the days that bind us

[exequy]

WHO: Lots of people
WHAT: Recovering lost phylacteries
WHEN: Guardian 23, 9:44
WHERE: The Storm Coast
NOTES: Violence! OOC post over here.

All signs point to the Storm Coast, and once scouts have narrowed down the location it's only a short journey across the Waking Sea to move a small force onto the rocky coast. They row ashore just after dawn in driving rain, and follow the beach for at least a mile before finding a path that actually reaches the top of the cliff. The rain fades to a drizzle but the day remains relentlessly overcast as they hike toward their goal, grey and dim even at noon, with a raw breeze off the water.

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[exequy]

“I have faced armies with You as my shield, and though I bear scars beyond counting, nothing can break me except Your absence,” she’s saying when Kostos steps through the door behind her, on her knees before a statue of Andraste and candles left unlit in the chaos. She doesn’t pause. “When I have lost all else, when my eyes fail me and the taste of blood fills my mouth, then in the pounding of my heart I hear the glory of creation.”

She doesn’t pause, and Kostos doesn’t interrupt her. He stands there silently, wondering—hoping, because he’s tired and he’s angry—that his silent presence will unnerve her enough to make her acknowledge him first. If anyone else comes in, he holds up a hand to encourage them to be quiet.

Her shoulders set more tightly and she sits up straighter, maybe nervous, maybe waiting for a knife in the back and planning to accept it with dignity, like a martyr.

They might be an even match for stubbornness.

[foundmyselfagain]

Maybe it's the Sister that's lucky that someone with more rash impatience shows up--maybe it's Kostos. It's hard to say who is better served by Gareth marching into the room. His mouth is already opened, when Kostos raises a hand. As the man is one of two people that Gareth actually listens to, his mouth shuts again, but is replaced by a grim frown.

He can only take so much of listening to her drone on about the Chant, however, before his clenched fists open and lightning sparks between his palms. "She deserves it," He hisses to Kostos, and only one twitch of a shoulder indicates that the Sister has heard. "And she doesn't seem to care. Give her what she wants, or let her poison more people with her words."

[exequy]

Kostos tenses. It’s subtler than the Sister’s twitching shoulder, mainly in his jaw and the way he doesn’t look at Gareth when otherwise he might have. He says, “She can’t poison anyone from a cell.”

Whether that makes her braver or more desperate to die first, he couldn’t say, but it makes her switch tack, lifting her chin and moving to another canticle entirely: “Foul and corrupt are they who have taken His gift and turned it against His children. They shall be named Maleficar, accursed ones. They shall find no—“

“That’s enough,” Kostos says, finally speaking to her directly, and steps forward. She doesn’t stop talking, doesn't take his offered hand, and when he stoops to try to lift her by the arms, her legs stay limp.

He looks back at Gareth. Beneath the general stress and sobriety in his expression, there's a hint of I cannot fucking believe we have to drag her out of here.

[foundmyselfagain]

There's a shift in Gareth's attitude when he hears that word. Maleficar. He fully turns towards her, body tense, expression blank, save for a positively dangerous look in his eyes. On top of everything else, on top of all the bullshit these people have put him and his friends through, she dares to try to lecture him, to remind him of just what the damned Maker, the damned Chantry, and everyone else thought of him, because of the magic that he never asked for?

It's never enough for them. The misery of mages is a thirst that the Chantry can't seem to quench. What would be enough for them? When all mages lay dead at their feet?

Gareth takes a few purposeful steps towards the sister, his eyes too wide, too intent. The Sister is no idiot, and is quite aware of what that look means. There's no fear in her expression as she closes her eyes, voice rising, even as Gareth snarls, "I'll show you what a maleficar--"

He freezes midstep, midsentence, to turn to look at Kostos, as though he just remembered that the other man was there. His eyes meet Kostos', an angry fire blazing, willing to burn everything else down with him. It's a look Kostos has undoubtedly seen before, one that usually predicates a great deal of violence. But he doesn't take any more steps forward. His body is still tense, shaking with barely restrained rage. But it is being restrained, which is a fairly new concept in Garethland.

His fists clench, unclench, and finally he hisses, his tone insistent, almost pleading. "She deserves it."

But he doesn't move any further forward. And despite it all, the man who stands there, staring at Kostos, wanting but waiting, is an improvement from the one who had first showed up to this war. Would he have even hesitated? Even when he had joined Nell's cell? It's doubtful.