eachdraidh | video - open to both courts

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[ Alice is outside of Caer Scima's courtyard in a brisk walk. She has the vorpal blade in one hand and elven sword in another. It feels strange, the sword. It's heavier than what she's used to and the way she uses it, she's not experienced in it. As usual, the way she attacks is frenzied, without a care of her own well-being, always bordering on being feral. She's already tried clubbing them with the knightmare hobby horse to no avail. The fact it didn't affect them leaves her visibly startled.]

It wasn't enough that we already made amends that we spilled blood on Death's Altar?!

[ She's cornered. Her mind's visions are twisted, there's a glimpse of something from her past. Fire. She is small, smaller than she is now. The way her visions twist together, it's hard to tell if it is a memory or a hallucination. She is small again, covered head to toe in bandages, wheeled down a dark, gloomy hallway by strangers-]

Stop it.

[ Alice warns holding out the curved sword. Now that her hands are shaking and she's nearly in a panic because what she fears most is fire.

You cannot help them.

But she refuses to fully succumb to this, she's never been this fearful in Drabwurld, not like this.]

[ She will not be pushed around, not anymore. She'll let the hounds of Hell have it by killing them. The horrified look on her face turns to a look of utter glee. She'll kill them.

She'll make sure they'll stay dead.

Because of the way she stabs them, even when they're dead.]

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Alice!

[ She's been working on fortifications, pausing when needed to fight off dogs, but this-

God, Alice. ]

Come toward the gates!

[ They can fight together. ]

[they want her, reach for her with their teeth and their eyes and she could scream if her throat didn't feel like it had been closed up. back in what she had seen in the dragon's eyes (you are rotting, you are small and you cannot change this), choking on what she refused to admit even to herself (what are you anymore).

but when the one gets close enough to swipe its paw and tear at her shoulder, her sword is sheathed, and instead the roar of her scythe takes its place. it cuts, it should cut, and to be sure she laces fire into her attacks. cutting and burning until it is down and fades from view, the rumbling of the motor louder than her trying to catch her breath, and the fire extinguishes in her hand. sorry Alice, for bringing your fear into reality for a minute there.]

[The brief little song of an arrow flying through the air interrupts the charge of one hound. Lancelot, his shard blazing like a small sun in his chest, helped him shy past his madness and reach into the holy aura he once possessed. Every arrow he fired was holy, ripping apart each hound as it struck them dead on. He settled down in a clearing, not yet speaking up to Alice, rather than providing her cover as Grell had done as well.

He had only returned to Caer Scima to bury the bones he had been directed to, but it was sufficient enough to say that he could easily have become busy in other ways.]

[ Alice is feeling a particularly savage today, just a bit more than usual. The elven blade feels so strange in her hands, not unlike the vorpal blade. It cuts nicely, she'll give it that. Especially when she cleaves down on a dog's skull with a nice crack. She's just small, she has to use her hands to pull it out. ]

I'm coming.

[ She wasn't expecting that.

Alice wasn't remotely phased by the savageness of Grell's handiwork. She was about to even comment how well it cut through them and it was something that they need it. Only out of the corner of her eye she sees the fire and shrieks in fear. Fire? She was sure she hallucinated the whole thing, why is it in her hands? Why does it looks so real? ]

[ It costs her, that pause, when Alice was about to drop her weapons and take off from the sight of fire. She blames the dogs. She blames the fear she has been carried that they'll come right back up and she'll deal with them again.

She's afraid of Bumby showing his face and instead of recoiling in fear, Alice does the next best thing. Something that she knows better than anything else.

Violence. She turns to the dogs, cursing them running the vorpal blade through in a flurry of blue butterflies and flickers of blood. ]

[ How dare they tap into her past and her greatest fear. How dare it be exploited again, just as it had been many times over. Alice is not used to sword fighting, so her strikes while brutal in nature tend to be erratic.

And she has little to no care for her own well-being, her actions are self-destructive. The hobby horse doesn't work on them, so she settles to be more personal, more brutal in nature. She barely glances out of the corner of her eyes while her hair obscures her features, looking more and more feral to see now who just came through the courtyard. ]

[ And that's something Ariadne really did not want to see. ]

Watch my back while I try to reinforce them- we have to keep them from getting in!

[ And then she closes the locket; Alice knows the way. ]

[ She comes in a flurry of blue butterflies near the gates, already feeling a little exhausted. With a huff, she glances around to see if she can find her as well as keep an eye on her surroundings. ]

[ Ariadne is trying to finish reinforcing the gates, along with several guards. The hounds focus on the Shardbearers, but the guards don't necessarily want to stay near the spectral beasts -- some of them can't, running when they get too close from whatever fears have been conjured up. ]

Come on, come on...

[ She opts to use her heavy, blunted weapon once again, even if it has no effect on them. The hobby horse manifests in her hands. With both of her hands, she comes forward, cleaving the bulky weapon with a large thud against the ground.

Not only does it make a good blunt weapon, it makes a good shield. Alice glances back to Ariadne and the others. ]

Do you know where else in the castle they are? [ Ariadne asks, once she realizes Alice is there. She doesn't look up from her work, can't afford to; she grabs for another piece of wood and shoves it into place. ]

If we can drive them out here...

[ Song answers her, a silver blanket of Hope and Comfort that pours out and wraps around her, driving back the dogs.

Maglor comes into view after his voice does, his Light blazing clearly as he puts forth his power, the song cresting into triumph as the dogs break and flee and die before it ]

Alice! Alice, are you well?

[the next one to come is another victim of magic, slammed against the stones below their feet with one gesture, dragged over with a second, and then decapitated with the scythe. that puts them in the clear for now, and she glances over to Alice's display when she has breath again. there is savagery and then there is a useless display when the corpses would fade into the air.]

They're dead, Alice.

[just in case she didn't realise.]

[ Alice has gone back to using the sword.

The only particular thing about dogs is their jaws and even Alice can't really avoid that. In one particular case, Alice barely gets by with one dog biting her, just inches away from her leg. She doesn't wait for it to grab on any other part of her. Down comes the sword with a force that seems so prenatural for Alice's small stature.

With a flick, Alice takes a breath, not even once taking the hair out of her face. ]

I didn't bother to count.

[ She hasn't.

Intermingled with her own paranoia and hallucinations, she almost overlooks it. Still, a part of her compels her to completely dismember anything or anyone that's fallen out of that fear. Her hands are trembling, there's hair in her face, and Alice has stopped.

She didn't see Grell on fire, right? ]

[ It's hard to say with her currently. Physically fine, but the same cannot be said for her mind.

It feels like a healing wound has been exposed and in many ways, it is. She's replayed the vision of her past over and over, both conscious and not. She is done crying over it, she tells herself.

She's been fighting off the fear of fire, unsure if these visions are a horrible rendition of her mind or not. Suddenly, something passes over her that pulls her slightly out of that haze. Her arms are sore from cuts and bruises. Her fists are bruised and her dress is torn.

She's been at this for a while, she just realized. Alice turns to see him, looking disheveled. ]

[ Maglor recognises that look, has seen it in his brothers' eyes, in his men after the Nirnaeth, in the ruins of Doriath and Nargothrond and Sirion, in the eyes of peredhel twins. Automatically he gentles, song now coaxing, sweet and kind ]

Alice. [ He calls her softly, with song as well as voice ] Alice, it is well, they are gone, for now.

[ She looks at him, almost in disbelief. None of this can be real, can it? Her green eyes locked on him, still wide in terror. Knife in one hand sword in the other. She feels like she's going to be sick for a moment, blood in her mouth. Is it even safe to put her weapons back? ]

Mister Maglor?

[ Quiet and gentle, the song winds about them both and he nods ]

Aye Alice, tis I. The enemy is fled, gwilwileth.

[slowly, still trying to steady herself, Grell crosses the short distance to Alice.]

Breathe, dear.

[she says it for both their benefit -- an actress can manipulate her emotions as they please, but only makeup could hide the pallor. steady. you have dealt with them. at least Alice would not be subject to the severity to which Grell contains herself in order to come back and appear unbothered.]

Oh my gosh--

[ Focus, Kelsi. Focus. ]

Where--Where Are you? Listen, if you're near--uhm, if you're near the Seelie court I can help you, oh my g-- [ She cuts herself off. The sight is morbid and certainly nothing she's used to. She almost feels like throwing up, if only because of the blood, but she forces herself to remain calm. This girl definitely needed help, and then it hits her.

She's the girl with the heart mask. The one at the ball. ]

[ Ariadne swears slightly under her breath, in French; making sure the wood is firmly up against the gate, she turns and pulls a knife from her belt. ]

The guards can finish this up; they'll find me if they need instructions. Let's go find some.

[ Let's finish them off. ]

You are not.

[ She won't let her. She doesn't care if it keeps them off her back. She deserves it, every bit of the memories for leaving the children to the Dollmaker. This is what she tells herself. She'll push herself until she is completely ragged because it doesn't matter.

What matters is everyone gets out of the courtyard and they're gone. ]

[ Once Alice gets a small reprieve in the wave of dogs, Alice turns to Grell, just to evaluate her well being. She does what she's told -- she breathes, air filling her lungs, but it does nothing. Disheveled with her hair all over her face, but of course it doesn't matter. All that matters is the well-being of those around her, those she's fond of. ]

Miss Grell... Are you hurt?

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