PM to join Tear It Out

[Karin]

81st of Winter, 515 AV,
the door

You cannot pass through the door without a weapon.

Well, the girl had one, a small knife dangled at her hip. She pressed a hand to it to check, and felt the reassuring bump under the fabric of her tunic.

You cannot pass through the door if you are severely wounded.

Children cannot pass through the door.

She was nearly an adult, and she certainly didn't feel like a child; she passed this one too. The girl stood there in the bleak morning, and continued reading the notic.

Only one person can pass through the door at a time.

She had no-one else.

The door cannot be damaged by anything.

It was right, she found, as she hesitantly tried. A small scrape of her knife and nothing had happened, so she hadn't tried again.

Finally, You leave, you don't come back.



Those small words, scrawled by some unknown person, send a shiver down her spine. Karin wasn't superstitious, but the ominous door that lead to nowhere filled her with dread. In fact, she wasn't really sure why she was choosing to step through it, when it gave her this dreadful feeling.

There were rumours of what was on the other side, but many people in the city were hidden away. A feeling of grief was settled like a moody cloud on the shoulders of the city, and it was seeping slowly and steadily into Karin's core.

She appraised the door again, touching it, putting her hand through, letting her skin rest on it's wooden frame. It just felt like a door. Nothing out of the ordinary. But it was, it was out of the ordinary. It wasn't everyday that a door appeared in the middle of the streets, even in Alvadas.

Her reasons to step through though, overcame any feeling of horror that she might have. They were simple, really. She wanted change. Even if she never came back here again, especially if she never came back here again, she felt it was worth the risk.

For all she knew, people that stepped through would turn up wherever they wanted to be. Or maybe, the city that they left behind was the cursed one, and the one on the other side was the one where everything was right?

Either way, powerful curiosity was feeding her and nourishing her, and the door was a temptation that she had to follow. She had followed the rules, there was nothing wrong with her, and even though she had no knowledge on how to fight, even if she needed to, she would step through.

With a promise to herself to have an open mind, the girl opened the door, onlooked by two children with worried eyes, and stepped through.

[Karin]

She had stepped into a nightmare.

The world around her was bleached dark with blood and fire, buildings half torn down and nightmarish creatures lumbered in the distance. The girl stood to the side, her mouth open in a small 'o' shape as she gazed around, seeing but not really seeing the piles of bodies somewhere up ahead.

Her head span, and her stomach heaved as a smell hit her nostrils, but nothing came up. She had stepped into a nightmare, and all the dreams and hopes she'd had before stepping through vanished like the very same door she had pinned the dreams on.

Confusion surrounded her, and as her vision and perception opened up further she saw the others who stood nearby, equal looks of confusion and panic on some faces. Others seemed calmer, or more acclimatised. Karin was lost, utterly. She stumbled to the side, moving to rest her body against the wall of a nearby building, and someone propped up her elbow.

Someone, no... some people were approaching now. They seemed to be directing people, and she hastened closer with a lurch in her stomach, not wanting to miss their words. Please please please don't miss what they say, please... She didn't want to be left out here, alone.

The speaker, the Serpent, had just finished talking when Karin approached in range to hear, and fortunately for her, the Seamstress said, "And those who do not would do best to come with me." The girl took this to mean those who wished to not fight, and she knew not only that she didn't want to, but that she couldn't.

So, like a lamb she followed the group that followed the Seamstress, gasping and breathing in the thick stench of smoke.

Some time after, the sight of an opening in the streets arrived, and a hive of activity could be seen. Karin stopped, and listened intently to what the Speaker had to say, and then watched with dismay as she moved off.

She had no idea what to do. There were bodies, actual bodies lying on the ground, some still breathing but others clearly not. Moans and screams of pain, whimpers, all echoed through the plaza, and the noise of it reverberated uncomfortably in Karin's head.

She wished she wasn't there. She wished that the city hadn't chosen to push her into this mess of a place, but it had, and she had to accept it. She was knocked sideways as a man rushed past her, carrying a woman in his arms and sobbing.

Over to her right, two old women were tearing strips off their clothes and binding them to their arms, before picking up clattered, rusty swords and running off again, their grey hair streaming behind them like pennants.

Everywhere was active, everywhere and everyone apart from Karin, who stood stock still in the centre, watching and following but doing ultimately nothing as her uselessness kicked in.

[Karin]

"These're dark times, child. You'd do best to stay out of the way, if you can't 'elp." A wizened old man spoke up from his resting place on the ground beside her, and Karin looked down, mute. It's horrible, was what she wanted to say. But nothing came out.

Nothing in her life could have prepared her for this war zone. She had thought she was unlucky, with finding out about the first part of her life that she missed out on, but that was nothing, nothing, compared to what was happening here.

The old man was talking again, propping himself up on his elbow as a younger man wrapped a bandage around his head. "Go find the Tailor, girl. You'd do better there. Find some use for yerself."

The old man stood up, clutching his head, and took the staff being offered by the young man by his side. The two exchanged a look, perhaps they were father and son, or grandfather and son? Either way, they stepped away without a backwards glance.

Karin was left alone again, her world spinning around her. Bodies were spinning around her, like stars in a bloodstained sky. Everyone busy, and... suddenly, the girl was moving with them, darting in between a tall, snake-like man as he was about to fall and letting her hand catch his weight, gently pushing upright.

The man smiled a weak thanks, and then she was moving off again, her mind strangely blank as she grabbed a waterskin lying to the side and brought it to the lips of a pale, ashen woman who accepted the drink with a cursory glance over Karin. When the woman was finished, she took the 'skin back from her, and walked over to an injured girl, barely older than Karin was herself.

"Thank yer." The girl whispered through parched lips, and pressed a hand to Karin's so suddenly that her eyes opened wide in shock, and her firmly sealed lips parted with a small 'oh'. "Could you help me, please? I have a.. a wound on.. on my head. It's bleeding a lot, and I.. I don't want to die."

But as the girl pleaded with her, Karin couldn't do anything except stare at her, and at the wound which was dripping blood into the other girl's blue, tear-bruised eyes. That could be me. That could be me. Her hand wavered, and with another jolt of her whole body, she opened her mouth to speak.

[Karin]

"I... I don't know how."
"Please try?"
Karin looked at the girl, and very gently pressed her finger to the skin close to the wound. It didn't do anything, except make the girl wince, and make the wound spasm and eject more blood, in a fresh trickle down the girl's temple.

And now she was in overdrive, her mind flicking through everything she'd ever heard about injuries, any time when her mother looked after her as a child. She could remember cuts and bruises, the time when her nose wouldn't stop bleeding because she'd hit her head on a wall.

She could remember... the time when... The memories were flighty and elusive, and the girl grew more and more frustrated and panicked, watching the blood and the pain of the other girl. For a few more chimes she simply took her hand and muttered under her breath, thinking hard.

Finally, some obscure piece of knowledge hit her like a mist, fine yet eventually seeping through to her consciousness. Apply... pressure? She wasn't sure. She really wasn't sure. But it was the only thing she could think of, so it would have to do. She wanted to keep this girl alive, and there was no-one else around.

Over to her right lay a table, and on the table lay some scarce medical supplies. All the girl needed was a bandage, and thankfully there was a little bandage still there on the table when she reached it.

She picked it up, and thought about how best to go about it. She didn't want to cause the girl pain, but having pressure on the wound would surely cause pain... Oh, what to do? She got nearer, and the girl looked up at her, hopeless and pale, her blue eyes blinking slowly.

Now was the time for her to act, to put on a brave face, and show this stranger that she would be okay, even if Karin knew absolutely that she didn't know anything in Hai. So as she approached and fell down onto her knees next to the girl, she smiled. The smile was hesitant and fake, but it seemed to strike true with the other girl.

"Here. I.. I've got a bandage. Now, I'm going to press it to your.. your wound, so it might hurt. Is that okay?" Karin looked up with a worried expression, to find the other girl nodding with a determined, but equally worried expression on her face.

[Karin]

The next few chimes were agonising. Karin had to close her eyes as she lowered the wad of bandage down onto the girl's forehead. She didn't want to see the expression on her face, and she didn't want to see the pain, and she didn't want to see the blood.

There was a whimper, which cut through to Karin's soul, but she kept at it. A quarter of a bell later and the girl seemed okay, so she hesitantly took the bandage off, checking underneath it. The fibres of the bandage stuck to the girl's face and she opened her eyes again with a grimace of pain, but thankfully, amazingly, the flow of blood seemed to have stopped.

I did it. But Karin didn't feel a sense of achievement. All she felt was numbness again, because she simply wasn't prepared for all this. With a brusque nod, she said her farewell to the girl, who was examining her wound and wasn't paying attention to the blond woman who walked away.

She knew instinctively that there was no way back to the old Alvadas, the one behind the door. It was heart-breaking, and the fact that she was even further away from the sea now than she had been filled her with a heartache that she just couldn't get rid of.

All sense of purpose had been drained out of her, but... she had to pull through. She had to escape, so that she could reach the sea, and wash herself clean of all this. So, there and then, she promised herself she would help. She would even fight, if it was called of her. She would do anything and everything that she could so that she could escape it, and then get as far away from here as she possibly could.

Her resolve hardened, and she cast her gaze around the courtyard. For now, it seemed like the amount of people bustling around helping to look after injured people was decent. And, with a hard pull up of her lip, Karin thought to herself that she wasn't any help, not after that farce.

She wasn't entirely sure what to do. But, after all, she had a knife. Perhaps there would be a need to help with the fighting? She could only try. A small group of people, the pale, hard woman from before, a tall dark-skinned man and triplets each wearing the same, weary expression stood gathering weapons nearby, so Karin wandered closer.

They noted her, and she noted them, but no talking was involved. She simply joined them, and that was that. One of the triplets, her hair curled into an elaborate figure of eight on top of her head, offered Karin a wooden club.

She picked it up, and felt the grain. The others picked their weapons of choice, the triplets each going for a staff of some sort, the dark skinned man picking up a mace, and the pale woman already had a long sword in a ruby scabbard at her hip.

And they set off, in no direction Karin knew, simply following the crowd. Behind her in the courtyard, the blue-eyed girl smiled and waved. She left herself back there, and she would live again once she returned. If she returned.

[Fable]

K A R I N . I R O N Y A C H

a d r o i t . a c c r e t i o n s

❁ investigation 1
❁ observation 2
❁ medicine 2
❁ acting 1

e s p i e d . e r u d i t i o n

❁ medicine: binding wounds
❁ alvadas locatin: the southern bastion

r e c o m p e n s e . a n d . r e t r i b u t i o n

❁ wooden club

d e t e r m i n a t i v e . d i c t a

Ominous! Very nice set up of the atmosphere and futility of emotion. I'm very much looking forward to seeing what Karin does during this event!