The Hamlet Streets

[Kidney]

Hugo didn't know this song, but he decided to add to it with a giggle as he added to the mattress, "Pretty soon after I made it out of daisies, I realized I had failed." 
He laughed, rounding out the corners before adding the last layer, being careful to not crunch them for the sake of cushion. He scratched the back of his neck, chuckling as he finished out the pile, and now he moved to his bedroll. It happened to be right next to the pile, and slowly crawled onto it, pulling a thin wool blanket over himself from the satchel on his hip.

[hopper]

She laughed a little, cheered by the jest.
"I know a runner's going to tell you, there is no captain in my hat, so now he's buried by the daisies..."
she trailed off a little, strumming as she neared the leaves. It was as good a bed as any she'd had since her home had been ruined, and she was quite grateful for it.
"So I could stay the tallest man in your eyes..."
She forwent the makeshift sleep area for now, instead going and standing against the tree. Her head brushed against the bark and even through the scarf she could feel its rough bark. The song was slower and lower than what she normally opted for, but given the recent events she figured that it would be better than somme rambunctious diddy.

[Kidney]

Hugo sat, and he listened. She was amazing. Melodious, and it took most of his mental capacity to not take her song as a beautiful lullaby. He rose, sitting up as he grabbed his mask, hand shaking as he slowly, pulled it up. The mask slipped off without issue, and now his face was revealed, Hugo. He didn't look at her, he instead listened, and smiled wide. He brought his hands together after setting his mask on his lute, and hummed along with her.  

[hopper]

She watched him remove the mask and it gave her pause. Her fingers faltered at the strings and her voice fell away so that for a second the only sounds were that of the town and the wind hustling through the leaves above them. Clearing her throat, she continued. Almost unnoticed, the warmth from earlier returned to her toes and fingers and head.
"I sense a spy up in the chimney, from all the evidence I've b-burned. I guess he'll read it in the smoke now and to a-ashes I'll return."
Her eyes played over his features. murky as they were in the fading light, and caught on the scars.
Like me
the thought almost didn't feel like her own, nor could she deny the sentiment entirely however. 

[Kidney]

Hugo giggled at her pause, he knew he got a reaction out of her. He looked up at her, brown eyes piercing hers in the haze of the beads. He smiled now, yellowed teeth betraying their scary appearance. Now he looked down again, adding a reverb to her lyric, "To ashes i'll return."
He nodded to himself, tucking the wool around himself, still listening. There was a nagging in his head, this fear, he had told her everything, in such little time. He had given over a piece of himself, and that bothered him. He pondered this, was she worth trusting?  

[hopper]

"I know the spy is going to tell you, that's not a flag up in my pole. So now he's buried by the lilies, so I could stay forever in your eyes..."
She stopped playing, staring out at the people milling about the cobbled streets and alleys of the small village, watching them silently.
"I think, my mother sang that."
She finally spoke after near a minute of peace. Sighing she sat down on the prepared 'bed' and set her mandolin aside, studying the way the light played off its crooked surface. Hesitantly, her fingers played at the corners of her scarf, indecisive as to their next move.

[Kidney]

"Your mother was a good writer. It was well written and well performed." Hugo laid down, pulling the blanket to his cheeks. He turned though, to look at this woman who he had trusted so much to. He knew he could trust her, he felt it deep in his chest. He lifted the side of the blanket, offering some space under it to her, she seemed a little cold just laying in leaves. "You're really good, y'know. At singing." He chuckled, another repeated compliment on her singing ability.

[hopper]

Without thinking about it, Winifred pulled away the scarf. It resisted a little, but soon enough she was holding the purple fabric in her hands, staring at it. It'd been made special for her, a birthday gift. The beads depicted a man with a rabbit head holding a guitar, staring forward with what appeared to be a blank expression, but she knew better, she could see that it was truly one of wry amusement. Gently, she set it down in front of her and stared at it.
"I'd be surprised if she wrote it, she could hardly read."
The woman quipped sardonically. Bowing her head, she fiddled with her sleeves.

[Kidney]

Hugo smiled again, and then he realized. He was Hugo. Hugo Smonk, the man who wrote the letter all those years ago. He looked down at himself, smiling wide as his head cleared. "Winifred! It's me! Hugo! I can...see so clearly. You're so, cute." He lowered his head, dropping the side of blanket down as he looked around, sitting up. He looked around, everything seemed, less colorful, but more crisp. The night sky was so dark, and the stars seemed so small and bright. He fell back down, smile plastered on his face as he looked around, everything was so, weird for a moment. Now, he was Hugo, for now. "Winifred, thank you." He looked at her, even this moment of clarity, even for this one, was enough to make him the happiest man on Earth. This feeling was like when he sung, but now, it allowed him moments, minutes of clarity. Such, clearness of mind. "How...Was it your song? Was it, this entire night?" 
He fell to his back, looking at Winifred as he pondered, "It was tonight. With another fool like me." He laughed, staring at the sky. He smiled now, raising an eyebrow as he wrapped the side of the blanket around her, pulling her close to him. The leaves crunched between them but he still held her, his eyes wide and shining, pointed at the sky.

[hopper]

Her fingers traced the familiar lines on her head as she sat. When he moved her closer, she didn't pull away but neither did she embrace it, such contact was another thing that she'd encountered little enough that she couldn't entirely tell what was appropriate. That and the compliment, she'd not been called 'cute' in a very long time and she had a suspicion that the word was not being used in quite the same context now as it was then, it made her cheeks flush the tiniest bit to ponder.
"I guess it was."
She murmured, not really wholly there. It'd been a long day, made longer still by events far enough outside of her comfort zone that she'd be perfectly happy with most of them never occur again, but maybe this moment she could do with repeating a few times. The air stirred around them and she sunk down lower in the sheet, burrowing down into the stuffing and looking upwards with Hugo. In all her expectations of the place, she'd never guessed this would happen, not in a hundred years and certainly not on her first day in town. Even now though, with her mind aflutter in trying to comprehend how she'd ended up here in this moment, she could feel he body slackening into sleep's embrace.

[Kidney]

Hugo stared up, content with not being hit for his sudden actions and now, he sat. He felt Winifred's body near him, her breaths growing slower as his did as well. But a feeling hit his head, the one of cloudiness, and he could feel his clarity slipping. Soon, he was Hugo, but not with clarity, but sharing the body of Hugo with Smoke, the jester. It didn't feel invasive, just the natural state of things returning to their positions. But Hugo grew a bit solemn here, and now, he reached an arm around Winifred, and another snaked to his lute. He plucked a string or two, low notes, one chord per two sentences.
"The day they hanged Robin, the air was clear and still. The day they hanged Robin, the Autumn ground was chill."
He picked up the pace of his strings, a pleasant and unstopping melody, quiet, for he didn't wish to wake up Winifred. "The smallfolk gathered in the square, the gallow there was set. The smallfolk gathered in the square, the woman never wept."
His melody picked up speed, "The gods above knew he committed no crime, but the lord read off a list."
He slowed a bit, fingers sore, "The gods above knew he committed no crime, the man's hands balled to fists. His legs, they kicked and jerked and slowed, the crowd not once did cheer."
He stopped plucking, his quiet vocals all that were left. "His legs then slowed and finally stopped, the crowd not once did jeer."
He whistled now, quietly, and slowly, "I'll always mourn Robin, he was my boy past four. They day they hanged Robin, my son came home no more."
And so, Hugo Smonk fell away to unconsciousness, tears down his cheeks, and a straight face presented.

[relentless]

Villon slumped a little and growled out in pain as he was suddenly less supported, though he soon adjusted thanks to Ulysses's physique helping him up a bit. He 'hmphed' at the prospect of 'Signorites' or whatever she meant and said. Though he didn't hold it to heart, glancing at the book Ulysses had portrayed.

"Ulysses? Odd name... German?"
Villon shot a bland glance at the man before he looked up to Taas. Though it was short lived as his gaze passed onto the door of the sanatorium, a grimace passing over his face.

"Aye, Villons the name. Been on a looonng trip to save this wee lass, got herself into a pickle, though she managed alright.."
Villon paused as he reflected on that previous experience he went through. A biting sensation in his hand, and he raised it a little to see if a mutt was chewing on his hand. All he saw were the congealed wounds of a large wolfs bite. He looked at the wound for a few seconds, before passing a knowing glance up at Taas as they slowly, clumsily ascended the stairway.

"Full of surprises, aye... aye."
Villon finished off as he took the knowing look off Taas, remaining Silence for a brief moment.

[Bloodtrailkiller]

/Taas/

She'd a moment of her own self-consollation, as she paused to eye up the looming bricks; each set mathematically perfect atop the last, and on and on it went until it was as now: a stronghold of intellect and cunning. Of glass jars filled with stuff and things, and needles that'd get filled with that stuff and put into things.
It was all rather frightening.

All the same; she made her way up the steps, if not to dominate her fears, then to help her comrade to the door. Or rather, fetch it open, as carrying Villon was conveniently taken up by the sudden man-at-arms; so she presumed, at least. His mannerisms declared it so.

And, as she turned to face them; opening up the door to the Sanitarium, she scryed his motions for their meaning, though they were clear enough. Her amber hued gaze drifted over the apparent Ulysses with some intense investigation, though it was clearly something she enjoyed, if her toothy smile that split her lips was anything to go by.

"Nah, nah... That's more... Greekish, right? Macedonia, Constantinople... Odessa, kinda..." She supposed; for a moment, a daliance of an idea played in her mind. Songs and stories alike were rather prominent, some little machine in her mind always turning over words and names to bring liveliness to the taverns across the world she travelled.
Ulysses, and the regalia, and the eye, the muteness; all seemed delightfully familiar to a tale she'd heard woven in passing, pieced together from rumors and the like near the Alps, thereabouts.

The pale-strands skewed to one side, as her cheek pushed against the padded shoulder-garb, in contemplation. Her mouth was ajar, as something undoubtedly was being pieced together, her eye squinting at him before she scoffed, and shook her head, the look passing.
"... Right, anyways--" She waved them in towards the open door of the Sanitarium, pausing as she spied Villon nursing the small cuts on his hand: she'd no recollection of them, but there was enough of her brain working to piece it together.

The toothy nature of her smile waned, her lips folding over her pearly whites into an almost apologetic smile, as she jerked her head towards the door.
"--In you go, come on ya gits; both of you. In, in!" She insisted, making to usher them on by stretching out her foot and trying to (lightly) pull them along by hooking her toe about the backs of their knees.

//

[hopper]

Winifred found herself in a strange yet familiar setting. A large room made up like a rather cozy study, but the furniture and walls shifted and rippled in a breeze, like the walls of a tent. It was an odd effect that never ceased to catch her off guard every time she saw it happening in the corner of her vision. The room was vaguely smoky, as if someone been puffing on a pipe but recently stopped and the air had yet to fully clear. She was sitting in an over-stuffed chair in front of a large mahogany desk that was unaffected by the breeze that made the rest of the room shift and ripple. A man approached from behind her, she could hear the sounds of nighttime outside the 'tent' when he opened the door and watched as a tall, slim figure came from behind her on her left side and took a seat at the desk. He sat down and began digging through one of the desk drawers. She could see the outline of his face in the low light, he had the head of a rabbit, with long straight ears that extended off the top of his head, and a rather athletic human body. He was dressed in a rather old-style entertainer outfit, with a crimped collar and a puffy shirt with large sleeves and some checkered tights with a pair of light slippers. She seen him a hundred times in this place, spoken to him as well. It was just another reason she loved Jack, who else could say they were permitted to speak to their god regularly? She shifted in her seat as he packed a long, ornate hand pipe full of a sweet-swelling herb that made her nose tingle, she could see that his hands had six fingers each. He took a few puffs and stared at her with his huge rabbit eyes, studying her. She never liked these moments, she felt like she was being judged and found somewhat lacking.
"So..."
the man finally spoke, his voice smooth and surprisingly deep.
"You love him then?"
He asked. Winifred shrugged, not really sure how to respond, or if she even could yet. The being nodded, still puffing on the pipe.
"It's alright if you do, truly no qualms from myself. Just remember though, he's dangerous."
Her eyes widened a little at this.
"Dangerous? How?"
She asked skeptically. Surely the man lying beside her was strange, maybe even stranger than herself, but not dangerous. The rabbit god laughed and a large gust sent the whole room fluttering.
"You'll see soon enough."
Winifred awoke with a start.

[The Carrying Blade]

Mithra and Nasuada were still there, they had been following Taas and Villon the entire time. When Ulysses came, helped, and was getting acquainted with those two, Mithra and Nasuada were just trucking along saving their strength. Nasuada started coughing again, her skin noticeably paler than before in the Weald.
"You mind holding that open for us too?" Nasuada weakly asked Taas, helping Mithra walk up the steps with slowly fleeting strength.
-------
Mithra's face was pained, only dry croaks came out when she tried to speak. A very clear trail of blood was behind her, the wounds on her back still bleeding. She was as wounded as Villon was, even more so from wounds from past failed skirmishes still taking their toll even now.