never was, with Faram. “It will be done,” Violet said with a curt nod. If she was worried about the mission, it was hard to tell. There was a certainty that followed Violet into her work, it hardened her features. She tended to be a perfectionist; she’d yet to lose one of her Blades and though she knew this could change at any time, she had a certain confidence about her abilities as a leader. “Is that all, Athos?” “Aye, that’ll be all.” Anywhere else and with anyone else, the stern Hauptmann might have given a curt ‘dismissed’. But this was their room and their privacy, sheltered away in the depths of the Cathedral, and so Athos simply shuffled the paperwork and rose from his seat. In tacit understanding, the two of them accompanied each other down the halls, back towards the rest of the world. “You summoned me, ma’am?” Rictor Cassul had appeared in the doorway of the woman’s office. He looked more bedraggled than usual, but had managed to piece himself together for this meeting, now all straight lines and obedience. Violet waved Rictor in, motioning for him to take a seat. The shadows that circled his eyes and the short grizzled growth of hair on his chin was unusual enough to make her raise a brow. “Have I called for you at a bad time, Korporal?” Her question once might have dripped with sarcasm, but they were past such pettiness. Violet found herself caring for her second-in-command enough to postpone meetings if it so suited him. He shook his head. “Every time is a bad time these days, Feldwebel. It wouldn’t make a difference.” Rictor knotted his hands behind his back. A small muscle twitched in his jaw but part of him still seemed relieved to be here—if Black had called him in for a meeting, presumably some directions would follow, something which he could construct himself around. Call and answer; listen and obey. Violet knew, vaguely, of the fact that Rictor was having problems with his family. She didn’t want to intrude, but it made her curious. She didn’t push, but only because there was work to get out of the way. “There’s a mission on the horizon,” she explained. “We’ve been asked to retrieve a holy artifact for the Church. As far as we know, it’ll be dangerous. Monks who were tasked with finding information for us have gone missing. Or worse. We’ll be bringing in outsiders.” Violet worked her tongue around the words, finding them bitter. “I wanted to give you a warning. Details will be coming soon and we’ll need to leave quickly when that happens.” “I’m ready,” the holy knight said immediately, without pause. “I’ve been ready for weeks. Simply state the word and I’ll do it.” A pause, then he ticked back through what she’d just said: “Outsiders?” “The Hauptmann,” Violet said, her mouth twisting into an annoy grimace, “has decided that we are in need of extra magical support.” It was a bothersome fact that he probably wasn’t wrong. But Violet didn’t take kindly to working with strangers; she liked being in charge of her people, liked knowing they would obey. After a silent moment, Violet leaned forward in her seat. “What do you know of Siri D’Albis?” That was a question he wasn’t expecting. Now taking a moment to consider, Rictor shut the door behind him and paced further into the room, mulling over the issue. What did he know of Siri D’Albis? Far too much—more than he could try to summarise in one neat, professional description. It was too close to home, both metaphorically and literally. But the man gave it a shot nonetheless. “She’s one of my oldest childhood friends, ma’am,” Rictor said politely. “We grew up together in Reinberg. A priest decided to— to test her abilities and her faith by sending her into the Feywood as a child. There was a heavy concentration of Mist in the area. She didn’t come back the same after that, which is why she’s… as she is.” He almost sounded apologetic, as if this were a fault of his own, as if he were personally responsible for the mad black mage. (In some respects, he and Caspar were.) “Do you believe her to be a prophet of Faram?” Not one to shy away from uncomfortable questions, Violet kept her gaze on Rictor. His stance would give away more of his thoughts than his words, though she didn’t think he’d lie to her. “Whatever your opinion,” Violet said before he spoke, “it won’t leave this room.” Rictor tensed slightly, but not as much as one might have expected; he’d seen this followup coming. “I’m not sure what I believe, Feldwebel,” he finally said. “I wouldn’t expect Faram to drop revelation and prophecy into the ear of a mere hume—but He works in strange ways, ma’am. All I know is that she’s often right about the things she says, the things she sees. They sometimes come true. And if that makes it prophecy, then...” He spread his hands, a gesture partway to a shrug. Violet trained her eyes on Rictor for a long moment, trying to determine whether he was telling the truth or hiding thoughts. She could sense that he wasn’t just being diplomatic for the sake of diplomacy and so she let it go. She’d be forming her own opinion soon anyway. “Thank you, Korporal,” she said, bowing her head. Rictor tilted his own in response, a dip of the head in respect. “Will that be all?” An energy seemed to have settled into him over the course of this short meeting: he was raring to go, eager at the thought of having something to do, something concrete to bend his attention towards. There had been murmur and buzz from the Feldwebel and Hauptmann about this holy artefact in the Nargai mountains ever since last year—it seemed the situation was finally coming to a head. “That’ll be all,” she said. “Dismissed.” |