Episode 3.1 Caroline Beaumanoir and the Boondock Bagmen

A hardcore spin on NeedAMedic's new Bravos system.

This is a dice-rolling story.

Cold bites back against Caroline as she dunks her hand into cold river water, creating light, beautiful ripples that the sunlight above seems to bounce off joyously. It was a beautiful morning. Bright crisp clouds decorate the sky above as the sun inches to rise above the Northern mountain range, barely visible in the hazy distance. Beauty though, is often harsh. It was a frightfully cold morning. Especially for a noble teen such as Caroline. She felt the cold sink into her bones hours ago, the kind that lingers just beneath the skin, leaving you to chase another, stronger warmth.

"Warm bath..." Caroline coos to herself, as the deep red bloodstain latched to her hand begins to be stripped away in flecks, small particles of blood being absorbed into the river, trailing down the mountain to nowhere. Her pretty thin lips, usually covered in a light lipstick, are dry and cracked. Despite her being crouched in a bush, covered head to toe in adventuring gear, there was something in her eye that spoke new to her character. A unending determination to match her typical high brow pride.

There's a shift in the woods behind her, though this doesn't seem to disturb Caroline's many flights of thoughts running endlessly through her head. She learned to recognize the dark-skinned huntress's bootstep from the week she spent trailing behind her through the mountains. Caroline also learned to know that she was due for another droplet of enlightenment that got on her nerves in about... three seconds.

"Y'know, gonna take more than a river bath to get pig blood off ya." Kiri hollers from behind, putting her curly locks up into a fast and loose bun, as she crouches over the pair's aforementioned prey. Two arrows remain stuck in the pigs side as it lie in the dirt, as well as a lithe red hand print belonging to the noblewoman. "Fingers are gonna be frozen stiff now. Too stiff for cuttin', anywho." Kiri glances over to Caroline, who remains still against the riverbed, watching the violent ripples in the water. She looked beautiful, even now, her small form curled up as the water laps against her. It was not a typical noblewoman's place. It got to Kiri.

"I've been thinking..." The huntress begins, pulling her knife free as her attention is hung taught on the corpse, beginning to carve a delicate slice along it's underside. "Wondering, anyway, if this is something you're set on doin'?" A scoff frees itself from Caroline's throat.

"If you have anywhere more important to be, you are free to make reservations elsewhere in the world. I do not need your protection." She finally frees her head from riverbed and tosses it back to Kiri, who feels as if she's slamming against a brick wall.

"It's not safe here, and it's most certainly not safe where you're going." Kiri lukewarmly fires back, making a more brash cut against the pig's softened skin.

"It's not safe anywhere, as Dieudonne's little party taught me." Caroline protests, leading to Kiri's silence. Kiri merely glances at her before continuing to cut at the pig's flesh, her expression guarded. "If I am correct, my sister needs me. You reckon I should let her be caught underhanded by... thugs?" Swayed by words, Kiri abandons her knife and wanders over and takes her place close to Caroline's side.

"Fair enough." Criss-crossing her legs as she looks over to Caroline, she smiles. "How 'bout I get a fire going? We can warm up till the sun's high."

Caroline nods, harmonizing with the huntress's thinking. "Then we keep going. Home's only a day ahead of us." The teen's head follows Kiri as she spins about, jaunting back towards their makeshift evening stay. Caroline had grown accustomed to her, and her odd Southern wisdom. Just as she had grown used to the road. It was only because the chambers of her bedroom had only proved to make her feel wary since Emmaline left her again, for another bout of humble adventuring life. What good had that stay done her? It left her captured, defenseless. It gave her only the knowledge that led her out here, away from everything she had known. Her tireless night life replaced by vigorous evenings alone in her room training.

Yet, she was out here for her sister. A woman she had learned to despise as long as she had grown. Yet now she cared for her more than she ever had.

Caroline feels a drop of water on her forehead, turning her attention to the clouds above. They had become jagged in the hour, sinking a bit closer to the ground as they gather rain to hurl at the ground below.

"Hey, not a bad time to start a fire." Kiri grins to herself, brandishing a flint, and lighting a spark.