faderift | CLOSED | the perfect stormrider.

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CLOSED | the perfect stormrider.

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.

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For all that his life has changed since coming south, Benedict is not hugged often. He and Colin will lounge and cuddle while they smoke and chat or fool around, a welcome sensation, and he has learned its value to the point where it's thoroughly alarming when it comes from pretty much anyone else.

So he's shocked, for a moment, when Jone pulls him close. But he relaxes slightly, his head settling onto her shoulder, and for once he doesn't even care that they're both filthy.

"I lied to you," he says quietly, "to try to get out of this."

"Mmm," Jone hums. "Figured. Don't tell Gab, would you? Might hurt his feelings. Hate to see him cry, I would. Might rust."

A joke, to cover for the fact that, well... she's genuinely worried how optimistic Gabranth seems about all this. (All this Tevinter nonsense.)

"You didn't wanna go, you should've said."

"I know."

He winces when Gabranth is invoked, the corner of his mouth twitching into a performative smirk that immediately dies. The temptation is there, to butter Jone up and position her between himself and the wall of steel he managed to piss off right before the battle, but that feels... slimy. And sliminess comes easiest to him when he's already confident, not waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"I, um." He looks at his hands, his head still nestled on Jone's shoulder, "...might've. Upset him earlier."

And that's not even to mention Edgard, with whom he's been feuding pointlessly for the duration of the trip. Another matter entirely.

"What could you have possibly-" She recalls how Gabranth walked right past him. More seriously, "alright, lad, what'd you do?"

It's hard for her to imagine something that would piss Gabranth off enough without making him angry enough to strike, but striking little Ben would be unforgivable, so, she reckons, this little row is really for the best.

When her demeanor changes, Benedict straightens, knowing his days are numbered. "Nothing," he mutters quickly, before he can stop himself, then winces again; he already admitted to doing something, so that's obviously not true.

"I, um," he mumbles, staring at the ground, "...he was getting in my face, and. ...and I." It's so childish it's unbelievable, he recognizes this, and that makes it worse: he never had any siblings growing up, or any playmates at all, or this might be more familiar territory.

"...well I poked him in the eye. Through his helmet."

The pathetic display of denying it immediately and ineffectually only makes her tired. She'd rub at her eyes if her hands weren't in bloody gauntlets.

"Right, then," she says with a sigh, moving away a bit to give him some space. That, and her shoulder's beginning to throb again. "How'd he get in your face?"

This might be actual torture, relating the scene wherein he knows he's in the wrong and having to deal with that. He presses a hand over his mouth and drags it down his face, stalling.

"...he wanted me to leave the party."

"So you poked him in the bloody-"

But Benedict can't know how much that armor is tied up with Gabranth's pride; to be honest, Jone isn't even sure of all the details, it's just a gut feeling, really.

"Up you go, lad, go'n apologize to him."

Oh, he knows.

"I did," Benedict says immediately, a whine creeping into the words, but he hears them as soon as they leave his mouth and is immediately ashamed. He had apologized, it's true, but it had been the sort of apology that's based more in fear of reprisal than in actual contrition.

The tension presses in his chest again, his mouth taut and his brow furrowed. Admitting he's wrong, that he fucked up, is something he's had to do somewhat frequently in the last year or so, but somehow it never gets any easier-- in fact, it only seems to get harder. Because, after a certain point, he should know better.

Slowly he stands, leaving his staff leaned against the rock, clenching and unclenching his fists as he steels himself to go talk to Gabranth. He needs whatever courage he can find.

Edited 2021-04-12 00:53 (UTC)

"That's a good lad," she says. "After you're done, make sure I haven't passed out, would you, luv? Ta."

But she'll be there watching, making sure things aren't getting out of hand again.

Edited (i speak this language fluently.) 2021-04-12 01:05 (UTC)

Edgard walks up, suddenly appearing out of nowhere. He rounds on Benedict.

"You poked who in the eye?"

Halting mid-step, Benedict throws up his hands.

“Don’t— it’s fine,” he stammers at Edgard, glancing out of the corner of his eye at the shape of Gabranth over yonder.
“It’s sorted.”

Edgard folds his arms in front of him and grimaces. He answers cooly.

"Alright. Fine. It's sorted." He seems determined to leave it at that. But then--

"What did this one do? Fold something incorrectly?"

“No—“

Benedict stops with a hard sigh out his nose, glaring at Edgard.

“I’m dealing with it. Leave me alone.”

Edgard meets Benedict's sigh with a sharp one of his own and throws his arms in the air in defeat.

"Leaving you alone."

He finds the nearest rock and sits down on it pointedly facing away from Benedict.

It would be difficult to miss, the sounds of irritation emanating from somewhere over his plated shoulder— his own focus set on tending to the edge of his blade, as once they return to the gathered assembly on the cliffs above, he doubts he’ll have time left to devote to anything else.

And he hears it, just there. The sound of a temper sparked, overtaking guilt or solemnity, or whatever it was that Benedict had held in his stare when he’d met Gabranth’s own for the briefest of seconds. Before Gabranth left him as he was.

This time, he does not.

“Lord Artemaeus.”

That tone. Ever that tone.

A tensing of the shoulders, and Benedict turns from Edgard to meet Gabranth's approach, immediately feeling as though he's lost control of the situation once again. The slimy part of him, which he's been doing his best to tamp down, wants to call for Jone and take shelter behind her.

But he resists. He stands back-straight and focused to meet Gabranth, figuring if any of this is to be resolved, it's now or never.

It's Edgard (back turned, shoulders hunched, his moment of victory likely soured by that brief, impatient encounter) who earns Gabranth's attention first, that helmet's empty-socketed stare lingering on him in a way that might seem entirely intentional. There’s something to be said about it, how a man treats those who risk their lives for him.

He looks to Benedict next. Finds his back rigid, his shoulders taut, no shield thrust between them as a barrier for what he no doubt already knows will find him. For what Gabranth himself has to say.

“Some time ago I was warned you would disappoint me,” that this world and its people— for all their flaws— would bring nothing more than disillusionment. “I denied that prediction. I believed it misguided. Untrue.”

What he knows he need not mention in the wake of this admission is the party: the febrile aftermath of it, the transgression that followed. How deeply he was proven wrong, and how that moment had stung for more than just the shame of lost pride.

If there were any wind left in Benedict's sails, Gabranth's words effectively suck the rest of it out. He looks appropriately deflated, his shoulders stooped and his face drawn into a miserable frown-- if Edgard hadn't gotten in the way and distracted him, this could be a lot more graceful than it is.

And something about Edgard and Jone bearing witness to this makes it worse, but so be it.

Slowly, Benedict raises his eyes to look into the sockets of Gabranth's helmet. He knows what's coming next.

Silence holds for a moment, another, and then—

“You did well in the fight.”

It’s not gentle, carries nothing of the way that Jone had spoken in soft sympathy or brought his head down to her shoulder. It isn’t sharp as a blade, or harsh as an unintended exchange between feuding friends.

It is, however, painted in stoicism that stands as nothing more than entirely, undeniably sincere. What he says, he says with no embellishments. No flattery. Ever the mouthpiece for the world as he sees it.

For what he believes, more than anything else.

From the sidelines with Edgard, Jone shouts, "get on with it, Ben!"

She gives Edgard an expression, combined with open palms, that attempts to convey, can you believe this shit?

"..thanks," Benedict is in the middle of saying, when Jone cuts through the word and he flinches in response.
But then, he clears his throat. "...I'm sorry." His voice is low but sincere, his demeanor uncharacteristically humble, like he can't quite bring himself to look back at Gabranth's face, such that it is.
"For what I did. ...and for lying about not being able to come here." His voice is pitched a little more loudly on this confession, no doubt so Edgard can hear it too.

It’s such a loud thing, the sound of silence when Gabranth takes his time mulling over what he’s been told. This, doubly so, as there’s a revelation to be found in Benedict’s admission that he’d also lied.

“...do you understand why I asked you to leave the fete?”

Edgard quickly scoots around on his rock to face the others, clearly astonished. He elbows Jone good-naturedly in response to her expression.

He laughs a little to himself and then leans his head onto one hand, rapt with attention.

Jone's expression, palms still open, suggests she's taking full credit for this, nodding to accept. The only reason she isn't gently clapping Benedict's performance is because she imagines it would spook Gabranth.

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