Gordain Duncan strutted down the streets of Vienda, a little drunk but nothing serious, wondering if it was worth his time to step into another bar.

As he passed the charred remains of the bakery and the half-hearted partition the Seventen had erected to keep the public out of the ruins, he snickered. Clocking wicks, he thought. Got exactly what they deserved. Why couldn't those half-breeds just pack up and go off on one of those little cart trains and leave the human city for the humans?

And the galdori, he supposed. But they were unavoidable.

Still, the less magic in the city, the better.

Fion loitered around the edges of the bakery, watching for Gordain. When he passed her she smiled wickedly.

"Got you." She whispered.

Now she just had to wait for Khy.

Khymarah ran as quietly as she could carrying the yellow paint. Finally, she saw the burnt out husk of the bakery, and a shadow in the spot where Fion said she would be. Making her way quietly to her, she also noticed a man was walking away from them. Reaching Fion, she lifted the bucket and smiled.

Fion smiled back. If she hadn't had more restraint she would have been cackling.

"Think you can knock him out from this distance?" She whispered, pointing at Gordain.

She was hoping that he wouldn't see them at all. It would be better if he just woke up ready for the embarassment of his life.

Khymarah focused on the man, narrowing her eyes. He wasn't incredibly far away, but he was a little further than she had been casting from. Raising a hand to him, she started walking towards him to close the distance, then spoke the monite for Sleep. Her voice was soothing and sweet, like a lullaby.

Bloody bother, wicks, thought Gordain as his eyelids began to droop a little. Always making so much noise - singing, dancing, telling those idiotic stories...

He felt the full force of the spell hit him like a gentle wave of warmth. Khymarah had a very motherly touch in her spellwork; he felt as though a large, soft bed was beckoning to him and a lullaby was being sung. Before his eyes, visions of swirling blue began to take over.

"Gods alive," he said aloud, slurring his words as though drunk. "Might well head home...gettin' late..."

With a tremendous yawn, he slumped over onto the sooty cobbles.

((Writing that made ME yawn))

Fion jogged after Khymarah, feathers and glue in her hand, rope slung over her arm.

"Good work." She said quietly to Khymarah, patting her shoulder with a free hand. "Help me drag him over to the edge of the bakery."

Fion put her swag in the darkness beneath a fallen beam and walked swiftly back, throwing one of Gordain's arms over her shoulder.

Khymarah put the paint down beside Fion's swag and walked over, hitching the man's other arm over her shoulder.

"Clock Fion! He is heavy!" She grunted quietly, pulling on the dead weight of the sleeping fellow.

Fion dragged Gordain with all her might. He was a big man but she was still able to lift him, humans were built for hard labour.

"Yeah..." She huffed, pulling him towards a post that still stood strong next to the bakery, "Makes me wish I'd ate more greens as a girl... My mother was right."

Fion hefted him next to the metal post.

"That spell ought to last a few hours at least, he's out like a light." Fion said, taking a moment to get her breath back. "Would you mind helping me tie his hands behind his back? I don't want him running off before anyone can hear my rebuttal to his views on the wick community."

Khymarah helped Fion prop him against the post.



Coming around to hold his hands together whilst Fion tied them, Khymarah thought about what they were doing.

"Fion, why did you choose to do this? I don't mean get revenge, I understand that, but why the glue and feathers? Do humans do this sort of thing a lot? Is it customary?"

Fion thought about while she finished tying a complex knot that bound Gordain's wrists together.

"Hmmm, well, it's not entirely a revenge thing anymore."

It was, however, a delicious side benefit.

"I admit I sincerely wanted to beat his teeth in, tsuter bastard... Now I just want to make sure he realises that there are consequences for bad behaviour." She glared at Gordain for a moment before reeling herself back in, "I digress... It's not a common thing to do, it used to be something done back in the old days. If someone commited an act of extreme cowardice they'd be tarred and feathered. You had to do something seriously wrong, like walking away from, say, a burning building with people inside."

Fion spat on the ground in disgust.

"Tarring was permanent though, you'd never be able to get rid of all of it, it sticks to your skin. This will come off though once he gets down." Fion hefted Gordain up so she could slip some rope under his arms and around the beam. "It's a fairly archaic thing to do but... that will remind everyone that we used to frown on this kind of behaviour. That we need to be like we used to be. Solidarity."

Fion bit her lip.

"Otherwise there's no point to any of this."

Khymarah nodded, helping feed the rope around the man and the pole.

"I understand. Its a shaming thing. A public humiliation. And righteously deserved." She walked around the front of the man, to stand beside Fion, crossing her arms.

"So, I understand the glue and the feathers, but why the yellow paint?" Her curiosity was getting the better of her. Galdori didn't have anything like this that she could think of, so it was all very new to her. And rather fun.

Fion raised a scholarly finger in the air.

"Humiliation in the spirit of higher learning." She said, posing mock-heroicly. "The yellow paint is because yellow is also the old-standard colour of weakness. And also some daisies."

Fion tested the rope, twining it between his bound hands and securing it at a point above his sight. She moved down to tie his legs together in a similar fashion. She picked up the glue pot and large brush.

"Do you want to do the honours or shall I?" She asked, holding the brush like it was a holy sword.

Khymarah smiled and nodded sagely. She liked daisies.



The redhead took the brush.

"I'll do this part. Some how I think you deserve the honours of putting the feathers on. It seems to be the most significant part." With that she began slopping the thick goop onto the man starting at the feet.

Fion felt an almost ironic flush of warmth.

"Aw, thank you Khy." She said sincerely, "You're a good friend."

She avoided looking at Gordain's face. Every time she felt even a smattering of guilt about what she was doing, she just remembered hearing the bakery creak as it burned and the sound of Hania's sobs when she'd thought Jott was dead.

Gordain muttered a little in his sleep, his eyelids flickering, but did not wake. He was out like a light.

It occured to Fion that she didn't want Gordain to get the message before everyone else did. She pulled her knife from her thigh holster and carefully cut off one of his sleeves, tying it around his eyes. Gagging him would serve no purpose and might even asphyxiate him while he slept. She certainly didn't want that, the man didn't deserve it. He did deserve feathers.

She waited until Khy finished painting on glue before pulling out her bag of feathers. She carefully tipped them over his chest, avoiding his face and bare arm, all the way down to his feet. He looked ridiculous, which was roughly the point.

"Hey Khy," Fion said, brushing a few stray feathers from her skirt, not wanting the evidence on her person, "Do you want to pain the yellow C or shall I?"

She was a little tired now. Vigilantism was obviously not the career path for her.

Khymarah picked up the paint and smiled.

"I can do it, I've already got a brush." With that, she began to paint, it was a fancy type of C, rather embolished..and big. Standing back she admired her handy work and grinned at Fion.

"That is the silliest thing I have seen in a while."

Fion smiled like a wild thing.

"It sure is." She said, warmly. "Come on, let's get this claptrap put away, check we haven't left too many footprints and then hightail it home."

Fion picked up the glue pot and the feather bag.

"If you want I can make you a cup of tea before you go home. If we sneak in my back door no one will be the wiser."

Khymarah smiled once more at the sleeping, very odd looking man and turned to Fion.

"I would just love that dear. Your tea is so lovely."

((Heh hehe. The 'poor poor' man had it coming! Feathering is thirsty work.))