Dare The Fast and the Fiendish

[Walter Thornley]

Walter shakes his head - perhaps it was sarcasm, but Wistric has a point, and so his sword, his decorative-looking bronze dagger and some other curved sheath he procures from underneath the cloak go in earnest into his attendant's hands.

Dolores dips her quill into green ink and pokes the tip onto the reconstructed rib, hums a spell under her breath, a rhythmic drumming of a somewhat melodic nature that seems to activate the quill's own magic.
As if compelled, the ink runs upwards along the surface in a line - the quill tip taps along it, dot, dot, dot, and the line breaks into neat symbols, a deep sanguine red.

She grins upwards to Walter, as if to tease him without saying anything - what if the kind wizard didn't remove the vertebral ridge, what then?

The last enchantment comes - a cage-like structure of a ghostly nature, red as the symbols, expanding just outside the skeletal frame and over the top of Walter's head - and then, the two (and seemingly the cow) look towards Wistric, as if to confirm that a cow-skeleton-mounted lord in eerie stripes of a faint red aura is all the preparations they could have to outshine that pesky witch-vixen.

 

[Wistric Willoughby]

Dark brown brows raised, equal parts curious and delighted, enlightened and childish as Dolores used her quill and ink to finish their allotment of spells, and before he could begin to pester her with questions, another voice entered the fray.

"So this is what you've come up with wittle wishy," Nezi the (fake) Witch mocked with hands around her mouth as if she were far away, which Wistric wished was the case, but the woman was much too close and her shout grated his ears as much as the horrendous nickname he would love to bury forever in the ground.

Everything on Wistric's face changed from cheerful amiability to disdainful dread and he had to use one of his large hands to try and hide his scowl.

"If we ignore her, she'll leave, I think," he muttered, stepping in front of the siblings and cow-skeleton.

"I'll only leave when I am getting another trophy to add to my very large and impressive collection of all my winnings," Nezi continued to shout.

 

[Walter Thornley]

"Oh, she's pretty," Dolores assessed nonchalantly, quill top touching to her mouth in thought as her gaze followed over the yell and sized the witch up and down, "if only she didn't sound like a hungry seagull toddler, so why do you bother, again?"

Walter seemed to shudder - eyes closed tightly for a long second, an exhale passed through fluttering nostrils.
He turned from his seat astride the skeleton, as if it was a valiant scarred warhorse, back straight, shoulders broad, and addressed the woman with a seething, quiet tone that evoked both disappointment and disdain, "It's a shame we've been wrong about the prowess of our competition, if such lowly methods are employed. You're interrupting with a lord's business, so," his eyes, dark and cold, pierced through the woman's pupils, a command issuing, "begone now, or be made gone."

 

[Wistric Willoughby]

"She's not pretty in the slightest -- oh," Wistric whirled with a face of disgust, having forgotten that it was rude to interrupt others when they were talking, and quickly proved how it was unnecessary. His face soften immediately as if it were the first time that someone agreed with him about Nezi being a pain, made all the sweeter when her face was filled with shock. Then the briefest hint of fear in her dark furrowed brows from Walter's words.

"You'll rue the day you insulted me so, all of you," Nezi said with another shout before hiding her face with one long, droopy black sleeve as she skulked off like some vampire in the night instead of the witch she pretended to be.

"I felt that even in my bones," Wistric murmured, once more impressed, thinking how the experience of growing up noble was incomprehensible for someone like him before continuing on, "but right, we should no longer delay a lord's business, so to the starting line we'll go unless there's anything else?"

 

[Walter Thornley]

There is an awkward pause as Walter shifted on his skeletal mount, slightly deflated now that the one called Nezi is gone, and seemed to fiddle with the runes outline before glancing at Dolores, with a mix of concealed helplessness and a query, a little tinge of suspicion of being pranked in there, too.

Dolores rolled her eyes, "I wouldn't do that to you, My Lord, and it is by the horns."
For the flourish and magic she presented, the way to pilot the thing seemed to be mostly mechanical, pressing on those long horns or pushing them to the side to steer - the reason was hard to forget.

He'd promised her long before autumn, not even this year's autumn, and felt as if he had to at least try to be there... neither of them knowing how many autumns they'd see ahead.

The heavy gait of the bovine steed brought Walter into the line of competitors - below the line of arcane fireflies, he'd counted at least two makeshift brooms, a tawny rug, a bucket which grew legs, a keg with contents that warbled and groaned, a grotesquely enlarged gourd, a flock of folded paper figurines carrying their rider on strings, and a bright red gem that levitated in the air and would no doubt move at a pace and grace of a bumbling bee.

 

[Wistric Willoughby]

With the contestants lined up, Wistric shows Dolores where they can find the good seats because "We're technically participants, we can be in this sections," which is higher and can view the entire track. When Wistric takes his seat he turns to look at Dolores, brown eyes imploring her sweetly as he asks, "Is your brother someone that needs to win?"

The contestants below were all sorts of creatures, gingerbread cookie horses or discard thimble, a wooden carved slipper or broken lantern that had clearly seen better days before this race that had resurrected it into a creature that should have never seen the sun.

A man made his way to the center of the starting point, began warbling how no one was supposed to go out of bounds and follow the road before them no matter way, even if they were volant.

"He has an air about him that makes me think he's never lost, but that couldn't possibly be true, right, Lady?"

 

[Walter Thornley]

Dolores settled with a flourish of her skirt, and offered a smile of appreciation to the magician, before the question - her face seemed to dim, then, with an expression aimed towards the young man that was softer than apprehension, but more judgemental than pity.

She turned her forget-me-not gaze away from the rudeness of the question, and watched the contestants, and her brother's figure in a heavy cloak astride the skeleton of someone's second mother once, for a moment, before she'd offer quietly, "Didn't you give an air like you needed this win, Master Willoughby?"

Her face tilted to him, figure leaning over, as if to share a secret, and she murmured, musing, "My brother does not see any romance in decay or failure - but rather, trained compliance, with those that would see him down, or feel inadequate should he emerge successful. He's always been a hard worker and a clever thinker, but he once was a sweet, shy boy... and now he is a lord, so of course he'd have the air, like you say - he has every subject's life in his grasp, our land is his burden to bear, and then some burdens besides, against all of the expertise he has left now that his ability for weaving is no more."

A small chuckle escaped her, "He won't cheat if that's what concerns you, Master Willoughby - this little race, this outing, is to humour my attempts to remind him there is still joy to be had in this life - and so, he'll make an earnest full effort for your sake, but he will not be bothered with defeat... I care for him to have a few good moments more than he does, and don't we all hate to watch a good heart die?"