MOD PLOT ↠ NONE TO RETURN

[faderifting]

WHO: All characters signed up to participate in the Battle of Ghislain
WHAT: The Inquisition regroups and heads home
WHEN: Covers the period immediately post-battle (11.28) through the journey back to Kirkwall (11.29-12.1)
WHERE: North of Montfort, Orlais, and on the road to Val Chevin
NOTES: This is Post #2, covering the immediate aftermath of the battle and the journey back to Kirkwall. It's a free-for-all. Post #1 covers the battle itself. More info on the OOC post.

The Inquisition and Orlesian armies eventually limp to a halt along the Imperial Highway north of Montfort, where wide fields and gentle hills offer clear lines of sight and a sparsely equipped fortress provides some shelter and fortification. It's a soundly strategic location—if Ghislain is lost, Montfort is the last major city between the invaders and Val Royeaux—but among the rank and file there may be too much chaos to appreciate it.

For the remainder of the day and well into the night, the fortress and surrounding land are a frenzy of activity. The wounded who were not left on the field must be triaged and tended to with limited supplies, while many healers and surgeons out of commission themselves and the remainder worked to the bone. Scouts, soldiers, and even support staff in sturdy enough condition to keep working may be tasked with assembling camp from the few remaining supplies, taking reports on known casualties or acquired intelligence, or further fortifying the new location. The Orlesian army sends one of its battered cavalry units toward Ghislain to attempt to provide some warning, and from the Inquisition's number a few patrols are sent back toward the battlefield or toward Ghislain, with stern orders not to re-engage, only to watch for signs of pursuit, and to direct any stragglers.

Those who remain in the fortress are in for a long, miserable night, with meager rations and makeshift bedding, if any of either, while the wind shifts directions and grows colder. By morning a number of the wounded have died, but attempts to build a pyre are hampered by the sudden swell of a storm that starts with freezing rain and then transitions to early and unpredicted thick, heavy snow.

For a few hours that morning the two armies attempt business as normal, but it soon becomes clear that the storm is getting stronger, and they risk being snowed in with more people than they can feed. Many, including the Inquisition's Gallows contingent, are ordered to disperse. Many crowd into wagons, with any transportable wounded receiving further attention en route and neighbors hunching close to preserve heat whether they like one another or not, while those able to do so follow on foot or horseback over the rough, flash-frozen highway toward Montfort and then west toward Val Chevin. The storm doesn't abate until they've nearly reached the city, but once there they're able to stop, eat, and spend a few hours indoors thawing out before proceeding home.

Comments

sidony venaras | healer/surgeon | ota

[indissection]

I

Those left alive have not stoped working and neither has Sidony.

She looks dreadful, even from a distance. Her clothes are a mess of blood, gore and dirt, her skin caked with blood and things she doesn't want to consider, sticky with it. There's a thick, tight bandage around her midsection and her right arm is equally as wrapped up, but neither seems to be stopping her from moving around and treating the wounded. Her hair is a tangled web of knots and leaves, but she does not pause. For once vanity is not her main concern; the people under her hands are.

As more wounded from the battlefield come closer she welcomes them with a tired smile but few words. Her hands are quicker now than they had been hours before, but she is less careful - speed is better than perfection here and she knows it. Herb, stitch, bandage, repeat. Get them feeling less pain, stop the bleeding, move them on. There are so many people still needing aid, so many people that she has to help, and she does not have the strength to do it all. They lost many healers during the arson and now there are so few left...

Sometimes, her hands shaking, it looks a little as though she might break into pieces. She does not, however, lips pursed as she welcomes the next person needing her help, nodding at them as she gathers more bandages and whatever is left of the clean water.

II. ( closed to ilias )

Things get quieter and quieter; Sidony hopes that it is because people are sleeping rather than because they are dying. She does not want to consider what a grim reminder of things that would be, how sad it is that the bodies will not get proper funerals, that everything is far worse than she had ever pictured. She had imagined the battlefield to be rife with chances to study and learn, to grow, to grasp what she had always wanted, but the reality of the smells and the pain and the suffering is something she cannot even fathom. It's too much; it's far too much.

She feels moments away from breaking.

Ilias stands out in the crowd of people coming back for healing and she makes for him, taking his sleeve in her fingers in an oddly childlike gesture. She urges him to follow her, not daring to look into his face, afraid of what judgement she might see here. She has enough faith in him to recognise that he would not, this is neither the time nor the place, but she is afraid all the same. She had been young and foolish and said things to him that were unkind. He had been trying to help her recognise what it meant to be here as a healer, as a surgeon. She understands now.

Her bag and her little blankets are a mess, but so are the two of them, a soldier back from war and a silly girl playing at healer. Sidony doesn't say much as she gathers her needle and threat, making sure to clean it with the heat of a small fire, not daring to speak as she waits for it to be safe to use. What will he say, knowing how she reacted? Can he see it on her face? What she wants, she thinks, is for him to be kind, but she is not sure if she should expect it.

One arm is wrapped in bandages. Her waist is a mess of sticky fabric and what is clearly a hastily made splint for her ribs. When she tries to thread her needle she can't, her hands shaking too much, but she is determined - and refuses to look him in the eye.

"I'll do it, one moment."

i.

[faithlikeaseed]

Myr's walking wounded but only barely walking, pale from blood loss and a multitude of other causes; better to say he's sitting wounded, wedged onto a piece of broadcloth that's only enough to keep the chill from the ground seeping too deep into him and the two sleeping (or dead) forms he shares it with. His arm is--

A mess, hastily wrapped and clutched against his side, blood seeping through makeshift bindings and the remains of someone's cloak. He's been picking half-heartedly at the tourniquet still wrapped above his elbow as he waits for further attention. Maker be thanked it's not as tight as it needed be to save him bleeding out--but it's uncomfortable still.

At a sound, at the presence of someone next to him he looks up, taking Sidony in in all her gruesome self. "...are you all right?"

It's not what he'd intended to say--he'd intended to stay silent and endure whatever could be done--but it's bone-deep instinct to ask. She didn't look all right. She probably needed to be sitting down every bit as much as he did-- Or barring that he should be on his feet, but Andraste's scorched bones it's a struggle to get up with one arm useless and the other all over weeping blisters.

Sarah Manning starters

[coppelganger]

Alex

[coppelganger]

[ Sarah wakes up slowly, rising up into consciousness like emerging from deep water. Immediately, she wishes she could go back, sink down into darkness again. At first it seems like she might be able to, and then something makes a noise beside her and she can't turn the sound off, or the pain she's starting to feel. She mentally gropes for several seconds, trying to decide where she's been hurt, then decides: everywhere. There isn't a part of her that doesn't seem to be in pain. Her limbs feel stiff and cold, her head is swimming and throbbing with every beat of her pulse. She has no idea where she is, or when, or what happened. Just that whatever it was, it was shit, and it's probably going to continue being shit for the foreseeable future.

She's not wrong, because suddenly the pain in her right arm intensifies, like the skin is being pulled—burnt—ripped away. She tries to lift a hand and stop whatever's happening, but her arm doesn't move. Her fingers barely twitch. ]

Mmn— [ Her voice is choked and gravelly, the voice of someone who was screaming and then silent for a long time. She swallows, tries again. ] Helena?

Magni starters

[villieldr]

More to come :>

Lakshmi

[villieldr]

( Magni blinks herself awake, and by reflex goes to roll over before pain snakes up her back and she grunts with the sharpness of it. The ache dulls and thuds outward, the waves against the shore, and Magni winces as she tries to settle back into place. Remembers: the battle, the blood. It was not a horror shared by the land of dreams. It was reality. They had failed.

Her eyes slip shut. She can feel the slight itch of the remains of her war paint drying and flaking off her skin, but her face and neck feel clear of it, and she tries again to open her eyes and reach for a waterskin, if there is one. Focused on that task, not yet fully cognisant of all around her. )

six | ota

[swordproof]

I.

In the silence of after, Six spends a few hours praying. She cannot kneel properly with her leg as it is - there is a splint and some bandages, stretched out in front of her like some kind of calling sign of wound and injury - but she does what she can, tucking the other under her. Her face is dirty, caked in blood and mud and the tracks of sweat and tears, hair sticking to her skin and making her look a fright, but she does not care. Her voice is soft as she prays, fingers clasped around her holy symbol as she speaks in something almost like a whisper.

Ever faithful, Two the mabari is settled at her side, watching her with twitching ears, guarding her whispers.

"When last light fades from mortal eyes, know that the immortals have taken thine light unto their own hands. May that light find solace in the embrace of the lady, Sarenrae. Where I walk, I walk in your light. When the night is darkest in the places that have never known light, I will go with you and I will burn bright."

It continues much the same, whispering mantras of thanks, requests for forgiveness, prayers for redemption.

"May her holy light lift you from your mortal shell. May the grace of the Dawnflower welcome you in her sweet embrace."

She keeps praying, without pause, hands shaking around the symbol in her fingers. She can be seen in the same position for what must be hours, head bowed, prayers on her lips. So many had died today - allies and enemy alike - and Six must pray for their souls, for their spirits, as best she can. Sarenrae may not hear her, may not heed the whispers of her Paladin, but it must be done. She would not rest easy otherwise.

II.

Later, when her prayers are done, Six takes some time for herself, still away from most.

The rag she uses to wash her face is barely anything, but it rubs some of the muck away from her face. She strips, awkwardly, from her armour, placing it to one side and baring the brunt of her injuries to anyone who might notice - a leg that cannot be walked on, strapped and wrapped and set in a straight line, a place on her hip where the fabric of her shirt is sticking to her skin with blood, bruises and scratches and other various marks over her body. She doesn't pause as she reaches to take off her shirt, the bindings around her breasts tight in place before she begins to clean the rest of herself.

There was no place for modesty on the battlefield and she has not entertained the notion for many years.

Eventually, she manages to scrub herself and her shirt clean enough that she feels comfortable tugging it back on, dragging it over the soreness in her shoulders with a wince. Two comes up and whines, pressing his face into hers, and Six takes the same rag and begins to clean him, too - the maw of her Mabari with blood caking his fur, scrapes across his legs, minor injuries that she had taken care to make sure did not get worse.

A pause, to breathe, and Six presses her face into the soft head of her dog, scratching at his ears gently. She is tired, she is wounded, she is hurt and she is lost. She has no God to soothe her and she fights back the tears, breathing hard. Too many have died, too much pain and suffering and there was nothing she could do. There was no power in her hands to restore life nor to heal, and a greatsword can do nothing more than cut and harm.

Her tears come quietly, hidden in the fur of the mabari who does little more than whine.

III. ( marcoulf )

Soon enough, Six manages to make herself some kind of makeshift crutch out of some wood. It must be from a broken cart or something like it, she thinks, for the thickness and the weight of it, but it means she can limp around the camp and make sure her other leg doesn't seize up on her and leave her unable to walk at all. She knows how important it is to keep moving after the adrenaline has worn away; Two walks at her side as a loyal protector, nudging at her hand gently as they go.

There are few faces that she recognises as she goes, a handful of Inquisition folk she had met in her wanderings, a few guards she had spoken to before, stablemasters that had taken good care of her horse before she had left him behind in Kirkwall. She had said, after all, that a battlefield was no place for a horse, least not the kind she intended to care for. They are the first target and the first victim, unnecessary death in the wake of what was already a painful event. She nods at some as she goes by, still taller than most despite the hunch of needing to lean to walk, and she keeps moving.

Pain and dirt cakes everyone, she thinks, and for a moment all she can do is stand still, looking around, a grim expression on her face. She needs to be ready to walk and move sooner than she knows is possible, and it makes her curse herself softly. A foolish mistake lead to a decent soldier being brought down. If the battle begins again...

The thing that breaks her from her thoughts is a familiar face, and she almost looks sheepish as she nods her head to Marcoulf.

"I think it will be me that pauses our training now, ser."

[esquive]

He's walking as if en route somewhere, sharp eyed and pale behind the scrub of his beard and the dirt on his face as he comes striding up between scattered makeshift lean to's and paltry open fires burning in the fortress' muddy yard. Beyond the exhaustion, he looks fit and fare - a rare sight indeed in the miserable encampment -, though he's walking with his right hand tucked up into his coat, out of sight where he can be certain it will be kept warm and safe and--

His mind is clearly elsewhere. And who can blame him? That anyone is moving about at all when they should be dead on their collective feet (Don't think about necromancy, raising the dead on the battlefield) is a kind of miracle. Regardless, for a split second she speaks out to him and he blinks at her without slowing. Then he jerks. Comes to an abrupt halt before her to survey the crutch and the shape of her leg.

"Who let you walk around?" He'll have then beaten for it, is his first flashing thought.

Byerly | OTA

[bouchonne]

I.
Byerly typically likes being convalescent. You get to lie around and indulge your every desire while others fuss over you - what could be better? But all the fun's taken out of it when you're just one of a multitude. The fun's taken out of it when you're lying on a pallet surrounded by the sick and the dying, when the smell of shit is everywhere, and when your brains have been so scrambled that you can't even hold a thought for more than a moment or...

His throat is raw, his hip completely fucked, and his head is throbbing. And he's dizzy and nauseous. He bites down bile when one of the physicians has him sit up, fights not to whimper when she prods the aching spot on his skull where the spear-butt slammed into him - he thinks. It's clear he's no great priority, though; the healer turns away from him almost as soon as she's poked him, calling to someone else -

"Say. You. If you haven't got anything better to do, come and look after this one. Make sure he doesn't fall asleep."

Byerly would like to fall asleep; he'd like that very much. But he obediently looks up, trying to focus on whoever it is the healer is calling to come talk to him.

II.
He's a little more himself on the wagon-ride back. A miserable version of himself, but himself. Propped against the side of the carriage, taking up more than his share of space by far, he's the picture of wounded elegance.

An hour or so down the road, he starts to sing. Which is, depending on your perspective, might be either lovely or insufferable: he has a wonderful voice, a rich and warm baritone, and he sings expressively; however, the songs he sings are mournful ones, ballads about lost loves and odes to fallen companions. Also, there are, frankly, few things worse than people who sing in public. And yet he carries on.

I.

[keenly]

The young man the healer speaks to looks dazed and numb, but fairly alert. The elfroot potions have helped the pain, but that's not where the numbness comes from. Glassy-eyed, he looks at the man in the cot and can't think of a single thing to say, a single story to tell, but even overdosed on lyrium and completely drained and badly wounded, he is a healer. And he thinks that if he is left to be empty like this, the same thing will happen as before--darkness will fill the void and be very painful to expel. So he stands, he scoots over to sit on a crate beside Byerly's cot, and he waits for the pain in his ribs to abate before breathing in.

"What's your name?" he croaks.

thranduil | OTA

[rowancrowned]

He does not look like himself. The Provost is pale, wan; asked to guess his age, a newcomer might edge towards fourties or, unkindly, fifties, rather than the usual flush of 'far too pretty elf', given the pinched set to his brow and the wrinkles at his eyes and temples even in sleep. His hair has been bound up in a loose braid and lolls over his shoulder, and he has been laid at the very front of a wagon, all the better to allow him to be somewhat prone. Sitting up straight would risk further injury, but the Inquisition is right to be miserly with their space given what little they have, and Thranduil being so large.

But he is good company. Warm, though not feverish, and kitted with mostly-clean clothes, including a woolen cloak, lined with fur, and draped over his usually sleeping form. Given it was originally made to cover him and drape over the majority of the back of his elk, it is large, and worth attempting to hide under, waterproof and equipped with an elven space-heater in Thranduil himself.

He is unlikely to refuse any company, for exhaustion or for charity's sake.

[elegiaque]

What a mess.

She joins him carefully, when she does—both for the sake of his injuries and her own, the pain that she's been ignoring flaring out from the small of her back becoming impossibly intrusive when she forgets and lets herself lean pressure against it, her left hand strapped and unusable, cradled against her as she uses her elbow instead for leverage to climb in and settle beside him. The smell of smoke and burned flesh still hangs unpleasantly in her hair, but it's become familiar now; she'll notice it later, when the air clears and it still lingers.

She doesn't wake him, immediately. She finds his hand with her right one, tangles their fingers together, and—rests. Waits.

ilias

[wythersake]

He clambers off the back of the wagon without warning.

It's difficult to tell where one stain ends and another begins, sleet only soaking them dark. The dull cries of the wounded haven't grown any duller. Isaac shoves hands beneath arms and shivers; falls into step beside Ilias, tension steeling his eyes ahead (the wagon, the work done). Flatly:

"That one's going to die."

You can sit a bit, there'll be room — and Maker bless exhaustion for bridling his tongue — Materials, if you want another stunt.

There are more wagons. He just needs a minute.

[libratus]

There have been enough Orlesian tongues unbridled in Ilias's general direction since their retreat that the tone, at least, is beginning to have less impact. Its source, though. His eyes slide from Isaac to the wagon, and back again. He doesn't look like he wants a seat.

Instead, he keeps pace. Lets Isaac warm his hands a moment. Considers the line of the other man's shoulder (the tightness of it, the distance to it) before he extends his good hand, offering a water skin in lieu of a touch.

"Drink something."

If you're going to take a minute.

Christine

[aceso]

{ healing }
She can't stop working. The moans and cries of pain are enough that the entire carriage ride to Montfort is spent healing the wounded however she can. Even after the wounded are unloaded at the fortress there is more work to do. Despite being a spirit healer, there are some wounds that go too deep — or are looked at too late to make any difference — that lead to many deaths that evening. The number of bodies increases, and that only spurs Christine on to not lose another. Numerous times she's told to rest, but she brushes aside all concern and keeps working. Her latest patient is able to put weight on his foot again and moves out of the way as the next is brought over. With bloodshot eyes and a monotone voice, Christine asks, "Where are your injuries?"

{ rest }
It's unclear what happened, but Christine is now seated beside a fire with a bowl of steaming something pressed into her hands. The person waits until she recognizes what's happening and holds tight to the bowl before they let go. Heavy lidded eyes look down at the spoon and she picks it up, shoveling the hot food into her mouth and burning her tongue. She doesn't care. It's food and she can't remember the last time she ate.

"I must have nodded off," she mumbles to no one in particular. Or maybe she passed out from exhaustion. She doesn't want to believe that was it. People still need looked over.

{ reunion: for church }
After eating, Christine feels rejuvenated. Yes, her limbs are aching and her eyelids still want to close, but she has enough energy to get up and move around. By now, almost everyone has been seen to by a healer or is in line to see one. Christine had to be forced into resting as she hung by a thread, but now she feels she can do more. She walks along the rows of people, looking at their faces to see who they are and if they're in need of aid. But the people here seem tended to and without the distraction of being able to heal someone, Christine's thoughts stray to the face she hasn't seen since before dawn.

Reaching down inside her armor, she tugs out the blue pendant that Church gave her and runs her thumb over the smooth surface. What if he didn't make it? What if his body is still lying in that field? Tears prick at her eyes and she moves past everyone so they can't see her break down. She turns a corner and covers her nose and mouth with a hand as a sob escapes her. Where is he? She's often thought of him disappearing on her and back to his world where he said that he was about to die. And there have been several occasions here where she's worried that he would be injured and die, but usually she was there to watch over him. Yet today was different. They were separated from the start and she has no idea as to his fate. What if he was lying out there in need of a healer and she could have saved him?

The thought makes her give into her despair and she sobs, gasping for breath worse than she had when she learned her father was dead. It's all hitting her at once: her exhaustion, her worry, her hopelessness, and her despair.

[motherfucking_ghost]

He shouldn't even be up at this point, but, well, his legs work fine, as do his arms, his torso. And really, staying still resting somewhere isn't gonna make him any more or less prone to infection or any other nasty shit the burn across his neck puts him in danger of, so, whatever. It doesn't even hurt right now anyway. (That's called fried nerves. Also shock.) And he's told it look much better now than it did when he was first dragged in front of a healer.

No, the thing that's truly getting him down is the fact that every lady with long blonde hair gets him to double-take. He wants to drift after each and every one, to take their hand and--but it's never her.

It's never her except when it finally is. It starts with blonde hair and moves to a crying woman and it ends with arms around her, because it's her, and they're both somehow, miraculously, fucking alive.

lakshmi

[wythersake]

"Your hands," A gesture of his own (improbably clean; the rest of him is all stain, from bruised face to blackened staff) — towards the tents. "Get in, inside, now."

If she doesn't want to lose one altogether. There will be more frostbite by morning, the air's bitter chill promising only worse ahead. She might lose it anyway, cold and warm and cold again,

"I'm not going to argue with you."

That's a hollow promise.

[shri]

She almost doesn't hear him - a blackwater drinker isn't the person that ever goes to a healer. Assumes, almost, that he is talking to someone else, giving him a look. Isaac? What is it you want?

Then. Oh, that. That, and the blood on her face, no doubt. The eye that wasn't working right, still. Granted, it didn't hurt as it had, before, just tacky with blood and seared flesh.

But she can't argue with him, because she's drunk her blackwater and she still can't feel those fingers and ... even if she'd never express it, there would be others who should come first, she's worried. So after discerning, that yes, it really was her, he was talking to - she lifts her hand and shakes her head defensively. Alright, I'm coming.

Her hands, working and otherwise, lift up to her head to pull her helm off. Exposing the worst of what has happened to her. Where the electricity went in at her temple and down around her eye and face. Blistering around and puffy.

john silver | ota.

[hornswoggle]

"It all went to shit, didn't it?" is the cheerful greeting John offers, without looking up from the fire. He's attempting to warm his hands, moving slowly and carefully. The injuries to both his arms are going to slow him down, but he hasn't sought out any of the healers circulating throughout the camp just yet. The most he's done is accept a cloak. It's draped across his lap for the moment, and John won't object to offering it up to someone in worse shape than he.

There's blood and dirt smeared across his face. He's tied off the nasty wound at his arm, but his arm's heavy, hard to lift without blinding pain. Something's wrong, though John isn't exactly certain what. His crutch is in desperate need of repair. That's going to be a real problem, but his thoughts right now are with their current disaster. The idea that even a defeat can be useful hasn't left him. The trouble lies in having to wait out this night with very little to do other than think about all that had gone wrong.

And to think about Nascere. He thinks of Madi, and feels, very acutely, how far she is from him. The weight of that knowledge is inescapable right now. He chuckles, low in his throat, and rubs his hands together in a brisk motion, straightening slightly, shaking off darker thoughts.

"You look like shit."

Pot, kettle.

( wildcards are totally welcome, feel free to do whatever. find me @ pogonophile if you have questions. )

[the_cleric]

"Well, so do you!"

It is very kind of Jester to go around and help out with the healing. People probably don't realize, how kind she is being, by helping out like this. If they knew, they would fall over themselves to thank her for her help, saying things like oh, Jester! How can we repay you? and, oh, Jester! What did we do to deserve you? and of course, oh, Jester! You are so amazing and cute and smart, and a really really good healer, too!

They should not be telling her that she looks like shit. With indignation, she turns around with her hands on her hips to confirm her assessment with a look. Just as she could have guessed, this guy is totally dirty and bloody and seriously, seriously messed up.

"You should be so much nicer to me, so I can help you like I really don't want to do, because you really really look like shit, man. Look at your arm!"

beleth

[arlathvhen]

There are probably a dozen things she should be doing--Beleth does none of them. There doesn't seem much point in any of it, when they've lost. They lost, Corypheus won, and a lot of things seem pointless, now.

The one thing she does manage to do is help assemble the camp, setting up tents and dragging firewood into piles to make campfires, though with the limp in her foot, she doesn't manage it in a very timely manner. Once that's completed to satisfaction, she sits down, with no intention of getting back up any time soon.

It's hard to deny that she looks like an utter mess at the moment--her hair is still singed, a portion of it straight up burnt away, the rest in the tight, charred curls that hair takes when exposed to fire. She still smells like smoke--though it's hard to tell, when just about everything around here does. Shirts are too hard for her to remove for her frequent bandage changes, so she's wearing a thick shawl wrapped around her torso.

Dehydration is a frequent threat for large burns--and everyone, really, which brings her to the job that she's technically working on right now. Melted snow creates warm water, not exactly tasty, but good for keeping people hydrated and warm. So Beleth sits by the fire, occasionally adding snow to the pot over the fire.

Her expression is distant, and she rarely speaks. There's so much going on, they lost, and so many died, people that she had liked--it's too much to process, so she doesn't. So she just sits here, quite literally watching water boil, mind lost to somewhere far away, where it isn't cold, miserable, and they aren't awaiting inevitable death.

[mythalenaste]

Pel comes to sit beside Beleth, looking haggard but alert. The antidote she was given for the deathroot poison worked, and her arm is stitched up and in a sling, though both the gash on her face and the arm will take time to heal completely. Beleth looks in worse shape. She opens the blanket wrapped around her, wordlessly inviting Beleth to share it.

Kain, OTA

[in_death_sacrifice]

I. Healing Tent Part 1

Someone... please... just... get me a drink.

[Kain has been stabilized, as much as possible, and his serious neck injury is now being watched carefully, given its vital positioning. The concern, of course, is over what's really happened to the spine. It's too early for them to know for sure just how much damage was done, and importantly, whether or not his days as a warrior are over. That he seems capable of moving his arms is good, though that's very limited by the terrible left shoulder wound. His legs are... a bit weak, but that could just as easily be from all the exertion of the fighting. Who knows? It.. doesn't feel right, though, and he doesn't know for sure what's going on.]

[He's scared. No, he's utterly, absolutely terrified. Usually, he can walk an injury off, keep going despite the pain. But not this time.]

[So really, all he wants at the moment is some strong alcohol to knock himself out.]

II. Healing Tent Part 2

Someone... please... tell me what's happening out there.

[At some point when he wakes up, Kain asks this of anyone who happens to be nearby, whether it's a healer or someone else likewise injured. He's desperate to know what's going on, and if he can, to get back out there and help. Is it over? He thinks it might be over, but there's a lot of activity, and no one has told him much. He's been mostly sleeping, for one thing. He tries moving a bit, finds that impossible, and gives up quickly. He can't even sit up right now. This is bad, very bad, ugh...]

How are we faring, I must have news!

III. Riding out on a wagon

[They're leaving. That's good enough for him, although Kain is rather somber in spirit as everyone starts bustling around preparing. He can't do anything to help, and feels useless being forced to lay here like this. But he's under strict orders not to move, as they're all sure to remind him constantly. The risk for permanent damage is much too great.]

[Of course, he's brought along like the other bad off wounded, lifted on a stretcher to the back of a wagon. He sighs, once that wagon starts moving, looking around to see who else he's sharing space with. It's going to be a long ride back.]

2

[circleprodigy]

[Pale and drawn, Inessa's dark circles under her eyes are evidence that she hasn't bothered to rest at all even when given the chance. Nevermind that she's utterly spent, there's no sleep to be had when Garahel and Kain are as badly wounded as they are. Her own injuries weren't as serious and she can manage with a simple patch-job. When Kain wakes, she's stroking Garahel's head, the mabari deeply asleep. Thanks to Christine he'll live, but like Kain he's not fit to do anything for a while.]

Hm...? Oh!

[She blinks and glances over, a spark of relief to see Kain awake and coherent. There's a ghost of a smile, too drained to manage more than that.]

...we're north of Montfort, that's all I know. I haven't left to discover more, not yet. [She glances back to Garahel, her smile slipping away.]

lakshmi bai | ota

[shri]

I.

It isn't every day, you leave riding to battle on a horse and come back on an elephant.

But that's what she does, apparently. Pulling up the last dregs that make it off the field, she heads to the only place that makes any sense of the thing, the stables. Much to the wide-eyed shock of a stable master when she whistles harshly to get the attention of whoever might be around. The hard and fast commands she's learned for the Elephant aren't particularly nuanced, not in comparison to what she knew some could be capable of. But the basics were down: charge, slow, forwards and backwards.

Most especially, dismount. Her legs sliding forward to the front of the animal's head and slaps her hand twice to give it the indication to lower on that spot. Thank-God for that, she still can't see well out of one eye. But as it lowers itself onto his front knees, she drops slides with at least remembrance if not anything like grace when she dismounts.

And because she's - not particularly caring who you are, if you are stuck staring, she's got orders: "You - go and find someone who has chains to spare. We're going to need a good few feet." She looks back over the Elephant. Presently, as far as it's concerned. Her Elephant. A wounded soldier, as far as she saw it. "And send me a boy so I can get water for him."

When the orders are given, she turns back - watching a dumbstruck squire boy reaching up to touch the beast with no warning, and no concern the danger he might be in, and Lakshmi snaps, barking harshly. "Do you want a broken arm boy! That's a war animal! Do something useful and find me someone who can speak Tevinter."

He jumps a foot in the air, the mouse he certainly is to her overgrown growling. He darts, running away immediately as Lakshmi goes up to touch her hand far more carefully to the animal's trunk, slowly, stroking down. Warm, so very warm-voiced. "Hush, hush, we will get you cleaned up and this metal off you."

II.

After she's been seen too, her animals have been seen too, there isn't so much left to do.

Sit, waiting, ready for the move. Her part was over, for now. Does what she can to clean up after the battle, change at least her underclothes for clean ones. Rebraid her hair, clean under her nails, and when the worry and groans of the dying begin to sink deep within her skin, she directs her to the next task that follows as it had every other battle before it.

Though it takes her longer to withdraw from her small amount of personal effects, the figure she has embroidered of her own work of a benevolently smiling woman. In each hand, is a Lotus. Her wounded and thoroughly bandaged hand slows her down more than some, and striking the match to light the candle she had set out of this was -

- It was damn well impossible. Her good hand is shaking, in frustration or grief, she cannot tell.

III. | CLOSED TO MARCOULF

Magni's body was still as it was laid out on the small pile of straw that passed as bedding.

But that didn't mean she was going to stop taking care of her. One hand still worked and that meant she wouldn't cease for less than that, no matter how the pain from the rising cold was beginning to sear like a fresh wound all over again.

It doesn't slow her down, the bowl of warm water is next to her with a spare scrap of linen that she squeezes out the excess from before she lifts it - particularly, tentatively, to begin to wipe away the war paint from Magni's face. Focused on keeping the - albeit, simple - task.

IV.

When they finally get on the move - or more exactly, to Lakshmi's grief-stricken heart, she must leave the Elephant who she has named the best of two worlds for the Orlesians that now take care of it, Arati, behind. She is back on her horse as they progress through the fierce bank of snow.

But if anything, the battle, the wounds, has bothered, it doesn't bother her as much as the snow does. She hasn't looked miserable or lost, at any other point, but when it began to fall and entrench them she is practically woeful.

Until she's bundled herself up on her horse with a hood pulled firmly down, the jacket done up to her nose - and just when she couldn't be worse, the frostbite begins to pound furiously. Enough that she can't help it, what is seen of her face is twisted up in pain.

iii

[esquive]

There's so much mess to sort through - dozens of wagons, the fighting forces all confused into one lump of wounded and dying and bedraggled - that it's taken him some time to find Magni again after she'd been swept away in the chaos of their retreat from the field. Even here in the relative safety of the fortress, the lines of battered soldiers laid out on beds of straw or canvas against the mud and wet and cold are thick enough that he might still be looking if he hadn't spotted the distinct woman down beside her.

Let no one say that Lakshmi Bai is easy to miss. Even mud and blood splashed, wrung thin by the effort of the day, there is an instantaneous way in which she draws the eye. And for the first time - this evening, this week, in recent memory -, some scattered uneasy thing in him crystallizes into a sharp point of anger at the sight of her. Marcoulf crosses through the rows of laid out injured.

So one instant there is no one to witness the tenderness of the care, the war paint being stripped away from Magni's pale face. And then the next there is a shadow cast across them, thin not just for the failing light by because the man who owns it is knife narrow. Pale and gone paler from exhaustion and cold, his right hand tucked up inside his coat against the bitterness of the weather, Marcoulf looks to Magni rather than to the woman tending her.

He doesn't ask, 'How is she?' or 'Which healer has seen to her?' or 'What's needed for her?', though he thinks them. Instead, he opens his mouth and says, "Do you have nothing better to do?"

Alexandrie | OTA

[coquettish_trees]

I. wounded, healers/surgeons (OTA)

It could perhaps be called inexcusably vain, that Alexandrie attends to her appearance before anything else once they have made the fortress. With quick practiced movements her face and the mats in her hair are scrubbed with water hot enough to quickly pinken her skin, her hair pulled down, the curls finger combed and then braided in a slightly softer style over her shoulder. She abandons the top layer of her armor in the space she's taken for herself, leaving her looking less martial in dark greens and browns. She still smells, but everyone smells. She spares a brief longing thought for the little bottle of scent left in the encampment that is now almost certainly overrun.

None of it is for vanity's sake. It is for the same reason there are standard bearers. The same reason that armies want to see their leaders bright and shining on the field, the same reason that the De La Fontaines would often ride the streets of Val Fontaine, along the fields outside it where their people toiled to wave and greet and exchange words about the work, the harvest, their families. The rank and file need to feel that things are, somewhere, somehow, under control. Even and especially when they are not.

Alexandrie moves from bedside to bedside. She learns names, listens, holds hands. She flirts, jokes, makes extravagant and ridiculous promises redeemable upon their return to Kirkwall to those who are too convinced they will never see the city again. For the healers she will do light work to save them time: bring water, whiskey, elfroot. Tie a bandage. Gently force the overworked to sit and rest and eat in the most authoritative fashion she can muster (which is considerable).

In all of it: You are not alone. You are not forgotten. We are going home together.

Either way, she comes to you.


II. long miserable night (for Loki)

When she can't make herself look competent anymore it is to her lover she retreats, fitting herself gingerly against him as best she can without aggravating the wounds either of them had taken. It is a safe enough thing to at least tuck her head against his cheek after brushing her lips across it, to thread her fingers through his.

"When we get home," Alexandrie murmurs once she is settled, "let us light a roaring fire, move ourselves into a pile of bedding, and never get up again."


III. wagons in the snow (for Evie)

There are too many people in too many wagons that Alexandrie wants to be with. But first among them—for she will ever and always be first—is Geneviève. The storm is like a curse and makes both her leg and foot ache, but her twin had taken worse and in such a way that it is hard for them to lean against each other. Even so, they are wrapped together in a blanket, two matched heads of unruly red curls peeking above it.

"I am full of pique that our wounds do not correspond to each other," Lexie says, conversational and absurd. "How inconsiderate of the enemy to separate us so."

I.

[indissection]

Exhaustion is her best friend now, Sidony thinks. Agony shapes her with every step she takes and every breath she walks. Her dress is a mess of fabric and strapped pieces around her; her apron is coated with blood and vomit and other disgusting things, enough to have her want to drop it to one side and ignore it completely. Only the bare studies of hygiene has her keeping it on, especially with the scraps of the rest of her clothing and the ruins of her shoes.

She hasn't stopped to breathe, and her bandages are peeling on her arms, the burn marking obvious even without her having to glance down at it. She can't stop to breathe, not even for a moment, and she shakes her head, reaching for another needle, more thread, more bandages when Alexandrie comes close and she hears her voice beside her.

"Don't tell me you're harmed as well, my lady."

helena ( closed )

[eruit]

The battle is over and Hanzo cannot walk.

He is exhausted down to his bones, the spirits of his dragons quiet inside of him, resting and recovering. They are as broken as he is, pushed to their limits with the summoning of his power, the first time he has done it in what must be years now. It is not often that he falls back on their strength and their magic to aid him, but... This had been one of those times. The roar of them is still loud and echoing in his ears: there's no hiding his magic anymore.

He reaches for them and they do not reach back.

Laying in his blankets, head turned, he stares out at the other people around him. With the wound to his back he can barely feel his legs or the wiggle of his toes in the midst of this. Each movement of his body is agony and the only thing that seems to truly comfort him is the familiar weight of Storm Bow against his fingers, battered and a touch bruised but not broken. He dares not consider what might happen to him, happen to his dragons, if he ends up losing the bow. There's a reason he does not let it out of his sight.

Turning his head, he almost jolts when he sees a familiar face, frown on his lips. His hair isn't up right now, curling around his shoulders in a tangle of black instead, and he breathes out gently, relaxing a little when he sees Helena.

"Greetings."

i am fashionably late

[strangel]

She is leaning against a doorframe with her shoulder, so she slouches at an angle. One of her hands awkwardly crosses her chest to lightly grip the opposite upper arm, not quite a self-hugging gesture, but something in the realms of it. Her shirt is stained with blood, and though she's washed her face and cleaned up a little, it is heaviest around her neck and upper chest and spreads outwards from there. If first glance is any kind of indicator of her health, it isn't her blood.

"Hello." Her voice is even huskier than usual, and she goes to move forward, and then hesitates, chewing at her mip.

"Are you wishing for visitors?"

gareth

[foundmyselfagain]

Gareth is doing better than he has any right to. Not that he's in top form—the dark circles under his eyes are even darker, offset against pale skin that's even paler—pallid, even. He's dirty, slightly singed and smelling of smoke. A few bandages wrap around his arms, easy to spot with his sleeves uncharacteristicly loose and rolled up. But against the background of the dead and dying, he's a beacon of health.

So, he puts himself to work. Mostly helping healers, tagging along to attend to injuries in whatever ways someone can without magic. Bandaging, applying what salves they have left, cleaning wounds. It's dirty work, but it helps, and that's about all he can do here.

His face is far more solemn than usual. It's not the distant, ghost-like expression he wore when he returned from Tevinter. He's here, and he's alive, but. Maker's ass, shit is fucked. In between trying to hold the injured to the world of the living, there's plenty to think about. What this means, what will happen.

In the corner of his mind looms the (metaphorical) elephant in the room—the mages from the rebel army, the ones who betrayed them and defected to Tevinter. Most were dealt with, but he knows better than to think that will be the end of it. There will be a reckoning, once things are less dire, and the implications of it loom over him and his work.

[keenly]

Far into the night, practically early morning, Gareth may feel the brush of fingers against the back of his hand. Colin is lying on a cot, shivering, lips colorless. It has been a fitful night, and none of it has involved sleep for him. The wind howls outside and there must be a draft somewhere. Hopefully that's it, and he hasn't started bleeding again, inside or out.

"Is there another blanket?" he rasps. If the answer is no, he is going to just expect not to sleep tonight.

legolas starters catchall

[tofindthesun]

(( see here for a thread if you'd like one!! ))

healer's tent > gwenaelle baudin

[tofindthesun]

Legolas has been insisting on being seen to last, or at last as they're willing to let him be seen. Looking around the tent, hethinks he can bear his wound a little longer if it help others. He's tired enough that the lack of strength in his feet doesn't bother him as much as it usually would-- though the fact that he is so tired is something of a worry.

He's been given a cot like the others, and something to prop his leg up so his foot doesn't touch the ground (it helps with the pain quite a bit). Potions are sparse and needed elsewhere, so raw elfroot is what he's chewing to help with it further. He's tired enough that not having the strength to walk isn't as worrying as it could be, though the fact that he is tired should be.

Tired enough. His other leg is bent, arms crossed over it, and chin propped up. His eyes seem a little misted over and unfocused, but he's still breathing and... chewing.. so maybe he's awake?

(He's not. But he wakes easily enough.)

nell | ota

[galvanising]

I.

Getting the arrowhead out of her shoulder is Nell's first priority. It has thankfully avoided nicking any vital blood vessels--thought the cascade of drying blood down her chest and arm might suggest otherwise--but is impinging on a nerve, leaving the limb essentially useless. The burn could use seeing-to as well, but it's only second-degree, blistering even in the chill, conspicuously red against her pallor where her sleeve was singed off. But she can live with that. It's the dead weight dangling at her side, or held more discreetly against her chest, as if her arms were merely crossed, rather than one fully supported by the other. That needs fixing, and she's not picky about where it comes from, finding the line for the healers just about as soon as she's arrived.

II.

Once her arm is healed or at least on its way, secured in a sling instead of flopping about advertising itself and pulling on the wound, she goes looking for people. Friends first, but colleagues too. The castle is a warren of bodies curled on cots and sacks and each other, wounded or traumatized or just exhausted. She steps carefully between them, pausing now and then to try to get a better look at a face, but the inner passages where it's warmest are lined so close with sleepers it's all but inevitable when she catches a foot on someone.

"Sorry," she says, catching herself quickly enough not to bring her weight down until her foot is clear again. Her boots are still caked with drying mud and blood. The floors are already much the same, tracked in by thousands. "Alright?"

III.

With Coupe missing, either wounded somewhere or out of action or Maker-knows-what (dead, most likely, but somehow it's difficult to imagine her that way; I've never been that lucky, Nell jokes to herself, but it doesn't ring quite right) there are Forces that need coordinating, and she is quick to shoulder that duty, quick to make sure there's no chance to bypass her and give it to someone else. Each of Kirkwall's nine companies must be accounted for, survivors located, reports taken, casualties recorded. She stops anyone who looks familiar and capable of at least brief conversation to take down what they know--though they'll have to write the notes themselves if they're able, to save her scratching away at the parchment with her off-hand until an assistant can be dragooned into service.

IV.

Where there is an Orlesian, there will be wine. It's not clear where the bottles have come from--an ancient cellar, an accidental inclusion in the meager supplies rescued from camp, the Fade itself, for all anyone cares. It would be a stretch to call it carousing, but those who find the adrenaline fading too slowly or the atmosphere too oppressive have congregated in an undercroft with the mysterious crate of Val Foret red. Nell's joined them, sat on a box leaning back against the wall not far from the hearth, a full tankard of wine in her able hand, watching as an Orlesian and an Antivan bicker over who it was dealt the blow that finished an elephant.

(OOC: feel free to wildcard me, group threads also welcome)

II

[overharrowed]

Julius' voice is a bit hoarse, and she'd be forgiven for not recognizing him immediately with the blood and dirt that they're all covered in to a greater or lesser degree. Still, it's the same Kinloch accent from the Skyhold negotiations, clipped and business-like, that faintly says, "I think that's a rather audaciously optimistic question, under the circumstances."

Now that she has occasion to look, he's been propped up against the wall with crates and his staff for balance, no weight at all on his left foot. His left shoulder has been hastily bandaged, but there's a lot of blood down that side as well. He should almost certainly be lying down, or nearer to a fire, or both.

"Are you?" Alright.

Julius - OTA (injury description in I)

[overharrowed]

I.

Julius' intentions for after the battle had been to help. He can heal magically, even if he isn't a capital-h "Healer," and he's generally the type to organize when he's stressed. Making sure others are getting the help they need, coordinating supply lines, that sort of thing.

And absolutely none of those plans allowed for the fact his foot wouldn't bear his weight.

Faintly, he's aware that the dracolisk bite is the more immediately dangerous injury. He'd attempted to heal himself, and it worked inasmuch as he is still conscious, but the blood covering his shoulder and his side is still more than is exactly comforting.It's definitely more blood than should be on the outside of one's body. But the pain in his foot is wrenching, enough so that he's nauseated with it. Julius is using his staff as a cane as best he can, but movement is slow going.

Perhaps someone should tell him to stop trying. In the meantime, he's determined to make do while the experts provide healing to people more immediately in danger.

II.

On the road, Julius has given up on trying to walk, accepting the half-offered, half-ordered place on a cart. He still feels every jolt and bump on the road, and it's not pleasant. On the other hand, he prefers it to the alternative of no longer being alive to feel uncomfortable.

In between the discomfort, he'd prefer not to reflect on just how spectacularly badly the battle went. Willing conversation partners, then, become a welcome distraction; he's not picky as to the subject. He generally starts with something neutral, like the weather, but he's happy enough to follow someone else's conversational lead.

III.

(Wildcard. Hit me up via DM/Plurk/Discord if you'd like to plan something, or just tag in if you'd rather.)

II.

[keenly]

With two, maybe three broken ribs and a hole in his side from a spear, Colin is on Julius' same wagon, pale and short of breath but in fairly good spirits. The pain jolts especially when the road is rough, but there's nothing to be done about it. It's also required to sit up--not only because the vibrations in the cart go through less of him that way, but because there's no room to lie down. On this caravan, nearly everyone is wounded.

"How's your foot?" Colin asks, and coughs.

James Norrington

[judgemewhole]

I.

James Norrington, Knight Commander of the Inquisition's Templars and head of its Armory, nearly died on the field in Ghislain. A sword through the stomach by a darkspawn nearly ended his existence in this world, if not for the quick thinking of his mabari, Interceptor, who slammed the creature down long enough for James to slice the creature's head off with his own sword, before collapsing in the snow. His mabari dragged him out of danger with his horse following, kicking to death any darkspawn that tried to take their master from them.

His Templars found him soon after, and got him immediately to a healer.

Even then, with the healer's numbers nearly halved, that he almost died in the healer's tent. However, his will overrode his wounds, and he breathed once more.

Weak, tired, put in a cot in the corner after his life was out of danger and piled high with cloaks from his men, he wakes up to the soft whimpering of Interceptor, and croaks out, "Water..." to anyone who might hear.

II.

Once James can limp his way from his bed, and he has taken care of his physical needs, he has his people drag him to an open space where they get a weak hint of light. Here, he puts up his small statue of Andraste, and all the Templars there kneel and pray. Their chant echos through the windy halls of the fortress, quiet and subdued.

Still faithful, though. Always faithful. Even if James has to sit down on a cloak as so not to disturb his wounds, he still chants as firmly as the others.

"
So Andraste said to her followers: "You who stand before the gates,
You who have followed me into the heart of evil,
The fear of death is in your eyes; its hand is upon your throat.
Raise your voices to the heavens! Remember:
Not alone do we stand on the field of battle.

"The Maker is with us! His Light shall be our banner,
And we shall bear it through the gates of that city and deliver it
To our brothers and sisters awaiting their freedom within those walls,
At last, the Light shall shine upon all of creation,
If we are only strong enough to carry it...""

I

[circleprodigy]

As someone with access to healing magic who isn't incapacitated, Inessa is one of those people working herself to the bone to provide for others. She's paler than usual, her movements stiff and with bags under her eyes, but she saves all her care for those in greater need. Upon hearing that James is one of the injured, she naturally heads over to check up on him as soon as there's a moment to do so. Hearing Interceptor whimper breaks her heart for more than one reason, and she strokes his head before moving to fetch the pitcher of water nearby, pouring a glass.

"I'm here. Can you sit up at all, or should I help you?"

Cade

[onlyhymns]

Camp

Cade lived. He didn't expect to-- never does-- but when he does, the world always feels a little worse: the stench of death and illness is everywhere, the residual tinge of ozone in the air from dangerous magic, the vacant stares and cries of pain from the survivors.

He's very much awake, but unresponsive. He patrols, and that is all he does. He has to keep them safe, watch the walls, scout for enemies, and he won't stop until his legs or his heart give out. He speaks to no one, limping around with his injured hip and a bandage over his head, covering one of his eyes, blood seeping but not gushing from a scalp wound.

And around he goes, and around, to the point where one might joke he's wearing a ditch in the perimeter. He'll stop when they're safe (he'll never stop).

Wagons

Though his hip is injured, Cade refuses to ride in a wagon: there are others who need it more, and he's certain if he sits still for even an instant, he'll lose his mind (if it isn't already lost). He trudges silently along beside one of the vehicles, eyes restless and fretful, perpetually scanning the horizon as they make their way back towards home.

Misc

[whatev]

camp(town race track five miles long)

[nadasharillen]

The entire time Nari is orchestrating the hurried pitch of their camp, fabricating ingenious solutions to the lack of personnel, of resources, of cover for most of the army (albeit in a slightly more labored fashion than usual), there is nothing she wants more than to find Cade.

There's a moment, finally, when she sees him walking his pattern, that the world thunks into place like an expertly dropped crossbeam; but she's not done. There are quick and dirty fortifications to plan, teams to form to execute them, and her thoughts aren't sticking well enough for her to tally things in her head. Nor are her fingers working well enough to flip through their quick counting movements with the fingers of her right hand splinted together.

It's nearly dusk when she's satisfied they've done what they can.

He's still walking.

So she goes to walk too, falling in beside him and matching his pace.

galadriel ( closed )

[dirth]

Solas is not as wounded as others, but that does not mean he is not scarred.

There is no blood, no broken bones, but he is exhausted all the same. It feels as though all the magic he has is gone, used up in defence and protection, and his bones are heavy with his tiredness. Each step is a mile, each breath a month, but he manages. He was strong enough to defend the Inquisition, strong enough to bring himself back, strong enough to bring Thranduil to a cart, even if it might have been easier to do otherwise.

(He would not have done it to himself, nor would he have done it to Galadriel.)

It is she that he looks for now, walking through the camp with a frown on his features, glancing this way and that. She is not the kind of woman that might hide easily, not difficult to spot in the midst of bleeding soldiers and resting men and women, so he does not hurry or question anyone. He walks slowly and lets himself take the time to find her, to make sure that she is safe, accounted for, alive. He thinks he would have known if it were otherwise, but all the same...

When he spots her, Solas makes his way to her side without pause, moving to put his staff on the ground and sit beside her. He does not say much, not at first, but his eyes drink in her form before he breathes out.

"Vhenan. Are you well?" A familiar question.

[laurenande]

The camp is the same noissome place that all military encampments become, it is a perpetual feature of the universe, it seems, and Galadriel is oddly thabkful for that. She is not terribly injured but she is sore, exhausted, and unwilling to give in to sleep in such a place. Instead, she sits at a modest campfire, one of many, and stares into the flames. She is left alone, in time, and then is joined by one of the few whose company she truly desires.

Solas speaks and draws her out of her distraction, waking her as though she had been sleeping. Her smile is automatic and comes unbidden, but it is rather tired.

"I am well enough," she answers genially. He has joined her. She reaches for him with her right hand but a twinge in her arm stays the movement.

"Are you well, Melda? I am sorry I did not seek you out. I became...distracted."

flint

[hassaran]

"How familiar are you with Tevinter's ground forces?" No need to ask if he knows their navy; of course a pirate operating from Nascere--or at least one of Flint's obvious caution and intelligence--would familiarize himself. There will be time to probe that, but it's the army they faced today, and may face again tomorrow, if they're unlucky. An army they'll need to find other ways to stop, since battle has proven insufficient. Somehow that is now partially her job.

Yseult sits at a makeshift desk, an end table too small for the healers' use, only just wide enough for parchment, ink, and the forearm she leans on heavily between questions, smudging the words against the heel of her hand in way no true lefty would. Her trainers would have despaired of such laziness, nevermind that the notes are still neater than the crabbed scribble she managed with her right before the pain in her shoulder became too much of a distraction.

She looks up at Flint as she wipes her hand on dark trousers, wrist held with deliberate care when she takes up the pen again. There is a blunt focus in her eyes and dark circles beneath them, freckles about the only color left in her face. She should probably not be upright, but neither should anyone else. "Were you able to identify any of the particular units or commanders you saw today?"

[katabasis]

He decides to be frank in the same instant that he realizes he could say whatever he liked. But if there's a point in anything but the truth here-- well, he's weary enough not to recognize it. Troops on the battlefield recognizably from Tevinter is damning enough to satisfy.

"Second cavalry. Their helms are specific and they like to etch serpents into their armor. This time of year, I would suppose they came from the fortress near Vol Dorma." But who can say for certain given the unrest in the capitol? "And there was a banner for the Fourth in camp, though your guess is as good as mine as to how they were represented in the field."

Flint's sitting on a stool near to hand, close enough to the wall that he can put his back against it and stretch out his leg. Most of the work he'd done since reaching the fort has been from horseback - patrolling, scouting the roads for the anyone on their heels -, and for a time that had made the wound on his thigh tolerable. But now the hour is late and the pain is enough to leave him stiff all over. He tries not to shift his heel against the dirty floor and instead finds himself doing so at regular intervals in an attempt to find some position that will magically relieve the ache. Otherwise, he is surprisingly fit - undeniably haggard and filthy, but that's a baseline the entire force shares in.

"The foot soldiers may be more telling, should a few scouts be able to return to the battlefield and search the bodies left behind. They'll have been branded. At the very least--" he pauses, more wince of discomfort than an interruption of thought. "--I can tell you House Tavas had legionnaires there. I couldn't say who their commander is, but they have red marks on the right hand." And red caps on their spear poles. The Alarosso - because if you're going to own a contingent of a slave army, why not name them something?

Kylo Ren | OTA

[letoldthingsdie]

Closed to Rey

[Their retreat had been a miserable journey. By the time there are signs of safety and the wounded are sent off to be treated, there's a tiredness that comes over him that makes him drag his feet and wave off anyone attempting to give him aid. He didn't care for his own injuries. He wasn't concerned for himself at all. That tiredness had become forgotten in an instant as he recognizes a familiar pulse within the force, not far from him. He didn't even have to see her to know she was injured.

As he lumbers towards the medical tents, he finds Padawan circling the entrance, whining and pacing until she sees him. Caedus bounds towards her first, barking and jumping in excitement. Both dog and master were covered in blood - not all of it their own. Kylo stops to pet Padawan's head with both hands, rubbing her ears and framing her face. If she was here Rey wasn't far. He leaves the dogs be as he slips into the medical tents to find her. Once he spots her, he's behind the medic in an instant. They look up, startled and attempt to speak. He holds up a hand, waving them off.]

Leave us.

[Drinking her in, his expression moves from relief to surprise and frustration. She had her arm bandaged and slung and there was a bandage on her leg. The medics had done a good job of making her comfortable at least, supplying her with pillows and blankets and whatever else they had in their short supply that she could need. That was something, at least.]

You look like Bantha shit.

[He tries to smile, tries to make a joke, but inside he's a swirling pit of anger, helplessness, and fear. He was afraid her injuries were worse than he was seeing, that somehow these doctors wouldn't be able to help her. He was terrified, but he pushes it down as far as he can.]

Closed to Obi-Wan

[In the aftermath, he's made it a priority to find as many familiar faces as he can. Losing people in this mess wasn't a thought he wanted to entertain. So, once he's been properly patched up, he makes his rounds. He spots Obi-wan and gives him a cursory wave.]

I see you made it out alive.

[He felt relief at seeing the Jedi Master alive and well. Kylo himself was covered in blood, his cape and coat removed in favor of bandaging his shoulder. He didn't exactly look the picture of good health but his enemies had come out far worse when clashing with his blade.]

Closed to Tessa

[Kylo retreats from Rey's side long enough to look for familiar faces in the tents, his brown eyes sweeping over each cot and each chair for people he knew. That was how he found Tessa, nursing an injury or two herself. She looked no better than him or the rest. They had all seen some heavy fighting.]

On the mend?

[He smiles tersely, bringing her a cup of water as he sits at her bedside.]

OTA

[He was injured but ignoring it. He had more important things on his mind and most of the blood on his clothes wasn't even from him. Anyone who does stop to try and push him to get looked at - possibly even stitches for that shoulder wound - would be brushed off. If they were stubborn enough or able to heal him themselves he wouldn't fight more than cursory dismissals.

He finds himself a seat just outside the medical facilities, Caedus laying his head in his lap while he sits and watches people pass him by. He was turning over in his head how many might have died - how many more might have died if they hadn't retreated. It was putting him on edge.]

[provenforce]

[ She'd felt him, even as she'd rested with her eyes closed letting her mind float in the mix of the elfroot tinctures and healing magics that had been applied to her shoulder to numb the worst of the pain. She might have attempted to sit up to look less pathetic, but she doesn't have the energy.

Smiling softly as he speaks she opens her eyes, but immediately they widen as she takes in his appearance. ]

You're bleeding!

[ She winces as she pushes herself up with her right arm, looking for the medics he'd just chased off. ]

Have you even had someone look at that?

closed to Yseult.

[staysail]

The camp had been its own kind of chaos: people walking everywhere, carrying armloads of bandages or hot pots of water or dirty rags. Shouts, screams, moans--the occasional burst of laughter, quickly stifled. Someone had found a barrel of wine, and they were passing around cups if you were in the right part of the camp, taking off the edge.

Now they're loading up the wagons, which is a new chaos. Packing, gathering--loading the worst of the injured into the beds of the wagons, to be carried back across the fields and plains toward Kirkwall. Darras was walking past, half to keep occupied, half to look for her among the crowd, because he does not know where she ended up. But Yseult will surely be here, helping. He can't stomach the thought of her fish-belly white, in the mud. The image keeps drifting by, nightmarish, and he pushes it away, and walks, because he's not got anything else to do.

And then she is there, suddenly--very real, no image. Yseult. A large woman is helping her into the bed of a wagon. Her large hands hover behind Yseult, like a nursemaid. But when Yseult looks around, the firelight is in her eye and that inscrutable expression on her face, as maddening as it is alluring. And still, Darras places pride in his unpredictability, but still, he finds that he doesn't want to be unpredictable. Not in this moment.

He shoulders through the crowd, cutting a path to that wagon. He keeps his eye fixed on it, as if it might roll out of sight, or lose itself among the others. A shell game. Yseult's is slightly smaller, and its canopy is a dull mossy green, different than the others. That helps. And if this were a story, perhaps she would shine like a beacon, just for him--or else he would have some light to guide his path to her--or a tingle in his forehead, urging him on. He has none of those.

He finds the right wagon anyway, though he doesn't know it until he's grabbed hold of the side and swung himself up. The bed is crowded, and annoyed murmurs greet his entrance. And Yseult is there among them, her eyes burning at him, and Darras moves until he is beside her.

She looks worse up close. Skin like waterlogged parchment, freckles like rust spots. The ruddy torchlight gives her no color. And there are more details, too, now that his vision is no longer tunnel-focused on her. She is sitting, hunched, without that perfect posture he's used to. Her arm is in a sling. She is wearing clothes that she was not wearing before--a simple shirt, loose, and her hair badly braided, which means that she did not do it herself. The knot on the sling is loose, its ends turned up like rabbit ears. Darras resists the urge to push his thumb against one, tuck it back--or tie it tighter entirely, a gesture born of concern. He's on his knees, too tall to stand in the wagon; tall enough that he still looms over her.

"You've got someone else to stitch up your shoulder these days?"

[hassaran]

There's a quick glance at the others in the cart as Darras appears, following their eyes, the irritated looks that follow him along with that grumbling. Soldier's Bane isn't known to cause hallucinations, but its effects are easily confused with those of severe blood loss, especially by healers too worn out and overwhelmed to spend time on those no longer in immediate danger of death, and she knows too much of poisons to be entirely convinced there isn't some slow-acting symptom waiting for her.

But apparently other people can see Darras, too, which is a relief on several fronts. "I'm not sure their work is as neat as yours," she replies, breaking into a smile. The arm nearest him is the one bound up and she can't really twist to reach him with the other, so she tips sideways to put her head against his chest. Her shirt gaps open far enough to see the top of bandages beneath, around shoulder and middle, crisscrossing her chest. "I thought I saw you last night, but by the time I'd gotten up you were gone and no one could say where. Are you alright? You look alright."