i'll be your shadow in the dark

[byblow]

WHO: Alistair, Dorian Pavus, Rafael Viteri, Scipio the Marvel, some horses, some darkspawn.
WHAT: Chekhov's vials of darkspawn blood.
WHEN: Early Firstfall.
WHERE: Mountain paths and what's left of Haven.

N—

Bunch of mining tunnels under ruins. Darkspawn peeking their heads through. Got Wardens up there don't you?

—J

Comments

please never stop

[byblow]

Alistair has his mouth full of porridge for most of the time they're talking, unaware of the science of enzymes but aware that the longer he holds it in his mouth the sweeter and less bland-mush-tasting it becomes. But he would not try to interrupt even if he didn't have his mouth full. He's decided to try a tactic where he lets them exhaust themselves--not utterly, not physically, but on the topic at hand--before he bothers getting a word in.

Anyway, they're funny. He looks very obviously like a person who is trying not to smile.

"That is more or less the plan," he says, "but you have to wear at least a little armor, and shoes, and we'll have the mage. At a distance. He's not immune." Neither are they, technically, with the Calling as obnoxious proof. But they're more immune than the Tevinter. "If they have a mage, you need to stay back until we've handled it. Otherwise you can--" He wiggles one hand and his mostly-empty mug in an approximation of what he imagines people who fight with smaller and less clunky armor must feel like. "--flank away."