faderift | You can't concern yourself with bigger things

WHO: New rifters & their helpful rescuers
WHAT: People fall out of a rift and get attacked by stuff, it's pretty old hat by now (sorry Jefferson).
WHEN: Solace 7
WHERE: High in the Frostbacks, within a day of Skyhold.
NOTES: This log is open to any characters who would have volunteered to go welcome the rifters, whose arrival sites can now be predicted, thank you Solas. Rifters are also welcome to begin RPing at Skyhold as soon as they are ready.

You were asleep--deeply or fitfully, for the last time or just resting your eyes for a moment-- and then you were not. And wherever you were was not, anymore, replaced by nothing but the sensation of falling, tumbling into endless, bottomless nothing. If this were still a dream, you would wake before you hit the ground. You can't die in a dream, they say. In some worlds.

In this world, something has definitely died. But not you; not yet. When the afterimage left by a flare of too-bright, greenish light fades, you will find yourself in a pile of bones, stripped by teeth and weather, bleached almost as white as the snow that covers most of the rocky, mountainous terrain around you. Beneath its threadbare blanket, it's easy to pick out heaps of earth and stone and debris arranged in a rough ring-shape on the ground around you and the rift that just spat you out. Almost like...a nest? Whatever might once have lived here, it must have been very large, because the bones scattered about are the size of large livestock, at the least. Some of the bare rocks show what look like marks from very large claws, and where snow doesn't cover, the stone looks suspiciously scorched. There are no recent tracks, but maybe that's a good thing.

Less good: the cluster of demons that is emerging from the rift to take over the job of killing you. Some are tall, spindly stick-things with too many eyes, some hunched and hooded with no eyes at all, others mere wisps of greenish light. None look friendly or familiar. Also unfamiliar is the narrow splinter of light the same sickly green as whatever brought you here that now glows out of the palm of your left hand. It aches, a bone-deep pain that gnaws even through all the distractions. Hopefully you can set it aside enough to pick up a bone club and get to work in self-defense, because there is no immediate sign of road or path or settlement anywhere to be seen.

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His own chest heaves with the effort, though he's keen to keep his head down, avoiding whatever is out there pouring out of that green light. It's a portal of some kind, but not any sort he's familiar with. There's something wrong there, uneven, almost like a tear...

"What?"

His head jerks back in her direction once it's clear she's talking to him. Sorry. Distracted. Say what now?

The world. That makes sense. Gauge where they are. He grits his teeth together, brow raising. "Well, I know a couple of places we're not, right off hand."

A few places they're not doesn't tell her where they are. She shakes her head at the comment, looking back in the direction they'd just run from. Trying to get back through the same portal that sent them here probably isn't going to work under the best circumstances, and definitely not with those things here to block them off.

"Any idea what those things were?" Stick-like and completely unsettling is all she's working with, magical if she considers the light. Her hand still throbs at the splinter and she reaches over abruptly, checking Jefferson's hand to see if it matches her own. "You too." Now that it's consistent, why is it consistent?

"Not friendly." He cranes his head back to look, seeing what he can without giving away their position. "At a guess? Monsters of some variety. They're not natural to this world, probably supernatural even by their standards."

It's speculation, but this isn't his first go in an unfamiliar land, and some story threads tend to remain similar throughout. There are patterns of repetition, if one knows where to look. Speaking of looking, however...

Jefferson grits his teeth, staring down at the speck of green glowing in his palm and flexing his fingers. "...it's magic, whatever it is." He sounds more than a little wary at that prospect, swallowing thickly. Magic, after all, always comes with a price.

"You think?" It's hard not to guess that from the glowing green light. Magic's a definite, dark or light has yet to be determined (although she's gonna swing towards the worst case scenario). What Emma knows for certain is that if he has it too, this isn't savior-related. At best it's a side effect of the portal that'll pass if they're lucky. If they're not, well, that's their default setting.

She also assumes it'll come with a price, yet she's spent so much time paying those it's easy to put that aside in the moment.

Their new problem is that they've already been in the same place for a few seconds, and it was probably a few seconds too long. "I'd say we could run or fight, but our best chance is probably running until something stops us." And then fighting, which might just be inevitable.

She can't tell, when she turns back to look, whether or not this will actually come to blows, but if it does - "You first." It's an order, but the kind where she's willing to follow because her exiting magic might give her the best shot at fighting them... assuming it works here.

Probably not the moment she wants to trust him at her back, anyway. Still, they're in a tight spot, and he's not inclined to throw her under the bus just yet. With a tight nod he tilts his head as far as he dares, to get a peek around the rocks. A passing shriek and a wave of cold skates past their hiding spot as a despair demon ricochets off the wall, but once it passes Jefferson launches himself like a shot.

There's a group of others, fighting the demons that are lingering around the glowing green rift, and as it pulses so too does the mark on his hand, a numb shock through his nerves. His fingers tighten as he bears his head down, trying to make it past the rock to whatever lies beyond this rocky ledge.

There has yet to be a moment in this world when she trusts anyone or anything but herself. Places like this are usually a trap, and if it's not the queen of hearts waiting to manipulate her, it's despair demons and an unfamiliar rescue party. She'd like to get a sense of her odds before she dives in, but one stick-like creature gets a little too close to the runaway hatter, and Emma swings her weapon to see what kind of contact she can make with something that barely looks real to her.

In some ways she's back to where she was when he decided to take matters into his own hands, skeptical and furious and somehow still willing to fight. It's like being trapped in a nightmare and waiting to wake up, but Emma's already aware that she's the only person she can count on here. She can't afford to wait around and see what happens.

Jefferson feels the thing's proximity, twisting around to get a look only to see Emma stepping up and swinging. And he's familiar with the strength in her arm.

So he drops to the ground almost immediately to avoid it, as the demon shrieks and turns its attention towards Emma. Long, sharp talons stretch from its fingers as it switches its tail back and forth in agitation.

He could take the moment and flee. It's no longer worried about him.

She hadn't been worried about helping him before. Why not?

She's still the savior, though. She's still the reason Grace remembers.

Panic is replaced quickly by a sort of mad determination before he shifts on the ground, aiming a kick for the back of the thing's knees. No matter what this thing is, that's bound to at least smart.

If she knew what he was thinking, she'd expect him to run for it. Hell, Emma expects it anyway, without having a second to spare for considering his feelings in all of this. If she did, maybe she'd remember she's not entirely blameless; she might even feel guilty for inadvertently helping Regina keep him from his child. It's just easier to expect less, especially when she's used to fighting on her own.

There are enough people fighting these things for her to know it can be done. They're not indestructible, just unfamiliar. She can work with the inconvenience of the thing that's coming in her direction, but what she'd like to avoid are the talons swinging her way. Emma is trying to back away when she watches the thing start to crumple over, and in hitting it when it goes down she's barely aware of Jefferson kicking at the creature. He's helping, not running. That's a little more courage than she was expecting from the Mad Hatter.

"Watch out!" She's pretty sure it's almost down for the count, but this time Jefferson isn't the intended target, and she'd like to keep him out of the way.

Oh, he's not courageous in the least. Courage is a far-flung and foreign thought. But daring? Desperation? A little madness? Those things are surprisingly close and often yield similar results.

Emma yells and he scrambles back a little further, before a spark of green flashes nearby and he has to shield his eyes. That energy crackles in sympathy with whatever is lodged inside of his hand -- which can't be a good sign -- and he grits his teeth before moving to stand again.

"Hurry!"

It's not that she isn't trying. She gets a good, devastating hit in before they're free of that threat, and all she can do in the moment is ignore the spark of magic in her hand. If it's going to be a bigger problem than anticipated, it's one they're going to have to deal with outside of this place.

People are fighting these things for a reason. They need to kill them or get clear of them before they can tackle their next problem.

As usual, there's more than enough of those to go around. "Let's go!" The question is where?

You can't concern yourself with bigger things

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