A Sunberther Never Forgets (Doc)

[Liminal]

Gemmy was patient as Murdoch got ready, not standing up until his pack was on his shoulder. "All right then, Doc. We're headed toward the gates."

She did not, in fact, take the lead. Rather, she walked to Murdoch's left, and ever so slightly behind him. To a casual observer, it wouldn't look out of the ordinary at all, but Murdoch would probably know what she was doing -- with her behind him, and on his weak side, any attempt to cause a stir would end with his quick yet painful death. Especially given that anyone running errands for Tall Johnny, even on an ad hoc basis, almost certainly had an extremely high degree of skill with a blade.

When she wasn't busy talking someone's ear off, Gemmy had a knack of blending in with a crowd. No one would find anything remarkable about the thin girl shuffling along the street, and indeed, no one gave her so much as a second glance.

The Knights at the gates seemed completely unsuspicious of her as well. What was apparent, at least to someone who knew what was going on, was that, if one didn't want to attract attention, Gemmy was a good person for the job.

[Murdoch]

"Keep your panties untwisted, I ain't gonna make a break for it," he grumbled as they approached the gates - and indeed, he just gave a friendly smile to the guards as he made his way out. Perhaps he wasn't as inconspicuous as Gemmy, but he knew how to walk around like he was supposed to be there, and though he hadn't walked through those gates in twelve years he plastered a smile on his face and just kept walking.

Once they were through and he could feel the heavy stone of the city looming behind him, he ground a sigh between his teeth, feeling suddenly as if the sky were too big, too open, like he would fall into it and never touch earth again.

"What, no fancy carriage to drag me back in?" he growled, anger threading his voice, panic transmuting to annoyance as he struggled to keep the great open nothingness of the outdoors from swallowing him whole.

[Liminal]

Gemmy gave a puzzled look at Murdoch, aware that something was wrong, but unable to determine what. "No, I ain't got no carriage -- wouldn't know how to drive it even if'n I did. It ain't that far back to Sunberth anyway, not as far as these things go."

Her green eyes looked him over curiously. "You feeling all right, Doc? 'Cuz I ain't inclined to carry you all the way there, meaning no offense. I mean, I can understand some reluctance on your part, even with such a splended guide as me, but if'n I didn't know better, I'd think you were about to drop dead on me right now."

Her hand was on the handle of her knife, a gesture so completely automatic that she probably didn't even realize she was doing it. She was confused, and for someone who'd made it in Sunberth, confusion was one of the worst possible feelings.

[Murdoch]

Am I sweating? he thought, reaching up to rub his hand across his face. He was sweating, though he felt cold out here in the open with no walls to stop the wind. His chest hurt, as if he couldn't get enough breath. Of course, he was also remembering his last time in the wilderness - that horrible, headlong flight from Sunberth when he was a kid, heartbroken and terrified and with no idea how to survive on that trip. He'd simply run, and run faster whenever he heard a noise in the woods or voices behind him.

He glanced up at Gemmy, eyes widening a little as he saw her hand on the hilt of her knife. Pull yourself together, idiot, he thought harshly.

He stopped there on the side of the road, the castle walls still in view behind him (though he wouldn't look back), and just crouched down to put his head between his knees, one fist pressed against the ground for balance.

"I don't... like being outside," he finally managed to wheeze, keeping his eyes closed and forcing himself to take deep, even breaths. "Just... gimmie a second. And don't stab me," he added with a weak laugh.

[Liminal]

"All right." Gemmy's voice was quiet, perhaps even concerned? "I ain't gonna stab you." She paused. "You got some kind of negative gnosis? Caiyha? Zulrav?" It was the only explanation she could think of.

But she didn't press the issue, choosing instead to take two steps back. She was still confident in her ability to take Murdoch out if this were some kind of ruse. But...she'd seen a lot of things in her brief span of years, and this didn't look like a trick.

The road was completely empty other than the two travelers. Few people in their right minds took the road to Sunberth at any time, and they certainly didn't do any traveling at night. Unlike the roads to Zeltiva and Lisnar, this one wasn't patrolled, and so there wasn't even a stray knight to break the silence.

[Murdoch]

It took a few more moments of harsh breathing to get himself under control - and he really didn't get himself under control, just managed to convince himself that this was the same as being inside the walls, sure, just like it. It just had sky instead of a roof, that was all.

Finally he wiped the sweat from his face and straightened up though he kept his eyes on the road in front of his feet.

"Petch it," he growled, adjusting the straps on his pack and starting forward, striding past her and down the road with the tight, strained jaw of a man walking to a sure and certain death. "Let's get this over with."

[Liminal]

Gemmy nodded somberly. "Right then."

He hadn't answered her question, but the red-haired girl chose not to press the issue. It didn't matter anyway, not to her way of thinking, and given that it seemed Murdoch only just barely was keeping himself under control as it was, there was no point in interrogating him on top of it all.

They would walk for hours, long into the night. Gemmy said nothing unless asked, a departure from her earlier chatty self. She seemed focused on what she was doing, her eyes constantly scanning her surroundings, though nothing interrupted their progress.

At sunrise, Gemmy stopped. There was a copse of low bushes off to the left, and it was there that she headed. She pushed back the brush, revealing a small, protected place. A pair of bedrolls were tucked underneath an overhanging branch.

"Eh, it ain't much, but if'n it's acceptable, this is where we'll stop fer now."

[Murdoch]

Murdoch threw himself into the copse with a sigh, groaning at the pain in his legs - he wasn't used to walking this much, and his feet hurt like nothing else.

"How long is this trip gonna take?" he grumbled, kicking off his boots as he slung his pack onto the ground and reached for the bedroll. "Last time I made it I wasn't exactly in my right mind."

[Liminal]

Gemmy had unrolled her bedroll as well, and flung herself down on it, propping herself up on her elbows only when Murdoch spoke.

"Walking? Twenty-five days? Thirty? It depends on how quick we move, but that ain't far off as an estimate." She tilted her head to one side, in response to the sound of an early owl off in the distance. "'Course, this ain't a road as where you want to spend a lot of extra time, if'n you know what I mean."

Indeed, the road to Sunberth was a notoriously dangerous one, filled with brigands, monsters, and gods only knew what else. Gemmy seemed relatively unconcerned, but it also seemed that she had the skills to deal with many, if not most, of the problems that might come her way. Still, that didn't mean she was going to take the trip lightly."[/b]

[Murdoch]

Murdoch grunted at the estimate, deciding that somebody was going to get their asses handed to them for this. "It is my most sincere hope," he growled, "that someday soon someone decides they can run that Casino better than Johnny, and peels the skin from his bones to prove it."

With that he collapsed backwards on the bedroll and threw an arm over his eyes. "You snore and I'll fucking stab you," he grumbled, and within moments he was asleep.

OOCYes, fast-forward is gooood.