Private Tales Stealing All That Which Cannot Be Stolen

A private roleplay only for those invited by the first writer
Liviana spoke gentle reassurances into the crate as Otto retrieved the blade she required. She had lost count of the years that she had been kept by the Regisfords, but how long had they been capturing Fae? She'd thought it'd just been her...

Anger rose up and burned like bile in her chest, but as she ran the blade across her palm she winced, and swallowed it down, her eyes glassy with tears, her brow knit with a rare fury. Her hand pressed to the crate and whispered a prayer to her people, that with her sacrifice of blood they might allow her the power to free whatever creatures had been captured. There was nothing for a long moment, and Livvy's free hand fisted into the grass by her knee. It felt as though her power had forgotten her, but she could feel a small kernel of it tendril through her, seeking familiarity. In near silence, she spoke her true name, and almost at once something ignited, and the crate cracked open.
 
Otto watched as Liviana took the ominous blade from him, his eyes flicking between the weapon and Liviana herself. Perhaps, he thought, she meant to carve open the crate, but surely the crowbar would have been better for such a task. Then, he saw her bring the blade close to her hand.

"Liviana, wait, surely—"

He watched the steel carve the tender flesh of her hand, which before had felt so soft to him, and now seeming all the more fragile for that.

"—there must be another way...!"

His expression was one of horror and fascination as she then took the bubbling blood from her hand and pressed it to the crate, a soft glow at the touch indicating yet more strange magic Otto did not understand. Sparks signaled the final straw: at last, the lid of the crate cracked open, and Otto rushed forward, sliding the lid off fully as it flipped onto the nearby dirt. The thief peered inside.

"Oh... Gods..." he stammered.

Inside the crate, they could at last see the precious cargo: a woman, not dissimilar in height and shape as Liviana, barely strong enough to keep her eyes open. If there was any magic keeping her prisoner, Otto could not tell. So instead he reached down, grunting as he hooked his arm around the prisoner, straining as he pulled her thin body out of the crate, at last. Fear was in the woman's eyes, but her limbs seemed too weak to resist him.

"It's alright," Otto said, looking into the woman's eyes. His eyes shot back to Liviana. "Livvy, is there anything we can do?"

He looked around at the rest of the crates.

"Wait... you don't think... all these crates...?"

The thought was too terrible to finish aloud...
 
  • Stressed
Reactions: Liviana
Liviana watched in sickening familiarity as the female was pulled from the crate, her mind frozen in horror. How could she have not known that they'd been doing this all along. How naive had she been to think that she had been the only one? Had her sisters truly been left in peace, or where they here too?..

She felt sick, her ears ringing with memory so loud that Otto's voice was muffled by it, until he mentioned the other crates..

"Get her into the trees.." she asked of him as she hurried her way to the next crate. There was iron everywhere, and she had yet to regain any of her true strength as it was. Humans had to find ways to dampen their power, to find ways to hold leverage over them, for they knew without doing so they stood no chance against fae. But she wouldn't let them suffer the same fate she had. She had been away from her own realm for too long, but they hadn't, she hoped they hadn't.

Again and again she whispered her pleas, endured the pain, and with each crate that fell open, Liviana grew weaker. "Into the trees." she repeated, knowing they'd find their strength there. By the sound of the last crate finally cracking, Liviana fell into darkness.
 
  • Gasp
Reactions: Otto von Geist
As Liviana began opening the various crates, Otto quickly noticed something: the captive Fae were being held inside crates that specifically had strips of iron bolted to the crate, much more than was necessary to construct such a thing, and he suspected these crates must have been much heavier than normal, meaning that for the Regisfords this had to have been worth the extra expense and logistics. But just how many had they managed to amass? He shuddered at the thought.

Yet he diligently removed each faerie from the crate as it was opened, not questioning the cost Liviana might be paying in doing so. And with each one he removed, he hauled them to rest against the trunk of a nearby tree as per his partner's instruction. By the time they had finished, he had counted to roughly 9 captive fae, and again his mind raced with the horror of wondering if this type of shipment was a regular occurrence. It meant much: teams organized to capture and enslave, or worse yet, a turncoat in the ranks of some settlement, profiting from the enslavement of his own kind...

And then Liviana fell to the ground with an unceremonious thump, and he nearly gasped at the sight of it. Yet he steeled himself, taking the last faerie out of the crate once more and dutifully placing her next to a tree. That left only the fae he had escaped with in the first place, and he ran hurriedly to rejoin her. He nearly slid falling to the ground in order to lift her up as well, cradling her in his arms as he urged his aching muscles to heed him just long enough to get her to a tree where she could begin to recover as well.

But would she? Would it be enough?

His mind fraught with that singular worry, he lay Liviana too next to the trunk of a tree, where he sat next to her, despite the starvation eating away at his stomach, wrapping his arm around her shoulder and pulling her in to lean against his chest while ensuring she maintained contact with the tree they both leaned against. It was no place to wait, and rather than rest, the thief's mind began to think of what might need be done if she did not awaken in time...
 
  • Cthuulove
Reactions: Liviana