Myr's the last to realize what they've stumbled upon--though he suspected--as he stands there with his back to the wall trying to regulate his breathing. "We've got to get them out," Kit says; who are they? Myr thinks for a split-second to ask, until one of the little ones whimpers aloud and it clicks--
Children. Elven children, five of them, penned up like livestock with one blanket between them and the damp chill of a Kirkwall night. The youngest isn't even crawling yet--couldn't, as weak and emaciated as she is--and the oldest is barely a toddler. All they've got for company is the beaten, rotting corpse of an elven slave--Tevinter, by the clothing--that's half-eaten with corruption already. (A burst, flattened waterskin lying nearby, just beyond the slave's outflung hand, suggests a probable cause for the crime.)
"Leave him alive, Kit." It's only the thinnest shreds of self-control that keep Myr's voice just above a snarl. "He'll know something about this." There's no way the guard couldn't have heard them in here, when they were still strong enough to cry. Whatever had his employers told him to make him ignore it, a disconnected intellectual part of Myr wonders. Whatever would be sufficient repayment for the evil of obeying them?
He steps away from the wall, careful as ever, hand upraised--pauses, remembering who he's with. "Going to cast something," he warns, tone level now he can think about what he can do rather than what he wants to. "Sina--how many are there?" How many can you carry and still run?
He punctuates the question with a sharp gesture of his open hand and a muttered word; the Fade warps subtly around him at the focus of the spell, contracts to a pinprick near his heart before it brightens into a faint steady golden glow. The aura's warmth and strength together, meant to bolster flagging allies in the middle of a battle; it'll do for the extra reserves they need to carry the children out of here. It's even got some comforting affect on the kids themselves, quieting the weak and fractious fussing, stilling the shivering.
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Children. Elven children, five of them, penned up like livestock with one blanket between them and the damp chill of a Kirkwall night. The youngest isn't even crawling yet--couldn't, as weak and emaciated as she is--and the oldest is barely a toddler. All they've got for company is the beaten, rotting corpse of an elven slave--Tevinter, by the clothing--that's half-eaten with corruption already. (A burst, flattened waterskin lying nearby, just beyond the slave's outflung hand, suggests a probable cause for the crime.)
"Leave him alive, Kit." It's only the thinnest shreds of self-control that keep Myr's voice just above a snarl. "He'll know something about this." There's no way the guard couldn't have heard them in here, when they were still strong enough to cry. Whatever had his employers told him to make him ignore it, a disconnected intellectual part of Myr wonders. Whatever would be sufficient repayment for the evil of obeying them?
He steps away from the wall, careful as ever, hand upraised--pauses, remembering who he's with. "Going to cast something," he warns, tone level now he can think about what he can do rather than what he wants to. "Sina--how many are there?" How many can you carry and still run?
He punctuates the question with a sharp gesture of his open hand and a muttered word; the Fade warps subtly around him at the focus of the spell, contracts to a pinprick near his heart before it brightens into a faint steady golden glow. The aura's warmth and strength together, meant to bolster flagging allies in the middle of a battle; it'll do for the extra reserves they need to carry the children out of here. It's even got some comforting affect on the kids themselves, quieting the weak and fractious fussing, stilling the shivering.