BARKING GUN



BACK TO NEXUS


une short basil estate thing about musketeer blangi having an awful time in the warrens and then petting a dog for a bit

CONTENT WARNINGS-
  • mention of miscarriages
  • minor blood + gore
  • mentions of childhood abuse
  • unreality

Blood dribbled down onto the stones. Twitching fur underhand, a gentle patting before the grip turned vicious and frightened. Blangi shifted from the hound’s flank to grip at its collar when the gentle panting picked up into a low whine. Rocked her weight back into the chair she was slumped in. Curled her other hand into a fist, braced it against her knee so she did not crack it across the hound’s face at the first sight of teeth glinting in the firelight. An attempt at a deep breath. Another. The fist broke apart to rub at her nose, and her eyes stared into the fireplace.

There was a tune playing somewhere, somewhere in the dark where she could not stomach a glance. Too jaunty to be a memory, too dreary to be of that jester’s lute, too damn drumming to be anything but skin cast over an empty shell and stretched and tanned like any other beast hide, skin with a face and mouth and eyes, eyes which watched and accused and cried before she leveled her gun upon it and squeezed the trigger, squeezed it just like she did the leather collar underhand. She did not hear drums. Did not hear the clip-clopping of hooves upon scuffed barrack-flooring- be it from swine or hunting horses. What she heard was the dog which she had stolen from the lawman. The dog which sat almost on top of her left foot and put up with her clinginess and occasionally paused in its blissful ignorance of the shrieking, raging, seething turmoil of the woman beside it to lick at her free fist.

Blangi did not hit the beast on its stupid snout when it did so. She was proud of the restraint, even if it had taken biting down on her tongue and closing her eyes so tight the darkness starbursted and fuzzed and fizzled just like it had when- when-

When what? Her head did not hurt, and if it did, that would be from the sights she had seen. A metaphorical ache, not the concussion-fuzz which she could taste at the back of her mouth. She had not gotten hit upside the head, clobbered with a cruel meat cleaver or clotheslined with a rusty hook or whatever Boteler must be insisting happened- she had been run through-and-through with a lance. Had a hole the size of the hound’s head punched through her gut, and then she had cut her hands up on the armor of the pig-things which had come looming and slovering up over her collapsed body- an action which had all been for naught. They had pinned her down and reached up through that hole, bypassed all of the splintered ribs and ruptured organs for only her heart, and then they had pulled it out in one swift motion. One clean, perfect little yank, and then Blangi was as heartless as her father had always said she was. And then she had fucked up her ankle with that one last desperate kick towards one of the runts snuffling away at her fine leather boots- her polished leather boots, the thing was going to ruin the shine- and then she had died.

Until Boteler had gotten his say. She had woken up, gasping and choking on air, with the creepy man crouching over her. Had one hand braced upon her forehead, the other lofting that skull-and-candle high in the air, and his face had been a real mess. In general, yes- pig shit and blood smeared all over it, that mustache which he took such pride in a drooping, sad thing- but also the expression. Lips twisted into a tooth-grit frown, brows drawn close, eyes wide and staring and bright, bright in a way that Blangi did not recognize. Shortly after he realized she was breathing but not long enough that she got the chance to lash out and- and bite at the man, rip a finger off or something for daring to get too close, Boteler pulled away and a torrent of blood burst from Blangi’s nose. It was disgusting. Hot and alien and wet, such a great amount that any terror of the death-then-not was overridden with the terror of a possible death-then-now. She had sat up with a gasp, then a cough, then a gargled choke, and then she had bent back down to throw up blood between her legs. Blood and something dark, something which gave her the feeling that a grand, cosmic, unknowable beast had just winked at her. Shared a little moment of mirth. Boteler had set a hand upon her shoulder, trying to steady her, and Blangi had taken advantage of the close distance to whirl around and slam a bloody and bleeding fist directly into his gut.

Blangi had screamed. Shrieked and writhed herself up onto shaky feet, patting at her belt for the single-shot pistol she kept there, it must be there- and she found it, and she drew it, and got barely a breath out of her next garbled cry before a different hand was smacking it away. Another had grabbed at her arm, another at the back of her neck, a great jostling which had all of that terrified energy fleeing in an instant, out her mouth and into the blood which dripped down to the floor. She had been forced to drop to her knees, the feeling of her own blood seeping into her pants sending a bolt of that energy right through her again, enough to buck up and away from the hands, to whip out a hand of her own and manage to grab at the stock of her rifle before Boteler was there in two quick steps, kicking it away and working his mouth frantically. Looked like he was speaking, like he was trying to assure her with the frantic expression and waving hands, but all Blangi heard were the drums. The drums and the whinny of her hunting horse, the one which had gotten gored by a boar when she was too damn stupid to save it, and there were hands on her arms and eyes on her face and Blangi had just died. She had died, and the horror of it all had her shrinking back into a ball of nothing but trembling limbs and slow dripping blood-and-spit from her mouth and blood-and-snot from her nose.

It was a rare lucid moment, that struggle after her death and rebirth. Just like the fireplace vigil with the hound she had stolen from the lawman was, where she hunched in on herself and only moved to pet at bristly fur or wipe blood from her still leaking nose. A moment every now and then to sniffle and choke on something halfway up her throat. Lucid, undeniably hooked in the terrible reality her life had become.

When Blangi had found the guts to look back up, it was her father staring down at her, and it was a hallway she knew very well that she was huddled in. He was scolding her for acting up at mother’s party. Telling her she was not to retreat back to her room until she made some proper apologies like a proper daughter, until she went back down there and entertained their guests like the good little girl she was. He wanted her to play the piano, and Blangi was half tempted to play along. Act the part right up until she was sat down on the bench, take a moment to wipe at her bloody nose from where his hand had cracked across her face (father loved her. He loved her, but she was a difficult child. She made it hard for him to love her), creak open the key-cover as she flashed a lovely smile out towards all of mother’s friends, and then slam it right down on her left hand with a shout. Hard enough that all of her fingers would break- all except for the thumb, which she would then attempt to gnaw off before anyone could stop her. Put on a proper show.

She drifted then, in the sewers. Walked about all of the hallways that she had learned the creaky floorboards of with a tarnished musket cradled like a babe in her hands, choked on the rot of bodies while she sat down for so, so many lovely family dinners. Aimed her gun right between her father’s eyes, pulled the trigger, and listened as the squeal of a pig left his mouth when he fell. Bled without reason, stumbled on and on without purpose, wept and smiled to herself as she took a torch to everything she once knew and everything she was once loved by, and stood back to listen as nothing but swine screamed back at her. Even went down to the private graveyard on their fine property, settled her gun against an old headstone, and sat down parallel to one of her sister’s grave. Mother had insisted that they all were buried properly, just as they were named and baptised before tiny, tiny bodies were laid to rest. In a morbid way, it was comforting. The idea that Blangi had her own little flock of Lighty cherubs watching over her, the result of a half dozen failed pregnancies before the miracle that was her.

The fog had broken when Boteler hauled her up into the stagecoach. Not the fresh air, the open sky, the final abatement of all that terrible, oppressive gloom, but a steady hand upon her arm and a number of encouraging words. Blangi had blinked, and what was once her shooting instructor correcting her form resolved itself into the scholar, tired and worn down. He guided her down into a seat on one of the benches, right next to him, and took his hand away only long enough to grab at her own. Didn’t look her way, just kept his eyes out a thousand yards to the right, and gave it such a quick squeeze that Blangi was overwhelmed with the urge to ask if it had just been her imagination. If the man had dared to offer such a crumb of respect, of- of compassion to a woman such as herself, to the mad musketeer of poor, old lord Basil Lucas’ band of merry mercenaries.

(Blangi was not blind to the way she was seen in the estate. She was a lunatic, a raving dog moments away from snapping at any hand held out in kindness. A madman with a gun and far too much knowledge in how to use it for comfort. She paced the barrack halls at odd hours, made no effort to endear herself to any fellow, and cried far too often to be proper. In the moments that she was not fighting for her life against the wolves and bears of old which she once hunted, eyes narrowed and nothing but a knife in her hand and a number of teeth in her skull, she would understand why they were wary of her. Only so many folk stuck around for any good amount of time- Basil was edgy like that. Liked to make sure he kept the good stock around, both in mind and body. There was a reason he kept her around after that first break, that first ruined expedition which had her sobbing just like she had at her mother’s funeral, why he scraped together what little coin he could spare to send her off to the sanatorium. It wasn’t his fault money was tight, that his scraping together took a month. A whole damn month lost to the madness, to the staggering and the searching and the constant, constant staring off into the fog- she knew she was good, if he kept her around after that. If he put up with the times the waters would suddenly well up once more, drag her in with the tide and leave nothing but a shell of a man who could shoot well in her wake.)

So Boteler had sat next to her and held her hand the entire ride back from the sewers, and it had been as pleasant as it could get. And then he noticed the way in which Blangi kept bracing a hand against her gut, tilted his head to the side, and asked what was wrong. She had actually laughed at that. Laughed just like she used to when she was still at home, still trapped in those loving hallways and constantly watching her back. I was gored. Boteler blinked at that, and suddenly there were more than just his own eyes on her. The knight and the doctor, sitting opposite of them, perked up as one and watched as vultures would, and Blangi stiffened up all at once. Almost caught her tongue between her teeth before she settled on simply chewing at her cheek, looking up at Boteler from the corner of her eye. It still hurts.

Boteler had taken a long while to reply, breathing in deep before letting it out in a hiss between his teeth, squeezing her hand again, shifting into a sitting position which did little to ease the ugly expression which had taken over that gentle, distant thing. You… stepped on a bear trap, Blangi. Messed up your hands trying to pry it open. Your screams drew the pigs in and one of them nearly bashed your head in. He swallowed hard, then continued. I suppose a pig might’ve stepped on you in the ensuing melee, but you were not gored. Maybe a rib was cracked? They are rather portly. And then he had smiled, nervous and half-assed at reassuring Blangi, but it had been enough to keep her tethered in the moment. She blinked, but she was still sat in the stagecoach. Not suddenly next to her mother and learning how to properly stitch up a ripped seam or kneeling next to her poor, gutted horse and begging, begging for it to stay, to not leave her, to settle down and stop thrashing so she could tend to it. She was just Blangi, sat in a stagecoach and drenched in her own blood, holding the hand of a stuffy scholar and still sniffling up blood before it could completely ruin her shirt.

She had hummed some non-answer at that- none of them would question old, mad Blangi mistaking how she had nearly died, they were probably happy that she was aware of it at all- and locked up for the rest of the ride. Clambered out of the stagecoach before anyone else when it trundled to a stop in front of the barracks, fidgeted and fussed throughout the entire after-mission meeting with Basil, where gold and information were passed off and he thanked them- thanked them, real nice and proper, like some lordly manners meant anything- and then she had bolted out of his humble little room and straight to the overgrown backyard. Didn’t think at all, just trotted up to the rotten fencepost where the lawman’s hound was tied up- where it was content to laze around and chew at grass- and untied its lead so she could pull it on after her and back into the barracks.

That was how Blangi got there, gently petting at a dog which set her nerves more on edge than what was healthy and still breathing around a bloody nose which simply refused to stop. The others had seen her, of course, seen her hunched over in the one good chair right in front of the fireplace and practically trembling with unspent energy, and they had left her alone. Moved and talked around her like it was a regular occurrence- because it was, and that was because she was too damn weak to get a grip and act like a proper lady, too weak to act like the woman father had raised- and ate a late dinner without ever acknowledging her. Just an inconvenient fixture, a pretty painting one mistaken memory or loud noise away from a shrieking, biting meltdown. It was almost comforting, how little they cared- where it circled right back around to them actually caring in her mind, even though there was nothing worse than that, where all of that ignoring and careful stepping about her was just respecting her boundaries, giving her time until she was ready to interact with more put together folk on her own terms.

Blangi sat there, patting the hound’s overlarge head and shivering at every single glimpse of a dark eye from it she got, for longer than she intended. She hadn’t meant to wallow in her own misery, her own terrible awareness, until everyone had retired to their rooms, but a blink and a look up at the lack of sound made it obvious that was what had happened. Nervous eyes gave another sweep of the main room- tripping over the shadows, refusing to dwell on what she could not see- and then Blangi settled back into her slump and sighed long and loud. Moved her hand from the top of the hound’s head to the side of its neck and set to scratching here, angling her hand just right so it would lean into her touch and start twitching its rear leg. Even unclenched the free fist to rest on the beast’s side- the surprised jolt that got from it was nearly enough to make Blangi scream, but teeth did not flash, so she choked it down to something less noticeable. A stifled shout. An exaggerated gasp. The hound settled back into its relaxed seat after it must’ve realized she meant no harm, just wanted some sort of warmth, some sort of connection, and lolled its head back into her touch.

It was almost cute, until its tongue rolled out in just the same way her horse’s had, when it screamed in pain and thrashed so badly that Blangi had no choice but to back off, lest she wanted to risk getting harmed herself. The tentative, bubbling calm died back down at that realization, at the thought that the thing under her hands was just meat. That she had been tracking, killing, and breaking down meat her entire life, that she knew the proper place to put a bullet in the dumb mutt’s body to keep the meat good, how to skin it and keep the hide in tact, the best cuts and the best ways to cook them-

And then a voice spoke up behind her. Hey. Gentle enough that she didn’t yell, soft enough that her sharp whirl around was at least without vicious intent. Orange and red scarf, leather jerkin, and a beard which looked stiff as hay- the lawman which she had stolen the hound from. He must’ve seen the blood drenching Blangi’s shirt, the blood still pouring out of her nose, because his hands went shooting up into the air to parrot out the same, meaningless calming gestures that Boteler had put on after she had died-then-not. Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you. Had a bit of an accent- not a proper, high society accent like Blangi’s own, but something that drew out the consonants and chopped up the vowels into piecemeal bits. I was looking for my hound.

Blangi had to take in a deep breath before she could force words out- It didn’t get out. I stole it from you- words which only reminded her of the time she had dared to let her father’s hunting hound of its kennel to play with. She had been seven, and she never made the same mistake again. Blangi dug a nail into her palm at that flash, closed her eyes, and opened them up to the same sight of the lawman’s neutral, bland eyes. Good. You didn’t scare me.

I’m glad I didn’t. The man moved slow then, walking around the couch and then slowly, painfully so and with far too exaggerated movements, settled down on the beaten couch next to Blangi. Sure, he was practically hugging what was left of the arm rest and his shoulders hunched in closer to reduce the space he took up, but he sat next to her. Stuck a hand out for the hound to sniff at and gave it a pat atop of its dumb head before Blangi could pull her own two away. He didn’t shiver at the possibility of making contact with her, didn’t shoot her carefully narrowed glares, just sat there and pet his dog. Her name is Bretel. His voice was even softer there, where Blangi’s nerves didn’t prickle up at the familiar feeling of someone talking to her back.

She dared another look up at him, one longer than the last. An attempt to commit the strange quiet to memory- or to see if she was still present, still with a foot and the other one’s heel still firmly in reality? Oh. Blangi sat back at that, resting her back upon the couch to give it a break. Blinked, and saw how the hound’s markings around both the snout and the left eye looked quite like the first her father had gifted her. Took in a deep breath. Another. One of my sisters was named that.