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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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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.

Edited 2018-11-26 23:28 (UTC)

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.

Another blanket. If it were someone Gareth didn’t know, didn’t like, maybe if it had been asked rudely, Gareth would have easily replied: No, there isn’t, does it look like we've spare blankets? So many injured, and no one had expected cold like this. But Colin is a friend, and one that Gareth would prefer didn’t freeze to death. So he looks down, gives Colin's hand a quick squeeze, and nods.

"I'll see what I can do."

He's gone for a minute or two, looking around, muttering to the other healers. Then he comes back, blanket in tow, which he's quick to toss over Colin. It's not cold, like it might be if Gareth had retrieved it from storage, and it's not quite warm, like it would be if Gareth had pulled it from someone still giving off body heat. Any possible explanations for the in-between are left to Colin's imagination.

"This is all I could find. If it doesn’t work, I can try using fire magic. You might come out of it smelling a little charred, but I doubt anyone would notice right now."

Colin has too many things to think about besides where the blanket came from, though he knows supplies are short and the dead do not need to be warm. The added weight of the blanket hurts, but if he bends at the elbows and tucks his hands beneath his jaw, the blankets are lifted a couple of inches off his ribs.

"Th-th-th-thank you-u-u," he hisses through chattering teeth. And while he has eyes locked with Gareth's, before his friend has time to turn away, he whispers, "Don't let me die."

The bleeding on the inside can be the beginning of the end. At any time, he might suddenly find it impossible to breathe. And of course the worst part is that he knows that. He knows what he has read in his books, what Anders has told him, and at the moment none of it is doing him any good. All it's doing is stressing him out.

That fear of death is far too familiar to Gareth. He's felt it hanging over him for a long time, and he's done a lot of things--some of them downright awful--in order to assuage that fear. In order to make sure that he's strong enough to survive, that no one can kill him.

But it's always been about him, people come and go, people die, and it's always been all Gareth can do to make sure not to join them. He can't do much to save other people, and the more he stays in the Inquisition, the more he finds that this bothers him. He's traveled some pretty dark paths in order to escape the helplessness that now gnaws at him, but that dark path can't help him this time.

He'll have to go at this with a little less wanton murder.

So he sits next to Colin, puts his hands together for a few moments, letting a ball of fire flicker between them. "I won't," He whispers, and it's a promise that he's not sure that he can keep, but at least he can try his damnest. His hands come apart, and he reaches to touch Colin, with a leftover warmth from that fire. "You're not going to die, Colin. Not after everything else you've survived."

That spot of warmth from Gareth’s hands brings more comfort than he could have imagined before. The shivering begins to ease as the blanket draws in that heat and keeps it. Colin turns his head to rest his cheek on Gareth’s knee.

“You comforted me like that when we first met,” he sighs. “And when I...you keep doing it. Over and over. I’m a bit tired of needing that. But you’re a good man.”

Edited 2018-12-20 16:52 (UTC)

"Gareth!" Nell's in the line for clean bandages already, wound at her shoulder aggravated in the past few hours of combing the halls, taking reports, and searching for him, among others. Besides the sling supporting her right arm and the fresh blood seeping through at that shoulder, red against the broad stains that turn half her shirt brown, she looks fine.

"Someone told me they'd seen you helping the healers, I should've stopped looking sooner and made you come to me. You're alright?"

Gareth hears his name being called by a familiar voice, and immediately wheels around to find the source. Having located Nell, he hurries to her, reaching out to grab her shoulders—and stopping when he sees the fresh blood. Ouch. He settles for giving her a gentle pat on the arm, face clearly relieved.

"Nell, I'm glad to see you. I'm doing fine—better than I have any right to, really. Tired to my bones, though, they've been working me nonstop." He does a quick once over of her. "You're looking...well, you're standing, and that's more than plenty can say. Do you need a change of bandages? I can do that much, at least. We can go somewhere quieter.

It's good that she found him. Nell is one of the few people he trusts to discuss some of the tricky subjects he's been contemplating, especially when there's such a crisis right under their noses. But they need to be prepared for what's to come—though obviously, changing Nell's bandages takes priority.

It's not a severe wound by any stretch of the imagination, but the long shallow cut on her left arm requires some manner of attention or it may become more serious. Even she knows that much. It will need a poultice of some kind smeared into. At the very least, she will need a bandage now that they are away from the battlefield and there is some very narrow attention to spare for people who aren't on the verge of bleeding to death, and she cannot very well wrap her own arm very well as much as she would like to.

Which is how Wysteria finds herself with small roll of bandages, her sleeve open to her elbow, to look up and find--

"Oh, it's you."

Gareth is barely paying attention to where he is, who he's helping--it's a bit like an assembly line, if bloody wounds were a product on a line. Approaching the next person on the list, his eyes are already on the wound, hand open to accept the bandage--when she speaks, and Gareth actually bothers to look up at the face of the person the wound is attached to.

Oh, it's you. It's the exact phrase that flits through Gareth's head as well, brows furrowing. But the kneejerk feeling of dislike is just leftovers from when he was barely in his own head, a ghost piloting a flesh mech. She hadn't really done anything wrong, and to be frank, even if she had been awful, this task isn't about his personal feelings. So he keeps his hand out for the bandages.

"It's me," He replies, with a matter-of-fact good cheer. Which, while not indicative of actual positive feelings, is better than the impassable gloom that had plagued him when they first met. "No magic healing, I'm afraid, but I can still help you with that arm."

Whether the cheerfulness is honest or not isn't really important; the fact that there's a trace of it at all has some of the taut awkwardness draining of of Wysteria's posture and her pinched expression.

"Oh. Well. That's perfectly fine. I can't imagine it's really worth the effort of magical healing anywhere. A bit of salve and a neatly wrapped bandage should do nicely, I'd think." She doesn't know much of anything about treating wounds actually, but it sounds right. "If you're not too busy, I'd appreciate the help. I'm not as deft with my left hand, I'm afraid."

Clearing her throat - a small hem noise -, she surrenders the bandage roll to him. And, more primly and even more awkwardly: "I'm not sure I caught your name the last time we spoke."

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this is old as hell so definitely dont feel obligated to tag back; i'm climbing back on the rp horse