faderift | closed || nothing sacred, all things wild

"Same as before. I don't hear anyone coming." Nell is alongside one of the trees at the edge of the copse, half-hidden behind it, looking beyond. She had looked back at the direction from Nikos, but made no move toward the sister herself, and doesn't watch Marisol end her life. There's blood splattered down the front of her robes, but they're red, anyway.

"We should go before they do. It's done, isn't it?" She looks to Nikos, then at Caspar. "Do you have something from Benedetta's people to plant, or can we go?"

Caspar doesn't return Nell's gaze, busy pulling a small throwing knife from the guard at his feet.

The scene's inevitably a mess, given the corpses, but it's hardly messy. Whoever finds it will have little to go on, but there's such a thing as too much framing. Any politician worth their weight would hire professionals to deal with an opponent, and anything less might contradict the narrative they've already set out in letters.

"It's done." His tone is steady. Focused, not urgent. He secures his knife in borrowed robes, gesturing downhill with a short nod. "And it's time we get to the river, quickly."

In all things, they've been quick. Quick to move in and quick to kill and quick, now, to leave. Even the plan had come together quickly. The flat-bottomed boat that is waiting for them was engaged for only a few coins. They have time enough to get out of the robes once they've reached the rendezvous point, so the boatman will never see the Chantry robes, just as the pilgrims in the camp had never seen their plainclothes.

Nikos' mouth twitches into an expression a little too severe to be a smile. He shoves the knife in at the belt that is beneath his robes--fucking too clumsy, too hot--and grabs for his own stupid hat that he'd shoved off when they'd started.

"Let's go. Keep a watch behind."

The pool is fed from somewhere underground, so the ground to the south of it is soft, sucking at their boots as they leave behind the corpses and the clearing. Their first tracks will be mostly obscured. There's mud enough that a fresh slough fills quickly all but the firmest of their footsteps. Nikos' steps are heaviest. If they get tracked, it will be his fault. The ground slopes down, gets firmer. Around them, moss hangs low like weaving draped across the branches of the trees, which grow further and further apart as their path leaves behind the rich mud around the pool. There's still enough for cover, should they need it.

Agathe had been expected to take the Imperial Highway, but Fabria's letters told a different tale. In her piety and sympathy for the people, the Grand Cleric had diverted to the Fields of Ghislain, to pay tribute to the dead and pray for the war on her way to the election. Blood still painted the grass, and the carrion crows were growing fat, picking from shallow graves. They're somewhere between Arlesans and Montefort, where the finger of the river reaches up from the Waking Sea. Val Chevin will be a safer port than Val Royeaux, where news of Agathe's murder will reach quickly.

"It was well done," Nikos says, eventually, low. They moved quiet, to start with. But there's no one on their path yet, and if anyone's found the scene, they've not kicked up a commotion that could carry this far. No one among them was appointed rear guard specifically, but he's been keeping an eye out. A front of moss brushes against his cheek and he flicks it away. That minor irritation isn't enough to discourage the feeling high in his chest. Any blow successfully struck against an established power is something to take pride in. "I'm not saying we celebrate when we get to Val Chevin--better to get the fuck back to Kirkwall--"

But it was well done. He wants badly to take a drink, but they don't have time. He wants to say something, to make this meaningful. There's no words that fit--at least, none that he could say. He looks back over his shoulder. The hills and the camp are farther off now, the smoke a pale haze. Agathe is laying on ground made soft with her blood, and they did that.

Edited (oops sorry to inboxes) 2019-04-23 19:17 (UTC)

Part of her wonders if they have done the right thing, if their gamble will pay off, and if they need to kill more people to ensure the best outcome. An unravelling of thoughts that she can't give her time or energy at the moment, quite frankly. They don't have room for doubts, it would serve little purpose when the act was already done, and in the end if they didn't take risks there would be no progress. The sacrifice was necessary, even if it made things more high stakes in the election.

Marisol looks as relaxed and at ease as ever she does.

"Nikos being against celebrating. Be still my heart."

"We're only half done," Nell points out, with a hard look flicked from Nikos to Marisol. She's been mostly silent throughout the lead up and the crime itself, and the set of her jaw looked likely to stay that way through the rest of this walk, too, til now. It doesn't slow her pace, which pushes the group to go faster despite the mud and the unfamiliar terrain.

"There's nothing to celebrate until the work in Antiva is finished and Elise elected."

Caspar, in turn, cuts a measured look towards Nell. She isn't wrong. Slightly demoralizing, perhaps, but not wrong — assuming Elise is the only victory being counted. But Agathe is dead. Nevarra will feel it, fresh kindling on the slow churn of infighting and rivalries. There's no wild, lurching thrill in knowing this — not as it is for Nikos — but the satisfaction is there, as tangible as the weight of a well-balanced blade.

Which is to say: there will be celebrating. It'll just be later, and Nell won't be invited anyway.

"Half done, yes; but it's a half well done. Perhaps we can spare a modest toast and save the bottle for the rest."

"I've always loved when people state the obvious," she replies, breezily. "Does so much to buoy the spirits."

She doesn't cast a look to Nell, hard, flat or otherwise. Certainly she can understand the tone, respects the caution, but surely they can allow themselves something, if only to make it a little easier to keep going.

"Let's just make sure we stick together."

Nikos, glaring forward, takes just the smallest comfort in the defense from Caspar and Marisol's deliberate blitheness. He considers, for a moment, letting it go, considering the argument postponed. He finds after only that one moment--jaw clenched tight, as if to hold back words--that he can't.

Idealism is deserving only of a self-conscious shame, nothing he can allow himself to feel for very long before being overcome by the need to smother it, hide it, a light shielded from anyone's view. Caspar and Marisol, they've seen that stupid flame in him. Nell is the unknown here, a critic's voice.

His next step is particularly hard, and squelches, loudly, in the mud.

"Do we earn extra points for returning in total sobriety? Killing Agathe is half of what we meant to do. And the rest will fall into place, and a measure of chaos will follow, and that is good, besides what we wanted. Nevarra unsettled, turmoil in Antiva, the Chantry at its own throat. If Elise steps to take the power in that moment, the cause will have advanced."

"Oh fuck off," Nell snaps at Marisol's back in instant retort, too tightly wound to share their enjoyment of this. It's different, killing outside of battle. Even Templars caught unawares were still Templars, soldiers, with arms in sight if not in hand. Civilians caught in cross-fire were regrettable, but that's what battle is, sometimes. It's not just the cold blood or the speed of it or the quiet. Five unarmed women dead in the grass without the slightest hope of defending themselves, enemies only in the abstract. Potential allies, just not the strongest. A necessary sacrifice, so long as it works.

"You can all go jerk each other off about how stabbing a bunch of middle-aged women in the back is some great victory for the revolution," she says, with a roll of her eyes, "but at least wait til I'm out of earshot."

"Their blood is still wet on your robes. I doubt they'd put much stock in your respect."

The empathy isn't misplaced. It's something he would've related to strongly, about ten years and many more bodies ago — but you can only kill so many innocent people before the narrative wears thin. Repetitive at best, narcissistic at worst. Eventually, playing at higher morality feels like its own disservice.

Outright disrespect and mockery is a stretch on that logic, perhaps, but Caspar doesn't seem particularly interested in prayers for the dead. The trees here are larger and farther apart. It's easy to see a clear path ahead, which makes the pace easier to keep and does absolutely nothing for cover. Easier too to see the slope leveling off more thoroughly, and the trees gathering more tightly even farther ahead, thinner and more tangled, clustered along the promise of the encroaching river.

"We can debate the finer points in Val Chevin."

Which isn't a shut up, but he trusts everyone else to understand that they've hit a more vulnerable stretch. Maybe.

The road is there before them, clear, and the need to get out of the area is urgent. But Nikos' mutinous look lingers. His jaw clenches again, tight with the effort of not continuing.

He's not stupid. He shuts up. For now.

When they come out from the trees, into the open, the river shimmers ahead like a ribbon, marking their clear goal. Better than the uncertainty of tromping through endless woods and fields.

But the way isn't entirely clear. The path out of the trees joins the well-trod road to the dock that juts into the river. And a little ways ahead of that is the toll booth.

Two men are outside, tending a little cookfire. The bluish smoke that hangs about it is reminiscent of the smoke over the camp the party has left behind. They've caught sight of the party coming out of the woods. One of them is shading his eyes against the sunlight, which has broken strong and clear now that the morning is settling in. The other is reaching for a pike that is laying in the grass, but then he stands without it, and raises a hand in greeting.

"Greetings, in Andraste's name!" It's bright, enthusiastic. He seems genuinely pleased to see four members of the Chantry coming out of the woods, and hasn't yet thought twice about why. "So it's true? We heard it--that the Grand Cleric and her train were passing by. You're with her, aren't you?"

The other fellow is squinting at them, still uncertain. Nikos cuts a look over his shoulder, first, looking for pursuit. There's a shout, behind them. Maybe coincidence, but probably not. He looks sidelong at Caspar, waiting for direction.

Now what.

They have options up until Caspar hears that shout. After that, they really only have one. He gives Nikos a quick look and a very small nod, then he turns back to the men, stepping forward and raising a hand in answer.

"You've heard correctly, yes. We are here in service of the Grand Cleric. You may be with her as well, if you're willing— we've come seeking help."

He speaks loudly enough to be distracting, gesturing liberally as he does; it's a very good impression of friendly modesty. His accent sheds a full decade of exile, thicker than it was a few seconds ago, and each step forward puts him farther ahead of the group. It will be difficult for their suspicious friend to watch all four at once.

"Perhaps you've also heard that our trip through these woods was not planned. A worthwhile diversion, paying tribute to the dead. But we've run into some trouble with the wheels in all this mud. We were hoping your smoke might lead us to more bodies, admittedly, but one man more might be enough."

With her and more bodies are, of course, the direction.

Behind all this, Nell sighs. Doing magic without a staff is harder--harder to generate power, harder to control it once you do--but something she's been practicing since the rebellion began. Even so, it's no neat Knight-Enchanter spell but a blast of pure force that whips out of her raised hands, lifting the two unsuspecting toll-collectors up into the air and slamming them back into the ground with a heavy thump and muddy squelch that don't quite cover the sounds of bones cracking.

"Make sure to stab them or something so it doesn't look like magic," she says as she strides ahead toward the dock.

Nikos doesn't startle easily. Then again, Nikos doesn't often witness two men picked up and slammed to the ground by invisible force. Startled isn't the word for the look on his face as Nell pushes past them, but it's his version of it. He lets that look slide over to Caspar then, for half a second. Years of cooperation and learning each other's tells puts plain what he's thinking: okay, then.

The warier of the two toll-booth keepers lays, perfectly still, with his limbs splayed at weird angles. The one who had greeted them is making a noise like a wounded animal--ragged, desperate--and his eyes are very white in his muddy face. This, at least, doesn't disturb Nikos.

He yanks the tabard off over his head and draws his knife as he moves toward the closer and clearly dead one. Three quick strikes, in the back. The push of his knife into meat is easy. It's a good sharp blade. He wipes the flat of it on the man's roughspun shirt, and grabs hold of one of his dead weighted arms, to arrange him into something more natural. As natural as a surprise stabbing could ever be.

There's four boats tied up at the dock, looking like children's toys if one has in mind the larger frigates and merchant galleons that typically put in at Kirkwall. One of them has a little stick of a main mast, without sail. The other three are flat-bottomed, poled along before a crude sail would be erected once the river widens. Only one of these shows signs of life. Too shallow for any kind of a cavernous below-decks beyond its smuggler's bolt holes, the boat boasts instead a central structure almost like a cottage--two floors, one sloughed on top of the other, and a flat roof of wood and tarpaulin. There's even a chimney, which has a thin line of blacker smoke streaming out of it.

Just before the docks, there's a few small daub-and-wattle outerbuildings, no more than sheds, which could serve as a space to duck behind and change out of blood-spattered Chantry robes. Or anywhere, really, so long as it's done quickly. From back in the woods, the shouting has doubled, and is joined by other sounds that carry on the wind through the mossy trees--a bell of some kind, more voices, alarm. The toll-booth keeper drags one of his arms out to his side. His fingers squeeze at the mud of the road, and he makes that noise again, high and horrible, adding to the chaos that is swelling in the moment.

Edited (secret clothes changing first loutish boat guys second + SORRY) 2019-04-29 17:49 (UTC)

closed || nothing sacred, all things wild

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hi we voted on a boat ride. 2 of you missed the vote so it was rigged sorry

good thing i love boat rides

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