SCENE 11 – Blood Simple
At the start when Clare follows the trail of yoki, she is unsure of herself, wandering down the open, ambiguous wilderness of forest. She could feel it gnaw along her joints as she has taken her steps down the dirt path. Step by step though, she feels a sort of inner strength beginning to fill her self. Once, or maybe twice on her way, when she has snagged herself along the hanging branches of the trees, her surroundings seem to waver and pulse for a little moment, and she could hear their struggling whimpers.
Now Clare stands utterly still before the guarding gates of a town, and the feeling pounds madly inside – the Yoma is here. And something else too – another of her kind.
Beneath her poncho, she goes to reach into a little pocket under her left bracer and pulls out a yoki suppression pill. She swallows the brown marble in a gulp. What bitterness on her tongue. The Yoma shall not feel her presence, and neither will her comrade who resides inside.
She waits for the daemonic energy within her to cease its throbbing. Her silver irises regain their pigmentation to her darker, normal green, and the sheathed greatsword begins to pull her down with just her own muscles against its weight. Clare is all but entirely human now.
When at last she could feel the long lost humanly warmth come blushing, Clare takes in a breath of the chilling air into her lungs. She puts on the hood of her poncho – covering the hilt of her claymore from behind. Then she goes to show herself to the East gates with determined, clacking steps.
Wait. That clacking might give herself away as a 'Claymore'. Clare pauses, looking down to her feet, before continuing on, letting her footsteps fall on the dirt path so soft as to be nigh silent.
Clare stops before the solid barrier of iron. Her legs and arms seem to jitter, weightless and unsure. Some nervous moments waiting, until a slot slides open to reveal the eyes of a surly, wizened soldier.
"Who are you? What business brings you here at Ecba?"
There is something unsettling about this woman alone in her hooded cape, though the soldier could not ascertain what exactly. He cautiously lays his hand on the hilt of his short sword, trying not to make it conspicuous to her.
It approached the gate in the late night, carrying an ungodly, weighty sack on its back.
"A trader!" the soldier said from the other side. "What would be your business here?"
"I am Erasmas," it said. "My business here is my own."
There was a slight twitching of the sack, and this the soldier did not see. Instead he pensively eyed the sack – tried imagining the strain it felt from the carried weight.
"All right, all right," the soldier said. "I meant you no offence."
Then the gate unlatched, and it let itself into the town.
Clare recalls the tedious training of masquerades back then, where they had taught her to be a wide variety of persons, from the high-brow shun of royal nobility, to the seductive smile of a lulling courtesan. She had thought many times over and over on the uses of pretending to be personas she isn't, when she would be out there fighting away the Yoma. This moment here shows her why.
"I'm on my way to Elkhazg," Clare goes, disarming nervous laugh, "stopping by here for I cannot carry on walking any longer."
"Elkhazg?" The soldier roars out in derisive laughter, along with his comrades behind him. "You're.. going there?" They whisper amongst themselves – God only knows what they say. An empty pit sucks down in her stomach.
"No.. no, never mind that.." the soldier goes. "Not my business to prod in. Apologies."
A beat.
"Say.. where is it you hail from?" the soldier goes.
Clare freezes.
"There's rising talk of a terrible massacre in Norslof - everyone's slaughtered from a Yoma attack.. brutal. Now it seems we're having one of these monsters running rampant in our own town." His voice becomes panicked all the sudden. "It.. it.. we had one of those damn silver-witches come by." He shivers. "Just.. go on. You'd be better off sleeping off in the woods. Can't be too careful. I'd rather you not.."
"I'll take my chances," Clare goes.
A long, tense beat.
To Clare's relief, the sound of a latch sliding free comes, and the gate is hoisted up for her passage. And as she goes her way down the winding entrance street, she gives a faint hint of a smile to the soldiers. If they have blushed so behind her back, Clare could not care less.
She finds herself in a quiet corner, staring out at the faces of the many people who go about their lives – walking, scared. The lingering traces of the yoki in the air has been scattered through and through - thinning slices of butter spread out along the bread.
She starts to them.
Clare passes by a familiar statue of black, towering over the area; an angel lifting a dying one to heaven. There's the warmth in her and she moves through the first group of people, a crisscross of cold-faced peasants who brush by her, lightly bumping her as they move
so vivid
It looked down at the drunken tramp, who lay down by the side of the empty street. The tramp moaned babbles as he rolled on his side. It looked at him as it went to see if no one is looking. It thinks it will have just a bite..
one tiny, little innocent bite
nervously.
A little glance to the side, and there's a certain spot of a faded, smudged red and brown stain which the people are more than willing to avoid. Clare does not stop moving. She adjusts the poncho hood lower down her face, hiding it more in the shadows.
Her steps are more frantic.
Approaching the open, crowded sprawl of the marketplace, Clare carefully weaves her way through the people, eyeing each with as much suspicion as they do her and each other. Especially of the one who stands aperched in the midst of it all, eyes closed in a false serenity and long platinum hair wavering in the motions of the people.
Clare neither recognizes her face, nor her symbol down her neck. What she does recognize is the very familiar uniform and lightly armour she wears, and the smooth hilt of the greatsword seemingly oversized on her back.
For the moment, Clare worries whether her own yoki is so suppressed down away as to not get caught by her other comrade, let alone the Yoma.
Her heart tenses under, and she feels the rapid thumping inside her, bringing waves of warmth over to her face in a blush.
A young boy, seated down as his mother goes by to banter with a trader, slowly pulls a peashooter from his pocket, puts a pea in his mouth and raises the pipe to his lips – aiming to the aperched woman there.
His mother's hand shoots out and grabs it. "Little beast! I thought Mummy told you not to bring that horrid thing. Can't you behave?"
"Mummy! Lookit! That woman there standing funny! Mummy! Why is she standing so funny?"
Clare walks past them, following the traces of yoki in the air. As she does, she hears from behind the mother answer - "She's looking for monsters about, little dear. Best hope you're not one of 'em, eh?"
She follows the yoki, over down to a modest street of homes. It feels quite empty and devoid of people with the liveliness from before, save for a young couple who kiss their lips so tenderly by the side. The sun makes a brief shine of light through the grey clouds before being covered in obscurity once more.
The yoki seems to lead over to the entrance of one of these homes..
Clare waits. She just stares hard at the closed, wooden entrance. Nothing happens for the longest time, and no one comes out.
Welling up enough courage inside her, Clare makes a decision, and starts to the door.
Its eclipsing shadow falled on the meek looking man inside the house, who had his head perked through the crack of the door. It would like to come into his parlour and have a good rest.
"Can I come in?"
"Who are you?" he asked.
"I like your house. Can I come in?"
"What the hell is this?" the man said. "No, you can't come in."
"Are you sure?" It raised a hand from the sack it carried to push the door all the way open.
"What.. what are you doing?!" the man asked, trying to use all his strength to keep the door from opening. The door opens slowly anyway..
it hurts
Clare stands, frozen still as her hand lays on the cold iron handle of the door. The scars left on her body tingle and ache as she tries to will herself to open the door against hesitation. Humid sweat goes down her forehead and cheeks.
Then her moist hand slowly and surely turns and twists the handle, and she opens the door with narily a sound.
With halting steps, Clare enters the household.