flipped moderators. (flippedmods) wrote in flippedrpg, @ 2012-04-18 19:25:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! event, ch: nia: dorcas meadowes, ch: nia: james potter, ch: nia: jamie meadowes-fenwick, ch: nia: madeline potter, p: kristy, p: lucy, p: trish |
WARNING: This is a traumatic event involving the 'death' of children. Don't worry, though. They aren't actually dead! It is a relevant plot point that will be used next week!
Following the sight of their sign language, Jamie and Maddie have been deemed witches by the good people of Salem. They've since been captured, paraded through the square, and promptly hung. Yeah. Seriously. Though their bodies most certainly went through the motions, the two were actually transported back to the Compound just before the bottom dropped beneath them. Of course, to anyone else, it was completely real. As of the present, Maddie and Jamie are alone in the Compound with the Scientists. They may speak to each other, but not to the other Taken until tomorrow night at midnight. For the time being, everyone has no way of not knowing that they aren't actually dead. Yay Salem World! subjects Madeline Potter and Jamie Meadowes-Fenwick of World 3. when / duration. Until future notice. |
Typically, Madeline Potter and Jamie Meadowes-Fenwick occupied themselves silently in the back of the school group, their hands moving in conversation when it wouldn’t be distracting. Here in Salem, this proved to be no different. Maddie had no reason to suspect that they’d see their hand movements as anything but what they were. She didn’t have another way to communicate with him, especially now that he had the voices in his mind to contend with as well. The sign language was important, and they couldn’t afford to set it aside. Maddie was in the process of translating everything important into signs so that Jamie could understand, paraphrasing and emphasizing as was necessary. They were accustomed to this arrangement, as it had been the way they’d made it through school back home as well.
What they didn’t realize was that they had been noticed by a townsperson, who had alerted some others. The close watch spread quickly, and soon they were unknowingly the center of much of the attention in the surrounding area. The hand movements were strange and made no sense, which naturally had only one explanation in the minds of the Salemites: these two children were witches.
The villagers were already suspicious of the newcomers, and certain...items found had not helped their case. That some spoke strangely, and chose to dress - oddly...well. While Jamie and Maddie had donned their new costumes without complaint, and while Maddie quietly introduced them as Susanna Payne and James Walker, their compliance could not save them from the suspicion building around them.
When the Taken themselves began to turn, it was inevitable. That the newcomers were openly admitting evil might have come with them was the final spark needed to set the fire raging. The witch-hunt had begun, and the obvious suspects were the first to be swept up - young thought they were.
Jamie’s only warning was the way the blood drained from Maddie’s face, the way her hand reached out to clasp his, and then the mob was there to collect them, screaming, and while she wouldn’t be able to translate in the panic, he could pretty much guess.
It was absolute chaos, and Maddie was in a frenzied panic, unsure of what to do or how to communicate with these people in a way that would make them not convinced that she and Jamie were evil. She wept uncontrollably, terrified and clinging to Jamie’s hand, her eyes searching for anyone from the Compound who might come to their aid. In the flurry of people, however, she could make no one out. In the mob, she heard something about their hands being ‘of the Devil,’ something to do with ‘Satan’s signs.’ And then it made sense. The sign language. They thought she and Jamie were evil because they spoke with their hands.
She reached for Jamie’s other hand, holding tightly to him as they were huddled away from the school. She spoke quickly, repeating over and over again we’ll be okay we’ll be okay we’ll be okay, something that really didn’t offer much comfort in the face of the screams of them being witches and evil and the necessity of ridding the town of such corruption.
They were eventually torn apart, by the time they got to town center. That was when Jamie truly started to struggle. Until then he’d thought Maddie might manage it - no, he’d never thought that, he’d gotten the sinking feeling that they were done for, because he hadn’t seen his mother anywhere, hadn’t seen Maddie’s parents, and maybe he was just too panicked, but he couldn’t be. If they were there, surely they’d be doing something.
Still, he didn’t know what it was going to be for sure until they were there, until things were happening, and for some reason he could only really think well fuck and he’d gotten the stupid voices at the perfect time, because at least he could say he’d heard something. He tried signing, something incoherent about not her but that only made things worse, and when his hands were smacked down Jamie realized what it was they were doing that was wrong, and his expression turned grim, because yeah, this was all his fault.
“Jamie!” she called allowed as she was pulled from him, struggling as best she could against her captors but knowing there wasn’t anything she could do. She didn’t even have her wand on her, not that it would’ve done much good. Unless someone could step in, they were completely at the mercy of those around them. And at the sight of the gallows with the ropes swinging from them, her panic turned into a complete anxiety attack, something that didn’t help their situation in the slightest.
It was happening. It was happening and there was nothing he could do. His hands were caught, he couldn’t even talk to Maddie, tell her something stupid and pointless and comforting (nothing was going to be okay, clearly, like she’d been signing so frantically). He was taller than her now, but he was still only fourteen. Neither of them had the strength to break away, not from so many people, and neither of them could muster any magic. Jamie’s strength was bookwork; all his magic was voiceless, but he didn’t know anything for this, couldn’t think straight and then there was a rope around his neck.
Jamie kept thinking, kept trying to figure out a way - there had to be a way, didn’t there? - but it seemed unlikely, because he was dead certain (ha, dead) that he was seconds away from dying. Maddie was saying something (she’d forgotten it was useless, maybe, she looked so scared, and maybe if he could hear her they could get out of this, but that was stupid because no). The new voices in his head made the screaming around him weird. Like the people were actually shouting at him, maybe, except Maddie said this wasn’t screaming.
He didn’t know what he was thinking about, and he figured he looked like hell, and Jamie decided the last thing he was ever to do was say one word, mangled and as incoherent as anything he could say, because he’d never heard them, only knew the shape of the word, the way it looked and felt. “Maddie,” looking over at her, and he figured shutting his eyes would be pointless, and, well, at least it wasn’t dinosaurs. Then, when the rope was tightening, because he was his mother’s son, “Fuck.”
After that last scribbled note to Sirius - watch ellie - James was gone. He assumed Dorcas would be there, hadn’t given a second thought to the other chimes from the journal (screw it, what was he supposed to do, sit there and wait?), he’d just left the house and booked it. The only thought was getting there in time. He didn’t even know what to expect - a trial, what? - but someone had taken his child and there was no way in hell he’d just - what, wait? Plan? He’d have been out the door if it were one of the boys, anyone else. He ran, ignoring blending in or whatever, just had to be there in time.
Except he wasn’t.
James assumed right. The moment she saw it, the moment she realised Maddie and Jamie were in danger, she'd told Benjy to stay put and chucked her journal across the room. Muggles be damned. She grabbed her wand and stuffed it deep in the pockets of her Puritan garb. She didn't even bother with shoes, which might've been more sensible given the ground was made of mud and rocks and sticks, but that didn't matter. Her baby was in danger. By the time she reached the - the fucking gallows, were they being fucking serious here? Her hair was a mess, her feet saturated with mud, and her cheeks were flushed with exertion and rage. And that sharp, painful stabbing in her chest that told her that she was about to lose her baby. Dorcas did the only logical thing she could imagine: she screamed. Propriety, muggles - all of it be damned. She elbowed past the assembled crowd, and she didn't stop until she was near the front.
'Jamie,' Dorcas shouted, frantically, fisting inside her clothes for the thin piece of wood that would make everything better again. 'STOP THIS. Stop this now! They're only little children! What the fuck is wrong with you?'
And then she heard the snap. It was distinct, a bright little pop, the sound of a lightbulb blowing out. Her gaze flew to the stand. Nobody had listened to her protests. Nobody had even cared to do more than glance at her. And now here they were. Hanging. Her babies. Dorcas was stunned. She gaped, and then her knees met the ground, and then the rest of her did, too. A lone, sharp wail escaped her throat.
He was an auror. That was supposed to mean something, and somehow that was all that went through James’ head, along with incoherent - god was he screaming still, he must be, but the bodies were just dangling there, and every fucking skill he’d learned had been useless, he’d been there too late, and he couldn’t think, couldn’t move, except he heard the sound his heart was making and found Dorcas, just stood by her, unable to look away from what had just happened.
He’d seen death before, but never this, and the small part of James that was kept aside, the auror part, said you’re in shock and said get Dorcas out of there, you both need to get out of there, getting hung yourselves won’t help anything and he automatically started to follow those orders, lips in a tight line, expression blank. The mob was dying down - except it wasn’t, there was an air of...something, and it was just dispersing, as the event was over - and the ropes were cut. Two thuds.
He offered Dorcas a hand. “The...” bodies, the bodies. “They’re not burying them. I - fuck.” His voice broke like he was fourteen again, and he didn’t know how to say it, just looked down at her, tried to get it across. “Meadowes.”