1. Walter Thornley

    Private A Vulpine Refrain

    The lord turned fully, his gloved hand resting on the sword that he could not pull nearly fast enough, surely, if the Vagrant decided to pounce. He listened in a politely withdrawn way that someone might indulge small talk. There was no apprehension at the proclamation of titles, nor amusement...
  2. Walter Thornley

    Private Stillwater

    'I... I just want you to have something...' And he wanted to have less something. Less duty, less people depending on him doing everything right, less people asking him. Anger flared a deep red. Oh, Dolores, his twin, his equal. In all ways but one. Dolores, Dolores, Dolores. She was in the room...
  3. Walter Thornley

    Private Stillwater

    Walter managed to get through about half the bread with different toppings attached. It tasted good, it smelled fresh, it just didn't make any impact on the hunger or the strange fugue. He poured the nearest alcohol, drained a share of it slowly, wondering if that's what his ancestral enemies...
  4. Walter Thornley

    Private Stillwater

    Perhaps, the answer to that was simply time when the need would arise for Walter to let himself be weak, and cared for, let someone else to think of long-term consequences and to take the responsibility. For all that Walter was not resting, he seemed determined to see the current crisis through...
  5. Walter Thornley

    Private Stillwater

    "Don't mention it, that's the best help you can't give. Besides, you'd do more and better helping yourself." Because a well-meaning sweetheart could not help him self-experiment or figure out how much time he had left, and once Arpa was done, would go back to his cage, for a visit then for a...
  6. Walter Thornley

    Private Tindercreek and Tillvale

    Feathers fluttered, the face shivered between them. A calm mask one moment, laughing the next, calm again in a blink of an eye. "She's alive. Her feet aren't shredded to smithereens. Her heart beats. We are very gracious, even though we were here first before you came. Now it's your turn. We...
  7. Walter Thornley

    Private A Vulpine Refrain

    Down the alleyways, leading a predator who'd probably gotten arrogant enough to think even an ambush was a temporary obstacle to the full course, so to speak. Arrogance, curiosity, and boredom, were a potent drug. They made a man make bad decisions - and that, Walter knew first-hand, too. But...
  8. Walter Thornley

    Private Stillwater

    Shift caught, thumbs brushed over the dips and shapes of fingers held. He would let it happen. "You aren't too anything, you're grieving." It was easier to say those words to someone else than to himself, he had to admit. And then, he simply listened, turning those hands in his grip...
  9. Walter Thornley

    Private A Vulpine Refrain

    He stood over the body, blood still fresh. No magic but a ripple smoothing over as the weave of the body dissipated. Minutes. What physical superiority fed the decapitation through internal weaveworks - remained in the body that did the reaping, and that body was walking along the still...
  10. Walter Thornley

    Private Stillwater

    Walter listened. Quietly drained his goblet, sip by sip, but his eyes never left Aelius' face as he felt the other man unravel, slowly but surely. They sat barely two steps apart, but he could feel that aura turn dimmer as tears begun to flow. He swallowed his. Set the empty goblet aside...
  11. Walter Thornley

    Private A Vulpine Refrain

    The sun was setting. It yellowed the outlines of the roofs, the cranes at the docks, sent narrow strips of brightness between the crates and the mice slinking in the dark at the warehouse. The hazy ripple shivered on the water in runaway blinding splotches. Walter looked down onto the bustling...
  12. Walter Thornley

    Private Stillwater

    There was a noise, swallowed down almost into nonexistence. Not of protest. Walter sank into the embrace without resistance, as if the fight left him at denying the pure want - Aelius', his own alike. He raised hands to the back of the taller man's arms, touched above the elbows, rested...
  13. Walter Thornley

    Private Stillwater

    "The Captain-of-Just-Under-A-Thousand - that you've been interested in getting stabbed by since day one - would beg to differ, I'm sure," Walter murmured, a breath of a chuckle landing once his lips closed. The tension in him was ringing through his nerves, and it felt paradoxical that he was...
  14. Walter Thornley

    Private Stillwater

    Walter didn't look at Agatha. Well, she was right, whatever that expression meant. He did want to... A part of him, wanted to run until he was weak enough to get eaten by something strong enough to manage through his desperate last stand. An elaborate suicide with extra steps. He has rendered...
  15. Walter Thornley

    Private Tindercreek and Tillvale

    Genevieve scowled, but moved her finger away from the grooves at the trigger. She shrugged too. Work was work. Besides, the kid was suspicious. Only last week, there had been a wraith that burst into mist as soon as she passed the gate under the guise of a woman from the Shieldbearers. That...
  16. Walter Thornley

    Private Tindercreek and Tillvale

    "We's we. Me and my-family. People in old armors came, they took what the Tindercreek have. Lasted them half a year, over the winter. Then they came to us. Said they were in the war." She mumbled, and cast a cautious glance at the Huntsman with the crossbow. "The gate lady's watching. She has...
  17. Walter Thornley

    Open Surely we'll sing of no little thing

    Has jealousy tinted the slightest corner edge of his mind when the attention of the lad turned to Agatha. Fingers furled ever so slightly around the base of his small goblet and he lifted it to his lips, humming non-commitally to the sentiment. Looking away. Smiling to himself that slight, soft...
  18. Walter Thornley

    Private Tindercreek and Tillvale

    Cracked nails, dirt stuck underneath. So reedy thin it made the heart shrink. Her eyes were large and grey with specks of yellow that made them look bogwater-green. She lowered her eyes to the ground, digging at it with the toes peeking from under the rags her pretty aproned cotton dress had...
  19. Walter Thornley

    Private Stillwater

    It was simple mathematics - he was not being defeatist, he was being factual. Numbers was a favorite game of too many a lord who did not wish to bother to use tactics, terrain or maneuvering. Walter shrugged one shoulder, remembered the person he picked that up from, huffed through the nose and...
  20. Walter Thornley

    Private Tindercreek and Tillvale

    "Said what I said, foxman. Day and a half by horse," Genevieve whispered back, quickly stringing words together while her eyes flicked to the campfire at least twice. It didn't seem like the woman was lost, more like she was aware of a number of things the situation might turn out to be, and not...
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