alfyn, your axe swing catches against rondo's sword, and he knocks it aside. he raises his sword again, this time going to kill you.
the doll lies on the ground, discarded.
pickles, you savagely tear through the remains of charlton and marina as well as the smallpox deity. it tastes like blood and death and...smallpox? idk, man. but you are free to go help alfyn if you want. you might need to.
the mindless puppets of jyushimatsu and gojo crowd around, ready to try and defend delilah from totty.
totty, something happens as you yell at geto. you feel power crackling at your fingertips as well. delilah isn't the only source of magic in this world. you're drawing your power from something else.]
[ HEY!! Just because it's true doesn't mean you should say it!!
Going after Geto's pride is, once again, the quickest and easiest way to force him to rebel, even if Todomatsu hadn't done it on purpose. He can dig his knife into his arm as well, slicing open the skin and causing blood to dribble down toward the ground as he towers over Todomatsu.
The Smallpox Deity disappears in a wisp of smoke, but he doesn't seem to be bothered by that right now, visibly distracted. ]
I'm not— shut up.
[ He summons another curse then, a small, devilish looking creature, that flaps down toward Todomatsu and grabs his cheeks with the intent of ripping his skin off. ]
[ this could be it. but alfyn's never the sort of person to go down without a fight, and he tries to scrabble back out of rondo's reach and towards the doll. his shoulder hurts from the lightning bolt, his chest is oozing blood and probably smells like rot and decay from the magic that coated the blade.
he reaches into his satchel as he gets closer to matilda's doll, tries to put himself between it and delilah's forces, and pulls out a concoction from it. no matter what the others have to get out of this. that's what a tank and a healer does, that's the apothecary's job.
boosting balm - soothing seed, essence of pomegranate. boost your own or an ally's skill power by one.
alfyn looks up at rondo, his left eye squinted a little shut against blood and pain, and throws the balm at pickles (14). enjoy a +1, buddy. ]
[ That is incredibly unsanitary, zombie Rondo!! Alfyn's chest needs a detox ASAP.
Pickles receives the boosting balm's effect, picks up the poisoned knife again to dash on over to slit zombie Rondo's throat. With the help of the balm, the slash will probably be pretty effective. AAAAAAAAAaaaaaaa he wants to do this quickly so that he can help Todomatsu too!! He's a little anxious right now, because he doesn't want to lose any of the other three, Geto included. ]
[ the sudden presence of an unfamiliar power gives todomatsu a jolt, but he doesn't have much time to think about it beyond oh. okay. that's definitely a new feeling. that's all right, though, because somehow he's intuitively aware of exactly what he just gained access to, and hell if he's going to let it go to waste.
geto's summon is smacked back by a chilly apparition of of a skeletal hand, immediately icing over its wings and volleyball-spiking it back at his face.
he'll take advantage of that moment of distraction to hop back to his feet, and after a glance back at the others, gives a second spell a whirl, attempting to drain the necrotic energy from the nearest puppets to give alfyn however much of a heal as he can manage.
maybe he's draining the life out of the dead jyushimatsu right now, but that's fine; the real jyushimatsu's energy would never run out, so that's all the more confirmation that this all an illusion of some kind. ]
[pickles, with the aid from alfyn, slashes the knife through zombie rondo's throat. the potent poison on the knife still works even on this undead figure. thick, black sludge of what might have once been blood pours from his neck, and he collapses.
totty is successful in draining the puppets. jyushimatsu and gojo both wither before their eyes, their bodies turning into skeletal withered husks as the little life force remaining in them is siphoned out. both husks collapse to the ground, a pile of dust and decay and broken bones. there isn't much life force to be found in an undead, but between the two of them, it's enough.
alfyn, the sword is buried in your chest, killing you. but you feel the healing energy flowing into you. you may want to yank it out, but the healing is enough to at least prevent you from bleeding out and dying here, and to stop the spread of the rot; you're wounded but you can still stand and fight for a little longer.
anyway, delilah is going to toss a chain lightning at the group of them. feel free to take whatever damage from this (just an aoe lightning spell that will injure them), but she also screams when the spell has ended. some of the lightning seems to have zapped the little doll, and delilah did not like that.]
Geto's rubbing his face as Todomatsu scrambles away, watching him drain the life out of Todomatsu 2 and Gojo, a sight that stops his heart even if there's no chance that it's real. It can't be real, because Delilah keeps messing with his head.
The lightly catches him at his side, crackling up his arm and searing over his skin, and at this point, he's at his limit!!
He sends the devilish curse out to snatch up the doll trying to beat Alfyn to it, and bring it back to himself. ]
[ gods, he wants to throw up. everything hurts, he just killed one friend and helped kill another. he feels the wound killing him in real time.
pickles saves him, but there's no time for gratitude right now. he feels whatever todomatsu is doing - it's different from ophilia's holy magic, but he knows healing magic when he feels it - and so he reaches up to the hilt of the sword and draws it from his chest. because geto is doing some bullshit and even as he makes an agonized noise through the pain of it he has to get up. ]
Geto, wake up! Get her hand our of your ass! [ STOP LETTING HER PUPPET YOU LIKE A MUPPET! THERE'S ONLY ONE MUPPET IN THIS GROUP!! but he's yelling to pickles and todomatsu, next: ] The doll, get the doll -
[ The life of a dog is very busy. Still, Pickles is a dog, so he drops the poison knife at Alfyn's feet for him to use if he'd like and dashes at whatever top speed he can get to in order to snatch the doll.
His fang goes through the doll while holding it inside his mouth. ]
[ unfortunately none of todomatsu's sweet new powers involve immunity to lightning, so he takes a fair amount of damage from that attack — the kind that would usually make him flash like an x-ray and poof up his hair, but now just burns.
the piercing sound of that scream makes him flinch, but— that's a good sign, right? once his vision comes back into focus, he fixes his eyes on her again. are they going to get another reaction like that now that pickles has that doll in his teeth? ]
[indeed, she does. she clutches her chest as though she's in pain.]
Bring that to me. That belongs to me.
[geto. you feel the strength of the command behind it. you're already trying to do this but she is a demanding lady and she wants you to do it much harder. kill anyone in your way.]
[ He's clutching his head now, struggling against the hold she has on him. Another curse appears around them, this time in the form of a giant black circle that engulfs the ground around all of them. The other three will suddenly feel as though they can't keep their balance, and that they're constantly falling, even if they're standing on the ground. Kind of like this.
Geto will use the opportunity to run over to Pickles, immune to the effect, grabbing the fur on his flank with one hand and reaching for the doll with the other. ]
[ honestly he hates how familiar lightning attacks are to him, but he's feeling like absolute hell right now. geto doing this black ice circle does nothing to help, and he flails on instinct like he's trying to catch his balance again, even though he wasn't doing anything more than standing up. ]
It was Matilda's! [ snarled at delilah - was matilda even real? doesn't matter.
what does matter is that now alfyn has three weapons: a knife, rondo's sword, and his own axe. and he knows how to use all three of them.
he can cure geto if he gets hit with the dagger, so he's going to pick it up and deftly throw the goddamn thing at him. up to spoon if it hits or not but the 15 was for him to try and get out of the circle so he can get to delilah. ]
[ I'll make a note here that electricity fried a bit of him, so he's grabbed by the flank by Geto. He only digs his teeth further into the doll almost as if crunching. His eyes finally glow to an indigo blue with bits of blue light surrounding him.
Hey, Geto. Nothing means anything anymore, but have you ever laughed at something so, so funny and it made you very happy? Pickles is trying to control Geto's emotions. He won't make him a sadsack, because he still wants Geto alive. ]
[ oh. oh, he really hasn't thought about that name in a while, but it comes rushing back to him now, even if he'd barely known her for a few minutes — her smile, her fear, the way she'd disappeared as soon as he'd turned his back. he'd never known what happened, but he'd kind of worried that he might have made a bad mistake by not listening to her more closely the first time.
he's not sure what this means, what kind of connection there was between the two of them, but it sounds like this woman who'd already scared her before is trying to take something of hers now, and that really pisses him off.
what happens if he tries to use phantasmal force on delilah? is there something she's afraid of? ]
pickles crunches his teeth into the doll, and delilah shakes. for a moment, she seems to lose control over this space, its branches moving away, no longer shielding her.
anyway, yes, delilah has something she's afraid of. she looks up and sees another noose on the tree. the man, the tall man that totty and alfyn both saw by her side in their memories, is hung there, a rotting corpse, a stake driven through his heart. she screams, and totty's spell does its damage.
pickles, in your head, you hear a small girl's voice, tearful and afraid.]
Why are you hurting me? I just wanted to live.
[but the more damage you do to the little doll, the more it seems to hurt delilah, too.
the pain delilah is experiencing breaks her concentration for a moment. geto, you have the sense that if you try to shrug her off now, you might be able to break free. but do you want to? or is it too difficult to try? the command is still ringing in your ears - get that doll.]
[ Delilah's influence weakens as Alfyn throws the dagger. He's got great aim despite his inability to balance, and the blade lodges sideways through his throat. Which is when Pickles' magic kicks in, and he's left to quietly chuckle as blood steadily bubbles up his throat and past his lips, making him look pretty insane.
Something severs in him then, maybe the pain of the blade cutting into him, or the fact that Pickles is someone that he genuinely likes, someone that he enjoys talking to, and doesn't want to fight any further, but he lets go of his hold on his fur.
He still reaches for the doll. But not to return it to Delilah.
He can't speak but he hopes that Pickles understands and holds on as tight as he can so that they can tear it in two. ]
[ on one hand? he doesn't want anything to happen to the doll - his only companion for months, before he found pickles again, the last thing of this little girl that suffered for nothing - but on the other hand? he's not that much of an idiot to not notice what's happening here.
he'll apologize to geto later, patch him up once there's a chance to. but he stumbles forward, fumbling his way closer to delilah with the sword and axe in hand. he has a trick left, the attack that does inverse damage to the amount of health he has left. and, oh, he's taken damage.
with a silent apology to rondo, he chucks the sword (with much less finesse than the knife) in delilah's direction. it's mostly in case she realizes what geto and pickles are doing, to distract, but also so that he can rear his axe back with shaky hands, on a prayer to a god that might not hear him: ] Dohter, guide my hand so that I might aid those who put their trust in me -
[ and he's going to try and hit her with his last stand to give geto, pickles, and todomatsu a chance to act. ]
[ Pickles hears the little girl's voice ring inside his head. While his ears flatten, the hold on the doll is strong. He can't read Geto's mind, but he releases him from the emotional manipulation, making the indigo lights fade. There is something in his eyes. Pickles doesn't growl, but he holds onto the doll in his mouth as if they're playing tug of war.
He heard the little girl's cry, but despite everything, he wants to live too. And he puts himself ahead of the little girl whom he supposedly never met. ]
[ that's what they've got to do, huh? he's always understood that sometimes you have to suffer a loss yourself to keep the greater victory out of someone else's hands, but the stakes in his life were never nearly as high as this, and he never felt so conflicted about the loss in question.
...all right.
he's not sure what he's supposed to do at this point, but he sees that alfyn's going to make his move, despite looking like he could keel over at any moment. they really can't risk something going wrong at this point, so after a brief moment of hesitation, todomatsu circles around to get behind delilah to make sure she can't get away while alfyn attacks from the front. the icy ghost hand materializes once more and reaches out to grip her neck from behind as he holds his knife a few inches from her back.
[pickles and geto rip the doll and it tears into two pieces. it's silent; you don't hear the voice of the child anymore. the pieces scatter to the floor. it was just a simple burlap doll filled with hay and straw and cloth; the component parts are now strewn across the ground.
as soon as the doll is torn, the branches of the tree fully move out of the way, withering even further, now a fully dead thing, not mobile. fragile, like it will collapse into mulch and rot with even a little touch. whatever was keeping it alive is gone. and likewise, delilah's form is becoming that strange purple light again. less physically here, less real, just a ghost beginning to fade away.
without that power, it's all too easy for totty to stab her in the back if he chooses. she can't fight back against him, can't touch him at all, as he never accepted any of her influence. with a shriek, the woman is gone.
and all of you are standing here in the shadow of this dead tree for a moment longer.]
[ Light flashes and Delilah screams, whatever whispers of control she had over him fully and finally gone.
Any lingering remnants of Geto's curses disappear from around them, his hand falling away from the half of the doll that he'd torn away. The adrenaline pounding through him is steadily replaced with relief.
And then the pain in his throat becomes way more prominent, and he just doubles over weakly gurgling blood. ]
[ and, just like that, it's all over. the silence falls, and alfyn's momentum takes him through delilah's disappearance. his body is running on pure adrenaline, muscles trembling from exertion, pain, electric shock, before he hears the gurgle from geto. ]
Shit, shit, shit shit shit. [ into his satchel he goes as he stumbles on weak legs, slapping ingredients together with no grace - noxroot, soothing seed, a curative balm to restore health and cure poison. ] It's okay, it's okay Geto, hang on - m'sorry -
[ is this for throwing a fucking knife at him or for slapping the balm into the wound (after he makes sure there's no knife there did he even take it out)? yes. ]
[ Pickles also feels exhausted and tries to clear out his mouth. Ugh. Unfortunately, Pickles is not a healer, but he will be right here for emotional support... after checking on Totty. Hey, man. You good? ]
[ todomatsu had just been holding the knife behind her as a safety measure in case she tried to back away, but when the moment came... yeah. he stabbed. it didn't make much of a difference.
he just stands there for a while after it's all over as the adrenaline subsides and the pounding of his heart in his ears quiets down. when he sees pickles looking up at him, he gives him a little smile and a tentative head scratch, and then just. sighs. so tiredly. god. he's not nearly as injured as anyone else here and he still feels like shit.
he looks around at the scene while alfyn tends to geto, his gaze eventually landing on the torn apart doll parts scattered over the ground. ]
...Think we should try to pick up some of the pieces?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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alfyn, your axe swing catches against rondo's sword, and he knocks it aside. he raises his sword again, this time going to kill you.
the doll lies on the ground, discarded.
pickles, you savagely tear through the remains of charlton and marina as well as the smallpox deity. it tastes like blood and death and...smallpox? idk, man. but you are free to go help alfyn if you want. you might need to.
the mindless puppets of jyushimatsu and gojo crowd around, ready to try and defend delilah from totty.
totty, something happens as you yell at geto. you feel power crackling at your fingertips as well. delilah isn't the only source of magic in this world. you're drawing your power from something else.]
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Going after Geto's pride is, once again, the quickest and easiest way to force him to rebel, even if Todomatsu hadn't done it on purpose. He can dig his knife into his arm as well, slicing open the skin and causing blood to dribble down toward the ground as he towers over Todomatsu.
The Smallpox Deity disappears in a wisp of smoke, but he doesn't seem to be bothered by that right now, visibly distracted. ]
I'm not— shut up.
[ He summons another curse then, a small, devilish looking creature, that flaps down toward Todomatsu and grabs his cheeks with the intent of ripping his skin off. ]
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he reaches into his satchel as he gets closer to matilda's doll, tries to put himself between it and delilah's forces, and pulls out a concoction from it. no matter what the others have to get out of this. that's what a tank and a healer does, that's the apothecary's job.
boosting balm - soothing seed, essence of pomegranate. boost your own or an ally's skill power by one.
alfyn looks up at rondo, his left eye squinted a little shut against blood and pain, and throws the balm at pickles (14). enjoy a +1, buddy. ]
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Pickles receives the boosting balm's effect, picks up the poisoned knife again to dash on over to slit zombie Rondo's throat. With the help of the balm, the slash will probably be pretty effective. AAAAAAAAAaaaaaaa he wants to do this quickly so that he can help Todomatsu too!! He's a little anxious right now, because he doesn't want to lose any of the other three, Geto included. ]
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geto's summon is smacked back by a chilly apparition of of a skeletal hand, immediately icing over its wings and volleyball-spiking it back at his face.
he'll take advantage of that moment of distraction to hop back to his feet, and after a glance back at the others, gives a second spell a whirl, attempting to drain the necrotic energy from the nearest puppets to give alfyn however much of a heal as he can manage.
maybe he's draining the life out of the dead jyushimatsu right now, but that's fine; the real jyushimatsu's energy would never run out, so that's all the more confirmation that this all an illusion of some kind. ]
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totty is successful in draining the puppets. jyushimatsu and gojo both wither before their eyes, their bodies turning into skeletal withered husks as the little life force remaining in them is siphoned out. both husks collapse to the ground, a pile of dust and decay and broken bones. there isn't much life force to be found in an undead, but between the two of them, it's enough.
alfyn, the sword is buried in your chest, killing you. but you feel the healing energy flowing into you. you may want to yank it out, but the healing is enough to at least prevent you from bleeding out and dying here, and to stop the spread of the rot; you're wounded but you can still stand and fight for a little longer.
anyway, delilah is going to toss a chain lightning at the group of them. feel free to take whatever damage from this (just an aoe lightning spell that will injure them), but she also screams when the spell has ended. some of the lightning seems to have zapped the little doll, and delilah did not like that.]
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Geto's rubbing his face as Todomatsu scrambles away, watching him drain the life out of Todomatsu 2 and Gojo, a sight that stops his heart even if there's no chance that it's real. It can't be real, because Delilah keeps messing with his head.
The lightly catches him at his side, crackling up his arm and searing over his skin, and at this point, he's at his limit!!
He sends the devilish curse out to snatch up the doll trying to beat Alfyn to it, and bring it back to himself. ]
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pickles saves him, but there's no time for gratitude right now. he feels whatever todomatsu is doing - it's different from ophilia's holy magic, but he knows healing magic when he feels it - and so he reaches up to the hilt of the sword and draws it from his chest. because geto is doing some bullshit and even as he makes an agonized noise through the pain of it he has to get up. ]
Geto, wake up! Get her hand our of your ass! [ STOP LETTING HER PUPPET YOU LIKE A MUPPET! THERE'S ONLY ONE MUPPET IN THIS GROUP!! but he's yelling to pickles and todomatsu, next: ] The doll, get the doll -
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His fang goes through the doll while holding it inside his mouth. ]
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the piercing sound of that scream makes him flinch, but— that's a good sign, right? once his vision comes back into focus, he fixes his eyes on her again. are they going to get another reaction like that now that pickles has that doll in his teeth? ]
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Bring that to me. That belongs to me.
[geto. you feel the strength of the command behind it. you're already trying to do this but she is a demanding lady and she wants you to do it much harder. kill anyone in your way.]
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[ He's clutching his head now, struggling against the hold she has on him. Another curse appears around them, this time in the form of a giant black circle that engulfs the ground around all of them. The other three will suddenly feel as though they can't keep their balance, and that they're constantly falling, even if they're standing on the ground. Kind of like this.
Geto will use the opportunity to run over to Pickles, immune to the effect, grabbing the fur on his flank with one hand and reaching for the doll with the other. ]
Pickles, give me the doll.
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It was Matilda's! [ snarled at delilah - was matilda even real? doesn't matter.
what does matter is that now alfyn has three weapons: a knife, rondo's sword, and his own axe. and he knows how to use all three of them.
he can cure geto if he gets hit with the dagger, so he's going to pick it up and deftly throw the goddamn thing at him. up to spoon if it hits or not but the 15 was for him to try and get out of the circle so he can get to delilah. ]
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Hey, Geto. Nothing means anything anymore, but have you ever laughed at something so, so funny and it made you very happy? Pickles is trying to control Geto's emotions. He won't make him a sadsack, because he still wants Geto alive. ]
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[ oh. oh, he really hasn't thought about that name in a while, but it comes rushing back to him now, even if he'd barely known her for a few minutes — her smile, her fear, the way she'd disappeared as soon as he'd turned his back. he'd never known what happened, but he'd kind of worried that he might have made a bad mistake by not listening to her more closely the first time.
he's not sure what this means, what kind of connection there was between the two of them, but it sounds like this woman who'd already scared her before is trying to take something of hers now, and that really pisses him off.
what happens if he tries to use phantasmal force on delilah? is there something she's afraid of? ]
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pickles crunches his teeth into the doll, and delilah shakes. for a moment, she seems to lose control over this space, its branches moving away, no longer shielding her.
anyway, yes, delilah has something she's afraid of. she looks up and sees another noose on the tree. the man, the tall man that totty and alfyn both saw by her side in their memories, is hung there, a rotting corpse, a stake driven through his heart. she screams, and totty's spell does its damage.
pickles, in your head, you hear a small girl's voice, tearful and afraid.]
Why are you hurting me? I just wanted to live.
[but the more damage you do to the little doll, the more it seems to hurt delilah, too.
the pain delilah is experiencing breaks her concentration for a moment. geto, you have the sense that if you try to shrug her off now, you might be able to break free. but do you want to? or is it too difficult to try? the command is still ringing in your ears - get that doll.]
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Something severs in him then, maybe the pain of the blade cutting into him, or the fact that Pickles is someone that he genuinely likes, someone that he enjoys talking to, and doesn't want to fight any further, but he lets go of his hold on his fur.
He still reaches for the doll. But not to return it to Delilah.
He can't speak but he hopes that Pickles understands and holds on as tight as he can so that they can tear it in two. ]
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he'll apologize to geto later, patch him up once there's a chance to. but he stumbles forward, fumbling his way closer to delilah with the sword and axe in hand. he has a trick left, the attack that does inverse damage to the amount of health he has left. and, oh, he's taken damage.
with a silent apology to rondo, he chucks the sword (with much less finesse than the knife) in delilah's direction. it's mostly in case she realizes what geto and pickles are doing, to distract, but also so that he can rear his axe back with shaky hands, on a prayer to a god that might not hear him: ] Dohter, guide my hand so that I might aid those who put their trust in me -
[ and he's going to try and hit her with his last stand to give geto, pickles, and todomatsu a chance to act. ]
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He heard the little girl's cry, but despite everything, he wants to live too. And he puts himself ahead of the little girl whom he supposedly never met. ]
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...all right.
he's not sure what he's supposed to do at this point, but he sees that alfyn's going to make his move, despite looking like he could keel over at any moment. they really can't risk something going wrong at this point, so after a brief moment of hesitation, todomatsu circles around to get behind delilah to make sure she can't get away while alfyn attacks from the front. the icy ghost hand materializes once more and reaches out to grip her neck from behind as he holds his knife a few inches from her back.
let's do it. ]
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as soon as the doll is torn, the branches of the tree fully move out of the way, withering even further, now a fully dead thing, not mobile. fragile, like it will collapse into mulch and rot with even a little touch. whatever was keeping it alive is gone. and likewise, delilah's form is becoming that strange purple light again. less physically here, less real, just a ghost beginning to fade away.
without that power, it's all too easy for totty to stab her in the back if he chooses. she can't fight back against him, can't touch him at all, as he never accepted any of her influence. with a shriek, the woman is gone.
and all of you are standing here in the shadow of this dead tree for a moment longer.]
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Any lingering remnants of Geto's curses disappear from around them, his hand falling away from the half of the doll that he'd torn away. The adrenaline pounding through him is steadily replaced with relief.
And then the pain in his throat becomes way more prominent, and he just doubles over weakly gurgling blood. ]
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Shit, shit, shit shit shit. [ into his satchel he goes as he stumbles on weak legs, slapping ingredients together with no grace - noxroot, soothing seed, a curative balm to restore health and cure poison. ] It's okay, it's okay Geto, hang on - m'sorry -
[ is this for throwing a fucking knife at him or for slapping the balm into the wound (after he makes sure there's no knife there did he even take it out)? yes. ]
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he just stands there for a while after it's all over as the adrenaline subsides and the pounding of his heart in his ears quiets down. when he sees pickles looking up at him, he gives him a little smile and a tentative head scratch, and then just. sighs. so tiredly. god. he's not nearly as injured as anyone else here and he still feels like shit.
he looks around at the scene while alfyn tends to geto, his gaze eventually landing on the torn apart doll parts scattered over the ground. ]
...Think we should try to pick up some of the pieces?
(no subject)