faderift | I like big dragons and I cannot lie

To Hanzo, this is a revelation. There's something beautiful in seeing something so large and incredible standing - laying? - in front of him, especially when he's had dragons tattooed on his arm for as long as he can remember, has had spirits that take their shape for as long as that, too, but now... Seeing one in person makes him feel something deeply that he had never imagined himself being able to feel again, not after everything that had happened over the last decade.

He moves and stands at the front of the party, eyes completely locked on the beast, almost ignorant of everything that's happening around him until he hears Merrill speaks, his head tilted slightly.

"Wait until she moves. She might think it was a threat."

The voyage was only a little awkward for Anduin. His landing was inelegant but safe. It took him a little longer than the others to extricate himself from the tack and find somewhere safe to tie the animal with good cover from the air. He was now more or less used to how different these griffins were to those of Azeroth. It was like learning a new language, he reflected; that was another experience he was becoming familiar with. He would need to seek training if he hoped to go on many missions like this...

He stands at the back of the group, his eyes widening as he steps out into the clearing. "Wow," he breathes. She's... beautiful and terrible. It hardly seems credible but she's even larger than a dragon aspect. A shiver runs through him and he rubs his back as if something were crawling there. He tears his gaze away only long enough to glance at his companions. "So, are we sure that we can't... reason with her?"

"Reason? With a great dragon? One might as well try to reason with a raging sandstorm." Inessa, quiet and withdrawn until now, stares wide-eyed at the immense creature and wonders if her plan to throw herself back into work as hard as possible has backfired. She has faced many things as a Grey Warden, some with those in her company now, but this...this has exceeded any of those memories by far.

Noting the staring contest as well, she frowns in concern and shakes her head at Merrill, forcing calm into her voice. "Hanzo has a point. Let's see what happens, first." That said, she keeps her staff in hand, ready to act at a moment's notice.

"What happens," Alistair echoes. He has his sword out already, but he doesn't raise it, mostly because he's pretty sure sudden movements are going to get them all toasted. "What happens is she eats us. I told you—"

He has not told anyone anything. He was actually fairly quiet on the way here, between the combined awe and terror of flying and occasional miserable drifts back to the thought of Calenhad Theirin, father of Ferelden and Chantry Anointed, guzzling blood from a dragon and uniting the clans with a reaver's dark force.

"—my face looks especially edible."

But he moves forward, a few tentative steps, shield ready but low. It's unfortunate she's awake, but there are eight of them. The odds have been worse.

Nathaniel has not dismounted from Blanche. The dragon could take off at any minute; he would like to have the same advantage.

"If she attacks," he says to the others, "I want Inessa and Anders in the air with me. Melée fighters stay on the ground. She will fight us both in the air and down below, so we should be prepared to meet her on both fronts."

He says nothing about Alistair, but he knows exactly what the dragon sees in him. Perhaps they can work such a thing, whatever it is, to their advantage. In one pocket is the amulet that was used to cure Fiona, the one that accelerates the progress of the taint, wrapped in thick leather to keep its bearer safe from its effects. One way or another, this is a watershed moment for their Blight research.

He pause, halfway to dismounting, as Nate gives the command. With a nod Anders settles back in Buggsy's saddle, patting the uncomfortable griffon.

"Maybe Alistair bathed in flavored soap," he says quietly. The relative stillness lasts for several excruciating seconds longer as she looks at the group, particularly Hanzo who has stepped forward. Then, after one more look at Alistair the dragon rears up on her hind legs and roars loudly. She's massive. A sweep of her wings sends a powerful gust at the party before she thuds back onto all fours and bellows a challenge. ...or perhaps it's a warning, because the ice that follows it hits the trees above the party rather than the party themselves.

The sound itself is like a shockwave: The roar, the blood in his ears, the snap of the ice slamming into the trees and cracking them under the weight. Anduin closes his eyes against it and holds out his hand, cupped. His mouth is moving and faintly those near can make out that he is singing softly in a strange language.

"Light shine upon us all," he says as a golden mist fills his hand. "Let courage fill us so that there remains no place to give fear entrance to our hearts." All around the party it seems the sunlight has grown brighter, warmer just for a moment. As Anduin opens his eyes, they are clear. His hand moves to his side, prepared to draw Shalamayne.

Ghostface rears back on his hind legs in a mimic of the dragon, wings flared. He hisses through his beak as he lands, wings still spread to make himself appear larger. Merrill hisses with him under her breath, already casting Arcane Wall to help deflect any ice from above from the group - and any further ice she wants to breathe at them.

"That was definitely her moving," she says, in case anyone wants to argue. She doesn't particularly feel that anyone here should be turned into a popsicle just because they don't want to upset the dragon. "She almost certainly has dragonlings and drakes with her, if the Venatori haven't gone through them already."

Despite her caution regarding the dragon, Merrill does sound a bit sad about the prospect. They're creatures trying to survive, just like any other. The drakes trying to protect the young would be the first to be killed, she imagines; the dragonlings after, if they couldn't be controlled - and wasn't the idea of the Venatori rearing a clutch of dragonlings a horrible thought?

Potato reacts just as well as her siblings, which is to say not well. Inessa, climbing back aboard after hearing Nathaniel, and wincing at the sheer force of the roar, is nearly thrown off as the light grey griffon rears back and joins the hissing, only managing not to by the thinnest of margins. If their bond had been any newer, it would have happened.

So much for waiting, then. As Merrill casts her own spell, the elven warden adds to that with a barrier once Potato gives her the chance to act. Then she'll urge her mount to back up, keeping an eye on the great beast and ready to renew her spell the moment it fades.

Val is having the time of his life, which is not easily achieved, because he has had a lot of marvelous experiences and adventures which he could mark as "the time of his life", until his next great adventure or discovery comes along to displace it. To date, none of them have involved riding living actual griffons to look at an actual living great dragon, so this time of his life will likely be very difficult to dethrone.

Which is to say that he is right there at the front of things, nearly the first to dismount from his griffon. Crossbow, no sword. Chawcey, exquisite creature that he is, has been left out of range of any immediate attacks. Even from this distance, the griffon hisses his apprehension with his siblings, as the great dragon reacts.

Instinctively, Val ducks low. The ice has passed overhead. He looks back, in the direction it went. Trees, flash-frozen.

"Astonishing," he says to himself. He swings around his satchel to get his writing book. "It is a warning--it must be! Like the dry bite, or the warning signal--a greater scale, of course, in deference to her type--so little is known of them, but their intelligence cannot be underestimated. There might be reason. We cannot attack first!"

"Right," he says slowly, patting Buggsy who is about ready to book it into the trees. She's used to people, not dragons, and he can't blame her. Nothing she's come across before has dwarfed her like this.

The scholarly excitement can be... mostly understood. If the dragon wasn't fully capable of eating them and then still wanting to eat more, Anders might join him in it. As it is, he watches Val with a little apprehension. "Perhaps keep your eyes more on her? Than the writing?"

Nate's in charge, but that doesn't mean Anders can't try to keep someone from becoming a new ice statue. "Nate?"

Nathaniel doesn’t respond right away. He is scanning the battlefield, or what is about to become the battlefield. Blanche’s feathers ruffle, her wings opening to make herself look larger as she tries to stare the dragon down. Then she hears a noise, looks behind, and shrieks. That’s when the hair on the back of Nate’s neck stands up.

“Behind us!” he yells just before the fireball hits.

It lands directly in the middle of the party, sending people and griffons alike flying in all directions. It hits Anduin and Alistair hardest, with Anders and Nate catching the edge of it. Hanzo and Inessa are practically untouched. Nathaniel’s head spins as he tries to pick himself up and check on Blanche. Behind them are three venatori advancing on them quickly. Blanche has a few singed feathers, but she is flapping and shrieking in front of Nathaniel, claws bared threateningly. The venatori hesitate upon seeing the griffons. The dragon growls.

Potato lets out an angry shriek, nearly unseating Inessa again as she manages to maneuver sufficiently away from the blast. Wincing at the sheer noise and rush of heat, Inessa stops clinging after a moment and straightens to have a look at the aftermath. She hisses in concern upon noting where the blast struck hardest and sends a Heal spell at Alistair...Anduin, too, if there's time. Hopefully the blue energy settling over them will be enough for now.

The sight of the Venatori has Hanzo moving before anything else; the dragon is meaningless to him in the face of these people. All he can picture in his mind is his family wearing these colours, these robes, declaring themselves fools and villains in comparison to what Tevinter is supposed to be. It gnaws at him and he feels so uncomfortable that he can barely handle himself.

Moving forward, he draws his bow, moving around the fire and the movements of his fellows.

"I will take them," he says, nodding his head. His bow glows lightly as his eyes narrow, his body shifting as he moves forward. "The dragon will keep them at some distance for now."

Merrill shrieks just as loudly as Ghostface does. The pair of them are sent sprawling; Ghostface had attempted to dodge and not quite made it, and the smell of burnt feathers and fur fills the air. Merrill's almost unseated; she has to push herself up with her staff, but she's quite happy she cast that first spell. This would be worse otherwise.

"Up- up we go-" Ghostface rocks onto his haunches and flaps his wings, screeching a challenge. His attention has come away from the dragon, and for now, Merrill's more focused on the Venatori as well. Hanzo steps forward and she calls down from where Ghostface is rising. "I'll help cover you!"

Divide the targets, make the three Venatori have to work all the harder -- and the dragon too, for that matter.

The thing that alerts Alistair most quickly to the fact that something other than a dragon is attacking them is not the fact that it's fire—because why wouldn't a great damned dragon the size of a fortress be able to breathe both ice and fire, sure, it's already a nightmare, why not make it a bit worse—or the fact that it came from another direction—because it could be another dragon, that would also make sense—but the fact that, for fire, it doesn't hurt that badly.

It hurts, obviously. It burns. But it's the muted burn of magical fire butting up against magic resistance, plus Merrill's spell. He sucks air through his teeth while Inessa's magic does its work, but he's already moving, too, to cleanse any lingering fire and to make sure de Foncé and his book are shielded until he can (hopefully, if he has a lick of sense in his excitable Orlesian head) put the book away.

He looks at the dragon, too, to shout, "Don't you dare attack us." Not because he thinks it will listen. It probably doesn't, you know, speak Trade. But it makes him feel a little better about turning his back on it to focus on the Vints, who are not four stories tall.

The force of the blast knocked Anduin off his feet. He was burning, then, he wasn't, and before he could recover his feet there was a blue light. Anduin turns and fixes his eyes on one of the men behind them, on the one staring back to him, his hands still wreathed in flame.

Shalamayne still clipped to his side, Anduin extends a hand towards the mage. Light, golden, unbearably bright flares in his outstretched hand. There is not a moment's hesitation as Anduin pours his determination, the justness of what he does into it. The light arcs in a scintillating beam, a burning no arcane power can dispel. Anduin doesn't stop to see what remains of the mage as the light fades.

He steps around to guard Alistair's back, keeping a wary eye on the dragon without making eye contact- that would be bad, right? He draws his father's sword.

There's pain for a short moment, fire searing his skin. and then he's reacting in a second, healing the damage and keeping his head clear as best he can. Anders gives Nate a shake of his head as he lands his griffon; he's not really going to be any use in the air trying to fight and heal, and the Venatori may be the biggest threat. ...In a manner of speaking. He urges Bugsy up, away from the combat, in what may not have been the smartest move ever/

He casts haste on Hanzo, Alistair, and Anduin, the other three on the ground, as the Venatori close in.

One of the Venatori is already bringing up another fireball, taking his time to make it larger. He flings it forward at the group in the air. The second has his hands glowing a purple-black when a beam of light strikes him fully in the chest and he stumbles back, shouting in pain and fear.

The third eyes them all before his eyes narrow and he sends a bolt of ice past the party to strike the dragon. It's clearly not enough to do significant damage, but it is enough to get her roaring in more anger and blowing ice again. The ice is generally aimed toward the Venatori, but it's fairly clear that the dragon isn't being entirely picky about most of the small figures darting around when it's her getting hurt.

Up in the air, Merrill feels closer to the elements. Ghostface shrieks a battlecry beneath her and she can't help but grin. She raises her staff and lightning comes down from the sky, striking at the Venatori's position. If there's anyone hidden, hopefully she'll be able to flush them out. If not... well, hopefully they'll be able to get the Venatori out of the way before they completely antagonize the dragon.

Seeing the fireball streaking toward them, Inessa manages to renew her Barrier spell in time...though just barely, and the flames curling around them make her shudder even so. Potato squawks; unsinged, but outraged nonetheless. Promising her griffon that revenge is to come, she follows up Merrill's attack with one of her own.

Once Potato is in position, Inessa taps into her power as a rift mage and directs it at the mage who was antagonizing the dragon. Recreating her fist from the essence of the Fade, she brings it down upon him without mercy. If the rest are close enough to smash into the ground as well, so be it.

I like big dragons and I cannot lie

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