RIFTER ARRIVAL: Guardian 9:45

[faderifting]

WHO: New rifters, rescuers, and anyone else
WHAT: New arrivals are collected and transported to Kirkwall
WHEN: Mid-Guardian, 9:45
WHERE: The hills north of Starkhaven
NOTES: This log contains prompts for the ARRIVAL and RECOVERY of new rifters, as well as the subsequent QUARANTINE period. All prompts are open to anyone.

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ARRIVAL & RECOVERY

[faderifting]

I. ARRIVAL

You were asleep—whether deeply or fitfully, falling unconscious for the last time in a pool of blood or just resting your eyes for a moment—and then you were not. And wherever you were was not, anymore, replaced by nothing but the sensation of falling into endless, bottomless nothing. If this were still a dream, you would wake before you hit the ground. You can't die in a dream, they say. In some worlds.

In this world, bathed in the light of a flare of too-bright green light, you plunge through cold darkness until you hit stone—maybe flat, maybe angled into steps. You may be bruised or scratched from the fall, but you're alive, and you're fine except for the narrow splinter of light that now glows out of the palm of your left hand. It aches, a bone-deep pain that gnaws even through all the distractions. Above you, hanging suspended in the air, is a shifting, crystalline tear in reality. It's the same color as the mark on your hand.

Beyond the rift, the sky is so dark that it might take time to realize that some of it isn't sky at all, but the ceiling of a cavern that's crumbled open at the top, with clear starlight showing beyond. A narrow waterfall cascades down from above, past the stone platform you've found yourself on and into a pool somewhere below it, invisible in the dark. The space around you, illuminated green by the rift's light, is one of several streets built into the walls and lined with ancient and apparently-abandoned stone homes--remnants of an abandoned dwarven thaig, as you may learn from natives or those who've been here before.

Because you aren't alone here. There are other people around you—humans, or at least humanoid—with matching green marks, and an assortment of junk that might be familiar or might be very much not, scattered across the stone.

And beneath the rift, stretching their shoulders and loosing roars, are two monstrous purple-gray giants, wielding electricity and flanked by a half-dozen ghostly beings flinging fire and ice. The street is narrow, and judging by the sound of the waterfall hitting the pool below, going over the side would end poorly for anyone's bones.

Fortunately, you won't have to fight them alone. On the outskirts of the rift's reach but moving in rapidly, there are other people already waiting, armed and armored, to intervene on your behalf or to toss you a weapon of you own. Many are wearing a symbol that looks a bit like a hairy eyeball being pierced through by a sword, and at least a couple of them seem to know what they're doing. They've been waiting for you.

II. RECOVERY

Once the rift is sealed and the last of the demons dispatched, there's time to breathe, to collect the goods scattered across the stone, and to retreat to the Inquisition's camp. It's too late to travel, so your first night in Thedas will be spent here, in this long-abandoned thaig. There's campfire food, spare clothing, and extra bedrolls for the new arrivals set up inside tents and the least pest-infested abandoned houses. And in the morning, there's a long ride—wagon or horseback, your choice—south to Kirkwall.

bartimaeus | ota(-ish)

[reshapes]

((single thread only please, threadjacking welcome! please help wrangle this yahoo.))

Fundamentally speaking, this is not how this is supposed to go. And believe him, he knows a thing or two about dismissals. Usually, they come with this fantastic sense of being unmade - of shedding physicality and bursting into a riot of shape and color as his Essence leaps for the delightfully unformed reality of The Other Place. You know the sensation of belonging somewhere and going back to it after what feels like an age spent away? It's like that. It feels that way every time, even if he's only been away for as long as it took to tell some girl she was misinformed and her ideas stupid.

Falling out of a hole in the sky, bouncing down a flight of stone stairs and coming to rest with a bruising thump doesn't feel anything like that. Call him naturally intuitive, but before Bartimaeus has even opened his eyes, he's gotten the impression something has gone terribly wrong.

Opening them confirms it.

Because there is something attached to him. The realization is revolting enough all on its own, the sickly green slash in his hand pulsing and prickling. The pain is immediate and cutting, devouring in slow motion. That, he thinks instantly, is trouble. And then he realizes he's looking at his own hand. It has five fingers. The nails are reasonable lengths. The knuckles look like a person's might, which is entirely wrong because if he's getting yanked back into the physical world after all of this, he definitely would have landed in a better guise than Stick Limbed Boy #436. Sure, that isn't usually a ton of time to make these decisions between the Other Place and the summoning pentacle, but all it takes to prepare a dramatic entrance is a few seconds. He has practice, you know.

And finally, speaking of pentacles - he isn't inside of one. Which, as irritating as they are, might actually be as trouble as the fingers thing if he thought about it long enough. Luckily, he doesn't have to.

Because the minute he rolls over and the world goes from being upside down to right side up, Bartimaeus spots two things: first, there's the horrible twisted shape of a spirit on the offensive. It's all razor sharp points and massive, contorted musculature. Honestly, if he squints the creature reminds him a little of that Ascobol. But secondly - and this is really the one that gets him moving -, there's a person with a sword. They stab the spirit. It makes a horrible noise.

"No thank you," Bartimaeus thinks (or says), and then the boy crumpled at the bottom of the stairs with a rift shard in his hand is suddenly no more. In his place is a dark colored lion with a rancid green glow eating up one of its paws. It seems momentarily shocked. Then it begins to roll over and right itself.

[justice_is_blond]

He doesn't come to a lot of Rift openings - they've plenty of healers, he's not some muscle-bound sword-wielder who stupidly likes hunting demons when there are perfectly good ones to fight closer to Kirkwall - but now his luck has run out as it always does and it's his turn.

At least hanging out with Hawke and Cousland gave him a fair bit of experience in dodging said demons and said muscle-bound pointy things addicts. Which he does, proud of his agility at his age, to reach one of the new Rifter arrivals.

"Hello, welcome. Let's walk away fro-no." 'No' might not be the best reaction to seeing someone transform into a lion, but he feels it reasonable enough. Sure, he's seen a woman turn into a dragon in front of him before. That doesn't change his instinctual worry about being eaten.

"Nicely done, shapeshifting is impressive, can we maybe get away from the demons? Let the people who are good at fighting them have a go this time. There will be plenty of others to kill, and I'm not convinced lion is the best form for it." Too close range, not enough armor or shielding or other people wearing armor and shielding in between demon and you, in his opinion.

[reshapes]

'No' is right. Bartimaeus has rolled over on the bottom of the stairs and gone to stand, only to find his legs unpleasantly weak. All over, there's a bizarre heady sensation of something being not right. It takes him a moment of confused fumbling - stop talking, you, can't you see he's trying to concentrate? - before he realizes what's happening. It's a bit like patting every pocket for lost keys, only here he's stock of himself and realizing with a mute horror that there is less of him than their was just a moment ago when he'd been that boy crumpled at the bottom of the stairwell.

"What?" says the lion, baffled and irritated. It looks at Anders. The lion is all razor sharp teeth even as it reels like a punch drunk boxer. "I'm a djinni, you--"

There's probably a swear word in there, but it's swallowed by the bang of a nearby magical discharge. In the immediate aftermath, the lion lunges.

[justice_is_blond]

That's new. He's never met a mage who could talk while shapeshifted before, and he's considering saying something along those lines, along with the lines of 'if djinni is a word for mage then I'm a friend' when suddenly he's being jumped. By a lion.

He really shouldn't have come. But instead of dwelling on that, Anders reacts, casting force magic to try to repel the other mage while surrounding himself in one of his barriers just in case it's not enough. Today is not the day he dies, and he's especially not going to be killed by a giant cat.

"I'm not your enemy! I'm here to help, for Andraste's sake!" He won't attack. Not yet. But the claws and teeth are not encouraging when he's rather fond of his limbs and blood.

The Medicine Seller - OTA

[meds4sale]

I. Arrival

Oh. This again?

He felt the rush of deja-vu as consciousness flowed back into his mind, like the lazy lap of waves on a summer shore. It was all so very familiar - he'd arrived in a cave last time too, hadn't he?

He cracked open his eyes, and it was, indeed, a cave, though not the one he'd first arrived in. Or at least not the same part - he didn't remember there being any structures inside last time.

He gradually got to his feet - a difficult task when every nerve felt like it was on fire - especially in the palm of his hand. But something felt ...wrong. The dim gloom of the cave, the sickly green glare from the rift...

...Something was missing - he was forgetting something.

It was the crackling of electricity that alerted him to the pride demon behind him before his sense sluggishly caught up. Instinctively his hand reached out as though to stop the attack, though no sort of magic barrier seemed to be erected.

Seemed being the operative word.

The electricity crashed on the unseen barrier like waves on a rocky shore - the force of it so great that the push back caused the skin of the Medicine Seller's palm to split.

He scoured the area around him - there would be others, and indeed there were, in varying states of consciousness. And... yes, he recognized the symbol - the Inquisition was here too.

How fortunate.

"Try to rouse the others. Should they fall off the side, it will be their end," he said calmly to the nearest person, as though he were remarking mildly on the weather. Folded bits of paper appeared between his fingers as he surveyed the area around the rift. Two pride demons, and at least six wraiths - on his own he could buy a few minutes with the barrier, even reinforced with his ofuda.

"...This might be troublesome."

II. Recovery

a. After the Battle

He found his medicine pack mercifully intact by an outcropping of rocks. Many of the contents were scattered about, some even lost to the yawning chasm below, though much to his relief his sword and tiny legion of scales were all accounted for. Perhaps in many years time, some excavators would find the little books of shunga far, far below. Or maybe a darkspawn would happen upon them and would be inspired to invent darkspawn erotic woodcuts, whatever those might wind up looking like. Most likely, however, they'd just be lost to time and no one would know the joys of such masterpieces as 'woman having sex with giant mushroom'.

He'd shed a tear for the loss if his face had the capacity for any expression more strenuous than dull surprise.

The Medicine Seller recovered what hadn't been destroyed, though there may be a stray box of medicinal herbs, a few packets of various powders, or book of elegantly rendered depictions of imaginative intercourse.

b. The Thaig

This was the first time the Medicine Seller actually saw proper Dwarven architecture and it was... interesting to say the very least. He took a few rubbings of the old carvings in the stone - time had worn much away but some were still prominent. He didn't know their significance. There was a brief pang of regret as his hand brushed over some ornamentation along a broken support pillar and he wondered if Kit were here, would he know?

He carefully folded the rubbings and stowed them in his box - it would give him something to investigate in the library in what he suspected was going to be a long stay in the Gallows before the Inquisition gave some slack on his proverbial leash. And there was an interesting patch of mushrooms wedged between the ruins of one of the houses and those required his immediate attention.

c. On the Road Again

During the day, the Medicine Seller kept largely to himself, riding in the back of the cart or helping to tend to any injured where his particular skills were needed.

At night, he had a habit of wandering off briefly. Not much more than half an hour on a 'toilet break', and returning with a cloth full of green shoots and tiny, edible mushrooms. Maybe a fish if they were near a stream.

He had set up a small cooking fire and whatever he had simmering in the little pot over it smelled heavenly. For all his elaborate attire, the Medicine Seller was clearly not a stranger to living rough.

after the battle

[wont_be_me]

Dumped on a new world with not a single item she might've contemplated useful, she is already beginning to... pick up things. She's not entirely unlike himself, she knows the value of trade. Where and what it can get you. Unlike the medicine seller, who made efforts to procure good ingredients and stock... She just tended to steal it, or con it out of people. She's holding one of his boxes, investigating it thoughtfully. What are the chances... she just gives it back...

[meds4sale]

Probably quite low zilch, but that doesn't stop the pale, perfectly manicured hand being extended, palm up and expectant.

"I beg your pardon," came the accompanying slow, flat tone, "but that is mine."

[wont_be_me]

"Is it?" We're only inches away from someone childishly asserting: I don't see your name on it. Somehow she resists, instead lolling the box in one hand, tossing it up lightly, letting it clatter back into her palm.

"Would you like to trade me for it?"

1.a

[arlathvhen]

Beleth finds the book first. It's not the first time random objects have been violently expelled from a rift, and as she walks through the area, trying to assess the damage from the fight, she curiously flips through it. The language is unknown to her, but luckily, there are pictures, and--Oh.

Oh.

There are a few seconds where she stares at the book in flustered surprise, tilting her head slowly as she tries to figure out how someone would get their legs in that position--Then she slams the book closed and quickly looks around, checking to make sure there are no witnesses to her salacious discovery.

That is when she sees the Medicine Seller.

"Glaewron!" Her first reaction is cheerful surprise. There have been a few rifters who returned after disappearing, but there is no rhyme nor reason to it, and she learned not to expect it. But here he is, and--Creators, she's still holding the book. Panic and pure embarrassment hit her at once, and she does the first thing she can think of--tossing the book to the ground behind her. Book, what book??

"You're--um. You're back!"

[meds4sale]

The Medicine Seller watched as one of his books arced gracefully through the air, and then bounced unceremoniously off the stone into a puddle. Somewhere, a thousand museum curators collectively went:



Rest in fucking pieces, Isoda Koryusai.

"It does seem to be that way," he said, rising from where he was bent over the box, to greet her with a bow of his head.

"It is good to see you again, Beleth."

[arlathvhen]

Well, he should have thought of the consequences when he wrote such a SCANDALOUS book.

A book which Beleth is grateful that the Medicine Seller doesn’t acknowledge. Did she actually manage to hide it? She decides not to ask questions she doesn’t want to know the answers to, and instead focuses on the more important topic at hand.

"It's good to see you, as well. You were certainly missed, I didn’t think...." Well, I didn’t think I'd ever see you again seems a bit melodramatic, and too intense. After all, he’s right here. She’s seeing him. That's what counts. So she just shrugs, instead. "I'm glad you're back." Which...is probably a bit self-serving, since it means he was dragged back out of his world to come here. Ugh, whatever.

"I hope the demons didn’t give you too much trouble?"

CARLA | IS AN ASS

[wont_be_me]

ARRIVAL - YOU DON'T NEED ME FOR THIS
She lands on the stairs with a bounce, all the little metal instruments threaded into the leather loops of her jacket jingling. She rolls at least twice before she catches herself with her hand, swearing sharply. She isn't normally given to swearing, but there was always shock and there was always anger to pull that kind of flavor out of you. As she's getting up, she's already idly wondering if they threw her off the ship, landed somewhere while she was sleeping and just opened the hatch and pushed her out. That wouldn't surprise her, there was little enough loyalty among them besides the mutual desire to not be caught and taken to whichever interplanetary court had jurisdiction over their respective warrants. Whether or not she's been dumped, she doesn't know where this is and has no way of establishing it, so she just brushes the grit out of her bleeding palm... Tries to anyway, the thing in her palm does not wish to be brushed

She gets little enough time to fuss with it before the visitors are upon her. She does not assume they are demons, nor ghosts. She assumes they are aliens. Too many aliens to fight, and who apparent have other aliens to war with so... She really doesn't need to be here, does she?

She starts to slip away. Her only question when someone comes to fetch her is a sly: "I'm not under arrest, am I?"

RECOVERY - AT NIGHT
Even after she's been returned to the campsite, she's difficult to keep still. She's not really listening about the demons, or the Fade. All she really seems to care about is admiring the craftsmanship of the thaig. She keeps climbing on things, moving too far away from the group as she sticks her head into house and hovel. Will she probably steal some shit? Yes, she probably will, if it looks useful.

RECOVERY - AT DAY
She looks at the horse, frowning. "What kind of inbred mount is that?"

Oscyrians, as you will all unfortunately come to learn, have high standards for the physical body, not ending at just their own. They have genetically modified most species to match their ideas of perfection, and this is assuredly not it.

WILDCARD
Do whatever you want, can pm or ping me too.

Gilia St. Loe | Original Character

[seaboard]

I. ARRIVAL
She isn't meant for this - a fact that couldn't be more obvious, than when she awakens, on the cold wet earth. Dizzied, confused, and immediately shocked by what is going on. Not that she has time to really take in what it means. The dark cave that strains light, tomb-like and encased. But not dark, not when the air is green with power in a way that makes her shiver. All that hair want to stand on its end. ( Like it needs help ). She looks around, bewildered and confused, trying to make sense of it all.

"Mama? Nikolai?"

But she can't see them, they don't answer.

There isn't any time, really, when the demon steps out, huge, lumber, though she would not call it a demon, no, only something transformed. After all, spirits themselves were not the enemy of man. So why would these beings hurt her?

So she doesn't know to panic, knows to run, even as others do, startled as a deer watching, she looks around trying to make sense of it all, when it begins to smash, break, claw. Not a fighter, never raised her voice to another and never had it raised in anything other than parents and siblings and ways of a family might squabble, let alone to defend herself as she scrambles, tries to crawl away from the thing that comes bearing down on her.

Too slow, too slow, and it is so dreadfully big. Gilia screams with it grabs her legs out from underneath her. Her fingers clawing at the ground as she gets dragged. Nails scraping into stone uselessly. Looking for purchase, any purchase, and finds it only in a wooden beam from a long destroyed building as the demon pulls its new doll from the ground. Even as she holds hard enough to draw blood from her palms with the splinters digging in, it's clear, that demon is going to win sooner or later.

II. RECOVERY
Gilia isn't good for much when it's over. Rather, she's too shocked to even answer questions about who she is and what is happening. Just sits politely numb to it all, blinking and watching corners in fear. When it's all over, she curls up, hands tacky with dry blood, knees pulled into her chest and all of her hair a great curly, dishevelled crown, a mess above her head. Her wimple, veils and pins have well and truly gone by now. Just blood stails and skin that is sickly pale with shock.

It is shameful to cry, but she doesn't know what else to do, when finally they are left alone. Her face into her knees as hard as she can, her relatively simple - though rich in quality, if not in pattern or colour - clothes. Not yet game enough to take what has been given to her, - she wasn't supposed to take anything from anyone, and - the deep worries that follow it. Now she has been saved, not by her family, not by the Father-Sea, but by strangers. Has the war spilled further than they thought? Was this to entrap them? Take the Second-Daughter, force the family after centuries to take a side? But she did not know these men and women, did not know their spirits, did not know their banner, so how could she even begin to guess?

The confusion of it all, without advisors or Nikolai to tell her, in the end, only makes her cry harder.

Recovery!

[meds4sale]

The Medicine Seller was not much of a soft touch for tears - he'd much too often seen the crocodile variety for them to have too much effect. But he wasn't incapable of sympathy either and he could recognize when someone was recovering from shock.

There were two soft clinks beside Gillia as the Medicine Seller set a bowl of hot water with a clean, damp cloth, and a jar of some poultice or another down beside her on the flagstone.

"May I have a look at your injuries?" he asked, kneeling down with his feet tucked under him and his hands on his knees.

[seaboard]

It takes more courage than she wants to admit to, to lift up her tear-stained face, soft and wet. She lifts her hand, the cuff of it, rubbing against her cheek with her sleeve. Trying to sniffle herself back into some kind of composure.

It works, sort of.

"Thank-you." Her hands lift, shaking, tacky now with the blood. Before she turns them over, and they are a mess. The splinters dug in lines against her palms, all torn up, dirt thick under her nails.

[meds4sale]

It was not a pretty sight and as the Medicine Seller surveyed the damage done to what were clearly hands that likely never so much as threw a punch, he suspected that he'd need a bit more than hot water and a poultice. The ancient, moldering wood had probably gotten all sorts of nasty things in her skin.

The bottom drawer of his medicine pack opened with a gesture, and a pair of tweezers, a phial of disinfectant, and a roll of bandages emerged, levitating into his outstretched hand. He didn't have the patience to stand on ceremony today and sort through the clutter to find what he needed. The bandages and disinfectant were set aside, and he took the cloth from its bowl, squeezing out the excess water.

"This will probably hurt quite a bit," he warned. Hand injuries always stung quite a bit relative to their severity - all those nerves and things.

"Will you tell me where you are from?" He asked, dabbing away the drying blood. He didn't have the greatest bedside manner - he wasn't a healer, he was a merchant, after all - but he still knew that the easiest way for this to go smoothly was to keep her mind on something else beside the pain and panic.

ii

[heirring]

It's strange, Wysteria thinks, to recognize ones' self so utterly in another person. She thinks it when they're first making camp and she spies the young woman looking shocked and unsteady while the rest of the world - or rather, this very small cross-section of it - moves about her to make arrangements for the new arrivals, to tend wounds earned in the battle at the Rift, to stoke cooking an put pots to boiling. But it's a passing fancy and no more. After little more than a brief moment of recognition, Wysteria too is swept away into some task. She'd been more or less useless in the shadow of the Rift itself except to close it, and someone or other in camp is keen to make her attend to some work to make up for it. 'This isn't a holiday, Miss Poppell,' someone probably scolds her.

Which, no of course it isn't. She knows that very well, thank you very much. But maybe it's good that the resulting work sours her mood. Otherwise, she might of forgotten about the pale young thing entirely.

As it is, her search eventually bears fruit in the form of the aforementioned lady all wan faced and tear streaked which - honestly -, it simply won't do. With her skirts freshly come down from where they'd been knotted up into her belt, Wysteria makes her way over to the woman. She's carrying two steaming bowls (though both lack spoons; hopefully the new arrival doesn't mind sipping directly from her dishware).

"Hello? Pardon me? Are you hungry? I've an extra bowl here if you care for something. And you should. I believe it would do you good to get something in your stomach. I know when I first arrived, I thought I'd never be hungry again but it turned out that the moment food passed my lips that I was perfectly voracious. You'll see - have a little soup and your good sense will come straight back to you."

[seaboard]

By this time - at least - the man with the strange box has come and gone, and tended those wounds, wrapped them up. She means to tell him, that she will look after it, very soon. But he was kind, and she did so hate to intrude - and the... kindness might be her undoing, really. She is so lost, and so hurt, and so confused.

Blinking away tears - tears that still leak like she doesn't really know what is happening but at least is no longer sobbing - she looks up from where she has kept herself hidden and small for as long as possible.

She doesn't know what really to say. Wetting her lips, salty, but no more than usual, she thinks. So the default is... plain. "Thank-you." Does she really want it? She hardly knows, but the girl seemed sure. At this point, anything had to be better.

[heirring]

"Of course. Here." Whether the young lady wants it or not, she will now be passed the bowl. "It's nothing special, mind you. It comes out of chips that have been hardened and carried around in a pocket all day, but its warm and that's something."

For her part, Wysteria takes a seat on a bit of rock near at hand. Balancing her bowl on her knees, she quickly shoves back a few fallen strands of hair and begins resetting the pins.

"I was much the same, you know." This mumbled through the little rods pinched between her lips. "Not crying exactly, but I believe I was close to it. It was all very shocking-- is shocking, I suppose. But not to worry. The urge to cry will pass. I know for my part it helped to be spoken to and to have people ask me questions. Conversation is such a good way to ground yourself in a new place, don't you think?"

She sets the final pin with a decisive stab. "What's your name, my sweet?"

Makimachi Misao | OTA

[amnotaweasel]

I. Arrival
Misao dreams, for a couple of heartbeats, that she's falling. She doesn't remember much of the dream before that -- Aoshi-sama's expression, maybe, his hand reaching for her, the whip and slap of dark silk in the wind.

And then her back strikes stone, jarring her out of the dream and into wakefulness. She stares up at the ceiling for a few long moments, trying to piece together just what she's woken up to. Some sort of green ribbon crystal thing in the sky, stars, a place where there aren't stars --

Monsters.

Misao scrambles to her feet, only barely ahead of a bloom of fire. She can feel the heat off it, and the cacophony of footsteps and fire crackling and the sound of glass -- or ice? -- breaking convinces her very quickly that, however insane the world has gone, she's not dreaming.

She tucks her fingers into one of her kote, but she only has five kunai hidden within. Nearby, something huge and purple lumbers, so heavy that she can feel the ground shake beneath its feet, and she does her best to duck out of the way.

"Hey, somebody throw me --" Shit. She's no good with a katana; she's so short that it's an awkward handle. Most of Oniwabanshuu prefer one-handed swords, anyway, and that was how she was trained. "Somebody throw me a misericorde or something." Misao hardly notices that the word wakizashi came out wrong.

II. Recovery

Her hearing rings like a mosquito buzz in the sudden quiet after the battle, and Misao finds herself occasionally pressing her palm to one ear or the other. She settles herself by one of the fires, falling automatically into wariza: kneeling, knees pressed together, but feet and lower legs bent apart.

Ordinarily, she'd be peppering the people around her with questions. But it feels like everybody else is already asking almost all the things she wants to know. And if there's one thing Oniwabanshuu are good at -- guardians of the Shogun's garden, information gatherers, informants -- it's listening.

Honestly, if she couldn't feel stone pressing into her knees, if she hadn't just narrowly survived a battle with monsters, she wouldn't be too sure any of this is real.

But it is real. If none of the other proofs worked, she's still got the ache in her left hand would be enough to convince her. She massages her palm and looks curiously at one of the other people with a green shard of -- something -- in their own left hand. "Does it ever stop hurting?"

john mandrake | ota

[cyclic]

I. ARRIVAL

His first thought is, very tiredly and stupidly: this is not the Frog Inn. John stiffly pushes up from the stone where he's landed face first, twisting onto his back. He doesn't startle when the hand he lifts to rub dirt from his lip gives a brilliant flash of green. The young man draws his hand back, dazed, eyes narrowing as he studies the bright gash. It hurts. He also has no idea what it is, but his gut helpfully fills in the obvious. Magic. Same color as a Detonation, and for an odd moment he waits for his hand to explode in his face.

The eerie expectation's derailed by a loud, jagged roar. Electricity skitters off the stone on his right and John yelps, snaps out of it and scrambles to his feet, expensive shoes skidding unhelpfully on rock as he turns to face down the demons. Because that's what they are, clearly; there's no shock there, except for the fact that they're trying to kill him.

One of them churns out a splash of fire and John stumbles back, his aching hand conscripted into a whip-crack gesture, a quick defensive Flux meant to snuff the flame out; it doesn't work. Maybe the flame sputtered a bit, or maybe he's not focused enough, did something wrong. Either way, the cuff of his best suit is now singed on top of being scuffed and covered in dust.

He should have been more prepared is his next, sharp thought, which is both unreasonable and harsh — nobody could have predicted this, whatever it is. More fairly: maybe he shouldn't have sent every last one of his demons off to chase down one man. Now what? He reaches into his pocket and feels cold metal, the familiar chalk. Not enough time to summon.

Pride tamps down the very sensible decision to shout for help as he takes another tripping step closer to the edge of the platform, pinned in by one of the lesser demons. Pale-faced and red-eyed and wearing what was a very nice suit, John tries a different approach; another ornate gesture, more deliberate this time, a shout that's buried in the roar of the water and the rift — and a weak crackle of blue light flashes out from his hands and scatters across the demon's shoulder, barely slowing it down.

II. RECOVERY

John keeps to himself. He shouldn't. He knows, reasonably, that it isn't the strategic option. He should be networking, demanding answers and learning everything he can. What he learns simply by listening, however, is enough to temporarily shut him up: he's not in England. He does not have his demons. And, alarming in a way that's perhaps more vain than existential: his title means nothing.

Perhaps a low profile is the more strategic approach, in the long run. Better to figure out what he's up against before making noise or exposing his cards. John settles in by one of the quieter campfires, hands wrapped around a lopsided bowl of soup that he hasn't touched. He looks out of place, a rustic blanket draped over his three-piece suit; and young, though that's undercut by his severe expression as he watches the fire and picks apart his situation. He doesn't make any effort to cover the gash of green on his hand.

ii

[seaboard]

She doesn't mean to bother him, truly she does, just she is doing her level best to keep out of the way of all of these soldiers. These hard-looking men and women, quite simply but, terrify her in some way of - what if someone saw her talk too long to one of them? What would they say or think of it?

It's more than custom, it is a fear too deeply embedded to do away with right now that each time they pass, it startles her.

Makes her jolt.

Right into him.

Which is a mildly less terrifying concept overall, but an infinitely more embarrassing one as her face goes bright red in the face as she begins to stumble through yet another wave of apologies. "I'm sorry. I'm - I did not mean."

[cyclic]

The sudden interruption doesn't get much of a response, immediately. It does cause the bowl in his hands to slip into a perilous tilt, spilling soup on his hand and the ground, and it does nearly knock him off his perch on a cracked block of stone. But there's no shout of dismay, no severe look; it takes him a moment to snap out of whatever place his mind's wandered off to, and when he looks up at her his expression is blank.

Carefully blank. Neutral to the degree that the immediate impression is of a chilly disinterest, though that's countered slightly by the way he looks her over, studying.

"It's fine," also neutral. Polite. There's a dull pause, and the follow-up sounds a bit rote. Something obvious to say, also polite. "Would you like to sit?"

[seaboard]

Like is a strange word to her mind, what she would like is to be left alone, what she would like is to curl up and weep until this all went away, and what she would like is to curl up once more in her mother's arms and ask her what to do.

But here she is, being asked a question. And when did she refuse anything? Not in greed, but in some terrible fear of being rude.

"That is kind of you, sir, thank you."

The refinement is there, if different, in the way she arranges herself. Though the blood stains her clothes and the fear taints her movements. But she sweeps the skirts delicately, she curls her fingers lightly to brush the frazzled locks of hair out of her face (to no effect, there is no keeping them out of the way really), and she settled with her legs neatly underself, hands in her lap and her eyes turned down.

Mercifully, however, silent.