PRIDE BEFORE A FALL | Closed.

[limier]

WHO: Lakshmi + Coupe, Kitty, Gwenaelle, Helena, Iorveth, Marcoulf, Merrill, Solas.
WHAT: Fade cannonball
WHEN: You can't make me date you
WHERE: The Free Marches
NOTES: OOC Post, Discussion plurk.

This is routine.

A rift, high above the ruins of the Hammer’s Edge Bridge. It cuts into the sky, green and pulsing as a wound to spit out spirits like misery. This is routine — but the position is precarious, so near to a cliff ledge. Watch your footing, a fall promises only sharp rocks and water below.

The task is straightforward: Close the tear, or provide a diversion for the Rifters doing so. Keep yourself alive, and keep your hand to the task, no matter how it aches. When respite comes, it’s a matter of seconds: The Rift stabilizes, and,

And Lakshmi breaks from the group. Moving fast (too considered for the pace, every demon dodged, never a misstep on the odd root or rock) as she sprints for the edge. Maybe you tried to grab her, stop her, stop someone else from grabbing her.

She launches herself legs out, flatly determined in her aim —

Maybe it’s only that like it or not, she’s going through that rift. Maybe it’s that there’s no good reason not to join her. Maybe it’s that everyone else is jumping too.

Routine, right?

 

Comments

THE FADE | solo or group threads

[limier]

Welcome to the Fade.

You shouldn’t be here. Gods have walked here, and those who'd dare become them. The place itself is damning to know — any mage can attest.

But this is no dream. Air ripples like water, crags of bare earth float suspended above you. Water falls upwards, shimmers into void. The vestiges of forgotten times and places glimmer between shadow, intimate as they are barren. Listen closely and you'll hear the call of a brother, the weeping of a mother, the soft breath of an animal in the night. The Fade remembers.

Disorientation rules: Hard to know up from down, or your own skin from another’s. The others — oh. Right, them. Did you land with or on them?

You’re on the roof of a complex of ruins (the black city lurking distant). Those with you flicker, and looking too long at each other will find the group’s appearances altered, reflecting your perceptions of each other. The changes aren’t physical, and they aren't uniform,

But keeping your thoughts to yourself just got a great deal more difficult. There seems to be only one way to make it stop: Talking about it. To each other.

Ugh.

ota

[limier]

Her hand's come loose from Lakshmi's shoulder (the sprint of metal over earth, a shout: What the fuck are you doing —) somewhere between here and there, there and here. And here is,

"Maker."

Not quite. It's a rare thing to see Wren freeze; she's frozen now, head thrown back in open, stupid awe. Fumbling up, she grips for her sword against all rational impulse. Still feels better for it in hand. What's she going to do, fight the Fade?

Because this is the Fade. This can't be, but it is. The look she turns on the person nearest manages to imply, beneath horror, that this is all their fault.

[strangel]

Helena's lip is caught in a snarl, and looks up to the Coupe with a quick, feral motion. Her bow is on her back, and there is a knife in each hand.

"What is this?"

[limier]

Helena looks wild: A mass of tooth and curl set at spider's angle. Wren's knuckles tighten —

She blinks and it's gone again. For a moment, for now. Only Helena (is there such a thing?), crouched upon a roof. Only Helena, crouched upon a roof in the Fade.

An uncertain step over mismatched shingles; her knee shakes. This is a bad place to keep an open blade, too easy to take a spill. But like hell is she sheathing it just now, not with who knows what here. Not with who knows who. Because as she opens her mouth to speak, something of Helena's features again recede, eyes grown small and bright above the threat of a smile. Of a grimace.

Of all the ways that animals show their teeth.

"I know not," But she does. Hasn't managed to scrub the fear from her face. "The Rift — if we have entered —"

Wait.

"Did you follow us?"

[strangel]

"I followed leaders."

A shrug. This is what she was expected to do, she thought. Stay with Coupe and Queen Lady.
The light of the Fade lasts her hair in a strange light, and her skin looks almost grey. Her eyes, though, they are perhaps the most alarming, the green light catching the whites of her eyes as the sky seems to crackle and stones float.

She watches Coupe with quiet focus, eyes narrowing.

"Liar," she observes.

[limier]

Wren stares back. Not so defiant as it might be. Liar,

"No." She shakes her head — the first to break gaze. "I know not how this can be."

Can very well guess: A door swings in two directions. She sucks in a breath, extends her empty palm in peace (doesn't expect it to be taken; still a knife in the girl's own, and remembered talk of demons).

"Stay close to me. We are not safe here."

(No. No fucking clue how to broach that to this one.)

hover text for translation

[aenseidhe]

Iorveth had been right behind Lakshmi and Wren, not sure if it was the panic over Lakshmi, or the vague wonder what returning from the portals that spit them out would do, but either way, here he is, pushing himself up from the ground not but a couple yards from where Wren fell.

And then he sees what's around him. And then he does about the same thing Wren did.

"Eveigh Henn, eiw's ninnau."

Fucking pray, because what the actual living hell is this place? He's never been much a friend of mages, and the closest he'd gotten to something like this was wandering through the wraith war curse on Pontar Valley. This place is something else entirely, and he doesn't have a Witcher here to tell him how to deal with it.

He has a Templar, who looks just as lost as he does. And, noticeably, he has only the Templar, Iorveth's head snapping around as he picks himself up, scanning for the others. More so, scanning for Gwen. "Where'd Lakshmi fall? And the others?"

[limier]

"The others?" Half aghast. There shouldn’t be others — bad enough to be stranded for Lakshmi's foolishness, but to think that any would follow — "I lost hold."

A glance from the traitorous hand to Iorveth’s half-face, obscured by so much rotten meat. Or, no. No, only cloth, as ever. She blinks.

(Flies in your eyes. Flies in the socket,)

"We need stick close." Won’t that be fun. Heaves out a breath: "I cannot say how much our presence might alter."

Her eyes tear again to his cheek, involuntary. Skin crawls impossibly to watch.

[aenseidhe]

"I saw at least Gwenaelle following." Because he'd been keeping a hawk eye on her for this entire journey. Defiantly brave of a woman as she is, she's no warrior, no soldier. He wouldn't handle her with kid gloves and try to limit her, but he would, at the very least, keep a watchful eye on her in case she got in over her head.

This is probably well over her head. But here we are, regardless. "I can't say how many others."

His eyes pull back to Coupe after he's scanned the area, and Iorveth has to blink rapidly several times to wash away the visage of a blood-splattered Redanian soldier instead of simple Templar armor and this woman he hardly knows.

Iorveth gives her a curt nod, beginning to look for where they ought to search first.

"This place - it's the Fade, isn't it?" He's heard plenty enough description of it, and stories of both fear and wonder. They don't seem to match up exactly to the reality of it.

OTA GROUP THREAD - yelling at Lakshmi

[shri]

She had not wanted this green impossible sky. Green and sickly.

Nor had she wanted to endanger anyone else. But the more time stretched on and on, the more she heard nothing of how to leave, the more it became clear that there was no way if she did not try it herself. Lucky, that her position afforded her exposure to the rifts. Lucky it let her wait until the opportunity presented itself.

Because she feels no hope, no wonder, not even fear. What grows is far worse than the strangeness of a place she doesn't understand to fear or love. What blooms is far worse. Deep below her bones. Trapped between ribs. A mind-numbing grief. Heavy and blood-thick. Panting, deep, from the effort of running so hard and fast. Looking lost as she pivots on her heel. Up, and around, spinning for anything, anything at all - it did not have to be her homeland, it did not have to be Jhansi or Delhi or Gwalior it just had to be -

"No! No, no, no!" She seldom sounds panicked, sounds fearful. But it creeps up with each word, slowly slipping out of her mind with it. "What is this? What is this place? Where is my home?"

[rathercommon]

"Not here."

Kitty is angry, to be sure. She's also curious. Curious, wonder-struck, with the curiosity of all of this cutting through her fury so that she can't hold onto it too long. So her voice isn't as strident as usual, isn't as fierce; instead, there's a little softness to it.

"Or maybe this is it. Regardless - " She looks back to Lakshmi, tries to hold onto her anger. "This was idiotic."

[chainlightning]

"The Fade," supplies Merrill, from where she's picking over the ruined roof they've ended up on. Her feet are bare, which does few favors when trying to avoid any jagged stone edges.

This is- well. It isn't the first time it's happened to anyone, but that doesn't mean it's a good thing.

"Take deep breaths," she advises, glancing around. "Strong emotions may draw spirits to us and the more negative the emotion, the more likely it's going to be a demon."

[shri]

"It should have taken me home."

Because if it brought her here, dragged her from where she should have been - how dare it not return her? Like she could hold the sky accountable if she but gripped it with both hands. If she just threw herself at it hard enough.

"Why hasn't it given me back." It's a mad thing to say, and she feels the madness of it even as she says it. But that is hasn't worked is beyond her, at present. Because no amount of soothing would stop this now it started. Like a slit throat, bubbling up and slick.

[elegiaque]

"No! It shouldn't have! And if you had been less of an irresponsible, selfish cunt you might have spoken to someone about this first and known people have gone into the Fade through a rift before and it doesn't go anywhere but here!"

Furious doesn't begin to describe how she's feeling.

"I will hold you personally responsible for everything that happens because you couldn't be bothered, as usual," a little harsh, Gwen, "to learn what's around you instead of expecting what you think it should be to matter."

ota!!

[rathercommon]

This place is dreadful; that much is certain. It's dreadful and terrifying and she doesn't want to be here. And yet there's a sort of fascination to it, as well. Things here are so altogether impossible, beyond all rules that govern the natural world. She takes a copper from her pocket, sets it in an odd eddy of air; it tumbles end over end over end, spinning in place, never descending to the ground nor rising to the sky. She observes it for a while, then grabs it, frugally pocketing it once more.

"Right," she says. Shakes her head to get her hair out of her face, straightens her tunic. "So is there a way out?" And also, even though it's not altogether apropos of the current situation - "And are there things we can collect here, to help us back in the real world?"

[elegiaque]

Pushing aside a lingering queasiness, Gwenaëlle tugs restlessly at the end of her braid as she comes to stop beside Kitty, eyes narrowing with suspicion at the Fade, and the distant vision of the Black City. It's fascinating in a seductive way that she dislikes on principle, but the thought she'd lead with before wasn't irrelevant, for all that some people whose names start with G and L need to learn about deescalation—

(They won't.)

“There has to be a way out,” she says. “It's happened before, I think in the Western Approach. When rift research was still based in Skyhold. Unfortunately, no one who survived that is with us to tell us how the fuck they did it.”

She touches her crystal at her throat, thoughtfully, “Thranduil tried to send me messages, when it happened, but they were—distorted, I could hardly make him out.”

[rathercommon]

Kitty lets out a slow breath through her nose. Irrationally, there's a little pinch of annoyance in her, that they don't know this information - that make sure you call mum and dad if you're going to staying in the city overnight was included in their basic training but here's how you escape the Fade wasn't - but it's not like this is something that comes up a lot. Presumably.

"Well," Kitty says, and then fixes a firm smile on her face, "the most important thing is that it's possible. Particularly since I expect that this group is even cleverer and more determined than that group was." Then she goes for the crystal in her pocket. "But we ought to send some message, then, even if it won't be decipherable. Send some signal we're alive."

[elegiaque]

“Yes,” she agrees, frowning out at the Fade. Alive, but not safe, because they're in the Fade and nothing about that is safe. “I don't know where we'll emerge, but if it's anywhere near where we went in, it couldn't hurt for people to be looking for us. With more supplies.”

Make themselves useful.

solas | ota

[dirth]

"I never thought I would find myself here physically."

Solas' reaction is not quite as intense as he thinks the rest of the party's might end up being. What crosses his face is not necessarily that of uncertainty but of a level kind of delight as he steps around, drinking it in. He barely notices what is happening to the others, the Black City in the distance, the flickering images of one another not enough to distract him from the awe and wonder of being here, present, physically.

The nostalgia tugs at him and, for a moment, Solas simply breathes.

"Perhaps not the area I would have chosen, but to be here, physically..." A shake of his head. "I wonder what commands this place. I have seen nothing like it before now."

Is he talking to someone? No, it seems as though he is, more than anything, talking to himself.

[chainlightning]

"What is this place?" Merrill asks, peering over the edge of the roof as well as she can without getting close enough to topple off. "Not the Fade, I know that part, just- is this a reflection of somewhere?"

It certainly didn't look like a bridge, or even the ruins of a bridge. Then again, perhaps that was because she was on top of it.

Galadriel was going to be rather cross with them.

[dirth]

"I am not sure," he admits, frown settling on his face. It seems as though he is finally recognising the problem of being in the Fade itself rather than being wrapped up and caught up in the joy and wonder of stepping here himself. It has been long enough that he is not sure how to accept it, how he should feel being placed so close to something he knows but cannot know at the same time.

His frown deepens.

"Something that I had not thought to see. I wish that I knew exactly where..."

[chainlightning]

"If everything would stop changing, that would help," Merrill huffs, but she also knows that it's not likely to happen. This is the Fade, after all. That's what it does. So she sighs, stepping away from the roof to stand near Solas, crossing her arms.

"Galadriel's going to scold us," she points out, even as she shifts up onto her toes to try and look around. "I don't suppose you see anything familiar...?"

Of course, the landscape is changing; everything could be familiar and not, all at once. It was terribly frustrating.

[rathercommon]

Kitty normally makes a policy of avoiding people who mumble to themselves, being as they'll usually get you in some sort of dreadful trouble in one way or another, but - well, what worse trouble is there, really? Beyond being stuck in an otherworldly realm? And honestly, he seems...Well, he seems so strangely happy about the whole thing that she can't help but be curious about it. So -

"What's that mean?" Kitty asks. Then says, "Sorry - " because it's rather rude to eavesdrop on someone even when they're just talking to themselves. "'What commands this place.' What's that mean?"

[dirth]

There's no denying that Solas holds a rather heavy handed affection for the Fade and it's clear as he looks around that he's somewhat enchanted. He has walked this place in dreams many, many times, but to be here himself, to, perhaps, be witness to memories and dreams and stories, to speak with spirits and more in person - it is a remarkable thing.

He's pulled from his thoughts as he turns his head, pausing for a moment before he manages something of a smile. He has always had a fondness for those who ask questions.

"Some domains in the Fade are shaped or guided by spirits. This may be one."

[rathercommon]

"Oh." She looks around, then, trying to discern some unity of vision in this place, like it was made by a single consciousness. She supposes she can sort of see it, as long as the vision the spirit was going for was crumbly and depressing.

"So then - would it help us if we found that spirit? Could we negotiate with it, somehow, to bring us home? When we want to go home, that is." She adds that somewhat belatedly, because it looks like he doesn't have much hunger to return any time soon.