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

[keenly]

Colin is not put off in the least.

“As you please,” he says lightly, almost brightly. “We’ll wait another hour and check again whether you are fit to sleep. If you come from a poor family, what is your profession?”

Byerly seems alert enough. But if he’d rather stay up talking, that’s his call. If he’d rather go to sleep, he can spell his name.

[bouchonne]

"My profession?" Byerly's tone and cadence is identical to what it had been before, an eerie self-imitation. "Dear fellow, you don't think I have a profession, do you? That's for freemen and elves."

But, lowering his level of obnoxiousness a touch, he grants - "I do have an occupation, though. I occupy myself with drinking and gambling. Quite a way to live."

[keenly]

“Freemen and elves, women and mages. Anyone out there you don’t have a problem with?” It’s simple curiosity. Unless certain sore points, like survival, are hit, he seldom takes these things personally. Not that they’ll be best friends or anything.

[bouchonne]

A painful little laugh. "What, the fact that I named them makes you assume that I have a problem with them? How sensitive you are, my freeman mageling." His eyelashes lower - half in weariness, half in irony. "One can say the word mages without the following sentiment being are damned in the Maker's sight."

[keenly]

That does cause a lowering of brows, a shift as he feels a bit too scrutinized. “You can tell I’m a mage?” he asks. He’d thought he’d kept his hand out of sight when casting the spell.

[bouchonne]

"There's a certain flicker your sort gets when that word is uttered," By responds, lifting a finger to point at Colin's sweet little doe eyes. "Mage. Nervousness or defiance, depending upon the individual's temperament. You tend a bit towards the former - not a surprise, of course, given that you would have arrived at Kinloch Hold not long after that nastiness where the templars took to chopping your people to bits. Or perhaps it is a surprise. I suppose some of your folk would have been enraged by those memories - but in my experience, when under threat of death, it's more common to make yourself small and hide than it is to lash out."

His hand drops. And then he admits what actually gave Colin away: "And pretty as you are, sweetling, I don't think the sight of your face alone could dull this headache that's been plaguing me for hours. Not just a purveyor of poultices, no?"

[keenly]

Colin has the look of someone who thought they were just practicing chess, only to find they were practicing chess with a world-renowned logician with a smirk and a hungry pet tiger. Hopelessly out of his depth, suddenly disturbed, and definitely unnerved. Exactly how should he handle a stranger’s references to past trauma? Instinct no longer really works for him, having told him to run screaming from everything for some years now. Personality will have to do.

“A wall,” he says, blase underneath the nervousness, or perhaps vice versa. “Fortified Tevinter tower. The outer wall is two stone layers with clay in between. One part got damaged in the fighting, so I hid in it. From the abominations, et cetera. It seems to have worked out.”

[bouchonne]

How unexpected. By had anticipated that the boy would, indeed, make himself small and hide at the sight of emotional danger - but he's still playing along. Not happily - that much is clear - but playing. Perhaps that speaks to a bit of steel underneath the velvet eyes and upper-lip fuzz.

"Unless, of course, the world as it appears now is an illusion visited upon your poor dead spirit by malicious Fade-bound demons," By offers cheerily. Perhaps the rational thing to do would be to offer the boy a bit of sympathy for that horror story, but, well...Why? Won't make it any better or hurt any less. Better by far to distract with a healthy dose of existential dread. "It might explain a few things, mightn't it?"

[keenly]

All the mages who survived Uldred, with little exception, have a similar story. It wasn’t something Colin had to cope with alone. Many apprentices of all ages were plagued with night terrors and prone to spontaneous panics or outbreaks of crying. The only difference with Colin was that he is, by nature, a bit hard to read. He often found himself overlooked by the adults who were looking for the most upset and damaged children. But there was Audra, and there was Julius. He didn’t need any more support than what they gave.

What Byerly says is so absurd, though, the spell is broken. So to speak. Colin gives him another look.

“You must know that’s not how it works,” he says, giving Byerly the benefit of the doubt.

[bouchonne]

"Must I?" His smile is wry. "I'm not an unnatural creature who walks the Fade in full consciousness like you do. I'm asleep, like any decent, Maker-loving fellow." In Byerly's normal fashion, the words are offensive if one is prone to being offended; if, however, one accepts his chosen persona - of a foolish fop - he just sounds silly. It is a dreadfully irritating thing he does, no doubt about it.

"And besides, perhaps the demons tormenting you have made you believe you understand the rules, all the while exploiting your guilelessness." A pause - "Or is that an excessively human thing for them to do? That is a very human sort of thing."

[keenly]

“Because two people don’t just sit and have a conversation in the Fade. Anyway, the dead only pass—“ He interrupts himself and looks faintly annoyed that he took the bait and started arguing. A forced smile. “Just make up an answer that makes sense to you.”

He picks up the candle again to check the patient’s pupil size

[bouchonne]

By closes his eyes, effectively stymying the dear boy's attempts at doctoring him. "Perhaps I don't exist," By offers. "Perhaps I'm simply a bit of your imagination. Then it wouldn't be two people sitting and chatting in the Fade; it would be a person sitting and chatting with a wicked demon in human form, here to deceive him."

[keenly]

“The minute you try to possess me, I’ll worry, I promise,” Colin says languidly. “I’ll spare you further embarrassment: this isn’t a game you know how to play.”

[bouchonne]

"Isn't it?" Byerly, eyes still closed, somehow manages to communicate wickedness with smile alone. "You might be surprised, just what I know about possessing."

[keenly]

Colin squints, again. “How hard did you hit your head?” he murmurs. “If you’re trying to get me to leave so you can sleep, all you need to do is spell your name and tell me who’s queen. If you’re trying to seduce me, wait till you stop seeing two of me.”

(A part of him remembers that a man of Byerly’s age and breeding once took interest in him to disastrous end. This is not that. Men like that don’t announce intent; they feign shyness, they smile, they pretend until they get close enough to fling off the sheepskin and it is too late to fight off the wolf.)

A very small movement of his brows toward each other, faint and brief before he looks away.

[bouchonne]

One eye comes half-open, the lid lazy, brow arched. "Is that an invitation for later, dear heart?" he asks. "I may die first, you know. And wouldn't you regret the lost opportunity then?"

[keenly]

“An invitation, certainly—to try again.” Repeating himself isn’t the most fun way to go about this, but now Colin is occupied, frowning thoughtfully at this man. He hasn’t been a healer long. He’s barely a healer now. But it doesn’t take experience to know this guy is weird, and not in a concussion-patient way.

“No judgment either way,” he says carefully, “but...you’re putting it on a bit, aren’t you?” Refusing to let him examine him or answer any questions. Babbling stupidly but clearly aware and able to observe and recall many small details in the environment. But he’s not trying to get rid of Colin. He’s just running him in circles.

[bouchonne]

"What an accusation." His voice doesn't hold any anger, nor any shame, nor any surprise; there's just a certain droll amusement that gives precisely no hints regarding whether he's truly putting it on or not. That might be the voice of the good-humored wounded, and it might be the voice if the weary prankster. It's hard to tell.

"I received this wound defending a fair maiden from a wicked attack. If you doubt me, you can ask her. Are you often in the habit of questioning bona fide war heroes, my boy?"

[keenly]

Colin says nothing, only raises his eyebrows a little.

[bouchonne]

And Byerly (painfully) lifts his eyebrows right back. He will not give Colin any more than that.

[keenly]

Brown eyes glance away, and Colin sheepishly rubs the back of his neck.

“Sorry. But you’re sharp enough you’re probably better off sleeping. I can stay here if you want. Or leave if you want.”

[bouchonne]

Ah, good. Byerly does enjoy a blusher.

"Which would you prefer? Do you want to escape me? Beat a retreat?"

[keenly]

“Not only are you not as annoying as you think—“ or Colin is not easily annoyed “—but walking away would create unnecessary pain. I’ve already got unnecessary pain, I don’t need more. I can lie down here as well as anywhere else.”