faderift | MOD PLOT ↠ NONE TO RETURN

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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.

He had glimpsed Nari earlier, but she'd seemed busy, and really Cade was just relieved to see her alive: Nari, Simon, Myr, Six, even Norrington, but Coupe has been missing, and...
Each time he goes around he doubts that he saw them, works himself up into a panic over whether or not he imagined them, and each time he sees them again there's relief. So when he hears footsteps behind him, he turns with the rapid jerk of a startled animal, and immediately drops to his shaky knees.
It's really her. If anyone can help him stop, it will be Nari.

It was strange. During the entirety of it all, it had never once crossed her mind that there was a chance—one that got larger and larger, as the battle turned—that Cade wouldn’t make it to the other side. Wouldn’t be here walking. When she had looked up and seen him it had been a confirmation, not a relief.

But when he drops down in front of her and she moves reflexively to pull his head to her body, the feel of bandage where there should be the soft curl of his hair beneath her fingers, the way her own hand is stiff and can’t fit to him as it should, the whole of it shivers palpably through her.

They wouldn’t be able to claim their dead, not now. He could have lain there alone for days. Weeks, if Corypheus’s army took Ghislain, which they almost certainly would. Would have been thrown in a pyre or rolled into a shallow grave or bargained for the chance to come and find, the Inquisition picking through the fallen like so many crows and she drops her chin to her chest, shoulders curving inwards, and draws in a single harsh sobbing breath of every fear suddenly rising from nothing and being released.

These are all thoughts Cade has had in past battles, and many of them have come true: in certain cases, he was the one holding the blade that felled his companions. The way things are now, such thinking is lost in the perpetual static running in the back of Cade's mind, replaced only by Watch, Notice, Protect.
But Nari is holding him, and he holds her back with a shuddering sigh. It's always like this, no better and no worse, but this is the first time he's had someone look for him.

‘Are you okay’ is a stupid question, so she doesn’t ask it. He’s not. None of them are. He’s bandaged, so he’s been seen to. He’s up and walking, but that means nothing. Cade would pace as diligently in agony as he would hale.

So, rather, after a long moment of this simple grounded holding, she asks, “Do you need to walk, or can we go in?”

He thinks about it, and it occurs to him that going in would lead to that feeling of being trapped, the constant heart-pounding fear that the walls will cave in and the corpses will rise. There were people in the healing tents, when they burned down. They've retreated, but that doesn't mean it's over.

"I... need to walk," Cade murmurs, abashed.

"Okay."

Nari's voice is a little rough, but even nevertheless. Settled again. She thumbs the curve of his ear (the unbandaged one), always and forever a bit bemused and mystified by its shape, and then steps back to offer him a hand up if he needs one.

Cade hesitates, and looks no calmer when Nari offers her hand, but he takes it anyway and rises with a bit of a stumble. His hip is still injured, he shouldn't be walking on it like he is, but... might as well face it, he's going to anyway.

They've walked like this before, back through Kirkwall after coming back from the Planasene. Cade with a wounded leg, Nari what support she could be. She won't take any weight he doesn't offer, but she will take what he does, and they'll walk on together when he's ready.

MOD PLOT ↠ NONE TO RETURN

camp(town race track five miles long)

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