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[closed] I'm a rising pisces and a fucked up moon

Who: Wilhelm and pals
When: January and onward
Where: Nocwich, Thorne, etc.
What: Catchall for the foreseeable future (until the right mood lyrics grab me by the throat)
Warnings: Will mark threads as needed

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This is really, really not fair.

His kneejerk reaction is in a similar vein as the other two but just a little askew, the near-snapped, "They're not my--" that quickly just drops off with a snarl. He's remembering too-well a conversation with Kyle outside a makeshift hospital in Nocwich and his bewildered he's not my 'man' when Kyle brought up Istredd.

And look how that turned out.

"Watch the cart and get those bodies sorted!" he yells back to the werewolves, like he didn't just have a very petulant response two seconds ago, "if the ones that got knocked aside get trampled--" Well. It likely wouldn't be greatly received, that's for sure. And Lucifer is all about his reputation. It's the only thing likely keeping him alive.

Considering that he doesn't think Wilhelm can anxiety-dump on a bunch of hogs, and for creatures accustomed to the endless night the Darkness magic won't do them any good... he's left with his fire. Why couldn't it have been bandits or something, huh? So Wilhelm's got fire and whatever combat skills he's maybe managed to learn from Kyle, and one of Lucifer's older shield models.

Kell easily fits into the magic-user slot. Lucifer's known that from the get-go when they ran their fire brigade. The good ol' times when Lucifer was willing to kinda-sorta start to drop a house on Kell instead of now where he very much needs and wants to keep Kell alive not only because Istredd's 'sort of adopted' Kell but also just simply because Lucifer.

When did everything get so complicated? With all these different people? Humans?

Point is: Kell's got the most magic juice with a decent side of melee.

Lucifer, as always, is the front-line fighter.

That spread versus... eight... cringe nine...? No, ten torcainse.

That's fine, y'know, he likes those odds. Definitely.

(He just might have an easier time if he were solo. That's all. Less to ~~worry about~~ focus on.)

He knows Wilhelm's gotten a fair control of his flames but Lucifer isn't actually sure the extent. If he could create and shape a wildfire.

But maybe Kell could. And he wouldn't put it past Kell to have the means to fulfill what quick battle thoughts are running through Lucifer's head.

Either way he needs a bit more time, a bit more space, and for a bunch of boars not to be charging them!!

He grabs them both since for one reason or another they've already been up in his space, one arm around each of their necks, pulling them in impossibly close with an iron grip that they should get the point that they better not try to wriggle free. He clearly speaks the Ancient Thornean word for protect--a word that Wilhelm at least would recognize--and the wooden-carved brooch partially tucked between Lucifer's pair of tunic sparks with power.

Actual sparks, in fact. For a moment Lucifer doesn't think dragging the two in will protect them, but then the lightning shield bursts up around their huddle and an electric shock feedback pulses out a radius of five-feet away from them, temporarily stunning the nearest boars and catching the others off guard at the sudden hold-up.

The shield will last thirty seconds. The stun will only get them five, but he's banking on there to be some disorientation to them shaking out of it.

His words are quick: "Burn whatever you can; spook 'em back first. Then we corral them, keep it so they can't charge easily." He looks to Kell for assistance there, as the stun effect wears off but Lucifer's lightning shield holds. Lucifer doesn't have the magic means to achieve what they need.

Kell had never truly hunted. Well, he killed a hydra in the Feywilds - with Alucard's help, but never went against a really wild animal. Let alone ten. Charging. The shock loses him precious seconds, and when he shakes it off there's fire coming from Wilhem's side, Lucifer is casting a spell Kell doesn't recognize, and Herger has planted his spear firmly into the ground. Kell blinks, and a wall of earth rises in front of the charging hogs, but they smash right through it. The stench of burning fur fills the air when first four crash into the lightning barrier, dropping on the spot stunned. He can hear the werewolf on his side whistle, but it barely registers. Just as he barely registers Lucifer's order. Enough to follow it, but not enough to realize it's where the idea for his next action comes from.

Kell borrows Wilhelm's fire, making the flames larger until they swallow the stunned boars and form another wall trailing the outline of Lucifer's ward. The only drawback being he can't see anything past it now. Which is a problem, because he doesn't want to risk panicked boars carrying the flame into the woods and setting the whole forest around them on fire. But he can feel the fire, its insatiable hunger, as it reaches out with its many, greedy fingers towards the dry leaves, fallen branches, dried bushes, and tiny sticks that line the side of the road, and he pulls it back, holding it in place. Speaking to it about the four tasty boars it can consume instead.

Kell's connection to magic is always more about cooperation than control. It is a force in and outside of him that he talks to, bargains with, but very rarely commands it. It's his blood that commands it, but apart from blood commands, magic is his ally not his servant. Through it Kell can sense, even if he doesn't see, the other boars turning back. The distance between them and the fire growing. What he does not feel from the leaving animals is panic. What he does is anger.

"Impressive," Kell can hear Herger say, though the tone of his voice doesn't really support the compliment. "but a ditch and a couple more spears would have been more useful. Now that you killed four of them, the rest will come back."

Kell looks back at Lucifer. He's still seeing all like through an orange veil, the presence of so much flammable material around them clawing at his mind like a scent of fresh baked bread to a starving man. He realizes the sparkling barrier is gone. The only thing separating them from the danger is a wall of fire he has to constantly focus on to keep it from spreading. And no other defense if the boars pass through it, or he tires faster than the animals, and his control slips.

So much happens all at once — Lucifer wrenching him close and activating his magic forcefield, Kell seizing his flame and amplifying it into a wall that engulfs the boars, the beasts snorting and squealing from what seems like all sides — that it paralyzes Wilhelm. Although he's been training in magic and combat for over a year now, he's hardly ever had to put his skills to the test in a crisis.

Funny enough, it's annoyance toward Kell that awakens first underneath the suffocating blanket of panic. That's his fire, dammit. He can control it himself. It lasts a flash of a second, this irrational indignation, before he reaches for the flames through his connection to them, like they are hot nerves outside his body. It used to be that others always had to fight for him. Lucifer, rushing in with shimmering wings to save him from being mauled that first (and for him, only) time in the hunting woods. Kell, shielding him as they escaped falling rocks in the pit and dogged cultists on the mountain.

Now, he can stand and fight for himself.

(But it definitely doesn't hurt to have Lucifer and Kell by his side.)

Wilhelm stretches the fire toward the hogs, hoping that it will scare them off, that they'll keep running. And they do keep running. Only, it's toward the cart — the next closest target. Herger, having scooped up one of the fallen bodies and thrown it over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes — or a sack of whatever werewolves might like to eat — is soon overtaken by a stream of boars barreling downhill.

On one hand, it's nice to not be on the receiving end of thirty to fifty feral hogs. (Okay, so, there aren't that many, but his adrenaline sure as hell can't tell the difference.) On the other hand, it would probably be bad if they demolished the cart and further desecrated the bodies on board.

So without a second thought, or much of a first one, for that matter, Wilhelm crashes through the fire to chase after the boars. His flames don't burn him — they part around him. He swipes a burning ball up in his hand as he passes, and he hurls it at the pack.

"Hey! Can you guys just fuck off?!"

"You can hold it," Lucifer says to Kell, no-nonsense, nothing flowery. Hard. Resolute. "You can hold it and more," he continues, and that might be a risk pushing him here in this moment to maybe go beyond his limitations, but when else? Training in safety isn't going to push boundaries. It's here, now, in the literal heat of battle.

Lucifer could care less if the forest burns. He does, however, get slightly irritable at Herger's remarks even though he may as well have said similar over a year ago. "You make it sound like that isn't what I'm hoping for," Lucifer says over his shoulder, his voice devolving to a syrupy lull, his stance becoming just slightly off--head creaked too far one way, the rest of his body jutted to the side. The firelight is reflecting in his eyes, or maybe they are glowing, who's to say?

Neither of them have ever quite seen him this way. Close, maybe. But not this.

Battle pulls something else out of Lucifer, the monster writhing within the cage of his vessel. He enjoys spilling blood, enjoys getting his hands dirty, but he is always the predator. An ambush like this puts him into something more unpredictable. Calls out to him differently, and his hackles might as well be raised as they gain what little of their footing just as Lucifer needed. He didn't need much. Just a breath.

A moment.

He wants the boars to come back because now he's ready, prepared, thrumming with Intent.

"But," he drawls, piercing gaze to Herger, "if you want to be a good boy a dig a hole for us, by all means."

The 'good dog' is nearly there but even Lucifer as he is currently still considers (barely) political ramifications.

He should let Herger get gorged. Death has less of those 'political ramifications' in his opinion than the werewolves returning home and lamenting about unprofessional and disrespectful Thorne Summoned. Death they can wave off as a misstep.

Look, it makes sense to Lucifer, okay.

The other guy's fine though and, well, they still need someone that can drive the cart, so Herger gets off easy.

With only the sound of rustling wings, no other indication making their existence known, Lucifer disappears one moment and in the next is on the other side of Wilhelm's Wild Charge and the boars, flanking a few of them. Three are already turning back for Wilhelm, angry aggression for the fireball as it eats and sears into their sides, one of the trio stumbling and slowing down, before stopping entirely. The two continue for him in their rage.

Lucifer focuses on two of his own three that are still set in their ways for the cart, and immediately punches one hand each through the tops of their meaty heads, skillfully avoiding the numerous tusks, and cracking into their skulls with the force.

His tunnel-vision for the combat, for wanting to enjoy this--always has been his downfall, and that hasn't changed--comes with the unfortunate side-effect that while he's trying to keep some distracted awareness for the other two, it's... not nearly as much as there would be normally.

Not nearly as much as there should be. Odd that it won't be his undoing this time.

The two boars swerve to the side with Lucifer not exactly fully aware they do so and Kell completely oblivious. While Wilhelm and Lucifer deal with their, Kell concentrates to fortify the cart. The ditch suggestion was not all bad, even if he hated how it was delivered. Intense focus is one of rare situations where Kell is difficult to manipulate or provoke no matter what insults are hurled his way. And that wasn't even an insult, more like a snide remark, which while he did not appreciate, it was easy for him to ignore when concentrating on keeping the fire in check.

At this point it's fairly clear the fire does nothing as way of repelling the boars, but Lucifer told him to keep it so he does. It makes all his other efforts harder, but at this point Kell trusts Lucifer implicitly and the thought to argue has not even crossed his mind. He faintly recognizes shearing noises behind him. Metal striking wood. He doesn't think about it. The thing he can do, other then just holding the fire, is to reach for the packed soil just in front of the wall of flames.

He's half-way through making a ditch that while almost protecting the cart still leaves him wide open, shielded only by the flames. It all happens to quickly for Kell to realize in the moment what's going on. Suddenly all he feels is searing pain in his left calf and he screams collapsing to his knees. It's a miracle he doesn't lose control over the flames completely, but the blaze shoots higher fueled by the blood flowing out free from a long gash in his leg. He hears the pained squeals of the animals following squishing sounds and an eruption of foul smell. Later he won't be able to explain how he did it, but he feels the beating hearts of the enraged boars, reaches for them on pure instinct and crushes. It's the last think he remembers before loosing consciousness.

The fires die as dramatically as they exploded upward with neither Wilhelm who started it, nor Kell being able to sustain them. It leaves a scorched line trailing the unfinished ditch and a few singed branches above the cart.

As Lucifer and Kell spin strategy and brandish the full thrust of their powers, it's all Wilhelm can do just to stay on his feet. Everything happens in a blur, a sharp beating pulse all around him. The hogs wheel around, stamping the ground and snorting. Wilhelm, knowing he should stop before he gores himself on their tusks but unable to slow his downhill momentum, curves to the side — and, stumbling, catches himself on a tree.

Then — a gristly, squishing sound, and frenzied squeals snuffed short. Suddenly Lucifer is there, arms slicked red up the wrists. Two of the boars crash dead in the underbrush.

What survives of the pack is still rushing toward the cart, a torrent of hooves and tusks. Herger, taking advantage of the opening cracked by Lucifer to run, has loaded the body back onto the wagon. Edgtho wrestles with the jammed wheels. Kell is carving out the ground, moving mounds of earth with a few practiced gestures.

For an overwhelming moment, Wilhelm gets stuck in indecision. And in that moment, that hesitation, one of the boars collides with Kell. The fire Wilhelm had just begun to reach for exhales its last breath in a sudden rush.

"Kell!" he yells, dashing toward him. With little thought invested in how effective it will be, he draws his knife from his pocket for protection against the boars.

Lucifer's only drawn back to himself by Wilhelm's shout for Kell, and he blinks red from his eyes and takes a few moments to look beyond the vanished flames, watching unblinking.

Tired, annoyed, covered in blood, mildly curious if he could get a chance to watch Wilhelm gut a live animal or if he'd be mauled like Kell, thinks he needs to likely give Wilhelm one of the newer voice-activated-only shields, and doesn't so much as fly as he pond-hops atop the boar, slamming the head of the creature down into the ground before Wilhelm.

"I'd ask if you want a lesson in how to flay flesh, but maybe another time," Lucifer drawls, voice distant.

Thankfully for Wilhelm Lucifer does not punch his fist through this one and cover the kid in blood, but he unfortunately witnesses Lucifer snapping its neck and dismounting the body, his attention already back to the woodline and nothing else.

The flames weren't about keeping the boars contained, once their original job had been taken care of.

It was the rest of the woods. The predators he was familiar with. The scavengers looking to slip in and take advantage for a meal, just as deadly, and even more fast. The ones that would understand fire catching to trees when they use the forest to their advantage and would shy away.

Lucifer doesn't see any blue glows slinking their way through frostbitten grass, sleek fur on the prowl. Distantly, very distantly, among the dark shift of leaves on a cool breeze, he thinks he catches something. Red eyes watching to mirror Lucifer's own, but they blink out just the same and are gone. With the boars decimated, their opportunity to use the distraction is gone with them.

He surveys the rest of the massacred scene, makes sure Kell's final blow--whatever magic he had used--had snuffed out the remaining lives--does not rest his eyes on Kell's downed body, and instead turns steely eyes onto the werewolf pair. He's still weighing if he really needs both of them, though a compartmentalized part of him acknowledges that they aided in the last strike...

... In that his only acknowledgment is him pulling a spear from a dead body, spins it about his fingers, and then jabs it back into the boar. He might come back for it before they depart.

"Make sure we're ready to continue as soon as possible," he says bitingly, "I don't want the Gealaci Kucing getting comfortable with our delay and come out seeking leftovers."

It's only then he rounds back to Wilhelm, attention finally on Kell, and folding down besides Kell. "Watch my back," Lucifer instructs, more to keep Wilhelm's likely-to-be-waning adrenaline occupied than needing him. "Look for red eyes and blue glowing skin. You've seen one before."

He doesn't reach for his healing, remembering too well the power jam when he tried to heal Kyle. Lucifer tears his hip bag from his side and opens a flap with a sharpened focus, taking out the medical kit he acquired from Nadine to have in case Wilhelm and Kell got in a bind in the mountains after escaping the island.

Funny. To be used for one of them, anyway.

Real funny.

He gets to work. It won't be good. Not as clean as it could be, not as well sewn together, but he applies the topical ointment and the bandage isn't budging. It's quick work, but it gives the werewolves time for the cart to be checked over from their in-combat fixes, and he thinks Nadine would perhaps be satisfied with what he had to work with.

"Help him up," he tells Wilhelm as he packs up his kit. "Just watch the leg." He doesn't think Wilhelm will loose hold of the unconscious Kell. Hopes he won't, anyway. Lucifer has to delegate somehow, and he doesn't trust the werewolves to--

"If we take him with us, it'll slow the trip," Edgtho says. "I can escort him back."

Lucifer freezes, none to keen on the idea, his attention locking to the werewolf. "He's coming with us."

Edited 2024-02-23 09:05 (UTC)

To their credit, the werewolves were not idle when the boars came. There are two makeshift pikes sticking out of the carcasses at weird angles. Testament to how quickly they reacted even given that they left the defense to Kell, and were occupied by trying to both pickup the bodies and get them all back on the road.

"It would serve him better to get help sooner than later!" Edgtho tries to argue, but the other werewolf puts his hand on his shoulders.

"Leave it," he says.

Edgtho just shakes his head, muttering under his breath something incomprehensible. He goes away to pickup the one last body that Herger dropped when the boars attacked.

Herger turns to Lucifer all covered in blood and gore.

"Interesting hunting method," he comments with a nod. "Put the kid on the coach and help me free the cart," he adds, then goes to the front of the cart and lifts up as if it was made of foam and loaded with feathers, not solid wood and full of bodies. He pulls until the wheels come clear of the mud they were stuck in. Though they do so with a sickening squelch.

"If you walk the horses forward, it should do it. They're not afraid of blood."

As quickly as it began, it's over. The slope on the side of the road is strewn with fat hog carcasses and chunks of guts and gore. Wilhelm doesn't have much time to survey the scene, though, as Lucifer charges him with keeping watch. Yes, he remembers what a Gealaci Kucing looks like — it would be hard to forget after staring down one's snapping jaws. His knife won't be much use against this enemy either, but he keeps it at the ready anyway as his gaze scrapes the shadowy trees.

Once Lucifer has tended to Kell's leg, Wilhelm steps in to shoulder him. They're of a similar height and weight, but unconsciousness seems to add its own mass to Kell's body. The few paces back to the wagon turn into a trek.

But because he's focused on helping Kell, Wilhelm has less space to freak out about the state of his friend. That hits him full force once, aided by Edgtho, he's got Kell in the bed of the wagon. With all the bodies, but there was no helping it — if set on the driver's seat or the back lip, he could fall off.

"Was it the blood loss, or do you think it was that...huge burst of magic?" he asks Lucifer, after the cartwheels are clear of the mud and rocks. Worry pinches his face.

Lucifer would likely remove the werewolves' arms with his teeth if they tried to take Kell from their proximity at this moment. Lucifer's a tad possessive of his things and he's still borderline in his nastiest state, but Wilhelm is not on the receiving end of this loose-cannon that he is. He is, however, in that possession net, and just the same if the werewolves move for Kell--if they move for Wilhelm Lucifer will lock up like an ice statue, more deadly when he doesn't move.

He hasn't blinked in awhile.

Nothing to worry about.

But he does, thankfully, listen begrudgingly to Herger's instructions, knowing Wilhelm has Kell covered and walking with the horses, taking the bridle with blood-slick hand.

He doesn't properly answer Wilhelm until they're moving again, onward to their destination, the danger gone (though they don't know that, caution laced in their steps).

"A mix of everything, I imagine. The attack likely put a dent in his concentration, add in the sudden blood loss and the burst... Maybe his own power backlashed on him. Neither of you are familiar with the heat of battle." And Lucifer is too familiar.

At first there's only the gentle rocking of a moving cart that slowly pulls Kell out to the surface. Next comes the sound of the creaking wheels, the stomping of the hoofs on the tract. Lighter then it would be on a city street, much dampened by the soil rather then stone they tread on. Then come the pain and the stench.

He opens his eyes and for a short, horrifying moment all his sees are dead bodies and he truly thinks he's back on that cursed islands. But the stench is just the corpses in various stages of decay with barely a hint of the earthen, sickly smell of the fungus that was so prevalent back there in the Pit.

Kell shakes his head. With each passing second he registers more. The sound of the cart moving, the solid wood behind his back, the horses. Distant shouts from coming from behind him, but he sits backwards to the direction of the wagon's movement. The day is fully tipping into the evening and he can barely see the road behind it when he looks up and the trees on sides.

He lifts himself with effort, his left calf erupting with pain and fire, making him look down to see with his own eyes the result of Lucifer's work. Kell grips the side of the wagon, and risks looking over it, and to his relief, finds both Wilhelm and Lucifer walking alongside it.

"Where are we? How long I was out?"

Because those the most important questions, don't they? Not what happened, but if they succeeded reaching their destination or were there more complications on the road?

The unseen energy still crackling around Lucifer, like the shift in the atmosphere around a storm, and the barely extinguished fire in his eyes doesn't scare Wilhelm. It reassures him: whatever happens next, he will be protected.

What worries him is the stillness in Kell's body as the wagon resumes rolling. It reminds him of when Rhy was trapped in the Horizon for days, and his body, left behind, lay in a state that mirrored death.

He considers cloaking the cart in shadow again, but he doesn't want Kell to panic when he comes to, apparently alone in the darkness. (When, not if, because he's gaslighting himself into hopefulness.) Besides, with the perpetual twilight of Nocwich darkening into actual night, he needs fire to see by. As he walks, he maintains a small plume of flame in his palm.

Kell's voice yanks his attention away from the deepening shadows at the forest's edge. His expression brightening with relief, Wilhelm hems closer to the wagon.

"About an hour, maybe? We're not there yet." No sooner has he answered than he's firing back his own question. "Kell, what happened? How...how do you feel?"

Oh. Good. Kell is still alive.

That would've been a problem in more ways than one, and likely would have resulted in the death of the werewolves--not because they were at fault, but because Lucifer would have few outlets to his anger. They would certainly experience a gruesome death long before the horse.

Lucifer needed the horse, after all.

"Careful with the stitches," he explains, "I'm not used to sewing people up. I have drugs you can take if the pain's too much."

Simple. Matter of fact.

He's mostly keeping his gaze on their surroundings, though he briefly looked over to Kell to check him over.

[There was a very fine line between him crushing the boars' hearts and freezing everything around him. The boars, the werewolves, the cart, the horse, the ground he stood on and probably a good chunk of forest. He lost enough blood to fuel the magic needed. He could almost taste the metal on his tongue. Hear the whisper at the back of mind. Two word. He only needed to say two words.

It's a miracle that he didn't.]

I'm fine.

[Kell forces a smile for Wilhelm's sake, nods to Lucifer, than carefully sits back on the wagon's floor. He manages to almost make it look effortless. Like he decided to sit down, and it's not his trembling knees giving in.]

Nah, it's alright. I've been worse.

[Like that time Kyle had to dig him out from under an avalanche?

Now that he's sitting again, the world at least stopped swimming. Kell might be patched up, but he's still weak and he rather likes that the sides of the wagon shield him from scrutiny. At least nobody sees that he's a hair away from throwing-up or loosing consciousness again. This was a lot of blood. The boar didn't any major artery, so Kell wasn't at risk or dying, but it was still a lot. Add to it all the magic, and his panicked attempt at defense, and it's no surprise he feels like death warmed-up.]

I was too focused on fire. Stupid animals surprised me.

Edited 2024-03-07 20:00 (UTC)

I've been worse isn't exactly reassuring when he considers the scale of the suffering they've had to endure in this world already. Wilhelm spies the paleness of Kell's face, the bruised shadows under his eyes, the tremor working through his body, and his worry sticks in his throat, but he says nothing.

"They won't be bothering us again," he finally produces, just to fill the quiet that's marked by the clacking of the wagon's wheels and the whistle of wind through bare branches. And though he has no idea, he adds:

"It shouldn't be too much longer."

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