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

[aenseidhe]

Spoken up from directly behind them as they walk for the stairs:

"I refer to you as 'Gwen'." Because he's lazy and bad at accents that aren't elven accents.

Also, can we not? He loves you, dear, but how about we don't? At least until we make it out of Green Hell. Iorveth casts a look back over his shoulders, making sure the others are following, before taking lead in stepping past them. "Someone should watch our flank. Commander?"

[limier]

"No one is staying behind."

Wren finally pushes up the stairs — in time to sidle back down them. Well, that's what she gets for not stooping to accept Iorveth's help (everyone always at that, as though she's infirm).

"We came through a rift," Each of them, like bloody stupid lemmings. Of all the times to follow orders. A glance over the group, past the blood, the vomit dissipating upwards, past Gwen's stiff shoulders and Iorveth's hands close beside. The frown that pinches between her brows furrows deep by the time it finds and sticks upon Lakshmi. "It follows we might leave by one."

At her side, a fist curls tight. They could try by the anchors... but better, should they survive this, that not all know of that power. If any of them might try to open their own rifts —

Her eyes haven't left Lakshmi to address the group:

"You have all seen spirits before." Have seen themselves, half of them. "You cannot rely upon them here. Look to those around you: They are the only faces you may trust."

Whatever's gone on before this, a wound at least proves life. A curt gesture to Lakshmi.

"With me," That bleeding needs to stop. "If Mssr. Solas will take point."

A Dreamer may have more luck of it.

[elegiaque]

Under her breath and in the process of—not accidentally—putting Iorveth between herself and Lakshmi, resentful gaze sliding away from Wren's take charge moment (someone had to do it), Gwenaëlle mutters, “And you're never going to see my cunt again, either,” which is a lot of things but among them 'better than anything she might have said on the subject of trust right now'.

[shri]

For all the gaze doesn't leave her, for all that she is the least wanted person right now for what she's done and she has no doubt - that any concern for her at this point is strictly on the notion of getting her back to face her punishment - nothing on her face shifts. Oh, her common joviality is gone, the light sheer of affection she tried to keep up. Till she is just no more than a hard gritted woman, her teeth set and her gaze flat. That hard pinch on her mouth that pulls in a lack of anything but that stiff-spined edge. A blood, standing thing, as bare a rock out of the earth.

That - as she turns to fall into step, she flickers, just a moment. Where she does not look young, rather, her face ages to a far older woman, wrinkled in lines, the pinch of her brow harsh. Then she moves, and it is gone again.

Mercifully, however, she says nothing, just moves forward with the shuffle of people. A brief mutter, as they go to cover those words out of Gwen's mouth, worse as a cribhouse doxie: "Scouts ought to be front."

[limier]

"Solas." Repeated, louder; a step into Lakshmi’s space. She’s hardly forgotten the dragon — isn’t about to spend another hour splitting attention between the situation and control of it. "If you will."

(If it splits her attention from splitting Iorveth’s lip, that’s fine. He’s been useful. Gwen is an adult. This is fine.)

[dirth]

Solas looks between them all with a frown on his face, eyebrows furrowed as his eyes trace body by body. Clearly, he is not particularly impressed by anyone's behaviour, certainly not those he might have dared to call friend. Shaking his head, he steps forward, staff in hand, and moves to the front to stand beside Coupe.

"We should begin to move. I am unsure of the best direction, but if we walk we will get a better sense. It would be best," said sternly, "if we kept our emotions as settled as possible. None of us with to bring demons to join us, and we all know how they can be summoned."

He's a touch like a disappointed father, or worse - a scolding teacher.

[strangel]

Helena has been lurking further along, closer to the stairs, and looks towards the others with a flat, expression, watching to see which way they will go.

Helpfully, she taps her bow against the stairs, to see if any of them notice the sound. "Stairs are direction. Maybe good."

If they decide to go a different way, then she'll just move her way to the front of that path, to scout ahead like the less pleasant Coupe says.

[aenseidhe]

Iorveth, for his part, spends the moment Gwenaelle quietly announces the truth of their relationship to a bunch of people that would all like to punch each other to the moment Solas steps along, starting at Gwenaelle like he's trying to decide if he wants to be mad, be hurt, be disappointed, or just laugh. The rest of the group can shift around them as they please, and he couldn't give a flaming fuck what Coupe thinks ought to happen to his lip.

In the end, it's Solas's mild scolding - keep your emotions in check. Right. He's a soldier, after all, isn't he? That part's easy.

Jerking his bow free from his back, he doesn't spare Gwen another glance, a few arrows from his quiver tugged free and ready if something comes leaping out. While he won't move to take point from Solas, he does step closer to towards Helena, maybe wordlessly holding out a couple arrows if she seems like she's running short.

[shri]

There isn't a display or even a sneer of words. Her eyes roll in sheer reaction to Wren, her sword is pulled, her shield hefted up to brace on her forearm properly again. That roll on her feet that is all combat, all flat forward stance.

"I was told your asur- your demons. They are just as weak to metal when it hits them as magic. Is that true here as well? And does faith affect them at all?" A deeper breath, a deeper thought that she had not considered until now. "Must it be a faith in this... Maker and His Andraste for it to work?"

The straightforward line. What is in front of her, and how does she kill it.

[chainlightning]

Merrill rolls her eyes; she's uncharacteristically annoyed, but this has all been a mess. Still, she too moves to get in line - somewhere near the middle, where she can more effectively cover anyone in an Arcane Wall if they come upon something intent on attacking them.

"No," she says to Lakshmi, adjusting the knife on her belt with her free hand. "Your faith may be used against you by them, or it may be what keeps you safe - but it is not a weapon against them. Your sword will work better, though!"

She could go into the way spirits are not inherently malevolent but that they are dangerous nevertheless, but that seems a lesson for another time. When a Templar isn't there.

[shri]

Then why in any land does anyone worship him?

That, thankfully, doesn't come out of her mouth. She just grunts softly to show she had heard, is listening still. "Well, glad for that. I have at least the sword. Anything else apart from be numb and they will play tricks ought to be known about this... place?"

This terrifying, long, great green stretch. Of what should be life, but seems in turn, twisted here.

[dirth]

"Spirits can be kind. Some seek nothing more than a trade of knowledge or information." Solas moves forward, taking lead. This is where he belongs, where he is in his element, and he thinks that, perhaps, he might reveal too much of himself. It's demons that are the problem, but there's no point in wasting time putting the dear of demons into the heart of Rifters. At least not for now.

"Just avoid speaking to them, if you can avoid it, and stay close to the party."

[limier]

"Fuck's sake," A hiss of breath, despite herself (despite Solas' wisdom of emotion), as Lakshmi hefts the shield. "Your bloody shoulder."

Literally. She's already reaching for a knife — the better to tear a sleeve: she's not come with bandages, more's the oversight.

[shri]

She looks up at the word, brief - half confused why Wren is hissing like that, whose shoulder - ? "Oh." Looking down. She wipes at the blood, a faint wrinkle in her nose, half dried already. "Save the concern. It does not trouble me."

Which means - as soon as they're not looking, I'll take care of it. She carries on past Wren's unwarranted concern. "And if they speak to us, and we can not help it? Given what's been said of trickery?"