Who

Bailey, Rocio, Raivel, Thornton, Lais, K'lir, T'ral, Sammael | Khalyssrielth, Dhiammarath, Bryntaeroth, Esanth

What

Several Southerners bring the man to heel (one canine contributor quite literally). O'ccam's Razorth dictates that Thornton is the dreaded Hold Killer. It's over, right? Right?

Violence, bloodshed, murder.

When

It is sunset of the sixteenth day of the third month of the third turn of the 12th pass.

Where

Southern Barrier Bloody Hold

OOC Date 31 Oct 2014 07:00

 

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the_observatory.jpg

The Observatory

A strange thing, this half-sheltered dome of natural rock. Someone has marked it off — are those the sigils of the starcraft?

It is the sixteenth day of Autumn and 24 degrees. It's really damn cold out.


It is a dark and gloomy night — even at the farthest reaches of Pern. Perhaps especially. Despite the full, ripe brilliance of Belior overhead, the aura of the evening is distinctively off-kilter… probably due to the admitted awfulness of being on a rooftop with a small cluster of dark, heavily-clad people, watching a lunar eclipse with the threat of a madman looming. The eclipse is close, but not yet started, and a small level of convival spirits are restored by the sharing of tiny cups of heated liquor, some kind of mulled, spiked wine. Bailey, only one amongst the crowd, cups her hands around the thimbleful she's given, smiling up conspiratorily to her companion. "This will probably be the highlight of the evening, if I had to lay a bet," Bailey cheerfully mocks the otherwise-sobriety of this particular event, her lips curving into a smudged smirk.

A puff of steam is breathed into existence as Rocio takes her position near Bailey. "I don't doubt that. You think this'll take long?" Not that the huntress is impatient to get out of the cold or anything. In fact, she's been getting used to the Hold's temperatures and has since improved her collection of winter gear. Thank Faranth she knows what to expect, even in the evening, as cold as it is on the rooftop. She sips her warm drink as looks around at the crowd. "Nice turnout, too." she muses. Watching the eclipse wasn't part of her plans for the evening, but when Southern's junior weyrwoman grabbed ahold of her to attend such an event, she gladly accepted.

Renalde's rules on the Hold aren't trivial ones — not even Bailey would flaunt her rank to break the headman's decree of buddies. Grey eyes traverse the scene about them mildly, the milling people, the patient starcrafters. More than half the crowd isn't even from Southern, being the studiously quiet starries huddled around the telescope proper: but here under the open sky, the viewing is nice enough for the mere mortals to not worry about such fineries as telescopes. "It amazes me how many of these… particular people came out." Bailey's voice is arch, and she POINTEDLY looks at the nearest pair of Blooded dandies dressed in foppish attire, entirely ill-suited for the cold and entirely too-loud for the crowd.

Is that a whisper of something unseen, drifting along the edges of the milling crowd?

Rocio takes another sip of her drink and is very grateful for the gloves on her hands and the warm mug they're wrapped around. The hood of her waist bound cloak is pulled up over her head and she hunkers down into it for added warmth, nodding at Bailey as she does. "Well, maybe they're just here for the free food." she says with a wry smirk. The crystal clear sky is then gazed at with much appreciation and she exhales a slow breath. "I don't think the night could be any better for this, y'know? Thanks for inviting me out." Another sip is taken. She'll be needing a refill soon.

"I think they are more likely out here to convince one-another of their immortality," Bailey drawls, shaking her head. She's let her hair down for this, and the ringlets of deepest, ruddy auburn tumble about her shoulders. "It is a remarkably clear night," the goldrider agrees, sidling a bit closer. Warmth, man. People are way more colder than solitude. The goldrider seems to go on a bit of alert at someone skulking about the edges of the gathering… but relaxes, fractionally, as the fur-covered thing resolves as Steward Raivel, pushing his hood back to join the crowd. Alone, one would note, despite the Headman's decree. Bailey's lips turn down. "I've never liked that man," she mutters to Rocio, and only to Rocio, turning a fey look to the nearest Blooded fool who looks her way at the low-toned words.

There has been many a night that Rocio's slept outside underneath a blanket of stars and she takes a moment to drink this moment in. And speaking of which, her empty mug is set down on a passing tray as she nods her thanks. Grabbing hold of her cloak and wrapping it tighter around her body, the huntress straightens a bit and hooks her thumbs into her belt loops. When the weyrwoman leans in closer, Rocio nods and flick her eyes over to Raivel. "The Steward?" she asks quietly. "I've heard things about him." Nothing good, either. "He has the look of a wild animal that's been caged and released." She, too, notices various shadows amongst the gathered groups of people, her heightened senses on overload. Crowds have a way of doing that to her.

"Yes." Bailey confirms Rocio's words, her eyes balefully staring after the man for a long, long moment. There is a forced nature to her smile when she deliberately puts her back to the man, giving the huntress her full attention. "It's no good to give that much attention to a man who's not worth it." Her lips thin at the statement, and her gaze moves towards the sudden cry of the starcrafter beyond. "Oh look — it's starting!" Her gaze turns up to the skies, and the slow sliver of red that starts to show at Belior's farthest edge.

Rocio rises on tiptoes to get a better view of the mountains off in the distance, but her eyes return to Belior overhead soon afterward. Bootheels thud against the stone floor as she rocks back and then forward again at Bailey's words. Raivel. One last look is given to the Steward before her full attention is on the eclipse. "Oh wow." she says with a grin. "We got the best view, that's for sure." This is sooo much better than watching from a flat field. Up here she feels almost eye level with everything. "You need another drink, or are you good?" Eyes remain fixed on the sky even as she inquires.

"We did," Bailey concurs with a bright and sudden grin for Rocio, camraderie shared in the moment: the red creeps across the brightest point of the Southern skies, slowly occluding all until the pivotal moment: all breaths are held in the pivotal moment before the eclipse sneaks across to claim the full area of Belior's surface, poor Timor left to a mere sliver within the night skies. It is, of course, within that moment — that blood-moon-shrouded moment, where all attentions are turned to the skies above — that Bailey suddenly goes down without a sound other than a breathy exhalation and a flashed look of surprise. A figure can be seen, fleeing, ever-fleeing, darkness against the crowd: it is so fast that not even those closest to the pair seem to notice, except when Khalyssrielth's shrill cry rises from the courtyard, a bugle of alarm and pain and fear that pierces the crimson aura of the night sky.

Light blue eyes blink up at the eclipse and for a minute, Rocio forgets she's at the Hold. Everything is focused on this one moment in time as a shadow begins to swallow Belior more and more. She wants to see it, wants to see it happen. Nothing can tear her attention away… except for a breath. A breath so close to her she can feel something is wrong. Very, very wrong. "Bailey?" The weyrwoman doesn't respond and instead slumps downward, a silent moment is shared between them and Rocio is moving, grabbing hold of Bailey to ease her to the ground. "Bailey!?" It's then that Khalyssrielth cries out into the night and everyone starts to move around them. Still crouched and holding the weyrwoman, Rocio just happens to look up and see a dark figure moving rapidly away from them. Thoughts flash back to her time when N'tael went down and she pursued… not again. There won't be a next time. Rocio's torn and it takes only a heartbeat to make up her mind: "Get a healer. NOW!" she barks to a bystander before she's on her feet. Pushing through the crowd, she's on the hunt for the attacker.

This is a race unusual, for the stone of Southern Barrier's rooftops are cold and mired by a thin layer of ice: fast the freeze and slow the progress, but the man attired darkly seems to know exactly where he's going, exactly where to turn. The hunt is on, and Rocio pursues a shadow that seems at time to have four legs instead of two — are the wildlings right? Is it a beast and not a man that haunts the Southern skies? No… not at all. The harshness of breath can be heard abruptly beforehand, and if she's smart enough to pull up when the large shadow becomes two, she'll see something rather peculiar…

Is this the truth of all things? That there has never been but one man on the loose in Southern's myriad troubles, in the stabbings and coins that have mired the hold in depravity and fear… but two? No. Not possible. Or is it? One man shucks his hood, breathing hard, his eyes sharp and keen and cruel, danger lurking in every line of his handsome face. There are none like him at the hold, with that particular beauty edged in angular glory: this is the steward, the often-murmured, and Raivel trains pale eyes on the shape beyond — the shape with the knife — with disgust. "I know who you are. I know what you do. You are beyond contempt, Th…" It is so indescribably quick, the way the second shadow departs from the wall to rush the man before the word can even form: and this is a death predestined to be different than the others, for the killer strikes with a slash rather than a blow, opening Raivel's throat in a sea of lifeblood warm and steaming in the night.

In the hurry of the moment, the shadowed-man loses track of something, and his hood is ripped from him by Raivel's last living grasp. Fool's gold coins spill from the steward's grasp with a volume of hood, the coins tinkling softly against the ice of the rooftops: a death-knell for the steward, that poor soul who is dead before he ever hits the ground, his eyes unseeing. No, the only all-seeing gaze is that of once-deeply-shadowed cowl, staring unerringly at Rocio's position… the only all-seeing gaze is those of blue eyes, staring coldly from the face of the only man who could ever hope to mastermind such a plot against the Hold and survive unseen up to this point: Master Miner Thornton, bloody knife in hand and murder in those ice-blue eyes.

Rocio tears through the crowd in hot pursuit of the shadow figure, cloak ripped from her shoulders and tossed to the ground as she thunders after whoever attacked Bailey. Just like in the glacier cavern with N'tael, her feet fly across the ice as sheer determination to chase the assailant takes over. Her bow and arrows… they are not with her. She has to catch up with shadow. There's no other option… The slick ice finally causes her to pull up and she slips her way to a halt just before witnessing Raivel's horrific demise. Blood from the man's throat soaks the icy ground and reaches toward her boots — but at least now she can finally see the killer when his cloak is pulled back. The Master Miner. Thornton. A bloody knife in his grasp as he locks his gaze with hers. Rocio. the voice in her head says, Scream. And she does, loud and alerting. Wide eyed and stunned with fear, the huntress is still for one minute longer than she should be. Rocio! The voice in her head is screaming at her now and she finally steps back, heart thundering in her chest as she continues to stare down the killer.

It is an unusual night for Southern — even for Southern Barrier. Especially for Southern Barrier, perhaps, for a lunar eclipse has seized the post-midnight hour, Belior pouring blood-red rays to cast down upon the godforsaken Hold and the poor souls trapped within. Upon the rooftops, a massive beast has descended from the skies, moving to land at the entrance to the Observatory; there are many people within the domain of the starcrafters tonight, and those rushing to respond follow frantic Khalyssrielth to her lifemate: Bailey within the curving stone walls, attended by a fair number of people alarmed by the weyrwoman's injury. But for those with ears to hear, a different clarion cry rises in the night…

To the southerly sweep of the Hold's rooftop, Belior is not the only object bleeding crimson into the night. Raivel lies not-yet-cold, but most certainly deceased, his last breath exhaled into the frozen night. His body lies on the icerimed stone of the bare rooftop, his throat opened, blood pooling to the very edge of Rocio's boots: Rocio, she who raises the cry, her scream loud and piercing. Across the pool of blood advances a man bareheaded, thickly covered with ill-cured hides: he advances across the pool of blood and slips within his own handiwork. The Coin Killer loses his knife in an unseemly stumble, but doesn't bother to rush to get it: instead he continues his approach, rearing back with a snarled expression to backhand the screaming girl. It should come as no surprise: as those who have no patience for shrill women, Thornton is in a class of his own.

He's gonna be in a world of hurt all his own in a tick.

Rocio is in an epic stare down with the murderer. Her heart is thundering against her chest, blood roaring through her veins as everything around her becomes silent except for her own pulse. Her body is frozen and the voice in her head is urging her move: Rocio. Step back. it's telling her. She can see Thornton coming at her now and before she has time to react, his hand comes crashing down onto her face and she lets out a piercing shriek. Struck to the ground, Rocio lies in Raivel's blood as she frantically tries to get to her feet with no luck. Her vision has gone blurry from the back of the Miner's hand.

Lais is a cheater: the woman has not only her own keen set of ears, but those of her dogs. And dogs hear four times as well as people do! True fact! Not that it takes especially keen hearing to pick up the racket of a frantic dragon, nor the scream so abruptly silenced by a slap. It's but the one hound she brings this night, the dark male, as thick-boned and bulky as Lais herself is not. Both are shaggy though, in pelt and heavy furs, and both move at a decent clip, one with ground-swallowing strides and the other straining at the end of a simple looped rope leash- the wildling's lone concession to civilized canine handling practices. Not that the leash remains on for long. When Rocio's fresh shriek shatters the air, the woman's gaze jerks up…and she pulls rope from canine throat, to let Belior bound forward. "Take him," is her command, but even a dog can only run so fast.

Bryntaeroth arrows into the top of the icy Hold as soon as his soot-slabbed bulk emerges from between, his talons scoring the ice-rimed stones deeply with his rage. K'lir catapults off the thick neck of his dragon and tucks a shoulder to roll to his feet without slipping on the icy flagstones, his amber eyes blazing in echo of the fires raging within his bronze's mind. Eyes seek out Bailey, his darkly tanned face going ashen at the sight of the injured weyrwoman though his sharp gaze is drawn by Rocio's piercing shriek and watches as the huge man he's only heard of but never met backhands her into that pool of blood. Lips peel back in a feral snarl of dragon-fueled rage as he utilizes his hard-won skills to make his way swiftly and surely against the ice- and blood-slicked surface. Thornton may be big, and a miner, but the bronzerider is also big enough to give most men pause.

Shuffling back with a group of convicts to their cells, Taralde is at the front of the line. The rooftop is particularly treacherous and dark this night and the rider-cum-convict shivers as wind skirls, howling, shrieking over the high ramparts. He pushes the cold out as best he can, tired beyond measure and relishing the thought of getting out of the wind to the comparative and dubious comfort of his cell. One-by-one, unchained and cuffed into the 'mercy' of the cold brig. Esanth's sending doesn't make sense at first. And then… Khalyssrielth. Convicts and guards scramble out of the way. Esanth is HERE. "Wha-?" Taralde, free of his shackles, scrambles to the side, skidding. Blood. Esanth is… "BAILEY!" T'ral, Taralde, both of him, siezed with panic, scramble, skipping, skidding, sliding, frantic towards the starcrafter's domain. Pelting pell mell, perhaps unwisely, past the rose gold tempest to dart into room. K'lir! T'ral rounds onto a grisly scene. "Mother of…" A man in furs, looming, leering. A woman falling. A canine gathering to bound. K'lir, charging, Bailey… bleeding. "BAILEY!" The cry rips from his chest and T'ral is half-tripping and scrambling as he runs over, the prayer on his lips, "Bailey, Bailey, Bailey."

What is with these convicts and their ability to escape their groups so easily? Or perhaps Sammael's arrival is by design. Oddly enough the convict is recently bathed as it's amazing what the judicious selling of tea can get one in terms of limited freedoms. Thus is Sammael's entranced into a dark night, forlorn of the moon's bright eye, to find the situation descending into chaos. Thornton's reveal spurs the rage that boils beneath, though it's the sight of Bailey ? erstwhile dark opposition ? that gives the convict pause. Raivel gets nothing but a hard look, though that's pulled even with the arrival of K'lir and Lais and then the explosion of Taralde. Eyes narrow when the convict surges forward, strangely. Strangely. This gives Sammael pause and has him pressing his back to the shadows. Bailey's attendance well in hand, coldfire blue eyes focus on the immediate threat of Thornton. Were it not in the shadows of an eclipsed moon, the paleness of flesh might heed to another act wrought in violence, bled into the past and forged the berserker rage held beneath the cage of muscle and bone and power. It is as if the world tilted itself and left Sammael to face his worst fear: reliving a nightmare best left forgotten.

Bloody murder reflects in Thornton's eyes — literally, his sudden smile at Rocio's downfall almost more unsettling than the dead man beyond. His head snaps up as the perfect storm of heroes converge upon his position: and indeed it is the unlikely concert of efforts that prevents his escape. The ground slick under his feet — the dog rushing low for his feet — K'lir's mayhem rush — the beserkr rage held in uneasy check amonst the shadows, invisible. Thornton seems finally to realize the woeful situation in which he finds himself, and he turns to flee, outpacing the canine and bronzerider for at least a handful of strides: but they have flushed him to the direction of agony-reliving Sammael, and soon will the man see what happens when one is caught between a rock and two very hard places. The gauntlet looms before him, the pieces arranged to take him down.

In the domain of the starcrafters, there are more bodies than Bailey lying on the ground: some of the foppish Blooded have fainted deadaway at the sight of the blood. There is one efficient starcrafter amongst the batch who has diligently taken it upon herself to apply pressure to the wound against the goldrider's side, and brown eyes are vaguely familiar as they rise to see T'ral — Taralde — and his screaming approach. Bailey herself is obviously in shock, white as a sheet and unseeing. "What… who… no, no, not yet, no, no." The redhead's teeth-rattling words chatter out at the bluerider's arrival. Surely a healer has been called, by now; Khalyssrielth yearns inward, kept at bay only by the knowledge of those inside keeping her lifemate stable.

The ground is icy and slicked worse with blood, making it nigh impossible for Rocio to regain any sense of balance or footing. She lies on the ground, another man's blood pooled around her as she works to regain her vision. The white light she saw after being struck was almost enough to knock her out — but, no. She clings to consciousness and struggles to survive at this point when a familiar noise startles her even more: a canine. Its feet thundering closer and closer, all she can think is that the animal is coming to attack her, to finish her off. Get up! the voice in her head urges again. She tries. Oh how she tries, but the blood is so slick against the ice that her fingertips dig into the ground with no luck. She's barely there now, eyes fluttering shut.

Belior has faced down mountain rams, and rabid feline mothers protecting their kittens before. Harrying some fur-wrapped behemoth is well within his wheelhouse. With his prey running, the canine aligns himself to snap at pumping arms, striving to make the man trip so that the soft flesh of throat and belly will roll up, exposed for a killing strike. So intent is he that he vaults Rocio without a second look, her fear of attack reduced to the tickle of fur brushing by the young woman's face, the thick smell of dog, the harsh sound of breaths snatched between hellish snarls. Lais follows several paces after, not so quick as Belior, and less inclined to simply jump over a woman fallen. She's done something to her boots that make them grip the ice, leading to stability even in the blood slick as she takes a knee beside Rocio to hook a hand beneath her arm. "Cut anywhere? Hold to me, woman," is her curt demand.

K'lir's growls of suppressed rage are almost in harmony with the immense canine's as he and the four-legged beast gain slowly upon the fleeing Thornton. The only reason the bronzerider hasn't drawn his beltknife is the iron-willed determination of his lifemate keeping him from killing the man before the required questions have been asked and — more appropriately — answered. He and the canine slowly gain ground as their light and practiced steps take them after the miner and toward the huge convict sheltering in the shadows. Focused entirely upon the man before him, his gaze is drawn to the actions of the canine and remembering his own training with that long-forgotten hunter and canine trainer, the young rider grins manically and makes a slightly longer than safe step to try to catch Thornton's heel so that he can trip the other up.

T'ral skids into those surrounding Bailey, elbowing his way closer. A convict, wild-eyed and filthy, bearing down on the weyrwoman's position is surely cause for alarm, but how much more alarmed can people be, really? And… the familiarity in his voice, the concern… he's… he's totally blown his cover, that's what. Maybe? With Khalyssrielth bellowing and shrieking her rage and fear… who knows. But his cover is not on his mind. As Bailey speaks, the hard squeeze on his chest eases and he sends images of her succor to Esanth for Khalyssrielth. T'ral looks down at Bailey, his face a mask of anger. (Grime AND anger) Slowly. So, so slowly he looks up at the surge and twist of the pursuit. Scrambling. Growling. Teeth bared, the bluerider, shoves a bystander out of his way as he … walks … toward the Killer. The man who opened his father's veins. Who terrorized Catryn. Who cut and carved terror into friends and those he protected. There would be a reckoning. And that right soon…

Surprise is enough to jolt Sammael out of the past-blending memories to the cold, clear hear-and-now and it solidifies the rage that boils within, and clarifies the thoughts so that when Thornton takes his turn towards the shadows, to where he lies in wait there is only the icy cold cruel smile that tugs on lips and brings nothing but a cold deadness to blue eyes. A fierce heat of rageful joy rushes through his veins as Thornton's fleeing body is met headlong in a rush of pure wrath. Sammael's forte is hand-to-hand combat - and well, possibly knives but given that he's a convict, hand-to-hand it is - and with swinging fists against the miner, the berserker within is unleashed and the convict is hardly aware of himself let alone what might or might not land on Thornton's oh-so-cold-and-collected persona. Assuming, of course, that Thornton manages to get within his grasp. Whatever blows might be landed will possibly aid in at least slowing the man down so that others may apprehend him. The convict is aware of little else, however, other than the overwhelming desire to take down this terror of the night. The others: the encroaching canine, the bronze rider that dogs the heels of the Miner Master, the woman concussed on the ground, the woman bleeding out in a halo of red to match her hair, the "convict" that suddenly rises like an avenging paladin of justice (watch out K'ane). With so many after Thornton, it might only be one stopping blow he lands, but maybe it'll be enough. Just enough to not let him get away.

Unfortunate, so unfortunate. The hissing of breath rattling in lungs that burn with the cold and the harshness of effort needed to escape the pinscer-grasp closing slowly around him… Thornton is just out of time and out of space. It is a matter of physics in the end: the glorious calculus of a fittingly-named canine's teeth describing painful curves past the relatively thin covering of hide trousers, challenging a pained grunt from a barrel chest; the sprung power of a trained bronzerider's reaching step tripping his heel, provoking a stumble forwards; the power of rage unleashed in closed fists from a once-and-now-caged man. Thornton all but crumples under the conjoined power of this triad, covered under the wrestling power of K'lir, the sharp fangs of Belior, the howling insanity of Sammael. T'ral's arrival is all but the insult to injury, a man just walking onto the stretch of landscape that was once the miner's domain: a damned convict (or so the miner would think) coming for his blood with the triviality of a soft step.

Rocio's cheek feels like it's on fire as she gently lowers her head to the bloody mess on the ice beneath her. Her mind is stirred once again as the canine leaps over her and she's frantic, arms trying their hardest to push her body upward — no such luck. Her heartbeat is beginning to slow when Lais crouches beside her and hooks her arm. "Bailey…" she's finally able to murmur. The pain is starting to become excruciating and the huntress barely clings to consciousness, even with the assistance of a stranger. Rocio can hear Lais, but she desperately wants to lie down. Eyelids become heavier as she feels a wave of nausea about to take over. Then she's blacks out, limp on the blood soaked ground.

Belior's snarling actually grows softer but only because he's filled his toothy maw with…well, with Thornton. Whatever anyone else might be intent on doing to the man, the dog's pleasure comes from securing and shaking the limb he's captured. Which he proceeds to do with violent energy no matter whatever other chaos rages around him. Lais would be so proud of her puppy! If she were paying any attention, that is. But, hearing no yips or yelps of pain, her attention is fixed wholly on Rocio. If the huntress wishes to lie there, she can totally lie there- if nothing else, that makes seizing fistfuls of shoulder fabric and pulling her a little bit easier. Blood-slicked and limp, she hauls the unconscious girl back towards the cluster of professionals and otherwise around Bailey- surprise, another patient for them to handle!

Intense focus only faintly taking in the actions of the canine though when Thornton finally crumples beneath the onslaught, he notices Sammael and grins ferally as those large fists drive into the miner's body as the man goes down at last. He skids slightly as he alters his trajectory to come to a halt with hard hands and one knee pressing the large man roughly against the icy stones. The movement at the corner of his eye earns a glare of warning but when T'ral is sighted, his glare slides back to Thornton as he does his best to grapple the man's limbs not already grasped in the canine's maw into submission. The free arm is yanked behind the miner's back and pinned with his knee pressing hard in the small of the other's back though the slick stones of the floor make it very difficult for the young man to cage the man should he squirm and struggle against being captured.

A woman. Two women. One crouched over the other. Blood-slicked ice around them. The one had loosed the canine. The other, lapsed into unconsciousness. Dark eyes flicker over them. No recognition. Raivel. His father's counterpart. Life spilled onto the ice, spreading, steaming as it gives his last heat to the air, elegant hands curled faintly. He seems… affronted. The convict - a real one - raining blows. K'lir, foot snaring out, bearing the killer down, binding his arm. Canine, savaging the man's leg. Yes. THAT. T'ral's mouth slips into a snarl, his tread slow and measured. The list of the man's victims. The dead. The wounded. Cycle and cycle in T'ral's mind. He stops. Worn boots, the heels flapping, toe reinforced, but wearing through, cutting into Thornton's eyeline. He crouches there, muscles sore from weeks of labor, poor rest, a the gentle ministrations of the guards. Calm. Burning calm. The white-hot killing cold of the Void, no empathy in the vast stretches between the stars, Esanth's rage channeled. His rage, channeled. Look, Thornton, upon the ashes of your great ambition. Feel the grind of it into your shoulder and back as K'lir twists. Feel it tearing away with your flesh as Balior works. Feel it in the clamp of Sammael's rage-fueled vice grip. And see it in the eyes of the "convict": rukbat eclipsed, a golden flare around pinned blackness in a dark drowning night sky blue. In this moment, the avenging paladin has the eyes of an assassin. Eyes that Thornton may recognize. Grim satisfaction steals across the fury, "It's over."

The wrath that burns within the breast of a right and true convict lashes out one last time, the coarse whisper of bone ginding to bone the last words Thornton might hear, rasped through the maniac's glee of inflicting pain. It is this final release of words to the killer's ear as the final release of the killer's body to T'ral and K'lir and the canine that grips so wicked. Sammael's chest heaves, a hand reaching up to push back blond hair that shines in the darkness: clean. One glance to where Lais drags the body, and one final bearing of teeth to K'lir before he half-turns, the shadows grasping. Poised on the cusp of leaving, the convict turns one last look to the knot of people that cluster around the still form of one of Southern's Weyrwomen, a muscle in his jaw jumping at the sight. Expression holds to a rage not so easily burned off with a few hits to Thornton's body, but with so many about and Ulrik's own story one where the convict gets the shaft, he takes the better part of valor the moment Taralde announces the end to meld into the shadows. Perhaps he will be overlooked, forgotten in favor of those flashier than he that brought down Thornton; but for his story, he will be safely ensconced in his cell like a good boy.

K'lir will soon find himself in custody of one particular Miner Master, the man remarkably clear of struggling — probably in part to his canine-chewed leg, and part due to a particularly nasty blow Sammael landed upon him. The Miner will be tucked away in a cell far from general population, and tight wraps indeed will hold him: tighter wraps on Bailey and Rocio, relegated to the infirmary for their convalescences. But T'ral is wrong on one thing - because the unsettling smile Thornton brandishes throughout the entire procession to get him under wraps brings to mind that there's more going on than just ambition or madness. No, T'ral, it isn't over… as a matter of fact, for all the questions that have gone unanswered, it has just begun. This new beginning is born of a darkened dawn, but perhaps the rise of light onto the fact obscured before will yield understanding for all… but that is a story of another time. A story beyond this interlude — a story beyond this beginning. For now, Thornton will find his cell, and the juxtaposition of reality will seem all but surreal when the morning comes. A new beginning, indeed.

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