"Abbey a'the Bleedin' 'eart" - 22nd Chril, mid ET

[Finley Ward]

Finn had travelled directly from the Arsenale to the Abbey of the Compassionate Heart - not because he particularly liked hanging out in Abbeys all the time, and indeed he'd had more than enough of the religious life in Roque over the past three months and would willingly have run screaming from the place if he could... but rather because, at the present time, this Abbey was the one place he could almost guarantee a safe haven. The Dortman was gambling almost everything on this - his life, his security, his privacy. He could not have known he'd already been spotted. If someone were looking for Finley Ward, why would look to a monk?

That, in essence, was the plan. World's Mouth (as Finley Ward, pagan at heart, knew only too well) was a very religious and closed-minded city which put a lot of stock in it's chosen deity, Dominicus. The Mouth had since become an independent city and did not have to follow this doctrine as strictly as their former King had demanded... but a lifetime's worth of faith would not be erased overnight, and old habits die hard. The traditional Mouth, and almost everyone with any power in the city almost certainly fell under this umbrella, would still hold all the respect expected for the Church, would still attend confession, would still silently believe all non-humans to be sub-human and all pagans to be uneducated sinners.

The traditional Mouth would find it exceptionally difficult to kill a holy man. On principle, this idea was sound. In practice... Finley considered it a gamble worth taking, though in truth he was gambling with his own skin. It made him somewhat uncomfortable, to say the least. This, however, did not top of his list of grievances with the situation. Worse even than putting oneself in peril was that he had to stay in a bloody Abbey to do it.

It would not be an indefinite stay, he silently reassured himself. It would last as long as Hieronymous lived and breathed and walked around. The minute he stopped doing at least two of those things, Finn would quit the Abbey quicker than a greased weasel.

With all of this in mind, and what Finley had mentally named his religious face on, he approached the Abbey with little doubt in his mind that he would be turned away. He'd been accepted within the doors once before, and that time he'd been a foul-mouthed crimi-... he'd been behaving a little more true to form, let's say. The Dortman still sported a slight limp in his left leg from that memorable night, a limp that would never quite go away. But that was then, and this was now - and now, Finn felt sure the Abbey could not possibly turn away a fellow brother.

[Maeve]

The Abbey in the last of daylight was quite different from the closed dark structure at late gravetide. The oaken doors were still opened and there was traffic to and fro, people walking in and out. The last sunrays played over the patio which held a fragrant herb garden that looked almost out of place in the middle of the Seams, and lit up a pane of lass that depicted a hart and a dove, the center piece of the chapel adjoined with the Abbey.

A woman in a brown habit, her hair covered so as to give no clue to its color approached Finley with a smile "Can we help you brother. Welcome to the Abbey of the Compassionate Heart."

[Finley Ward]

Finley tried for a smile, long-practised habit pulling his face into a convincing facsimile - and halted in his rather lopsided, limping gait. He offered her a slight bow before replying - a bob of the head that he'd seen plenty of monks before offer one another.

"Sister, thank you for the welcome." His eyes glittered darkly, and it seemed to be through charm or friendly cheer. "I've recently arrived from Roque... the Monastery of the One... and it is a journey of several tides. I wonder, could you offer this traveller shelter, perhaps?"

It was a hard thing to do, to smooth the rough edges out of his accent, but sometimes necessary. Horrific as it was, Finn actually found himself fairly comfortable in this role, long-standing as it was. It had become easier as the months had passed, and now it was almost a second skin. He could even think his own thoughts behind the mask and still not let his expression falter.

...'s a very fuckin' depressin' thought...

[Maeve]

"Those that walk in the light of Dominicus are always welcome here, brother. I am sure you will be glad to join in the community duties," the nun smiled, then offered her name "I am Sister Petita."

She turned, expecting the monk to follow her as they went through the gallery, past the patio and towards the back where the barracks were located. On their way there they passed the sick halls. A lot of coughing indicated that more than one case of Blacklung was treated here with tender loving care.

It was in fact the same route that Finley had used so many months ago, though he was hardly likely to have more than a vague memory of that event. The smell of burning herbs was in the air, with the scent of poppy in all of it.

[Finley Ward]

"Indeed I will be, Sister Petita." Finn murmured by way of reply. "With this city's independence, now more than ever will it need a path to the Light." Since the city had removed itself from the Kingdom's influence, it would, no doubt, strive towards diversity. A church that had once held power might now find itself undermined by pagan religions - which was a position the church itself would fight tooth and nail to prevent. Though it occured to Finn, as they passed the sick halls, that perhaps Petita was referring to more mundane, direct matters. Finley's nose wrinkled slightly, the familiar sickly scent of poppy throwing up dark memories. Something so much more direct that it hit the Dortman like a sledgehammer.

A field with close, soft walls and a gentle, unreal breeze, an image in his mind that seemed detached from everything else, like a changling child or cuckoo in the nest. Poppies nodding their crimson heads solemnly, jerkily, surreally, and an offered hand with bitten fingernails. Finley's stomach gave a lurch, and silently, he considered the opium he was still carrying and felt vaguely sick, though was unable to put a finger on quite why. Suddenly, he felt rather dizzy, and fear tiptoed icily up his spine.

"...There are other places, other times, other situations. I can't promise you'd have a good time of it... and I can never promise that you'll matter much to anyone but me..."

He swallowed the feeling with an effort, disorientated by this sudden change of pace, by things he couldn't name and barely remembered. The calm, friendly expression on his face had faltered and slipped, replaced with something closer to confusion, as if on the edge of something. His face had paled, and he shook his head as if to clear it. There was a fog there, and whatever lay behind it he could not know. He found he had stopped in his limping progress, and looked sideways into the sick halls. Ahead, Sister Petita had moved on - in a moment, she would notice that the 'monk' was not keeping up.

The emotions slip from his face like water, none of them hold. "Anything...?"

"Fuck. Stop. Stoppit..." Finley muttered to himself, barely a breath, and shaking his head again, as if to dislodge the memories and shake them free, he followed the Sister determinedly, forcing himself to remain calm and collected. Under control. Now is not the fuckin' time ta lose it... y'gotta be convincin'. Now more than ever. Fer fuck's sake!

[Maeve]

Sister Petita never noticed Finley's distraction, moving through the gallery at a rapid pace. She led him to a small modest cell with a bed with a hay matress and a coarse blanket. There was a table with a candle and a Holy Book. A small window allowed in some light.

"Here you are brother," she told him with a smile "I shall have you included in the roster for attending the sick at night. Breakfast is in the great hall after Vespers. It is costumary for our order not to talk through the common meals so as to contemplate the One better."

[Finley Ward]

...roster fer the fuckin' sick...? no talkin' durin' fuckin' mealtimes...? what the fuck is this fuckin' place, a fuckin' monast-.... ahh.... fuck. Fuckety fuck...

"Thank you, sister. You are most kind." Finn nodded and smiled, everything appropriately done. He could do a remarkable impression of not hopping mad, to be fair - at least when he chose to. Perhaps he was a little pale, as though he were feeling unwell, or possibly just tired. Little other than that appeared abnormal.

Yeah, thank you, y'fuckin' bitch. Thanks fer yer fuckin' hospitality, as fuckin' great as it fuckin' is. Ya fuckin' bitch!

The act continued for just as long as the sister remained in the room, Finn nodding and politely closed the door behind her. It was only after she left that his hands dropped from his sleeves, and the smile dropped from his face just as rapidly, as suddenly gone as the sun disappearing behind a black cloud. Then, in a considered, sudden, and extremely violent manner, he booted the wall just as hard as he could possibly manage, swore desperately between his teeth, and then collapsed on the straw mattress clutching his foot and groaning, almost silently.

"Oh... bollocks." He breathed, just loudly enough to have the pleasure of saying it. The ceiling was particularly depressing from this angle, spreadeagled on a cheap, probably flea-ridden straw mattress. The protection the Abbey might offer really better be worth all this bother, because it was a fuckin' pain in the arse... Three months' worth of carefully bottled up fury began to well up, achingly painful anger desperately needing a place to be put and with nowhere sensible to go. Finley's patience was, unfortunately, wearing thin. And he felt sick.

With a deep, irritated sigh he sat up, slouched forward and considered his feet silently. It would not do to break now, not after all this effort. Not until Hart was gone. Nico could sort that out. Nico would sort that out. Finley would ask nicely, and it would happen. And then all this fuckin' Abbey business could go fuck itself directly in the fuckin' ear.

Pouting, he leaned for his bag and, after a moment's rummaging, found a half-empty bottle of whiskey. From this he took three long, excessive swallows, paused to grimace and catch a breath, and then took a fourth and more leisurely, less desperate mouthful, swilling it around his mouth and after a long moment allowing it to join the other three. And then, with a mind to leaving this godforsaken place as rapidly as possible, Finn did a thing he was deeply unused to doing and would struggle with for the next mark or so. He sat down, and by the light of the single and pathetic candle, he attempted to write a very important letter.

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OOC: Fin? :)

[Finley Ward]

OOC: brief time-jump, following a suggestion from Morgan. :)
Late Eveningtide.

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Perhaps several marks should have calmed Finley's spirits somewhat, but since those marks had been spent composing possibly the single worst excuse for a letter of all time, the Dortman was feeling frustrated rather than rested. Literacy was a new development in his life, and something he clearly did not have the patience to ever excell at. Finally passingly satisfied with the patch of barely articulate scribble he dared to call letter, he realised that it would almost be time to go about various other duties. Things like tending to the sick.

Life just got better and better.

...'s not forever. 's jus' fer the time bein'. Jus' til this place ain't the safest fuckin' place in the city...

Grumbling under his breath, Finn straightened up from his hunched posture of concentration, blinking mildly at the darkness that had shrouded the tiny cell. He supposed it meant getting up and leaving, he considered, stretching in a long and luxurious manner and making absolutely no effort to move. ...mebbe they'll come an' get me. Ain't sure I should be in any particular hurry ta catch the fuckin' Black Lung... gah. With a leisurely air - anything to put off the inevitable - he reached for the bottle of whiskey once more and had himself a large mouthful, before stashing it somewhere in the straw mattress, somewhere where prying eyes wouldn't spot it without an effort. Sitting for a moment in silence, do precisely nothing but delaying, he straightened his robe, retied his hair in a passingly more presentable manner. Then massaged his leg, the one that still ached occasionally. Then yawned. Then stretched once more.

Putting it off could not last forever.

With a look of resignation on his face, Finn finally pried himself from his chair and with the sigh of the horribly put-upon, pushed open the cell door to make his way towards the infirmary.

Joy...

[Morg]

The infirmary of the Abbey of the Compassionate Heart, a deep, low-ceilinged hall, lay along one side of a cloistered courtyard. The beds were divided by wooden screens creating rows of alcoves along each side of the hall. Silence reigned, occasionally broken by a groan of pain or a vicious bout of coughing. During the day, light would filter in through the arched windows, but this late in the eveningtide the only light came from the lone candles on the windowsills above each patient's bed, and some of these had been snuffed out for the night. A slump-shouldered young monk holding a lantern moved from bedside to bedside tending to the needs of the sick. When he saw Finley he stiffened slightly. "Ah, Brother..." Uncertainty - even concern - laced the man's tone even for these few words. The cause of his anxiety was readily apparent.

Perched on the end of one of the beds, observing the stone slab floor thoughtfully, was Hieronymous Hart. The capo was dressed in his usual fashion: leather armour strapped over simple dark cottons, and a black greatcoat hanging down to the ground, with an array of knives and a long curved sword attached to his belt. His tricorne hat was cradled in his hands, revealing his thinning black hair, tied back in a ponytail. On spotting Finley his lined face lit up into a grin and he stood, flexing his long legs as he did so.

"Signore Ward," Hart spoke, in a low tone, strangely appropriate for the setting. "So good to see you return to finish what you started."

[Finley Ward]

It was odd, Finley considered, how very much the infirmary felt like a tomb. Earlier, when he'd glanced at it in the last failing sunlight of early eveningtide, it had seemed an oppressive, sickening place that reeked of opium and death. The former had been the scent that had given the Dortman pause... more than pause, something worse. Some sort of sickness had crawled on him in that moment, a feeling he could not place. That uneasy certainty had made his limping progress in this direction even less enthusiastic than it might have been.

Now, however, it seemed as though the place had transformed - darkness and the warm, sickly scent of mortality made the infirmary close and... strangely familiar. It made him think, very briefly, of his brother Daniel and of home. It had been the same way with him; a creeping, slithering sickness that ate away at insides like a curse, draining away the colour and life in the same way the colours all ran to grey as the sun set. The way his brother's eyes had slowly dulled. He had lost his lustre and faded like old cotton.

It had not been his brother's death that had been the issue, really. Finley himself had been far too young to understand. It had been everything that happened after. But all that had come before, the long months of illness, and the quiet... Finn remembered it as an odd kind of sanctuary. A calm, before the storm. He could not have known. He had been far too young.

Distracted by these thoughts - in his mind, Finley was a long way away and many years in the past - the Dortman barely noticed the hesitant monk who tried to warn him, and waved the interruption away with a brevity and irritation he might not have displayed at all had he been concentrating. But it was barely a flicker later that a very familiar voice roused him fully from his thoughts. Finn halted in his limping progress very suddenly.

...Hart...

One look confirmed his fears - Hieronymous smiling at him in an entirely horrible manner. Finley's eyes widened, his pupils shrank to pinpricks, his pulse shot through the roof, and he presented the mobster with an open-mouthed look of abject fear. His stomach seemed to have dropped through his feet somehow, and the blood drained from his angular face as if an artery had been cut, until Finn managed to match his robe remarkably well. He also made a very small, unintelligable, strangled sound. All of this occurred very quickly - under a flicker. Finley did not think, and he did not speak. He did not have time.

Instead, he turned on his heel and sprinted in the opposite direction as fast as he possibly could.

[Morg]

Finley wasn't left with enough time or space to accelerate to full speed. Blocking the doorway to the corridor behind him was a remarkably doorway-shaped man. He was tall and square of shoulder, and his bulging muscles were clearly visible even under the stained tunic he wore. Finley's head barely reached to his shoulder. He, too, bore a smug, unconcerned grin, and his burly arms were folded across his barrel chest. He made no move to prevent Finley leaving, but his lack of movement provided plenty of impediment in itself.

Hart, too, didn't move, short of taking a couple of slow steps forward and clasping his hands together. Beside him, a shorter man had materialised. This new arrival, dressed in a red-brown leather jerkin and dark breeches, was using the point of a long-bladed dagger to scour dirt from his fingernails. Finley was trapped between Hart and his crony in the centre of the infirmary and the solid man acting as a makeshift door.

A feeble, drawn-out cry was emitted from one of the beds further back, and the young monk hurried over to it, muttering soothing words. "Shh... everything's fine, signore... Dominicus watches over us, this is His house."

Hart spoke again, in the same low tone and singsong rhythm, almost chanting the words. "No, no. I'm curious to hear that explanation. Even if it's three months too late. Might save you a scar or two. Who knows?"

[Finley Ward]

To his credit, Finn managed to stop in enough time to avoid actually running into the man that appeared to be taking up the entire doorway. What was perhaps considerably less impressive was the audible whimper that accompanied this. Looking up at the towering man, Finley knew in his heart that he was screwed. There was that familiar feeling of stomach-dropping clarity, and there, in his heart of hearts, where he knew this, resided a vast reservoir of cowardice. When you got right down to it, Finley Ward was a very, very cowardly man.

"...fuck...!" He whined (manfully) in a very soft voice, and turned to look at Hart as the older man began to speak, something close to a horrible grimace on his face. It might have been an attempt at an appeasing smile, except that Finn's dark eyes hadn't got the message and weren't joining in. The Dortman did not seem particularly keen to turn his back on the huge goon in the doorway, but then... if there was going to be any talking his way of this, it would be done by speaking to Hieronymous, not to the hired help. It was pure bad luck, of course, than under his white monk's robe Finn had nothing other than a pair of boots and some leggings. And Bishop's withered ear, on a piece of string round his neck - a permenant and rather gruesome trophy he considered something of a lucky charm. It was not working very well. He'd not thought a weapon necessary, not in a monastery.

"Hart... uhh... Signore Hart... mate..." Finn began weakly, butchering the Mouthie tongue inelegantly and with a pleading tone to his voice, "C'mon man... I fuckin' paid fer that hooker... I paid fer her...!" This was a pitiful tactic - an excuse, not a reason or an explanation. It would not... could not work. In truth, there was no explanantion. Finn himself had very little idea why he'd killed the prostitute at Madame Pannicis, all those months ago. He had no reasoning to offer.

Abruptly, Finley changed tack, licking his dry lips nervously, "...y'wouldn't hurt a man a'the cloth, mate...? Surely...?" It sounded less convincing than it might, coming from a short and clearly not-very-holy man who had broken out in cold sweat from fear and whose voice was audibly shaking.

[Morg]

(OOC: This thread is now Impassable.)

Hart listened in silence, only once glancing to the thug at his side, an expression of mutual understanding passing between them. As Finley trailed off, he shook his head slowly, despairingly. "Ward..." He rolled his eyes theatrically. "You really don't get it, do you? It's not about the whore. She was a pretty thing, I'll admit. Had her myself a couple of times. But she was replaceable. And you've proved that you're just the same."

Abruptly Finley felt the doorway man's massive arms clamp down upon him from behind, encircling him in a bear hug and pinning his arms to his sides. Once again the man had proved that he was astonishingly stealthy for one of his size. Hart took a few playful steps forward as he continued to speak. "See, I can always use a killer with... panache. If you'd come to me, confessed your sins, like, then maybe I'da given you a chance to make amends. But instead what did you do? You bottled it, then wasted one of my boys, on the way to skipping town to take a fucking holiday. And now the spring's rolled around again, and you're back on our doorstep just like nothing ever happened. Sadly for you, signore, I'm a very patient man."

The shorter goon had been trailing his boss by half a pace, but now he raised his dagger and stepped forward, a bored smirk on his pugnacious face.

"As for hurting a man of the cloth, well, you're absolutely right," the capo conceded with a smile. "So I think we'd better get you out of those unseemly vestments before we start." He nodded to his colleague, who grabbed hold of Finley's robe at the shoulder and began to shear roughly through it, the coarse material no match for the edge of the blade.

[Finley Ward]

"...uhm... replaceable...?" Finn stammered, and clearly he was not following Hart's train of thought. He wasn't even on the appropriate line. Shit, he was on a fucking bus ten thousand miles away. "...b...but...." At this point, the man-door (who must have been at least twice Finley's body weight), opted to restrain the skinny Dortman in a shockingly effective manner. Finn struggled, of course, in a completely redundant way, his feet scraping and slipping over the flagstones pointlessly, and something close to absolute terror on his white face. "Fuck, Hart, I..."

When Heirymous decided to speak in that self assured, patient manner, obediently Finley shut up. It crossed his mind, briefly, to pray - not that he was a particularly religious man, but more that it might have given Hart enough pause for there to be a little more talking before the main show of killing kicked off. ...stupid... stupid... think, fuckin' think...

As the other goon began to slice off Finn's white robe, he managed a small moan before launching into more pleas and bargaining, "Shit, man, the fact that I got outta town an' back again wivout ya catchin' me, that's gotta be worth somethin', right...? I had a fuckin' broken leg! ...fuck... an'... an'...."

He was gabbling, and he knew it. With extraordinary effort he stopped, clamped his lips together in a white line and took a deep and cleansing breath, and then started again in a slightly more reasonable tone, "...ahh... an'... an' Nico's gonna be real fuckin' pissed, Hart... I ain't so useful... fuckin' dead as I am stuck in this, in this fuckin' place... ...how many monks ya got, Hart.... huh? ...'cause I bet 'm the only fuckin' one... right...?"

With enormous strength of will, Finley held Hart's gaze, his mouth a thin, strained line. It was obvious that the Dortman was not asking Hieronymous how many monks he had, but rather how many low, fucked up criminals who'd kill at a moment's notice he had... how many of them he had, parading around as monks. Surely, the mobster would see the beautiful, sensible logic of the plan. After a slight pause he added, his voice shaking and very quiet now, "Everyone makes mistakes... shit. I only made one... I ran."

[Morg]

And Hart listened, now, leaning in close. At this distance, the irregularities in the mob boss's facial structure were clear. The ridge of his heavy nose was rumpled as if by some great subcutaneous seismic shift, and the ravages of this could be seen all across the left side of his face. It was this that gave rise to the lopsidedness of his cruel smile.

The comment about making mistakes was waved away, and Hart sighed, the sound of a boot rasping through gravel. "Put it this way, Ward... I'm here, aren't I? With my friends... and there isn't a monk in this place who'd dare to act against me. If I say jump, this whole fucking fraternity replies with "how high?". True, I don't have a freak like you on my payroll, and maybe you're right. Maybe it would be an asset." He paused. "But if I needed a person like that, it wouldn't be you. Because I don't trust you, and I know you don't trust me. And after this encounter we're going to trust each other a whole lot less."

At this point the dagger-wielding goon stood, having carved a line down the length of the monastic robe Finley wore, and roughly tore the garment down around his shoulders, the heavyset man shifting his hold to allow for the action... which revealed, along with a skinny torso, a shrivelled token on a string. The short goon let out a whistle. "Merda, boss. That's a fuckin' ear."

"You're right," Hart responded curtly, stepping back and looking thoughtful. "What kind of sick fuck would cut off a guy's ear? Although..."

The grin returned after only a few flickers. "Although... Does it not say in the Book of Our Lord Dominicus, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth...?" The mobster's smile was now so wide it threatened to split his distended face open. "...An ear for an ear?" His dark eyes flickered to the sharp dagger grasped by his stooge - and then back to Finley.

[Finley Ward]

At Hart's reply, Finn's eyes rolled skywards as if it were possible to see through brick and stone to the stars, and his mouth shifted and strained almost as though he were on the verge of tears. Looking away from Hart's ravaged face did not negate the fact that the mobster was very acutely present. There were few motivators that could affect Finley Ward quite as accurately as pain and death, or the threat of either and both. Little else could touch the man, not pleading, bargaining, guilt, empathy or love... but this was an exceedingly good way to strike the fear of god in him. Perhaps the only way.

He felt nothing - nothing for his family, his so-called friends, passing acquaintances, strangers in the street. He couldn't bring himself to feel anything but vague disinterest in most, annoyance at some, and a sense of desire for a few others. If any man were truly an island, emotionally at least, Finley was him. There was only one person he cared about - and that was himself. Nothing else might have brought him this close to breaking down and, pitifully, crying for his own misfortune. Never would he consider he had brought this entirely on himself.

"...it ain't..." Finn swallowed roughly, closing his eyes and grimacing, before looking back at Hart as if he could stand that steady, cruel smile for more than a flicker or two, "...it ain't how high... yer missin' the point... nnngh... fer fuck's sake..." This last bit barely whispered, a hopeless murmur of defeat. The words were not there, and if they were Finley did not know how to vocalise them. Fear had paralysed him. There was nothing he could do, as they pulled the robe from him, but stand there and take it.

The discovery of Bishop's ear forced a muted moan through his gritted teeth, the whine of a disobedient dog, "...shit... look, tha's... I didn't... fer fuck's sake, tha's a present, I didn't cut anybody's fuckin' ear off!" Desperately, Finn struggled against the tall goon's bear-trap grip, twisting his head from side to side in a pointless attempt to avoid the knife. You could not turn both ears away at once. "...it weren't even one'a yours, Hart! ...'s a fuckin' adhiel...! Please... c'mon, mate... there's gotta be somethin'... there's gotta be somethin' I can do..."

[Morg]

"Yeah, there is," Hart growled, now truly decided on his course of action... and as the Dortman squirmed, the capo launched a sudden, juddering blow across his jaw, the impact causing even the enormous doorway goon restraining Finley to flinch backwards briefly, although his hold didn't falter for a second. Blood welled up under the Dortman's tongue.

"You can fuckin' keep still."

Hart followed this by clasping his large, leathery hands around Finley's face, one holding his jaw from below, the other tangling itself into his hair. He jerked the head round against the door-man's chest so that his left ear was clearly visible, and nodded to the shorter man. "Do it, Puck."

With a solemn expression upon his face, the leather-clad goon raised his dagger and brought the blade up so that the top of Finley's outer ear nearly touched its hilt, then slowly, clinically, began to saw downwards.

[Finley Ward]

The power behind that punch would have sent Finley reeling, had he not been caught in the snare of the doorman's grip. For a second, pure white light and pain and nothing else - if he cried out, he was not aware of it. As Hart's hands closed like a vice around his face, he blinked tears from his dark eyes, bearing his teeth involuntarily, a vampire grin of bloody lips and pink teeth. Finn choked, coughing the blood from the back of his throat, his breath coming in loud, snorting rasps.

"...no... nonononooo..." A whine disintegrating into coughing sobs from between clenched teeth and distorted features, Hart's fingers locking his jaw closed. Finn could see the point of Puck's knife jutting out at eyelevel, blurred and far too close, and despite the stinging of the last blow the threat of more pain caused him to struggle once more, able to move little more than his feet, kicking backwards like a mule towards the doorman's shins and forwards towards Hart's knees, both directions desperation and none of it aimed. Like a cornered cat, he fought with vicious, limited frenzy.

"Hart... please... cugh... c'mon, mate... khuh... 'm sorry! alright...? kugh 'm fuckin' sorry mate no please don't ahhhHHHAAAAAAAAHHHHH...!" Finn clenched his teeth shut against the scream, and it still came through; a choking, halting sound rising to a whine. He screwed his eyes shut so tightly that he saw spots, as though this could block it out, somehow, and every muscle in his body tensed, and every ounce of him tried, vainly, to block out the hot, sharp, unbearable pain. After an endless moment, during which the seas evaporated and the world crumbled to dust - after eternity, the scream crumbled into wet, rasping sobs.

At the base of his neck, in that hollow where collarbone met ligament, Finn felt his own blood begin to pool, overflow, and run warmly downwards towards the floor.

[Morg]

Up until this point, the proceedings had been solemnly muted... but now Finley let out a scream that would have raised the dead. Every movement, every flinch, every squirm caused the dagger to dig more deeply into his flesh. Fortunately for him, Puck was a man who liked to keep his weapons in prime condition, and the blade was mercifully sharp. It was over within flickers, although those flickers could have stretched to yahren for the Dortman.

Other inhabitants of the infirmary were stirring now, their bemused groans mirroring Finley's own remonstrations. A chorus of coughing broke out, rising to drown out his sobs. At this point sizable, muscular man in a monastic habit burst into the room, stopping short when he spotted Hart and the blood that was beginning to trickle to the strewn floor below. "What is this?" the grey-haired newcomer demanded.

"One of yours has been lax in his duties," Hart announced. "To me." He made a dismissive gesture to the big goon, who released his hold, propelling Finley away towards the new arrival. "I'm gonna let you fix 'im up, though. 'Cos I'm just that kind o' guy."

Blood spattered across the muscular monk's robe, and his dark eyes flashed, but he said nothing for the flicker. Meanwhile, Hart stooped low to pick up the bloody, ruined scrap of flesh torn from the side of Finley's head. Blowing on it a couple of times, as if to cool it down, he slipped it into a pocket of his coat, seemingly unconscious of the red liquid running in rivulets between his fingers.

[Finley Ward]

Whimpering, Finn almost fell into the arms of the muscular monk, too distracted by pain to think much of retaliation or revenge, or even some sort of manly composure. He kept a pale hand clamped over the side of his head, and whatever it was he was mumbling was mostly unintelligable. He even seemed to be unaware that Hart was on the verge of leaving. This, in itself, was something of a miracle. Finley had fully expected to pay for his mistake with his life.

More than an ear, he'd lost both his earrings. Apparently, Hieronymous had had the sense to take the distinctive ear. Not that Finley was even aware of that small fact at present, nor would he think it important if he had.

Coughing, snorting, Finn eventually managed to stand unaided, and his short frame was shaking with fear. Dark blood was seeping through his fingers, and by all the gods it hurt... with remarkable control, he managed to stumble away from the tall man of the cloth, and away down the hall away from Hart and his hideous cronies. About three steps in to his ill-advised, wobbly flight he stumbled and tripped, barely catching himself and leaving a bloody handprint on the floor before staggering to his feet and trying again. He ran like a man who had forgotten how to walk.

[Morg]

Puck turned to Hart, disappointment showing on his scarred face and in his whining tone as he rammed his blood-soaked dagger back into its sheath. "What, we leaving already, boss? I was just getting fired up."

Hart shook his head. "What, you think the ear's not enough?" He sighed. "Okay, fine. Puck, you can rough him up a bit more, if you like." As the leather-clad thug advanced on Finley, the mob boss turned to his other, massive underling and shrugged. "Never let it be said that I'm a man who doesn't accept constructive criticism."

Finley didn't get far - perhaps two or three alcoves - before the metal toecap of Puck's heavy left boot rammed hard into his backside and he was sent sprawling onto his face once again. The mobster's gloved hand swiftly moved to grab the Dortman's wiry arm and roughly flip him onto his back. Without speaking, he stepped heavily forward and brought the same left foot slamming cruelly down onto Finley's navel as he lay prone.

Meanwhile, the thickset monk was speaking, barely able to contain the anger in his deep voice. "Be careful, Hart. We gladly patch up your men... just like we patch up any of the other poor scum who wander in here bleeding... but if you think you can get away with this on a regular basis, signore, well... just be careful."

Hart wasn't entirely paying attention, his eyes following the violence that was taking place further down the hall. "I don't tell you how to do your job, Father Zabatine, do I now?" he replied unconcernedly. "So don't tell me how to do mine. Just make sure that wound doesn't get infected, that's all. It'd be a shame if he died from the festering. I want him to live with the knowledge of what was taken."

[Finley Ward]

It was too much to hope that he might get away, of course. He'd been gunning for, maybe, the end of the room... and if he'd made it that far, maybe, the end of the street. And if he'd made it that far, maybe, the end of the world. Finley was not thinking straight. The pain in his head, and fear that kept his heart hammering, and the blood that slicked his neck and shoulder and chest like so much shiny red war paint, all of these things came together in a glorious single-minded tunnel vision of thought. You could compare his state of mind to that of the fleeing hart or fox, hunters at heels. Or perhaps a runaway train. There was not sufficient room for manoeuvering, in this tunnel - the track only ran one way.

His left ear... the space where it should have been... mainly felt warm.

When he fell, then, courtesy of Puck's boot, he barely noticed scraping his chin on the flags, the sharp bone-jar of teeth snapping together. Noticed would not be an appropriate word for how Finn felt about it, which mainly comprised of pain, and move, and breathe. He did not notice that he had bared his bloodstained teeth at Puck when he was flipped unceremoniously on to his back like a turtle, if the turtle happened to be five foot seven, scrawny, and with a bizarre fondness for killing young women. And when Puck stomped on his stomach, every reaction he had was white hot instinct.

Pain, and Finley crumpled like a paper bag, curling fetal as the wind was forced out of him. He might have made a noise then, but if he did he wasn't aware. His arms came up as he folded, and his bloody fingers found Puck's foot - the one with all his weight on it, the one with it's heavy toe nudging his breastbone. And Finn, something close to a breathless growl rising through the blood in his throat, wrapped one hand around the ankle and the other snaked up to Puck's knee, and he pushed the leg sideways as hard as he could. Sideways, in a direction the knee couldn't bend, a reaction designed to topple the leather-bound goon like a tree.

[Morg]

The pain had made Finley weak... but not so weak that he couldn't execute the move he was planning, one which Puck had left himself wide open to. The sadistic goon, perhaps a fingerwidth taller than Finley, was sent sprawling to the side, crashing to the flags with a thud and a crunch. It was only a temporary impediment, however, and the leather-clad man sprang to his feet, diving for Finley before the wounded Dortman could evade.

Puck grabbed hold of Finley's shoulders, dirty fingernails digging painfully into bare flesh, and slammed him back against the straw-covered stone, lips curled into a snarl. "Figlio di puttana... I'ma kill you now, fuckin' ceffo..."

"Puck!" Hart's voice cut through the air between them. "Leave him, you idiot. You already gave him something to remember you by. Let the damn monks fix him up."

Eyes narrowed to slits, the shorter goon roughly let go of Finley, hands shaking. "Next time you're a dead man, Ward," he growled as he got to his feet and began to back down the infirmary, never once taking his eyes off the Dortman. Zabatine was striding past the goon towards him. The coughing and moaning hadn't stopped.

[Finley Ward]

Finn felt a momentary swell of sharp joy at Puck's collapse, some brief respite from pain and fear, some small victory. Animal instinct would have had him grappling with Puck's face in a moment, oblivious to the consequences... his teeth would find the goon's ear, and... and... it was not to be. Unhindered by blood loss and the weakness of sustained fear, Puck managed his feet in mere moments, almost before Finn had had time to formulate a thought. And the goon was quick to take his revenge.

When Finley's head hit the paving slabs once more, he saw stars. And that was all he saw, for several burns, the senses knocked from him. Dripping stickily on to the stone, he shook his head blurrily and unsteadily, his hands raised, elbows on the floor, puppetting limply. He was utterly helpless for those burns. Perhaps he was lucky that Hart chose to call his dog off, then, for the Dortman was in no fit state to fight back any longer.

His vision began to clear as Puck reached the other side of the infirmary, and there was a dull and stupid look on the Dortman's face, a look of being barely able to focus. Finn shook his head again, disorientated, and the next thing he saw was Zabatine bearing down upon him, tall and impassive. He rested his head back on the flagstones and stared up at the monk weakly, saying nothing. After a long moment, something seemed to break inside him, and Finley covered his eyes with the bloody heels of his hands, breathing slowly and deeply, and made a small noise, something close to a whine. For a moment, it seemed as though the shaking of Finn's shoulders indicated he was sobbing, and that might not have been particularly surprising given his state. Some sort of wet coughing noise joined the shaking, and as it grew louder Finn's arms dropped from his face weakly, revealing a stretched and gruesome grin.

He was not sobbing at all; instead, helplessly, and for reasons best known to himself, he was laughing.

[Morg]

(OOC: This thread is now passable once more.)

Zabatine smiled bemusedly down at the young Dortman. The bulky priest certainly didn't see anything funny about the situation. The amount of blood spattered about was almost unbelievable, and a solid quantity of opium would be needed to put the man out. In addition, almost everyone in the infirmary was awake now, some of them screaming at the top of their voices.

The muscular monk added his own to the mix. "Hugo!" he bellowed. "Get me a roll of bandages and a quart of poppy." While the other young monk in the infirmary left the hysterical old woman he was trying to comfort and hastened to comply, Zabatine reached down and grabbed hold of Finley, hoisting him over his shoulder as if he were a sack of meal and laying him down on the nearest empty bed. He ignored the steady flow of blood that dripped from the stump of an ear onto the mattress.

Hart could be seen leaving, his broad, leather-coated back silhouetted in the doorway to the corridor. As he passed through it he turned round, raising a hand in a mocking farewell.

"Whatever you did, I don't want to know about it, capisce?" Zabatine muttered as he took the bandages provided by Hugo and wound them painfully tightly around the Dortman's head. "We'll make up a poultice to prevent infection. In the meantime, drink this." He motioned to Hugo, who tentatively proffered the strong-smelling jug. "It'll help you forget this minchioneria for the time being."