Chapter wordcount:1.3K Rating:Mature Warning: MIB’s POV again. And Lawrence being Lawrence……. just as hard.
Author’s notes: Aaand now let’s shuffle the deck again. And raise.
Ask box always open! I really want to know what you think about this story!
— Chapter 47
The scraping of hooves on the pebbles, the growing unison or restless horses… Those nags were abnormally loud, this morning. In spite of his sense of alert, it still was only the cocking sound of guns that pulled William out of his sleep for good; in front of him was standing a row of hosts, on foot and riding — masked, other naked, a few gunslingers — and he bolted upright, back against his saddle in the face of a colt aimed right at his forehead, his hand reaching for his own weapon beside him. But it wasn’t there anymore.
“Don’t even bother to try…”
William knew that voice very well, and all the polite hatred aimed at him he could hear in it.
“Ah, Teddy…” He sighed, almost as put out as he was amused, but he raised his hands. “Are we going to do this again?”
He scoffed before adding, cocky:
“You’refree enough to kill me, this time?”
In fact, he was actually a little scared at the moment; his plan of attack was completely fucked, now! The outcome would still be real, on top of pretty ironic, but if William still had a choice, he would have preferred to fight Dolores. Not her watchdog. By the way, where was his own now — would one of those have gotten a sledge or a cleaver to him, too?!
He shot a brief glance at the row of hosts that was closing as a half-circle around him, but there was no trace of Lawrence.
“Right now, you’re coming with us.” Teddy carried on, ignoring his taunt. “Get up!”
As he was invited to — and planning to, anyway — William stood up, in no hurry. He looked all around; one of the bandits on horseback was holding Teddy’s by the reins, a little farther behind those masked hosts. One of them was tightening and loosening his fist on the handle of a cutlass, visibly eager to slash it across his face.
“Why would I come with you?” William wondered, readjusting his jacket and vest. “I’m perfectly fine on my own.”
And,on his own, he surely was since Lawrence had disappeared, or got killed — killed for having been the one watching over him, if what he had brought up the previous night was to be believed. In that moment, William regretted not to have been a bit more curious then.
“For the same reason you are following us,” Teddy replied, without lowering his gun.
“I thought you didn’t want to kill me!” William laughed.
It was a bit of an admittance of his intentions, but it was also a nice opportunity to test Teddy’s limits. The latter, for now, had a little more in his eyes than that sulky, harmless anger William knew him. And that, since Ford had tickled his code, or whatever it was he’d done that night, back in Rattlecreek.
Now, if he had understood and felt threatened by the answer, Teddy didn’t flinch, jaw clenched, and gestured him to move with the barrel of his gun. The row of hosts split like a guard of honor and then, William felt a burst of frustration when his eyes landed on Lawrence, a good two yards right in front of him, unscathed and weapon in his holster, tying the horses to the horn of his saddle.
Motherfucker… William internally grumbled. And this same motherfucker turned to him, relaxed and with a cocky smile which made his seethe.
“What the… What did you do, you dipshit?!”
“What does it look like?” Lawrence retorted.
William scoffed; it looked like a furious urge to unload his gun in his guts! He slowly shook his head.
“Didn’t you want to catch up on that girl, Dolores?” He faked his surprise. “I made certain you did! They can bring you to her.”
Jutting his chin and with a smartass smile, he pointed at Teddy behind him.
“So, I found a way to arrange a meetin’.”
“You ungrateful bastard…” William grumbled, shaken by a repressed laugh. “What about the girl you wanted to protect by ending all this?”
Lawrence came forth, letting the reins fall to the ground.
“Ain’t she safe where she is, now?”
The sarcasm felt a bit irritating to William.
“Did she program you from up there to… turn on me, and run back to her?” he then retorted on the same tone. “I thought you were free of your choices…”
But Lawrence brushed his taunt off with a nod and a lopsided smile.
“No, she didn’t do anythin’…”
He stepped forward a little more, walking down the path made by those masked faces with the same confidence he had seen him show around the Confederados in the streets of Pariah, as if the very ideas of these same goons hadn’t made him shake in his boots the night before as much as the Ghost braves used to!
“And I want to put an end to all that bullshit alright,” he continued, stopping right in front of him, close enough to throw hands. “But you seem to think your girlfriend and her posse are the only ones that need stoppin’. That ain’t how it looks to me…”
William gritted his teeth and nodded slowly, resigned. Now, he was starting to get what this shrewd asshole was pulling to him!
“What about those mercenaries and other blackcoat assholes?” he brought up. “They are the ones who keep me from getting out of here, them also who tried to kill my tech, and gunned down the friends who tried to protect her.”
This revelation surprised William; why would the response teams or the hirelings of Delos’ crisis unit — he wasn’t sure who Lawrence was on about in this specific case — have wanted to kill a Behavor tech?! Save for being idiots and mistaking her for a host?
This question made him furrow his brows. He had the unpleasant feeling that something was still eluding him.
“Yeah,” Lawence insisted, nodding to his reaction. “They’re my enemy, and the one they work for as well…”
William grinned.
“Like you said, you own this place.” Lawrence then reminded him. “Way I see it, you’re as much a threat to be dealt with about now.”
“Do you really think those idiots will be enough to get rid of them?”
William shot a glance at Teddy above his shoulder before continuing:
“You don’t know shit, Lawrence!”
And on his end, he felt a quick shiver of panic. Not that he was afraid so to speak… It was more about the fact that he didn’t want someone to decide that the best course of action would be to pull the plug before he could have finished what he was determined to do because of this setback.
“You don’t know what’s outside this park, what they’re gonna do to handle the situation…”
“You’re right,” Lawrence interrupted him. “Maybe I don’t… but I remembered a lot since I learned the hard truth.”
And he added with one of his insolent smiles and a nod:
“Thanks to you!”
There was a bit of bustle around them; a horse snorted and a few of the gunslingers made their mounts turn back.
“I told you once.”
And William flinched at how serious Lawrence’s face suddenly was, and the knowing look he had for Teddy.
“If I had to do it all again, I’d fuck you both over…”
A rifle butt behind William’s head made him fall to his knees in a grunt, ears ringing and all his perceptions blurred.
“Just as hard.”
Those words were the last thing he had a grip on before passing out for real, and falling glat on the ground. That was a shit morning…
I wanted to make it very clear that the man in black / Westley is a pirate. So I used loose billowy clothes that also made him feel bigger and intimidating.
Horse is a Jutland horse, native to Denmark (which is what’s in between Sweden and Germany). It’s a draft horse, so good for farming, which is where Buttercup grew up, on a farm. I also wanted Horse and Westley’s design to somewhat mirror each other. Since Buttercup grew up on a farm, I did not want her to look dainty.
Buttercup’s story is more than just about love, it’s also about freedom. I realised that freedom was the core to her character. Her horse riding, doesn’t care what others think, and wild personality is all about freedom. I wanted her hair to flow with the wind, for her and her hair feel full of life. In the book, Buttercup had red hair. For her to have such a bold hair colour, especially one that in Europe during the medieval period was not considered desirable, felt right. Her hair and her personality is a defiance to the standard of beauty and of how a woman “should” be. That someone as bold as her would be considered the most beautiful woman in the world felt pretty badass. Having red hair (kinda vermillion) also provided opportunity to work with Humperdinck’s more blood red. When wearing her presentation dress as Princess of Hammersmith (despite the title of Princess, it is a title that does not sound dainty), Humperdinck’s red on her dress subdues the boldness of Buttercup’s red hair. Combining this with a restrictive design for her presentation dress and of her hairstyle, her design become reflective of her situation as a prisoner.
But when on her daily ride her dress can flow and her bright, bold, red hair is free.
With Vizzini I was trying to combine the feeling of baby angels from old renaissance paintings, sinister-ish expressions, and ringmaster, plus dash of gaudiness. I made Vizzini prominently red so that there would be a transfer of association from Vizzini in the first half to Humperdinck in the latter half. The colour red and the pawns on his design apart from being on theme for his character can also serve as foreshadowing, that he is not the overarching antagonist.
Sometimes due to Fezzik’s backstory of working in Greenland, people mistake him for being Greenlandic but it was clearly stated that Fezzik is a Turkish wrestler. It was important that his design made it very clear that he was not European. In the books, he is described as hairy, large, and gorilla-like in appearance. By dividing his head into three sections (upper head, cheeks, and mouth-chin) keeping the graphic shape of his head across different angles was made easier. To determine the direction of Fezzik’s overall design the emphasis was established (his arms), inspiration was taken from circus strongmen, then combined with a strong but soft and lovable feeling.
The general direction of Inigo’s features was clear early on, but his head shape did undergo many iterations. His final head shape design has a clear and readable graphic iconography even in different angles. Its iconic integrity is easily maintained but can be difficult to draw, because of that a diagram was made to show how the structure of his head.
It was important to make sure Inigo and the man in black’s silhouettes were distinguishable from one another. So I tried to pull their designs in opposite directions. Inigo’s leaning towards a more slender swish-flick feel and the man in black’s to a larger, billowy, and intimidating direction.
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