Blood. That’s all Edgard sees. The blood that oozed on the ground, the blood on his own hands, but not his blood. His hands in the river, clouds of red flowing out and down over stones and around lily pads. His chest heaving, the blood pumping in his chest. It’s still there on his hands though he scrubbed them raw almost seeing his own blood. His own blood pumps hard reminding him of the life it gives him that he doesn’t deserve, reminding him of those who do.
Night fell and Edgard finds himself walking, running anywhere or nowhere. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t care. He must keep moving before—a body lifeless on the ground. He shakes his head, shoving it down.
He has to keep moving. This isn’t far enough, he has to get farther away. He hears a soft crunch of hooves on the ground and put his hands out finding a soft side moving in and out. Horses. He keeps his hand there a moment feeling the blood pumping in this animal. He moves his hands up to the withers and down to the shoulder with familiarity. He rests his arm on its’ neck and finally still notices his hands shaking. The horse’s nose finds him and snuffs him lightly. Edgard makes a decision.
Edgard still sees the blood when he places one foot in the stirrup and swings his other leg over. His chest quiets momentarily as he points the horse away from camp and takes a breath.
The hand that swims up out of the dark and finds the animal's reins is as a door being forced shut.
There is a list of things Marcoulf might do: with his spare hand, he could jerk hard on the rein to snap it out of Edgard's hands; shout out to wake the rest of their little party still asleep round the fire; make use of that knife in his boot all ready to be drawn. Instead, his free hand finds the saddle's stirrup leather, knuckles careful against the other man's boot.
In only a breath, a person is next to him and Edgard’s chest tightens again. The presence of someone else send bolts through him and visions of a man not unlike him dead on the ground. He wants to recoil from his touch, but he has his horse. Marcoulf pulls him out of his reverie by asking a question.
Where is Edgard going? The where of it wasn’t really a consideration. Does it even matter? But, he knows well what happens to those who leave and those that help them. So, he settles on the truth.
“Away,” Edgard growls and at the same moment he slips his boot out of the held stirrup and kicks Marcoulf.
No soldier slips away to fetch a horse in the middle of the night with intentions one might consider honorable, and anyone interfering with them should expect to be answered with trouble. The kick finds his ribs, yes, but he is reaching already: hand slipping from the stirrup leather to Edgard's belt or nearest approximation and using all his weight (battered or otherwise - Maker, let no one claim that a boot to the middle is pleasant) in the rough attempt to wrench the man from the saddle.
Edgard is a fool. Marcoulf still stands and now because Edgard dropped a stirrup, he’s allowed him to unseat him. Edgard spits and snarls curses all the way to the ground. He needs to keep moving, so he swings his fist upward towards this impediment.
This isn’t the movement he wanted, but it’s better than standing still. He keeps swinging, miss, miss, who cares? The horse spooks and Edgard sees a hoof pass over his head. It isn’t until his fist meets its target and he sees blood on his fist that he falters. The fight leaves him leaving only emptiness. His hands fall to his sides and he lies motionless on the ground.
“I didn’t—I’m not—“ Edgard sighs. “Fine. Take the horse.”
The horse, unlike its unlucky rider, is free to go (all of a half dozen paces, loath as the animal is to leave its companions in favor of misty woods at night). The boot that finds Edgard's middle doesn't come in the form of a kick either - it is just weight in place of some restraining hand. Forgive him if he doesn't quite trust the other man enough to lean down within arm's reach where he might be pummeled more effectively.
(Don't punch him in the groin; his good temper would fade considerably.)
"Now friend, would you prefer to discuss there near the fire or that we continue this here?"
Edgard lifts his eyes skyward, watches the horse run away and with it his half-hatched plan. He feels the boot resting on his stomach and doesn’t bother moving even though he’d like to wriggle out of this man’s grasp. Edgard deserves this.
“Not sure there’s anything to discuss.” He says without emotion. “But, if you’re insisting then down here is fine.”
The boot is staying where it is for the time being. Consider it the precaution of a naturally conservative fellow.
"Then I will ask we do so quietly, so as not to wake my fellows." In a group, they might have more severe ideas of how to treat a horse thief in the middle of the night. "Agreed?"
Let us assume they understand one another, or that at least if the man on his back in the dirt will make his objections known regardless of whether Marcoulf continues for that is what he means to do: "Who are you and where have you come from?"
There are many ways Edgard could answer. He is nothing. He is less than the dirt he lies in. The fact he exists is a mistake and an error. He is such a shadow that the fact this man can see him much less restrain him with a boot is astounding. He comes from the void of death's darkness though he is not dead. The blood that pumps in his veins mocks him. He acquiesces all the same.
"I am Edgard, a bowman. I came from..." Edgard hesitates both because he's unsure who he's speaking with and because he doesn't know where he is now. He points with a limp wrist to the woods. "I came from there. And who are you?"
Marcoulf raises his attention (but not his boot) and briefly studies the line of trees, pale fingers in the night shrouded by fog. When he looks back, his heel is a little sharper and the lines of his narrow face drawn thinner.
"Ricart, of the tenth banner under Marshal Proulx." Is an exaggeration. But there is no one in Orlais who cannot know that name, Duke Gaspard's commander here in the plains overseeing the troop movements out of Fort Revasan. "Tell me, bowman. Where did you plan to take my horse?"
Edgard knows he should care that this man comes from the opposing side. There was a time, and not that long ago, that he would’ve killed this man gladly simply to further the cause. A boot he might have stolen off a corpse is now digging harder into him. But, those are the actions of someone else, not the ghost he’s become. He tells this Ricart the truth and seizes an opportunity.
“I told you. Away. More specifically anywhere but here. Out of Orlais maybe. The horse was just the method. I’m your enemy, by the way, you should kill me.” Edgard’s death wish gives him a reckless confidence and he looks Ricart dead in the eyes and smirks.
A cluck of the tongue. There is something birdlike in his countenance, like those clever little hawks fine ladies sometimes have brought out into the country with them to play at sport with. In the dark, being smirked at, with a half dozen of his own compatriots near to hand should he shout and, it is easy to be a little snide in return:
"One common man's bones do the Duke little benefit, friend. Much better were I to capture you, so he might learn all the little things ferreting around between your ears."
Edgard lets out a breath of defeat. Another escape thwarted. Edgard puts his head on the ground feeling the damp earth squash into his dirty tangled hair. When he speaks, he speaks to the air without looking at Marcoulf.
“I am quite certain my bones would be of more use than anything else. You needn’t concern yourself with me. I don’t aim to thwart the Duke or benefit him just as I don’t aim to benefit or thwart the Empress. I don’t care. I did once, but no more. I just want to leave, one way or another. I am not of use to you or to anyone else.”
It’s as if Edgard’s spoken an invocation because he is overwhelmed by a sinking inside him. The pumping in his chest settles and is replaced with a sick heaviness. Edgard feels far away, almost forgetting this man who has captured him.
The sound Marcoulf makes above him is low and colored like faux dismay.
"Then you had best make a true nuisance of yourself once we reach Revasan and give them reason to kill you, else they will put a bow back in your hands and find a place for you in the Duke's line once they've wrung you free of what little you know," he says, heel secure at Edgard's middle.
"Unless we can come to some arrangement tonight in which you agree to answer all my questions in exchange for the possibility that I decide to cut you loose. Say now which you prefer."
Edgard's head lifts at the last statement. The movement makes him aware again of the boot lodged on his stomach. He briefly considers trying to wriggle away from it, but decides it's not worth the effort. He then raises his eyes to meet Marcoulf's, not in challenge but in earnest.
"I will answer whatever you ask me to the best of my ability."
For a moment, it earns him very little. And then the heel against his middle eases and Marcoulf makes a short, impatient motion of the hand - very well, sit up then if you care to.
"How many men are among the company you left? And in which camp. Do you know anything of the direction the Empress's line means to push?"
They are easy questions. How were you outfitted? How well have you been fed? Which supplies was your company most short of? How are their horses? Who are your captains? Where have your scouting parties gone and what have they told you they've seen though they were meant to report only to their superiors? Soldiers talk unless you shut their mouths for them, he thinks.
Edgard remains flat on the ground, but his eyes are trained on Marcoulf's. The questions are many, and Edgard inwardly sighing, predictable although in his state Edgard didn't see the interrogation coming. The person Edgard was would be disgusted at the ease with which he capitulates, but the person Edgard is now is disgusted with the whole of it: the war, the petty squabbles of men fighting for ideals people tell them to fight for, the fact he killed friend and foe for these ideals, and didn't hesitate, not once. Not even when it counted. Edgard is exhausted, but again, doesn't hesitate.
"Around 200. The East camp. I was not of a high enough ranking to know the Empress' plans, but we had been heading steadily northwest for a week."
Edgard continues to answer the questions and as he does, he wonders about this man and how he got to this position. Does he have ideals or is he simply following orders and thinks these questions will earn him some reward? Are ideals different from orders really when you boil it down? Once the man has run out of questions, Edgard poses one of his own.
"If I may be so bold, why are you here fighting this war? I know I believed something once, but it all seems to have dissolved in blood and heartbreak. I'm not sure I know the point of it all anymore."
After the long string of questions, all of them readily answered while the man has remained flat on his back, it seems only fair to allow him that boldness. But any interest Marcoulf had possessed prior to this moment - for facts and figures, for the movement of armed men through the countryside, for who has fresh shoes for the winter and who is still wearing whatever they arrived to the field in - flattens over the contents.
Edgard lets out a long sigh. The condescension is nothing new. It grates as usual, but it's not worth the fight. He doesn't take his eyes off Marcoulf and puts his hands behind his head.
"You don't know either, then. What about this arrangement?"
jk doing this now so I don't forget. scoops this back onto my plate.
It is not the first time someone has said to Marcoulf de Ricart that he doesn't know a thing. Given the ability and the care to, he might fill a book with such things that he doesn't know. As it is, he might recite a list in exacting detail.
Fortunately, such things do him little in the way of good and so he has no interest in the endeavor.
Edgard leans his head back looking behind him and releases another sigh. He is so tired and this man is particularly exhausting.
"The arrangement where I answer your questions, which I did, and you let me go."
He does not expect a positive answer to this. Why would this man stop being difficult? Why would something go right for Edgard? Why would the world stop ending time and time again?
The look he receives in reply is, for a moment, perfectly blank in the narrow sliver of moonlight. Then he laughs. It's a short sawing noise, ugly for its lack of reflection. His grin sticks - wolf sharp.
"That's funny." The toe of his boot finds Edgard's side. "Get up. We're going back to the fire."
Edgard thinks about running. He considers fighting. But, as the boot pierces his side, he can't make himself care. He lifts himself to his feet, a long painful process. He hurts all over and his insides sink.
He motions with his head as if to say 'lead the way' and then says without much emotion, "Anyone ever told you you're a real piece of shit?"
"Please, Monsieur," he says, taking a step back rather than forward as the other man rises to his feet to keep well out of arm's reach though he reaches out with his toe again - prodding the Empress' disloyal bowman in the back of the calf and nodding to indicate the direction they are to travel in.
Edgard trips a little at the second prodding and slows his pace down even more. He doesn’t know if it’s his state of mind or the knowledge he is royally fucked that makes him ask it.
“Would you kill one of those friends if your superior asked it of you?”
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Night fell and Edgard finds himself walking, running anywhere or nowhere. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t care. He must keep moving before—a body lifeless on the ground. He shakes his head, shoving it down.
He has to keep moving. This isn’t far enough, he has to get farther away. He hears a soft crunch of hooves on the ground and put his hands out finding a soft side moving in and out. Horses. He keeps his hand there a moment feeling the blood pumping in this animal. He moves his hands up to the withers and down to the shoulder with familiarity. He rests his arm on its’ neck and finally still notices his hands shaking. The horse’s nose finds him and snuffs him lightly. Edgard makes a decision.
Edgard still sees the blood when he places one foot in the stirrup and swings his other leg over. His chest quiets momentarily as he points the horse away from camp and takes a breath.
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There is a list of things Marcoulf might do: with his spare hand, he could jerk hard on the rein to snap it out of Edgard's hands; shout out to wake the rest of their little party still asleep round the fire; make use of that knife in his boot all ready to be drawn. Instead, his free hand finds the saddle's stirrup leather, knuckles careful against the other man's boot.
"Where are you off to?"
What a deceptively simple question.
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Where is Edgard going? The where of it wasn’t really a consideration. Does it even matter? But, he knows well what happens to those who leave and those that help them. So, he settles on the truth.
“Away,” Edgard growls and at the same moment he slips his boot out of the held stirrup and kicks Marcoulf.
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No soldier slips away to fetch a horse in the middle of the night with intentions one might consider honorable, and anyone interfering with them should expect to be answered with trouble. The kick finds his ribs, yes, but he is reaching already: hand slipping from the stirrup leather to Edgard's belt or nearest approximation and using all his weight (battered or otherwise - Maker, let no one claim that a boot to the middle is pleasant) in the rough attempt to wrench the man from the saddle.
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This isn’t the movement he wanted, but it’s better than standing still. He keeps swinging, miss, miss, who cares? The horse spooks and Edgard sees a hoof pass over his head. It isn’t until his fist meets its target and he sees blood on his fist that he falters. The fight leaves him leaving only emptiness. His hands fall to his sides and he lies motionless on the ground.
“I didn’t—I’m not—“ Edgard sighs. “Fine. Take the horse.”
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(Don't punch him in the groin; his good temper would fade considerably.)
"Now friend, would you prefer to discuss there near the fire or that we continue this here?"
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“Not sure there’s anything to discuss.” He says without emotion. “But, if you’re insisting then down here is fine.”
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"Then I will ask we do so quietly, so as not to wake my fellows." In a group, they might have more severe ideas of how to treat a horse thief in the middle of the night. "Agreed?"
Let us assume they understand one another, or that at least if the man on his back in the dirt will make his objections known regardless of whether Marcoulf continues for that is what he means to do: "Who are you and where have you come from?"
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"I am Edgard, a bowman. I came from..." Edgard hesitates both because he's unsure who he's speaking with and because he doesn't know where he is now. He points with a limp wrist to the woods. "I came from there. And who are you?"
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"Ricart, of the tenth banner under Marshal Proulx." Is an exaggeration. But there is no one in Orlais who cannot know that name, Duke Gaspard's commander here in the plains overseeing the troop movements out of Fort Revasan. "Tell me, bowman. Where did you plan to take my horse?"
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“I told you. Away. More specifically anywhere but here. Out of Orlais maybe. The horse was just the method. I’m your enemy, by the way, you should kill me.” Edgard’s death wish gives him a reckless confidence and he looks Ricart dead in the eyes and smirks.
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"One common man's bones do the Duke little benefit, friend. Much better were I to capture you, so he might learn all the little things ferreting around between your ears."
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“I am quite certain my bones would be of more use than anything else. You needn’t concern yourself with me. I don’t aim to thwart the Duke or benefit him just as I don’t aim to benefit or thwart the Empress. I don’t care. I did once, but no more. I just want to leave, one way or another. I am not of use to you or to anyone else.”
It’s as if Edgard’s spoken an invocation because he is overwhelmed by a sinking inside him. The pumping in his chest settles and is replaced with a sick heaviness. Edgard feels far away, almost forgetting this man who has captured him.
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"Then you had best make a true nuisance of yourself once we reach Revasan and give them reason to kill you, else they will put a bow back in your hands and find a place for you in the Duke's line once they've wrung you free of what little you know," he says, heel secure at Edgard's middle.
"Unless we can come to some arrangement tonight in which you agree to answer all my questions in exchange for the possibility that I decide to cut you loose. Say now which you prefer."
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"I will answer whatever you ask me to the best of my ability."
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"How many men are among the company you left? And in which camp. Do you know anything of the direction the Empress's line means to push?"
They are easy questions. How were you outfitted? How well have you been fed? Which supplies was your company most short of? How are their horses? Who are your captains? Where have your scouting parties gone and what have they told you they've seen though they were meant to report only to their superiors? Soldiers talk unless you shut their mouths for them, he thinks.
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"Around 200. The East camp. I was not of a high enough ranking to know the Empress' plans, but we had been heading steadily northwest for a week."
Edgard continues to answer the questions and as he does, he wonders about this man and how he got to this position. Does he have ideals or is he simply following orders and thinks these questions will earn him some reward? Are ideals different from orders really when you boil it down? Once the man has run out of questions, Edgard poses one of his own.
"If I may be so bold, why are you here fighting this war? I know I believed something once, but it all seems to have dissolved in blood and heartbreak. I'm not sure I know the point of it all anymore."
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What a stupid question.
"You're just a bowman. You're not meant to know."
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"You don't know either, then. What about this arrangement?"
jk doing this now so I don't forget. scoops this back onto my plate.
Fortunately, such things do him little in the way of good and so he has no interest in the endeavor.
"And what arrangement is that, Monsieur?"
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"The arrangement where I answer your questions, which I did, and you let me go."
He does not expect a positive answer to this. Why would this man stop being difficult? Why would something go right for Edgard? Why would the world stop ending time and time again?
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"That's funny." The toe of his boot finds Edgard's side. "Get up. We're going back to the fire."
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He motions with his head as if to say 'lead the way' and then says without much emotion, "Anyone ever told you you're a real piece of shit?"
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"I am very polite when compared with my friends."
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“Would you kill one of those friends if your superior asked it of you?”
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