Bait and Bleed - An AU War RPG

You forgot noble. They like to stick noble in there too.

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Hah! Point Longbottom. You see, this is why I needed you two, this right here. Werewolves. Pfft. It's just too hard to take the piss about Umbridge if you're solo. That's the thing.

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*Alice laughs and puts her arm around Fabian.*

That, and I actually did bring cake.

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You did no such thing.

You're brilliant. Not already full of serum, I hope?

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I'll never tell.

At least, not until after we've started eating it.

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That could be either hilarious or humiliating. Or both. I'm not going first.

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Then it'll have to be Sirius.

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Eh. I don't think there's much to get out of me.

*Except Remus, and about the deal with Bella, and--*

Besides, you give me a slice and I'll take the rest, and we'll need the rest to feed to them, if it comes to that.

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Domestic bribery turned to weaponry. My, how I have grown.

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*Fabian snorts and starts to make a retort about cupcake explosives, but the words fall flat in his throat. Up ahead, right where their intel had said it would be, is a clearing, and in that clearing, the camp.

It's rudimentary at best. Everything is makeshift, the tents roughly cobbled together from canvas and tarps and clothing and cardboard, held up with sticks, or suspended from low branches. There are clear signs of habitation - the remains of campfires that look no more than a day old, piles of animal carcasses, and the like. At least Fabian is hoping they're just animal carcasses. Slowing, he pauses just outside the camp, looking around carefully, wand at the ready. There's food, shelter, fire - so where are the people? The whole place (maybe some twenty-odd shelters in all) is deserted and there's an eerie quiet, as though the animals in this forest know better than to get too close. Something about it's definitively not right.

On edge and ready for a fight, he stalks slowly forward into the camp, gaze darting from tent to tent.*

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*Alice follows Fabian, her eyes taking in any clues she can find.

At the centre is the firepit, with some still-burning embers. Alice squats, not looking down but instead using her hand to feel the heat. People have been here, but it's been at least an hour since someone was using this fire.

Alice jumps up, looking from tent to tent. The hair on the back of her neck is rising - she could swear someone is watching.*

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*Fabian's reached the same conclusion. He signals for the other two to have a look around, while he takes off ahead a bit, deeper into the camp. There's one tent bigger than the rest, makeshift flaps down, that he can't see into at all.

There's probably a protocol for this, he thinks. Somewhere in the Werewolf Capture Unit's files, there is probably a thick handbook on How to Invade Werewolf Camps. If there is, Fabian hasn't bothered to read it - what do that lot really know, anyway? He brushes away the thought - and the certainty that Gideon would tell him off right now for this - and slips forward, pulling back a tent flap and peering into the darkness inside.*

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i-swallow-odin.livejournal.com

*The walls of tarp undulate in an idle sort of way, worn thin and frayed from use and sensitive to the slightest breeze. The tent is empty. Lined with old coats, litter and cardboard. There doesn't appear to be any sort of life at all. The ring of trees surrounding them is just as silent, moving in the universal way of forests everywhere: like a living thing merely resting.*

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*It's a shantytown, barely even held together. In ways, it's worse than the clutch of them that lived under the bridge, or the group he found in the alleyway or in the squathouse. At least those places were clearly temporary and nomadic. This place has a grim permanence to it that the others did not, a sense that there are people who might even call it home. It feels wrong, invasive, to walk the paths they have worn through the grass.

Sirius lifts another tent flap, looking for a sleeping person, a child, a pet, anything.*

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*He knows this routine too well. Not from this, of course, but from any kind of stealth operation - the rising tension, coming face to face with nothing, and the adrenaline rush of let-down when you're left tense, giddy. Nothing here, but that doesn't mean it's clear. Not by a long stretch. With a soft 'huh' noise, Fabian presses on - too far ahead of the others, not paying attention to the growing gap between them, and starts a slow systematic investigation of each tent he comes to.*

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*Alice watches Sirius and Fabian's movements, while revolving to watch for an ambush. From her position at the firepit she can watch the trees and her friends.

A wind rustles the trees, and she almost Stupefies the leaves.*

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i-swallow-odin.livejournal.com

*The closest thing to "pets" to be found in the camp is an ant farm. Plastic and muggle, the cross section reveals tunnels crammed with ant carcasses. Where it originated, of course, is an unpleasant query to answer.

Near Alice's station, a flock of small birds suddenly take flight from the canopy of the forest, soaring over the clearing and into the distance. The sound of their wings failing to mask a breaking twig. It seems almost a purposeful attempt to catch her attention.*

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*It works. Fabian should know better - he does know better - but reflex is hard to squash sometimes, and he pivots automatically, wand raised toward the sound of the birds.*

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*Sirius twitches, also toward the birds, and then finally becomes aware of just how far Fabian's gotten from the rest of them.*

Fabian--

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*Alice whirls around to the birds, scrutinising the woods for the cause of their departure. Her attention focuses on that sector as she starts to walk towards it, wand high and ready.

But at Sirius's voice she stops. He's right - Fabian's too far.*

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*He almost laughs when he realizes what made the noise, lowering his wand halfway.*

Just birds. I don't think anyone's here, d'you?

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*Sirius lets out a laugh that's half relief, half nerves.*

Just birds. A fox or something must have scared them.

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i-swallow-odin.livejournal.com

*Significantly further from the section of foliage Alice is keen on, a shape, hulking yet silent, flashes between tree trunks, a dark roving mass that disappears as fast as it is seen.*

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*Alice doesn't feel the same release of tension that they do. She never does, and she won't until they're back in their own tent.*

Even still, keep your wands up.

*She walks towards the brush where the birds were, looking at the ground for hints of what made it happen.*

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