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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.

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"Then we'll both learn." That'd be brisk if it weren't just tired. He waits til she's back down before turning to rummage in a bag (someone else's, doesn't matter). "Embrium,"

Salubrious, but no one calls it that except books. He comes up with a jar of dried leaves, sets it beside the blankets. A battered tin mug, another.

"Shred it," He'll — just. Sit at the end of the of the straw, for a little bit. Just until he's certain she won't leave. Yes. "And I'll count the seeds."

There is absolutely no reason to do that, but he needs to stay awake.

The warm, cheering colour of the embrium almost gets a smile from her - almost. As it is, she holds her forefinger and thumb up, eyebrow slightly cocked. How fine? She's not a healer, doesn't want to assume and make it hard to work with for its intended use.

He looks tired. Must be, if he's having to chase after other patients as well. "You can lie down."

She'll shred and count. He can rest.

Rest upon my back, said the frog,

"No," His smile’s thin, but it drags dutifully (honestly) into place. The pinch of fingers in return: Measurements small, fine. "Thank you."

"But I'll trouble you for a story, if it won't distract us both."

Might help tire her back out. Might disguise his own nodding head.

"I know a story," she says, after a long silence, "of a healer who worked themselves so hard their body gave way and refused to obey them." Lightly, or— as lightly as Magni can manage, which is dubiously light, before she looks over at Isaac with an eyebrow raised significantly.

Still, it's not like she can really judge him. A little tilt of her head, indicating a crate and sacking material against the wall, in case he wants something vaguely more comfortable to lean against.

A story, a story. A request to speak. "What do you know of Avvar?"

"Precious little," Which isn't a lie, and seems less like to offend than the truth. "Beyond the pleasure of present company."

If it's his idea to lean against the crate, because it is and he's humouring her (brows lifted in return —), then he's still in control of this situation and will get back up as soon as she's settled back down.

And it doesn't matter that it's substantially more comfortable.

Yes.

Edited 2018-11-30 08:01 (UTC)

Please. She would give him a look, but she doesn't need to. Just pauses a moment in her tearing, and that pause alone is marker enough of entertained incredulity. Or, at least, to Magni it is. She isn't the most social adept of people.

A slow inhale and exhale. What of the Avvar should she share with one she is only just met? What use might he try to make of it, this insight into the savage wildfolk of the southern mountains? He is Orlesian. That seems reason enough to believe he values the Maker and Andraste, believes the words of the heretics.

Probably not tales of her gods, then. "There was a young man from another Hold who obtained permission to marry a young woman of my own. Talonhold."

"A young man, a young woman, and Talonhold." Amiably-echoed (look: I'm paying awake and paying attention). "I think I grasp it."

Ba dum ts.

"The Avvar, when a man wishes to wed a woman, he must kidnap her from her home without being caught. Some wiser men, they go to their prospective bride to win their aid. Some brides will let their interest in a man be known to encourage him, and give him hope that the endeavour will go smoothly."

Her voice is rough, husky. Unused to talking so much, especially when she is so tired. She swallows to wet her throat.

"But this young man, when he went to the woman, she refused to help him." A little shake of her head, and a more decisive tear of the herbs, for emphasis.

There isn't a lot to do in a Circle — when the work's done, when the chores are seen to, when it's been fifteen fucking years of the same faces and none of them are presently trying to kill you —

Books get passed around. Isaac's pretty sure he's read this one.

"Wise." Her voice sounds dreadful (they all sound dreadful), he should get up. Find some water, or. No. Right. He finds the skin at his side, fumbles it across. "I like her already."

Sounds like a lot of work. Sounds wiser to skip it altogether, but Fabria can't seem to take a hint, so what does he know?

A pause in her herb attentions, as she sets them down and accepts the skin. Unstoppers it, sniffs at the liquid - water, or something more potent?

Whatever it is, she takes a sip, eyes closed for a moment as the sensation of it rolling down her throat brings quiet relief, and she tilts her head up in a silent thank you before restoppering it and passing it back.

"She set traps. When he climbed through the window to get her, there was racket of metal and wood and bones rattling. Her father arrived, and he was beaten for his failure." A tilt of her head. A hard lesson. "But this young man was proud, and decided he would wed her, even when she actively opposed it."

Water: Little elfroot to spare, and if he has a lick more lyrium his head will explode —

"When she opposed it," There are other words for that. "Très charmant."

A faint smile, and she tilts her head to the side and a little nod. Très charmant indeed.

"When he failed the second time he was beaten within an inch of his life and given to our Hold beast as an offering." Her smile is very faint. "Not many proposals for me, after that."

"I knew there was a reason I didn't want to wed."

Hold beast. Whatever that is, it doesn't appeal (isn't about to shed a tear for the sod, the same). Eyes half-lidded or not, he hasn't missed her smile, but it's better conversation to ask:

"Do you? To some humbler suitor."

She thinks about it for a long moment. Not something to be taken so lightly.

"I do not need to be wed to hold someone dear in my heart." Marriage for the Avvar was not permanent. If it was permanence in affection that mattered to her, marriage was immaterial, in many ways.

A little shrug, before the tension in her back reminds her that was a mistake. Magni can't quite help the wince as she sets back to her work. "Do you fear great beasts in Orlesian weddings?"

"An Orlesian wedding is a beast of its own."

Was he supposed to be counting something?

"Hearts seldom enter into it. If you've money, at any rate — I couldn't say what the rest do." Fewer novels about that. He was supposed to be counting something. Can't remember what it was, probably not important. "Find a Sister, jump over a broom."

A quiet sound - laughter, ish. More like a breath.

"The best you can hope is to fight the battle and not be torn asunder?"

"Who fights their own battles?"

Isaac mumbles, shakes his head. Nods it, rather, chin dipping toward his chest.

"All the wolves and eagles and snakes on the field," Hold beasts. What a phrase. "Get fed to each other. Weddings or war."

His elbow slips, traps one of Magni’s knees. He doesn't seem to have noticed. Or opened his eyes again, for that matter.

"Always a wedding or a war."

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staggers back here

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et tu, html

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pours one out wrecked icons rip

i feel this in my soul