Cuthbert Allgood (cuthbertallgood) wrote in madisonvalley, @ 2013-10-13 16:49:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, !open, ~2013 october, ~~!35 points, ~~cuthbert allgood (cuthbertallgood), ~~finnick odair (tiedinknots) |
Who: Cuthbert and OPEN
What: Cuthbert ventures out of the woods
Where: The outskirts of town
When: Mid-afternoon
Warnings: TBD
Glancing to one side of him and then another, Cuthbert stepped out onto the sidewalk. The cars were loud, louder than he remembered. Citgo. He imagined them rusted and decaying, forgotten. Didn't everything come to that? Wouldn't all of this disappear, just as everything at home might do if-
No. It wasn't a train of thought he was going to allow himself, not now. Hadn't he sat there for days, pondering that very fact, not stirring unless he had to. Valen had prompted him, and he had talked some, and talked on the phone network too, but for the most part he had kept to himself much more than was his habit. It was the space he needed; first to accept what might be, and then to think on what might be done to change it. Except that he didn't have the details to lay concrete plans, and he wouldn't, not unless he read those books. Roland was doing it, wasn't he? Did Roland have so much more courage than Cuthbert himself?
He knew what he had to do and there was only so long he could hold off doing it, but all the same he was reluctant to leave the woods. Valen made no demands on him. Valen understood the grief and the shock of it both, Cuthbert would wager. Didn't his world have those Harrowers who sought destruction every bit as much as Farson and his men?
They'd burn Gilead like they burnt Indrie, wouldn't they, and folk in the other baronies would speak on it in whispers and be glad it wasn't them. Until it was. Until all that was good in Mid-World was torn down or sent up in flames.
They could stop it. There had to be a way to stop it, although it wouldn't be an easy task. Hadn't Cuthbert talked such things out with Cesare before? Only in his case it was a matter of technology. Give him guns to take back, give him knowledge, and he might hold Rome against the Sforzas and whoever else thought to destroy it. Cuthbert's situation was different. Modern guns wouldn't change the outcome, not when Farson had the oil-fueled machines. Citgo wasn't the only source, was it? And those guns weren't better than their own as it counted in any case. No, mayhap the trick was to be quick and decisive, keep the fight away from Gilead entirely and take the enemy by surprise afore they had the opportunity to launch such an attack. If they couldn't win in the open field they'd have to be clever about it, proper trig and find other ways to go about things.
There were ways. Cuthbert was still thinking on it. Except that today he'd got up and left camp, started wandering. He hadn't rightly known where he was going, hadn't much cared, until he came out from the woods entirely and reached that road. What was he doing here? He looked about him again, then blinked - once, twice. Roland wanted him to go back to the apartment. He wasn't rightly sure if he could, not yet, but wasn't standing here a start? Even if he still felt dazed, disorientated, and gods only knew how he looked after days at the makeshift campsite. His clothes weren't dirty, exactly, but creased and over-worn to be sure. It had been the least of his concerns.