May Event Log A: The Song of Suffering.

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🜙 Mod Note
	The Song of Suffering's resolution is jointly dependent on the choices all our players make (Who will take charge of the city?) and on the resolution of the Return to Einjar excursion. After you have read through this post please respond to This Poll as soon as you feel comfortable making the choices in it. Please respond even if your character is not participating in this event as the choice made effects the game world/all players.
🜙 First Blood April 26th
	In the late afternoon a challenge is made over the courier by Captain Lykos challenging the 'King' to come and properly fight him for control of the Defenders the way the old orc custom the Defenders were built on demands. In the message, he calls Koroc a coward and a thief, unfit for his role in the Defenders and unprepared to handle the even larger role he has claimed for himself. He accuses Koroc of not even trying to manage the werewolf curse he and Lykos share and says he may be to blame for Koroc's affliction, but Koroc's reckless endangerment of the city is to blame for the rise in werewolf attacks on the city. Lykos sets the battleground as King Ardis' camp outside of the city, a neutral ground away from the citizens who could get hurt in the crossfire. An enraged, Koroc takes a large group of his Defenders' newest forces out of the city to lead an attack on the former Captain and the invading King Ardis supporting him only to find the camp deserted of anyone but Lykos. The discussion between Lykos and Koroc appears publically on the couriers within the city, and everyone with a courier is treated to the impromptu visual of their meeting and the fight that follows it. Lykos gets Koroc to admit to working with the cult and imprisoning and using werewolves to attack the city, as well as implicating both himself and Koroc as werewolves as well before the feed ends, and the abrupt ending leaves the fate of the former captain uncertain.
Lykos Alice Lorna Ardis Koroc Cult Leader
🜙 Children of the Revolution April 26th-May ??
	With clear evidence now out that Koroc and the Defenders are not only working with some form of undead in their ranks, but also that both Koroc and Lykos are werewolves, Koroc's allies, Lorna's rebels, the strange travelers, and King Ardis's soldiers are all spurred into action, bringing the fight for the City of the Free People to a final confrontation for power. The city splits, rallying behind different sides in the battle. The battle encompasses the city streets and spills out into the surrounding land to the South and West of the city. The Defenders, their numbers padded with risen soldiers, hold the city. From within the rebels and the strange travelers fight the Defenders to force them out fo the city streets. Alice, Amy, and a small force of armed civilians and former revels focus on getting people out of the battle zones, teleporting people out where possible and defending them in an escape route out of the city with larger groups, while outside the city King Ardis and his knights storm the warcamp and put pressure on the Defenders, helping to clear a path out of the city. As the fighting overtakes the city another terrible set of howls sounds from the West beyond the city, and a pair of creatures join the fray. The white one assaults the city with unbridled destructive rage while the red one seems fixated on the people, hunting like a starved beast without pausing to feast on its downed prey. The beasts are unaffected by silver, wolfsbane, and other standard werewolf weaknesses and stand at around eleven feet tall, nearly twelve when straight-backed. They are closer to the size of a small swamp troll than an ordinary werewolf, their eyes glowing blue. The protrusions coming off of them are hardened bone and sharp enough to cause damage equivalent to spearheads or daggers if used to attack. Bites/Scratches from these creatures do not inflict any curses. They do not seem to fear anything but also appear to be mindlessly enraged. At different times during the onslaught from the mutated wolves a large white wolf appears, drawing the monsters away from fleeing citizens and members of all sides of the struggle, outrunning and distracting the creatures.
🜙 The Song of Suffering April 28th-May ??
	Two days later an unsettling prophetic orc threat from the not so distant past begins to ring true. The river that flows from the Northern mountains down through the City of the Free People begins to sing with ringing, echoing hums and runs red with a dark, thick liquid that looks like blood and smells like copper and rust. The touch of sound or liquid begins sending citizens into fits of raw, violent, amplified emotions. The fight for the city devolves into one of almost directionless, desperate violence and begins to lose what little point or meaning it had, spurred on by a madness that latches on to everyone within earshot or touch of the river and its endless ringing song. People quickly begin to change in more than just mood. Paranoia, Fury, or Desperation overtake them, causing mental and physical changes that reflect the emotion. More than one reflection can overtake people and while the infected waters remain so do the symptoms. Reflection Cause & Symptoms ⤛ Paranoia Caused by exposure to the ringing song of suffering. The sound of the ringing roots out and pulls to the surface every negative, lingering, violent, uncertain, or angry thought the person has had toward or about others and amplifies it, transforming emotions over a simple comment or fleeting thought into defined certainty and righteous fury. Twisting even the clear-minded or pacifistic until they are willing to kill others to protect themselves or those they are defending. While under Paranoia's influence they are beset by an unquenchable thirst and hunger, but no other physical symptoms. The only way to 'cure' someone affected is to disable their hearing or relocate them far enough from the river that the ringing can no longer be heard. ⤛ Fury Caused by any physical exposure to the water itself. Contact with the liquid causes a surge of wild, furious power that infects those it overtakes with a fury that is not their own. This fury is undirected and will cause the affected to lash out at anything near them, living or non-living. Once a target has been found they will not stop until that target is dead or completely destroyed. While under Fury's influence their skin begins to harden and grey starting at the hands and their strength, physically and magically, doubles. Fury can only be cleansed by fresh water or light magic. ⤛ Desperation Caused by ingesting the water or prolonged exposure to the water. If submerged, the person will find their vision quickly adjusting to the water and if they open their eyes they will feel as if something is looking back at them from the depths, reaching out to them. Once they emerge from the water or cease drinking the water they will either see or feel the thick coating of red liquid that does not drip or move, clinging heavily to their skin or muscles. The liquid seeps into their skin or muscles and their eyes turn bloodshot and then solid red. While under Desperation's influence their eyes remain solid red and their movements become sluggish with erratic bursts of speed and wild strength. Until they are doused with fresh water or light magic they will be consumed by desperation and singularly focused on their last goal or thought as if letting go of it would kill them. Without direction or a goal to latch onto the desperation becomes a consuming need to stop the noise and fighting around them through any means possible. 🜙 Top ⤛ Navigation

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[redwhaling]

i. song of suffering, open [cw: blood, death, and violence]

Between the clashing armies and the river running red, the past few days have been getting under Billie's skin. She can feel it, the humming song from the water following her everywhere she goes. It's easier, further away, but there's always a reason to go back again. The first day or two, she observes, for the most part. She intervenes where it seems reasonable but she's no hero.

The longer it goes, though, the longer it goes... The longer it goes on, the less she feels like retreating from near the river. Why would she? Where would she go? There's too much to do, enemies at every corner, and she already knows — a thought that plagues her endlessly, a conversation replaying itself again and again in her head — that Daud's too much of a coward to take advantage of the chaos. Whether that's true or not stopped mattering when she found the first Defender straying from the rest storming through the city. She left him for dead and moved on to the next one, and then the next one after that.

It's in the middle of doing just that, kicking one more dead man off of her sword and to the blood-spattered street, that she can be found. She raises that same weapon immediately, turning as if expecting to continue the fight... but no, whoever finds her isn't a Defender or one of Koroc's risen army. So, she holds, still poised to attack, expression hidden from behind a now-bloodied mask.

"Why are you out here?" Even muffled, her voice sounds sharp, irritated, like she suspects the worst answer. "It's dangerous."

Well, obviously.

ii. a beastly end, closed to Shura [cw: also blood, death, and violence]

And when the song went on long enough, Billie Lurk couldn't help but vanish into it. She never returned to the house, never to the smithy. Courier calls begun going unanswered, ignored. What she did do, though, was leave a trail of carnage behind her. Hoping someone would find it, someone very particular. Whether it was a cry for help or a mockery of their previous life, even she won't be able to recall in the end. What began as a hunt for Koroc's people bled out into an excuse to pick off the worst the city had to offer, from gang members to corrupt clerks to shady dealers who sell poison as medicine. She hadn't been in the City long. That doesn't mean she didn't already have a list, if only in her head, of what the Defenders had left ignored in their rush towards power.

It started out cleaner, the deaths, but the longer it went on, the sloppier the kills, messier, until it's obvious what had been a human putting someone to the sword has become a beast. That's the easy thing to forget about shiftlings, isn't it? It's still a curse. It doesn't lay as heavily as a real were-creature but it isn't all cats and dogs and baby deer, either. Get them mad enough and any will take your hand off and, with Billie, the anger that's built up could only ever boil over into this. A monster, hunting through the night, smaller than a werewolf. Quicker than one, too. Looking for something, something specific, but the hum from the water and the bottomless hunger it stirs is distracting. She can't focus enough to remember what it even was.

It's the latter that's put a stop to her rampage, for now, if only to tear into her latest victim. Some other madman, one who must have touched the river water. The rat — human-sized, human-shaped enough to, perhaps, pass as beastfolk, if one squinted — has to pick around skin hardened like stone. Blood hides easily against black fur, but not on her teeth, not on her claws. That's what Shura will find at the end of this trail, in a dark house already abandoned days ago by people with the sense to leave the very moment the world began to sing.

iii. or wildcard, if you want to hit her up before, uh, all of this mess

[exaomori]

Shura had heard a frantic man rambling about a new monster on the street. He wasn't sure, but he had seen the werewolves, and this monster was just like them! Smaller, different, but the same bloodlust and rage. A coin in his hand, and he told her all about the creature and its bloodlust. He was sick with the same sickness that was infecting the rest of the city, but not so much that he wouldn't take a payment for something as simple as a story. It didn't add up, but Shura was willing to look into anything at this point. Besides, there was something familiar about the creature he described

What Shura finds after following the man's advice isn't the werecreature promised. It's something probably worse and definitely more inconvenient. Billie's second form wasn't something that would easily be forgotten, and though the house is dark, Shura can tell that something here had gone very wrong. Maybe Billie was hiding that she had certain gourmet tastes, maybe she was mad as the others on the streets. Either way, something had to be done.

Her steps are light, soundless as she approaches, grabbing a small trinket left behind on a table and tossing it in Billie's direction, meaning to catch her attention, not to hit or startle her.

"Sorry to interrupt." She doesn't want to draw her sword, not yet.

[redwhaling]

Shura will get her answer as soon as the trinket hits the floor and rolls off to the side, getting Billie's attention immediately. She jerks her head up and away from the dead man, snapping towards where the item landed first, but it's Shura's voice that has her whipping around to hiss at her. There's no thoughtful pause or recognition there like there was the first time, back in the swamp. Instead, just a beast, riled up, bloody teeth bared, and none too happy to be intruded upon.

[exaomori]

Well, crap. This definitely wasn't a good sign.

"I ain't here for a fight, Billie." Shura says her name, though she's not sure if it will help or not. Shiftlings weren't exactly Shura's specialty, and she can't think of any spell or curse that might cause her to become suddenly feral. "Just drop it and come with me, okay?"

Fang remains sealed, and Shura tries to keep her posture neutral. But at this rate, with everything else going to hell and everyone going nuts, she isn't about to drop her guard.

[redwhaling]

Same story as everyone else going wild in the streets, only Billie can't quite warn Shura, not wound up in that same madness and hunger herself. She doesn't seem immediately violent, however, in spite of all appearances. Hearing her name gets a curious reaction. Hackles lower, her head tilts a little to one side like she's listening—

She knows the name. Billie. That's familiar. That's her. Is this someone she knows? It's difficult to tell through the haze the sound has pulled over her, so, discarding what looks to be someone not interested in a fight from her immediate attention, she turns back to the corpse. That's her more immediate problem, the hunger. Relentless, neverending, no matter what she does.

The name may have gotten something, some spark of comprehension, but Shura's request itself goes ignored.

[exaomori]

"Billie," Shura repeats, if only because it seemed to do Lykos good. "Billie, c'mon. You can't be eating that."

Shura takes a step forward, leaving the door of the house open behind her, just in case. Billie didn't seem too concerned with her now, but every step forward brings her closer to Billie and her meal, and Shura knows a hungry animal isn't likely to share, even with a human mind buried somewhere deep in there.

"Let's get out of here. Come with me. You don't want Daud comin' here and seein' you like this, do you?"

[redwhaling]

Daud. If her own name had gotten her to stop worrying about Shura, it's that name that gets her to freeze before she does anything else, mind reeling back to one of her original goals. Find Daud, find Daud, or make sure Daud can find her, only he hasn't. Where is he?

Whatever else goes through her mind — none of it kind — she does back away from the dead man, though only because once she unfreezes, she begins to behave erratically, shaking her head, tail lashing about. There's the smell of burnt wood suddenly drifting into the air as Billie gets mad all over again, the heat magic foisted off on her months ago rearing its ugly head in a far more obvious way this time around. Wood scorches underfoot and she finally settles on an action, whirling to face Shura again with another hiss and simply vanishing.

Vanishing but not gone. The table she's teleported to behind Shura gives a telltale creak, betraying where she's gone just before she makes a lunge at the other woman's back.

[exaomori]

Shura wanted a reaction. This is not the reaction she intended to get, though a part of her knew that saying Daud's name was probably a bad idea from the get-go. Whatever trouble Shura may have had with her own teacher, Billie's seem to be deeper and unresolved.

The scent of burning wood hits Shura's nose, and there's a moment of what the hell. Billie didn't use magic, not like Strange so what was she doing? There's not enough time to try and sort out the source of the burning, as Billie suddenly disappears, doing that damn teleporting trick, and there's the sound of the table creaking. It's just enough warning for Shura to dodge. There's sharp and hot grazing her arm, but nothing that will stop her from drawing her sword and taking a defensive stance.

"Billie, snap out of it! I ain't going to play with you!"

[redwhaling]

There's no more pause in her reactions this time, even with Shura throwing her name around. With her only grazing her newfound quarry, she flies by and lands on a chair that screeches across the floor under the impact, only to topple it over completely when she launches herself towards Shura a second time.

Even with a sword between them, she still comes after her, quick to hit the ground just short of the blade's point itself and going low, trying to dart under her guard. She may have been compared to a werewolf before but her were-like shape is where that likeness ends; she's smaller than her usual human self rather than larger, quicker rather than stronger, and fast to snap her jaws at any part of Shura she can weasel her way to.

[exaomori]

Wererat or werewolf, this is a fight Shura didn't want. She's tired, there are better things to do, and honestly, she doesn't know if she can get out of this mess without seriously harming Billie.

It's a game of dodging and trying to keep Billie at bay, at least as far as the tip of her sword. Her speed is a problem, and still unwilling to turn the edge of her blade on her, Shura instead side steps Billie's lunges, those teeth coming way too close to her for comfort. One of the chairs might have fallen under the force of Billie's leaping, but there's a second one not far, and Shura goes to grab it with her left hand, aiming the set of the chair at Billie. One chair might not be enough to do anything, but it's at least a shot at trying to thump some sense into Billie before taking more drastic measures.

[redwhaling]

Billie catches the chair right in the head and that slows her down, for whatever short time that may be. She staggers to the side, shaking her head, but in the end, it only makes her angrier. Under her claws, the floor catches fire, dragon magic reacting to the rage. This time she doesn't hiss at Shura. She shrieks, a high-pitched noise not unusual for rats, only far larger than it should be.

After that, her form flickers again and she's gone. She's dropped back in behind her again, only this time to the floor, and she makes another lunge for her, coming in with claws swinging at Shura's back.

[exaomori]

It doesn't knock her out. Of course, they wouldn't be so lucky that Shura could knock Billie out before she did much harm to herself or to Shura. It gives Shura the chance to focus, ice crystals beginning to form on the edge of her blade.

But damn, Billie's fast, and though Shura knows it, she's not used to fighting someone who knows how to teleport like this, let alone a were-someone. Her reaction is off, just a half-second too slow. She feels claws tearing into her side as she pivots. And that is definitely a very unpleasant burning sensation. Shura yells. Fine, she was done with playing with her. Fang comes down on Billie's shoulder, a blast of cold air before the blade follows.

[redwhaling]

Fast but not fast enough to teleport away again, it would seem. Claws digging through flesh, burnt flesh and fresh blood hitting the air, her focus immediately latches onto that and how hungry she still is before ever realizing she's in danger, then all she can smell is her own blood in the air, Fang biting into her shoulder and knocking her down to all fours with a startled sound.

The chill of he blade meets blazing hot heat, steam erupting from the very same wound, and then Billie's gone again, only the transversal across the room doesn't go so well this round. Moving this way, as long as she has, comes as easily as any other instinct these days, but it still takes some amount of looking ahead. Between already being so addled and the pain lancing through her shoulder, just throwing herself somewhere safe... doesn't work.

Sure, she moves, but it's mostly just to reappear crashing into even more furniture in a scrambling, desperate way, spitting and hissing at Shura the entire time.

closed to daud [cw: yep, more death and violence]

[redwhaling]

She's dying. It's hazy thought in the back of her mind realizing that, some detached part of her that's sensible enough to realize it, even if she can't do much more than that. The rest of her is just looking for a quiet place to curl up in and hope that everything stops. The noise, the wretched hum from the blood-red river, the pain from her final, desperate fight with a friend.

That had been a friend, hadn't it? Does it even matter anymore? Billie doesn't know and she reckons she doesn't much care as she reaches the end. Bleeding out in a filthy dead-end alley in some shithole neighborhood. If that same fear and paranoia wrapping so tightly around her weren't so keen to keep her in her shiftling form — smaller, faster, safer — she may have had the sense to laugh over that and tell herself it's exactly where she deserves to die...

At the wall of the alley, where it runs itself to an end against another building, is where she gives up, collapsing there in exhaustion, curling up. Not quite dead yet but with how heavily her sides rise and fall, wheezing piteously, it's only a matter of time.

[forswore]

It's inevitable, in some way, that Daud should lose touch with Billie. The tiefling's figured out that wax earplugs seem to do the trick for blocking the worst of the influence, which means he's taken to wading further into the thick of it, thinking little of needing to check in on Billie when he'd already given her the same warning he gave the rest: stay away from the water. Don't listen. There's a comfort in the simplicity of cutting the inhuman ranks of Defenders down, whittling their numbers, though he half-expects to run into Koroc himself in all the madness. Given how swiftly he'd nearly put an end to Lykos, that's not an encounter he's thrilled with.

Eventually, though, he starts noticing something odd. Dead bodies that don't belong to Defenders or rebels, easy to miss if he wasn't using the dark alleys they've fallen in. It's little effort after that to pick up on the trail, to come across the signs of one that put up more of a fight than the others had. Two trails of blood and agony leading in different directions -- only one of them involving fur and distinctly inhuman tracks.

Daud's quiet as he comes into the alley, stepping carefully because he isn't sure what he'll find at the end of it. The cloak the tiefling's wearing has the trick of making him to seem to fade in and out of view as it flares around him, obscuring and revealing his form by turns, but stealth is the last thing on his mind as he approaches the wounded shiftling.

"Lurk."

He says her name, quietly, hand already on the hilt of the blade by his side.

[redwhaling]

She had stayed away from the water, she had tried to ignore the sound, that endless humming from the river, but all it ever needed was one weak spot to latch onto — laughably enough, that same weak spot has finally shown up, every doubt in her head turning the corner into the alley, saying her name.

Billie doesn't give much more of a reaction than moving her head, turning it just enough to stare at him with one beady rat eye, trying to keep track of where he is as he fades in and out of sight with the cloak falling around his form. That she reacted to her name at all may betray some comprehension but how much exactly, it's hard to tell in this state. It could be enough to recognize him, it could be she's only reacting to someone, anyone at all, approaching her, but there's no immediate rush to violence, not yet. If anything, the sheer lack of reaction could be construed as reserving that energy for something else.

[forswore]

Daud assesses Billie’s injuries swiftly and clinically. It’s fatal, he can tell that much — though hard to discern the exact extent of the injury or what caused it. He knows the shiftling can’t manage language in this form, not that he could hear her even if she could.

It doesn’t change what he knows he needs to do. He draws his sword with the soft hiss of metal on leather and steps closer, still poised and alert.

[redwhaling]

It's to the sword her attention darts for a second, two seconds, and then claws are digging into the ground beneath her, muscles are tensing under fur where they haven't already been sliced through and made useless — she's getting ready to make a move, she'd only been waiting for him to get closer, closer...

A faint rustle of feathers from behind will betray that she isn't here alone but that's the only warning Daud gets before Deirdre comes crashing down from the sky to attack the back of his head in a flurry of claws and wings and screeches, which is the exact same moment Billie acts.

Even in the throes of the river's madness, this had to have been planned on the spot, from the very second Daud stepping into the alley. Not that that thought matters much in the end. As the tern attacks, so does Billie, snapping forward to try and get her jaws around the nearest ankle, teeth searing hot with Epithymetikon's magic.

[forswore]

With Daud’s hearing stopped up, he doesn’t even have the noise to warn him — although he’d expected something as much to happen. Things that looked half dead weren’t necessarily so. Claws hook and prick into the back of his hood, and the flash of light at the corner of his vision give him enough presence of mind to pivot a leg out of the way of heat-charged teeth.

“Stubborn to the last,” he rasps out. Too loudly.

Keeping his grip tight on his sword, he turns to aim to slam his back — and Deirdre clinging on him with it — against the wall, hoping to stun the tern, or spook it into letting go.

[redwhaling]

Teeth clack together on empty air and she doesn't even have the strength to scream her frustration over it. Even with a distraction, nothing, and the abrupt break in contact with her animas doesn't help. Daud hits the wall and Deirdre does the same, not having broken off her own assault fast enough to fly out from that rapidly closing space between the two.

It puts her to the ground same as Billie, although she won't remain stunned for long, already trying to right herself and get her wings in order quick. That's more than can be said for Billie, who collapses back to the alleyway with a despairing little sound that will go unheard by all but herself and the tern.

That was it, the last ounce of fight left. Anything that remains is all Deirdre, who hasn't bled it all out across the streets of the city just getting here.

[forswore]

“That’s enough,” Daud says. There’s a hard edge to his voice that wasn’t present there before, the firming of some resolve. He steps closer to the dying shiftling, ready to fend off another assault from the tern if necessary, but his words are for both of them.

“Find me when you wake.” If she wakes. He pauses like he means to say something more, but it passes in half a heartbeat. The blade finds its mark swiftly, her heart under her ribs. It’s the only mercy he can offer her. When her body’s gone still, he bends to gather her into his arms, to take her home.

[redwhaling]

It is enough. There's no more fight to give and Daud will find slipping the sword between her ribs a simple enough feat. There's no leather or chainmail to bypass, no in this form. Just fur and bone and sinew and then it's done, the shiftling only squirming weakly in protest at the pain of the blade going through, then the last ounces of life run out, she stills, and Deirdre falls apart into dust before she can throw herself back into the air.

Billie's form doesn't change back, mostly since there is no back, necessarily. This is her as much as her human self is, and, overall, that just makes her a lighter load to haul back to the house on the edge of the City.

A house that only looks abandoned on the outside but Daud should be expecting company the second he walks in. Even if he'd stowed Red away in the basket before heading out, he has, apparently, figured a way to clamber back out all on his own. That's the problem with children, isn't it? Always learning... and, in this case, watching. There's a thump as he jumps down from a cupboard to the table near the door, immediately making little trilling noises at him. They're inquisitive for now. He hasn't immediately caught on that the dead thing over his shoulder is Billie.

[forswore]

That Billie doesn’t shift back to a more human form... Daud doesn’t dwell on it. It makes it easier to travel with her body, but he doesn’t think about that either, mechanically going through the motions of pulling himself through the space between the shadows, over and over again, until he reaches their destination.

He isn’t surprised to hear the dragonet moving around, but he ignores him for now. Billie’s blood has seeped into his clothes, but so has a quantity of water from her fur, something which he notices as he shakes out the worn canvas sheet on the threadbare couch to lay her out on.

Odd, he thinks, but it isn’t the only odd thing he observes as he sets about examining her more closely. Fur damp, but not with the red water from the river, wounds oddly reminiscent of burns...

[redwhaling]

Daud may ignore him, but Red seems intent on following. He hops from table to chair to floor and creeps along in the tiefling's wake, though now that the smell of blood has hit his nose, he gives both him and Billie a wide berth rather than trying to get a closer look.

It's only a matter of another minute or two until the dragonet places the scent that goes with the blood with why it's so familiar. What Daud brought in is strange to him but...

It's fairly obvious he's figured it out when he starts whining in distress rather than chirping or making curious little trills. He still won't rush over to get in the way, though, opting to huddle up on the floor where he's taken a seat, feathery tail wrapping around him as he tries to make himself, well, very small.

[forswore]

It’s a noise that eventually rouses Daud from his bleak examination, glancing towards Red and feeling a weariness settle into his bones once more. Of course ... time doesn’t stop for anyone, does it? He doesn’t know if Billie’s body will stiffen into rigor mortis, doesn’t know if she’ll even return or if Rocket’s bitter warning on the couriers will prove true.

He can only wait. And in the meantime, there’s the living to attend to, as much as he’d like to stuff the wax plugs back in his ears and ignore it like he did the ringing. He folds the canvas over Billie, tucking the corners in and smoothing it neatly down before he turns to the dragonet, signing clearly and speaking firmly.

“Quiet now.” He straightens, padding over to the small washbasin and pitcher of water he’s set up on a side table. The small bit of water in it now seems even more precious, given the state of the river at present, but he’ll splash out some to soak a cloth so he can clean his gloves and his other leathers. It won’t remove the scent, but it should weaken it, if nothing else.

“She’ll be back.” He just doesn’t know when. Now, what else had Billie taught Red... “Stay here. Guard.” ‘Don’t eat’ was never on their list of signals, but he doesn’t think that’s a worry with this reaction.