#far out dude........ itd almost work though........ id just need to nail the attack and itd be fine. + middle. easy wn

[isaacathom]

so theeennnn the woman starts interacting w/ more villagers the more time she spends and she starts becoming real good friends with some of them. and because her ‘master’ thinks shes trustworthy and stuff, he’s not strict, and she sometimes gets free time to just hang out with these friends shes made. and the survivor, from that attack, is really pissed that shes basically just a regular worker as opposed to a ‘proper slave’, angry that he’s being lenient and that she’s just been accepted.

so what the guy does, is he gathers evidence of her ‘slacking off’, even gets some testimonies from people who don’t know that her master allowed it and shit, and he peeps on her hanging out with one of the ladies from the village and being real close to her. and he brings it before their council, claiming she’s fucking around instead of atoning for the misdeeds. so they bring everyone together, and it doesnt even go far, because the second in command steps forward and goes ‘listen yall, this is my fault, ive been lenient in her work and she’s been permitted time off to relax, and she’s been using said time to make friends. if this set up displeases the council, i will alter it immediately and she will be reigned in. i am at fault, not her’

and the council accepts it, her schedule is changed to minimise that free time spent on the town, and the survivor is FURIOUS, because the punishment deflected off the woman and punished that guy instead, and thats not what he wanted. so he’s gotta find something else.

the end goal would be to provoke her into demonstrating her goddamn ~magic hands~ and proving beyond a shadow of a doubt in anyones mind that she definitely did the murder, which would have her ostracised instead of welcomed and would ruin her good status with the second in command. after all, his good treatment of her mostly came as him believing her to be innocent and non-complicit in the attack. if the survivor can prove that she has the ability, then she’ll lose the good status. but i think going from the aforementioned slacker charge to bringing back the murder is..... a bit.... a bit high. theres gotta be a middle ground.

but while i think that up, the provocation. itd be tough, because shes a fairly collected sort, and quick to resort to humour or to straight up disappear as soon as stuff gets tough on her. so he’d have to get her in a place she cant leave, and a very public place at that in order to ensure he’s not seen as a guy with a vendetta, and he’d have to provoke her. all i can imagine that’d really provoke her would be a suggestion that she’s fucking the second in command, because anyone would be insulted at the suggestion that their status comes from just shagging a guy. idk if that’d tilt her so hard she almost goes murderer, if anything she’d just be :||| excuse me, sir, do you want the chicken or not. like customer service or smth.

if it was long term, like its a long night and he keeps going, it could hit her by the end, especially if she cant easily access the second in command and get him to like. switch her out or something. she’s stuck dealing with him chipping away. maybe the shag suggestion comes at the end and its what finally tips her over. at that point, her eyes would go white and she’d go ‘excuse me’ in a very creepy voice and the survivor would suddenly realise that this isnt actually exactly what he wanted. see, what HE’S thinking is that he can provoke her into doing something she’s not allowed to do. and he’s done that, he’s succeeded, but said thing is an attempt to stuff his head into a christmas turkey with fucking telekinesis. what happens in the end is he stammers out a repeat of what he just said, she steps forward and white light surrounds her hand, he starts screaming in absolute fucking terror and someone tackles her to the ground to prevent her from hurting anyone. after all, everyone knows about the attack. everyone knows how it was described, they all heard what that survivor said, about how a mysterious lady summoned white light in her hands and shots holes through people. and they see the lady that they were told did it but, on reflection of character, really didnt buy that, and they see her summon white light, and it clicks in for EVERYONE. every single person in that room, excusing perhaps children and The Blind, is that she absolutely did it.

so following that display, she’s put back in the slave quarters and its a fucking disaster, dude. like shes distraught. she’s fucked it up. she’s maintained that, though she has ~magic hands~ and could have been in the area at the time and encountered the hunters, she’s ALWAYS believed that she could never have killed them. not with intent, absolutely not. if she did do it, it wouldve been as a result of her being so exhausted that she didnt understand what she’d done. but never, at no point, did she genuinely believe or know that she did it. but her almost fucking up the survivor, it proves to her (and everyone else) that she did. she now has no excuse. she cant reason with it. everything adds up. magic hands, intent to do harm, it all tracks, she had the power and the ability to do it, and if thats the case, how can she say she didnt do it????

at that point, the second in command would need to talk to her, but she wouldnt talk. she’s just silent, head in hands, and nothing he can do can convince her to just explain what happened. and he has to come before the council, or specifically the guy he’s the right hand of, and explain that. it gets really weird. the thing is, her actions imply an intent and attempt to reoffend, which is grounds for banishment. the second in command really doesnt want to do this, because hes positive that if she would just talk to him, he could save her from that, and he still thinks that maybe theres a misunderstanding. because at this point, she’s been in this town for over a year, and she’s been so good up till that point, this doesnt add up to him, there must be more to it.

the only way to really clear her name of that last debacle and keep her in town is to prove it wasnt premeditated. if they can prove she was provoked, they can get her. the problem is, the people who wouldve been close enough to hear all the survivors comments were friends of his, and wouldve agreed with it, thought it fun and not seen his game. they though she snapped as a result of a few harmless comments and that it wasnt a deliberate provocation by him. being able to prove that he provoked her deliberately would clear her. but shes the only one who can prove it, and aside from not talking, its difficult to take the word of the accused on its own. the second in command could stand as a character witness, to speak on her good name, and there are many who could, but equally many who saw what she did and wont. the second in commands word will not stand. everyone thinks that shes corrupted him in some way. before the display, they probably all thought that, but in a vaguely positive way. he’d become a better leader, prime to become the High Council Guy, with her involvement. if there was corruption, it was generally well meant and produced a positive result for all (except the survivor and his family, ofc)

the only OTHER way to really clear her name is to find who actually DID the murder. if they can prove she didnt kill the hunters, then she didnt reoffend, and furthermore would no longer be a slave, or would have her ‘term’ drastically shortened. problem is, beyond the fact that noone knows anyone else would could match the picture of the killer, is that i dont actually know if she did it or not. i like the idea of keeping it ambiguous. proving that she could, but also proving through her general character that she couldnt, making a conundrum for ‘reader’ and characters as to whether she did or not.

god, idk. three clearing options - prove he provoked her into ‘reoffending’ at the party or whatever, prove she didnt do the murder in the firstplace, OR even prove that he and the hunters provoked her in the initial attack, which would subsequently downgrade the initial offence into an act of self defence, which would carry different connotations. OOH, and there’d be a way to do it, sorta, if we bring the initial attack a lot closer to when she collapses in town. like, a day or so. as in, the attack happens and the hunters are all brought back to town in their awful state. the survivor, who wasnt actually injured, explains what he saw. the next day, a woman matching his description of the attacked collapses badly injured in the town. when questioned, she has no recollection of ever meeting the hunters, and thus cannot prove she did or did not kill them. coincidental evidence is still strong. but theres the problem - she’s very badly injured with fresh wounds. were they received in the altercation? but the survivor claims the woman just appeared and attacked them, and that all they could do was run and hide until she left. no blows landed on her, he claims, as all the hunters lowered their weapons once they saw she was human, and wouldnt have had time to raise them for an attack.

so you layer that, and you get the idea that perhaps the hunters attacked this exhausted woman and she snapped, as she did in the ‘party’, and retaliated with ~magic hands~. but because she doesnt actually remember ever meeting the hunters, she cant prove that, hence being found guilty of murder and becoming a slave.

so then, if the second in command really wants to clear her name, and she wont talk to him, and no close witnesses would implicate the survivor as the unquestioned provoker in the display, he needs to prove she committed the murders in an act of self defence. there would be evidence, without doubt. her wounds wouldve been documented, as would those of the hunters and the locations they were found. possibly if the second in command went the location, he could find a weapon coated in blood that implicates one of the hunters as having landed a blow on her. but a) thats a bit deus ex and b) itd be difficult to place the blow as being before or after she went all ~Avatar State~ on the hunters, which means it wouldnt be useful. thats the issue here. if its been a long time since the attack, a year like a said, itd be really difficult to confirm whether she did it when the only witness is the Survivor, who’s a cunt. if she remembered the incident, and could explain it, the whole mess wouldve been fixed, but her suddenly remembering the attack after a year and when shes in trouble would look /real/ suspicious, and wouldnt be taken seriously at all.

whoops written myself into a detective hole here. fuck. this is why all my dr fan stories fell through, yall. the fucks a murder mystery.

unless like. ok. heres an idea. so the woman is travelling with someone else the whole time (for what reason? she doesnt explain, but shes clearly a foreigner so mm), and theyre both exhausted and probably vaguely headed for the town to rest and recuperate. on their way, theyre encountered by the hunters. things lead to things, probably nasty, and the travelling partner is killed by the hunters. they know theyre humans, and the Survivor’s mention of ‘putting their weapons down’ is probably true, as of when they first encountered the women. but as i said, shit leads to shit, the traveller is murdered, and The Woman loses her fucking mind. of course, at this point, the hunters all have their weapons drawn, with the possible exception of the survivor, because itd make some sense in a sec. so the hunters, w/ their weapons drawn, see the woman go all Avatar and attack her, in response to which she fucking destroys them. at that point, possibly leaving the Survivor due to him not participating in the murder of her friend. the woman promptly flees the scene, screaming bloody murder. this is what, at least initially, piques the interest of any villagers nearby, because her yells probably echo through the forest.

The survivor thinks fast. his friends were just slain in front of him. theres a dead woman in front of him, who his friends just murdered. what does he do? chucks the woman in a fucking ditch, probably. and because investigators have no reason to look in the ditch, they dont. the womans body remains. because the Survivors now covered in shit, he goes and starts to drag one of his friends back to town, and now he starts yelling for help. the story is set. he and his friends were set upon by a wild woman and slaughtered. he alone survives, covered in cuts and scratches from the undergrowth and trees and covered in the blood of his friends. when the woman subsequently turns up in town, blood covered and fatigued, her wounds are coincidental. she doesnt remember their encounter. she has no reason to inherently distrust what the Survivor says. all she knows is that she was travelling with someone, who now isnt there, and she has to believe that in their exhaustion and injuries they were separated. she has no idea.

and the thing w/ the survivor not killing the friend comes up. because the Woman has ZERO reason to feel inherent hatred towards him. if she saw the hunters’ bodies, which she didnt, she mightve had a gut reaction, but she has no gut reaction of the violent or upset kind towards the Survivor, because he didnt do it. she doesnt hate him. so for the whole time shes in the village, she treats her vague sense of deja vu towards his face as just a coincidence and moves on. ofc she develops hatred to him, as hes a Cunt, but she doesnt have it inherently. she clearly doesnt, because she let him live when she slew his friends.

so THEN what happens is that, in the lead up to another trial of her, the second in command explores the area in which the attack happens, and discovers the partly preserved body of her friend in the ditch. its brought back to town for investigation, because, yknow, a dead fucking body covered in weapon wounds, theres foul play. they briefly postpone the Woman’s trial in order to investigate this fresh case, and she could be found with shit on her that is identifiable as either the hunters’ or the Survivors, implicating him. as that shit mounts and stuff looks sus, the second in command manages to convince the council to allow him to bring the Woman to see the corpse. then she fucking reacts, because she immediately recognises it as her friend, and she probably almost goes avatar again before being restrained and escorted out. NOW she’ll talk. thing is, she still has 0 recollection of the night of the attack. her memory doesnt miraculously reappear on that front. that whole night doesnt exist. probably a trauma thing but also, try and remember a specific random day from over a year ago, good luck buddy.

but she’d now be able to explain proper what happened on the day of The Display, and theyd be able to piece a lot of stuff together and come to a conclusion that she and her friend were attacked by the hunters and that she retaliated after they killed her friend, which would allow to sorta slot under an act of self defence (or a similar, not fuckig murder charge, you feel me), thus allowing her sentence to be drastically shortened, and for a charge of murder (or conspiracy to murder, or culpability, or like, what... accessory! accessory to murder) to be laid upon the Survivor and posthumously upon the hunters.

fuck. thatd work. i guess? especially if the element of the dead woman is established. mentioned when the woman wakes up in a panic in the home of a king soul, asking if theyve seen her and if she was with her, and being forced to weakly concede that she doesnt remember having seen her recently due to her exhaustion blacking out many of her days. then you can bring it up later, when the second in command gets closer and more curious about her and asks about how she came to be in the village, and she’d mention her travelling partner and how she wished she knew where she was. then, the body. BAM. fuck! rule of threes, motherfuckers, i know how to construct a narrative! fuck me

tl;dr the Survivor tries a few times to get the Woman thrown out, and eventually succeeds in almost being attacked and killed by her. in an effort to clear her name (because hes a naive good soul who cant combine the image of a murderer with the general way this woman has acted since her arrival), her master, the Second in Command, does a sweep of the area in which the survivor was attacked and discovers the partly preserved corpse of a woman, who was murdered by the Hunters, prompting their deaths at the hands of The Woman.

fuck me down

#story blogging #that took like an hour and a half but i have the beginning and end of a story here???? uhm fuck #i need the middle step which is always the fun part but im sure itd be easier to come up with than the whole last 5 paragraphs of this shit #long post #this shits really long im sorry but i got /into it/ because i hadnt really thought much about it until now beyond the whole Horn thing #far out dude........ itd almost work though........ id just need to nail the attack and itd be fine. + middle. easy wn #clitter clatter crack