Sweet Relief PV Closed

@Solomon Lear

Things were only going from bad to worse.

From what the Britalian could see so far, he had been unnoticed and slid (quite literally), under the radar, the successful black fog emanating from Pericles' wand easily covering the room and billowing into every area which had previously been clean air. Under the cot, Piérre pulled his shirt over his nose and mouth. While he knew that the magical smoke was nothing compared to actual smoke, the fabric, even with drying yuck on it would be able to muffle his breathing a bit and permit him to filter out a bit of "fresher" air; which would come in handy as he was trying to spy on and not be noticed by the two twins adult twins in the room.

As the lad permitted his heart rate to calm a bit, he began to think a little more rationally, attempting to piece together bits of clues that he had managed to pick up already...

First thing-- While the Auror… August? Had seemed alright, sane, even, he seemed to be very wary... very nervous... and definitely did not want Xailah to steal Potter's wand. In a sense, Piérre could see why, after all, he was an Auror of the Ministry. As an adopted son of a former Auror, Piérre understood this extremely well. Aurors, like police officers, needed clues and evidence to prove or disprove someone guilty. In a way, this could be beneficial to Potter's case. On the other, it was possible that this VanCleaf had been the one who incriminated him in the first place.

That was what brought him to point two-- The nurse was not sane. Twitchiness, agitated actions and jumpy personality... These were not marks of a self-confident or even a partially composed person. Yes, Piérre himself exhibited such symptoms on a daily basis, but these attributes were amplified in a way that Piérre could not even dare to imagine. The nurse was simply too good at hiding his drive, especially when his typical job was to remain calm and tend to students that were injured in some event or another. According to many philosophies, this was called Sociopathy. The ability to manipulate one's actual emotions and drives in order to manipulate another party into either assisting them or not considering them a threat. If this was true... then the children being cared for at his hands could be at greater risk than they could have possibly imagined. Even worse, if Psychopathy was involved, as the nurse's lapse of remembering names implied (Jolon, wasn't it?), then certainly there was more than one reason for either the school firing the nurse, or perhaps the students finding a way to incriminate him somehow...

Point three-- The wand seemed to be a little more than a little important. It was almost as if this was the sole evidence needed for something to be fully confirmed. If that was so, then more explanation was needed for the students to comply. So far, none had been given to Piérre. No wonder the children didn't want to obey the adults' instructions all willy-nilly.

"Sectumsempra!"

Piérre jumped and let in a sharp inhale, almost hitting his head on the cot. The severing curse?! Here?! Well versed in his native language, Piérre didn't have to wait until his later schooling years to know the etymology of the spell. Sectum- meaning to divide or dissect, Semper- meaning 'always'. Always divide.

A splash of vermillion began to make itself known on the once clean, now spattered with vomit and bodily fluids... adding a rusty, yet elegant smear. The sound of someone falling to their knees; gasping, almost in a pitiful attempt to continue maintaining airflow, the sound of someone dying before a first year's eyes.

Numb shock began to pulse through the hidden first year as he listened in sheer horror. Death was not an unknown or unfamiliar concept to him... in fact, it had been something that had shaped his life ever since he had been a young boy, hearing of his adoptive family's death. But this... hearing someone dying right in front of him brought a whole new level of terror into the usually bright eyes of the Britalian. The gasps were hollow, yet deep, testament that it had not been a young child who had found themselves victim to the curse, but rather one of the adult twins. If Piérre had to guess, it had been the nurse who had attacked his Auror brother. How else would he have found a way to prevent his arrester from simply taking him out of the room. Fumos had just been an excuse to attack; to confuse the children who were there to confront and now listen to a person's struggle for life and breath alike.

What in the name of Merlin was wrong with this school? Had Romeo been right in transferring to Durmstrang, even with its dark reputation?

No time to reminisce. There was still things to do. If Piérre had known any healing spells, he would have cast it, but as it was, all that he knew that could possibly possess the slightest chance of being considered a healing spell was Reparo,and the effects of that spell on human flesh was negative at the least. All that the Britalian could hope for was that his comrades were making a quick escape, living to die another day. As for him; Piérre was just a little too foolhardy and intrepid for his own good. Perhaps if the murderer would back off, the lad would be able to help the fallen twin, be it friend or foe.

Still, it hurt the boy to hear the gasps of sighing death; it was something that Piérre hoped that he would never have to hear again; it was something that brought tears to his eyes and caused a scream to bubble on his lips: a scream that only echoed in his head, and never left its mark in the atmosphere of the enclosed room. It would be too risky. If the nurse was behind all of this, who was to say that the boy wouldn't be next. As it was, he could have signed his own death warrant by hiding here.

This would be something to bring up with Maddie. Maddie and Romeo.

And probably a therapist... if... wizards had one...

With a sweep of his arm, Piérre carefully slicked away the slime that lead to his cot. He had left a trace, but if he was lucky, perhaps he could make it even harder to find him. Holding back tears and fighting back fears, Piérre bit his lip and watched numbly as the red began to seep towards him, gently making its home between the crevasses of his fingers.

Piérre maintains Stealth

@Xailah Alptraum @Jürgen Hess

Pericles experienced a small, simple sensation of boyish excitement when his fumos filled the room. It was his first time casting the spell beyond class. He had often wondered over what sort of situation he would try this in, and his eclectic imagination had always wandered down the avenue of auror work, evading dangerous criminals with the execution of a hasty smokescreen spell. He had not ever imagined that he would be using it to get away from an auror. Before the boy could lapse into any crisis of judgment or identity, he heard the telltale sound of steps from Xailah's direction. She had to escape. She simply had to. "Take it to a professor! Don't stop for any-!" Ah, but his authoritative urging would be cut short by a knockback from somewhere in that roiling haze. It hit him without warning, though he ought to have been prepared for some sort of retaliation.

The spindly eagle would find himself flying, landing with a thud and a sucking sound on the hard tiles. Spectacles he had re-equipped were nearly jostled from the perch upon his nose, leaving him blinking. He could do without if necessary- they were more for reading, really. Air he could not do without. His mouth opened and closed, desperately trying to draw breath, wind knocked from him by the blow. A Flipendo was survivable, his mind hastened to tell him. It was like one of those SWAG games. All he had to do was clear his head, catch his breath, and get back on his feet. For a moment, it seemed Pericles was perfectly prepared to make a valiant return to the fight. One hand maintained a death-grip on his wand, the other pressed firm beneath him. the Ravenclaw drew consolation from the fact that it had hit him rather than the fleeing witch, but it was a short-lived relief. The boots of the adults were mere inches away, a sight that struck him with a bolt of alarm, though this too was passing. He started to rise when the next spell split the air.

Sectumsempra was not a spell which Pericles could cast. That was not to say that he was unfamiliar with its effect, but before the boy could even process what he had heard, a splash of crimson splattered the floor by his face. Flecking across it, the substance added to his freckles, dotting the cracked lens of those glasses. He froze. A very small, very childlike gasp was finally sucked in. Stunned, the eleven-year-old's mind tried to process what he had seen, what he heard. Was that his own blood? No- he hadn't been hit. But someone had, under the cover of his own Fumos. Silver eyes wide as sickles, thin lips agape, the horror-struck face reluctantly wandered up as one of the two twins came crashing down. All tactical tendency and fantasies of aurorhood were dashed from his mind. Sounds seemed to mute out, sensation dulling down as shock took over. The urge to help overcame the urge to run.

Blearily, Pericles rose to his knees. With wand in one hand and the other blindly reaching through the smoke, he tried to identify whomever had fallen. The child hadn't any idea what he would do, what could be done. They were in a hospital wing full of medical supplies. Surely something could help, anything. He would try to find the source of the bleeding, try to clumsily help place pressure on the wound for now, regardless of target.

Action: Trying to identify the wounded twin and place pressure on bleeding.

Galton would try to "hug" the standing twin's leg (legs and arms wrapped around)

@Solomon Lear / @Galton Lansdale / @Xailah Alptraum / @Piérre Marchonné

It was the shape of a body which he saw through the smoke. Pericles stumbled to a stop and recoiled, lips pressed tight, eyes wide. Instincts of flight screamed for the first-year to flee. After all: it would be mad to try and fight a fully grown wizard, and he wasn't at all keen on battling with his own classmates, let alone watching a man- criminal or no- bleed out before his very eyes. His fingers trembled violently whilst reaching out in an automatic attempt to offer aid, compassion conflicting with reason. All sounds around him seemed strikingly clear despite his daze. He heard Galton thundering through the smoke, the chilling sound of a fleshy strike, the guttural growl of VanCleaf. Unwittingly holding his breath, Pericles took a tremulous step through the smoke. What little color he claimed was lost, drained away by terror, all save the dark flecks of crimson which seemed a perversion of his fawn-like freckles. He heard the wizard's warning- run- and after a moment's gawping managed a weak whisper: "I'll get help."

But it was too late for all that. He ought to have left with Xailah, should have bolted at the first chance to do so, run screaming and shouting for an adult. That might have helped. They were out of time, the lot of them, and Pericles would be lucky to live long enough for this mistake to serve as a lesson. He couldn't help the nurse now, not by staying or going. The impact alone was nearly enough to render him unconscious, let alone the resounding clang of a skull meeting metal, rendering the gangly eagle fledgling immobile for a perilous period of time. Minutes ticked by before he woke with a throbbing head and stinging eyes. The Dralt heir was eleven at the time. His first seconds of consciousness were marked by panic, fear, and the urge to cry out for his parents. Instead he scrambled to his feet, wild eyes darting around the room, taking in the weighted silence hanging heavily over them. "Piérre?" The others weren't dead; they seemed to be stirring. He'd seen a student at the door just before they were struck down. Who was it...? Glasses cracked and splattered with someone else's blood were doing him no favors here. "Xailah?!" Pericles staggered to her side near the door, seizing her by a hand and trying to coax her up onto her feet. His voice was hoarse as he urgently croaked, on the verge of rattled tears, "We have to find help. We have to leave. Please leave with me."

Pericles pulled her on a frantic search, intending to speak to no one unless they were an adult.

Action: Exiting scene with Xailah (permission given to drag her off)

@Solomon Lear & @Pericles Dralt

What was it with adults and shouting? Every time children tried to help out in a situation, they were pushed aside and marked off as too young to understand anything. Such was the life of being a minor, even if the minor possessed a better sense of rationality than his superiors. A shout of fury caused Piérre to cover his ears and shrink further into the shadow of the bed. It was too loud. It was too violent. The child’s soul inside him caused Piérre to disassociate, to deny the fact that anything had happened in this room.

He knew that he would remember these events... but perhaps not the events that would come immediately after this revelation. Things would begin to blue into one another as total and complete confusion and darkness would take command of the boy’s mind,

A concussive blast rippled through the ground, and a blast of sound caused Piérre’s skull to rattle. This rattling would be replaced with blunt pain, as the metallic ring of the bedframe overhead would make contact with the young boy’s skull. Almost instantly, the world became fuzzy, and with a wide-eyed gasp, Piérre felt his body collapse to the ground like he were nothing but a rag doll. Numbly, and with grainy thoughts running through his mind, Piérre attempted to twitch his fingers, twist his head, even force himself to breathe. Pounding agony throbbed though his head, as if he were being hit on the head with a sledgehammer every second.

”G-get... a-a-away...” Piérre didn't even know if anyone was close to begin with, but if there was anyone nearby, Piérre didn't want to be found helpless or useless, especially not by one of the mad brothers. Still, the darkness was so soothing, whispering to him discreetly and with an air of beckoning... This wasn't the first time that Piérre had ever passed out; indeed, when he was young, he used to have rather low blood pressure, risking the fainting spells during times when he was too dehydrated or when he was stressed out in school. So when he listened to his heartbeat throbbing in his ears and his breathing echo into a mere sigh, the boy finally relaxed; the disgusting sickness about him no longer worrying him or causing him to gag.

Pericles would have attempted to catch the boy attention, and indeed, Piérre would be found half concealed under the bed where he had passed out beneath. His torso would be visible, his head gently turned to one side and his light breathing whispering past slightly parted lips. Any attempt to shake him would be futile, only a soft groan would escape him. His lights had been completely knocked out.

The Britalian would end up waking up when the coast was mostly clear, and he would slowly come around, his head throbbing and his mouth dry. Trying to wipe away the yuck, Piérre would drag himself out of his hiding place, stumbling to his feet while looking about him in slight terror of what could still be in the room with him. Eventually, however, he would stagger out of the room, shaking his head to clear his senses, the images of violence immortally burned into his mind.

Piérre exits the thread