CLOSED | the perfect stormrider.

[poleaxed]

WHO: Erik Stephens, Gabranth, Diana, Benedict, Edgard, Tiffany, Dick & Jone.
WHAT: The Gang Fights A Dragon.
WHEN: Cloudreach.
WHERE: The Thenuviet estate on the Exalted Planes.
NOTES: if something looks wonky or is misspelled, please know I’m typing this on mobile & have mercy.

GETTING THERE isn’t a short journey, and they’re hardly traveling in comfort. Most of the horses are carrying equipment, armor, weaponry, and anything else those volunteered for this expedition thought to include. And there’s camping equiptment. Anyone who said the travel overland involved staying at inns was lying. Inns are notoriously stuffed with murderers, anyway.

Every night, there’s a campfire and food. Sometimes it’s fresh caught, but if it is, Jone certainly didn’t catch it. Just as likely that it’s rations, salt pork and jerky and whatever dried fruits and nuts Riftwatch can spare.

There’s a STOP AT A BATHHOUSE in the town near the Thenuviet estate, however. It’s stupid, they’re just going to dirty themselves up later, but presentation is important to these people.

Surely all of you brought fancy dress and masks, because IT’S TIME TO SCHMOOZE. There’s a small party of Orlesians dressed to their finest, having a cozy little soirée on the edge of a cliff. Literally on the edge. Don’t indulge too much in the fine wines and cheeses, because there’s a dragon waiting, but for now? It’s never a bad idea to look good in front of rich people of influence. At least, not these days.

Eventually, it’s time to move forward, which means PREPARING FOR BATTLE. Climbing down the cliff is easy stuff, if you’re good with rope or have basic upper body strength. But now is probably the time to set up any traps, get in good positions... because it’s not long before the party on the cliff above begins to cheer.

...Because a few dead swine are unceremoniously kicked off the cliff to fall into the ravine now filled with you and yours.

The cheers from the cliff face only increase as loud thrashing, howling sounds start and become increasingly closer. How long have they been feeding the dragon like this?

But then it’s DRAGON KILLING TIME. You probably know how that goes. Stormriders are huge, dark scaled, and shoot thunder instead of fire. This one is angry you’ve interrupted lunch time.

AFTERWARD, it’s time to heal, take a breath, poke around the dragon bits for fancy heirlooms, and climb back up that cliff.

Comments

[archademode]

Her guess isn’t wrong, though the narrow little grunt exhaled as she pulls on taut leather is a promise that benefit isn’t at all why he’d taken on this particularly heavy mantle.

“I served as the hand of Emperor Gramis Gana Solidor, and as blade and shield for his sons Vayne Carudas Solidor, and Larsa Ferrinas Solidor alike.”

[poleaxed]

"Emperor-" she sputters, dropping the lacing for a moment, but only a moment. Emperor, like the Tevinter Empire. Emperor, like Emperor Reville.

If asked, Jone would say emperors are bad and kings are (can be) good, but the difference seems murky at best. An emperor is just an especially rich king, isn't he? And it isn't as though whatever emperor Gabranth served is here. Who knows, maybe they didn't keep slaves, maybe they never invaded mudpit countries covered in rain.

And even if they did, well... she doesn't want to know. She wants, selfishly, to keep believing in him.

She finishes lacing. "Fancier than most Orlesians, then. Fancier than the one's we're soon to meet."

[archademode]

If nothing else, it might explain at least in part the rigidness of his own tireless patterns. The discipline, the certainty— the stubborn authority that most often rises to the surface at the only the most inopportune of moments. Perhaps it’s best that she opts not to ask about the matter of invasion, however.

He does nothing to react to how she briefly drops those laces, though surely it doesn’t go without notice.

“Only in former station.” It’s deflective, really; the truth is, in essence, yes. But he isn’t so coarse as to say so, either. “Such things hold no weight here.”

“I am as I ever was, Daughter of Denerim.”

The very same man she’d thrown a rock at, in fact.

[poleaxed]

It takes her a moment to gather her thoughts, but they end up in the same configuration as his suggestion: she wants to continue their tentative alliance, finding it too comfortable to rise from.

"Former, eh," she says, finishing the lacework, fingers returning to ceremonial buckles, "that why you go by the title and wear the armor?"

He is, after all, as he ever was.

[archademode]

Something about that remark, it catches him. Snares his intended train of thought in the obvious hypocrisy of his own carriage, his habits— what comfort he finds in clinging to the past, despite where he now stands.

He feels the buckles cinch beneath her fingers, how his plating sits more comfortably against compressed leather and cloth, and he realizes then that he's yet to exhale.

"That is different." argued after a tethered pause, the words dull across his tongue, and too subdued to carry momentum in the wake of her counter: were they sparring, the blow would be hers, and hers alone.

[poleaxed]

She remembers, in the stables, how he backed off when she snapped at him about changing who she was. It's not much different, here. A favor for a favor. Now that she knows where his actual shoulder is, her fingers worm beneath the pauldron to tap him lightly.

"You know your own heart best," she says. She's not sure it's true, because she certainly doesn't know hers so well, but she's in no place to think she knows better, is she?

"Look at us, all stitched up." Now she pats his pauldron, his new shoulder, reformed. "And in record time."

[archademode]

His heart, she says, and the comfort of her hand pressed there outweighs the discomfort of that statement—

They are, in many strange, unexpected ways, deceptively alike.

“We should rejoin the others, before your schemes prove to be your own undoing.”

[poleaxed]

"Such faith in me. I'm bloody touched." she says, turning away. She opens the door for him to waltz through as though she's his humble servant, head bowed low.

[archademode]

“Worry not. I shall always be here to protect you from your own tumultuous designs.”

As much as he’s ever made light of anything in front of her— one gloved hand pinches at the edge of her arm as he passes, as though attempting to force her to release all semblance of mock deference. A hound nipping at a packmate to stop it misbehaving.

[poleaxed]

Behind the curtain of her hair, Jone hides a lopsided smile that could light the room.

Just as before, she follows quickly behind him.