MOD PLOT ↠ The Soldiers of the Demon Charged

[faderifting]

WHO: Everyone!
WHAT: Striking closer to home.
WHEN: Justinian through Solace
WHERE: The Western/Central Free Marches
NOTES: OOC post. Please use appropriate content warnings in your comment subject lines.

WEEK ONE: THE COLLAPSE OF HASMAL

Recently in Hasmal, growing outrage from native Hasmalis over the swelling number of Tevinter refugees within and outside the city has led to a series of smaller violent incidents that went largely unanswered by local authorities, leading to additional targeting of more established Tevinter communities within the city and the makeshift fortification and arming of the camps outside. In the last week or so, after a period of simmering tensions, the situation in Hasmal has boiled over into violent riots. Reports out of the city conflict about what finally caused the rapid escalation, how bad things got, and whose fault they were. But they agree that it very quickly became a dangerous situation that the city authorities utterly failed to bring under control. Fires burned in some quarters of the city and deadly clashes between factions forced uninvolved citizens to barricade themselves in their homes. Some city leaders urged calm and peace while others encouraged supporters to seize the moment and fight for the upper hand. The Grand Vizier was nowhere to be seen. Somehow, amidst the chaos, the gates were opened and in marched the Tevinter army.

The violence, and then even more Tevinter's arrival—supposedly to help restore peace to the city, though it's unclear whether that has actually happened—has caused many to flee the city, particularly the refugee community who had fled from Tevinter once already. With nothing but the Tevinter desert of the Silent Plains to the north, most either jumped ship down the Minanter or came south across the river into Tantervale territory and Wildervale, with some now arriving in Kirkwall with their tales of chaos in the western-most March.

Also, Commander Flint and Scoutmaster Yseult are missing, having gone to meet a contact coming across the Minanter from Tevinter some days ago. They ought to be returning, but neither has been in contact since. In their absence, Ambassador Rutyer and Provost Stark will be running Riftwatch, and can direct Scouting and Forces as they see fit and delegate authority for those operations as necessary.

UNKNOWNS

This is a fast-moving situation, with events clearly already running well ahead of news. With limited resources at hand, intelligence networks in the previously quiet Free Marches have been somewhat neglected by the Inquisition and Riftwatch both. Much remains unclear, subject of wild rumor and conflicting reports from the few sources in the area:

There are stories that the Grand Vizier Rekam Antoninus, ruler of Hasmal, is either complicit in the Tevinter takeover or in league with refugees to try to bring down the city's nobility. There are rumors he has fled the city, or even that he's dead by a half-dozen different hands.

There are similarly conflicting reports about other Hasmal city leaders, with some said to have been encouraging the various factions involved in the riots, trying without success to calm the situation, or using the situation to advance their own interests in one way or another. It's likely that at least a few were cooperating to some extent with Tevinter, though exact numbers and identities can't be known right now.

The size of the Tevinter force in Hasmal isn't yet clear, as the numbers reported by those who fled the city at their arrival range from "most of the Tevinter army" to "five times the size of the entire Tevinter army."

All reports at this point are coming from people who have fled Hasmal, so there's essentially no reliable information about what the situation is like inside the city since Tevinter moved in.

RIFTWATCH'S WORK

As soon as word begins trickling in, Riftwatch will begin sending parties north to investigate the situation. Anyone with a relevant skill or two might be assigned to venture out to:

• AERIAL SURVEILLANCE: Use griffons for aerial surveillance of the region between Kirkwall and Hasmal, to watch for any further movement of the Tevinter army. Using sending crystals, they'll also be able to send back reports of the routes any large groups of refugees seem to be taking. And they'll be charged with assessing the roads and terrain between Kirkwall and Hasmal, identifying the routes an army could take to reach further South and what chokepoints—bridges, narrow passages, castles and fortresses with defenses that might hold—could be exploited to slow them down. (The distance from Kirkwall to Hasmal is too great for the griffons to be flying back and forth every day; aerial teams will be gone for several days at a time, and in the meantime staying on the property of a druffalo farmer in Wildervale or in wilderness camps of their own making.)


• ASSIST TRAVELLERS: Intercept people fleeing Hasmal—to assist them, when necessary, but also to get as much information from them as possible to try to separate rumors from first-hand accounts or find consistencies between stories that might point toward truths. Many of these people will be refugees twice over, already having fled from Tevinter in the wake of Corypheus' takeover, so some may have relevant information about Tevinter as well. And there is always the possibility that some loyal to Tevinter and the Venatori are disguised among the refugees, so they'll need to keep an eye out for anything suspicious.


• ASSIST TOWNSFOLK: Meet with the Countess of Wildervale and local leaders of smaller towns and villages. Those south of Wildervale may need to be alerted about the waves of travelers they're about to see, while those north of Wildervale will have been reached by refugees before Riftwatch and may be overwhelmed by the sudden swell of visitors and potential long-term residents. Some of those fleeing Hasmal may be settling into these villages for the long haul due to exhaustion or a lack of resources, while many others are terrified of Tevinter at their heels and want to go further south to put at least one major city between them and Hasmal. It's a valid fear, so in addition to discussing the refugee situation and how many more people the villages can viably feed and house, Riftwatch teams will need to help assess their defenses and escape routes if the invasion pushes further south, ideally without causing a panic.

Meanwhile, in Kirkwall, those who aren't suited to fieldwork or who are between trips out of the city will:

• ATTEND MEETINGS: The Viscount, Kirkwall's nobility, and City Guard representatives in Viscount's Keep will be meeting for long hours to discuss whether or not Kirkwall will be able to accept refugees (and to what extent) and the city's defenses and fortifications. Riftwatch won't have any formal say in these decisions, but its representatives may be able to provide information as it becomes available and maybe sneak some opinions in there as well.


• READY LOOKOUT TOWERS: Assist the city with transporting supplies to and chasing bandits out of rarely-used guard towers in the Vinmarks.


• ORGANIZE RIFTWATCH'S EFFORTS: Amass, organize, and disseminate the information being relayed back from the teams in the field—for example, making sure the Riftwatch teams advising refugees on which villages and cities will be able to take them in aren't directing them all to the same place and causing it to become overwhelmed.

There are also a few specific missions that will be assigned to those with suitable skills at the end of the week. Based on the available information, teams will be sent to Hasmal and to Tantervale to accomplish the following:

• HASMAL AERIAL SURVEILLANCE: The Hasmal team will travel by griffon to conduct fly-over surveillance of the city and the territory to the north and west, to try to gather information about the Tevinter forces. From griffonback, the team may occasionally spot Tevinter scouting parties or small clusters of soldiers that can be picked off or harassed, whether from the air or by landing to confront them.


• HASMAL GROUND SURVEILLANCE: The griffon team will also be carrying passengers, a small team who they will have to stealthily drop into Hasmal so that they can spend two days gathering information about the situation in the city itself before they're picked up by the griffons once again.


• TANTERVALE OUTREACH: The Tantervale team will try to meet with Tantervale's leadership to coordinate defense and relief efforts. They'll travel by horseback (griffons would only remind folks how weird Riftwatch is) and work through diplomatic channels and court backchannels to try to gain an audience with the Lady Chancellor and/or her ministers and persuade them of the benefits of working together.

These missions will be interrupted by the red lyrium dragon, which will first arrive over Hasmal just as the griffon riders are collecting their spy passengers for departure. The dragon will chase the griffons off before continuing on to Tantervale, where the team in the city will be forced to flee its attack and escape from the city.



WEEKS TWO & THREE: THE RUIN OF TANTERVALE

After the news of Tevinter's takeover of Hasmal, its closest neighbor, Tantervale, is calling a muster of whatever fighting-age men are left in its territory. Most of Tantervale's soldiers have previously joined the Exalted March, leaving the city-state only lightly defended. Whoever remains is ordered to arm themselves and meet outside the city within the week to protect against the threat of Tevinter incursion, or possibly even to threaten to join any supposed 'peacekeeping' force in Hasmal. The exact plan is unknown, but the citizens of Tantervale—known across Thedas for their religious zeal—appear eager to answer the call to defend their home and any fellow devotees of the Chantry from the dangerous northern heretics.

But in the end, how many they manage to attract to this makeshift defensive force hardly matters. The gathered host is powerless to stop the sudden, devastating attack of the corrupted high dragon. The huge, red-lyrium-infected beast—known to be under the command of Corypheus for some years now, but rarely seen since it perched triumphant atop the Archon's palace in Minrathous 3 years ago—emerges above Hasmal before flying the short distance east to Tantervale and laying waste to that city.

Simultaneously, confused reports are reaching Riftwatch from both Orlais and Ferelden, indicating an array of calamities: scattered across both countries, several small villages and their fields were recently set aflame, an important bridge over the Drakon River destroyed in Ferelden, a noble family and their entire staff found hanging evenly spaced from rafters in their estate not far from Halamshiral.

UNKNOWNS

Riftwatch agents present at Hasmal and Tantervale during the early stages of the dragon attack witness its beginning, but as they have to run for their lives, little is immediately known about its outcome. Given the destruction they did see, it's believed that Tantervale was a massacre, resulting in many, many deaths and much of the city destroyed by fire and corruption. A wave of people have now joined the stragglers from Hasmal fleeing south, but how many of them actually managed to escape the city of Tantervale itself as opposed to its surrounding countryside is unknown, and among those who survived, many begin to show signs of darkspawn corruption on the road.

Per the reports coming from the South, the leaders in both Ferelden and Orlais initially respond as if being invaded before realizing that the incidents were not the beginning of a larger military push. It will take some time for it to become clear that all of these events happened on the same day as the assault on Tantervale, mostly by individual actors.

RIFTWATCH'S WORK

Most of the work Riftwatch was doing in Week 1 will continue in Weeks 2 and 3, while pivoting or expanding to include dealing with the situation in Tantervale as well:

• ASSIST TRAVELERS & TOWNSFOLK: The attack on Tantervale will essentially double the number of new refugees fleeing south, testing the work Riftwatch did in Week 1 and greatly increasing the strain on communities in Wildervale. Some they may be able to persuade to make do and accommodate more fellow Marchers, while others will reach the end of either their supplies or their patience or both, and Riftwatch agents will need to help calm tensions and find alternatives.


• SHORE UP DEFENSES: Efforts to shore up defenses in the region will ratchet up, and Riftwatch agents will be called on to do things like help train emergency village militias, build makeshift defenses, and provide advice on what to do in case of dragon attack.

For those in Kirkwall:

• ASSIST ARRIVING REFUGEES: Pressure on Kirkwall itself will increase as the first refugees arrive at the city and an even greater number look likely to do so in the near future. Kirkwall has a fairly fraught recent history with refugees from a crisis—the influx of Blight refugees from Ferelden caused a nativist backlash that went on for years. In this case, the locals will be somewhat more friendly because the refugees are their fellow Marchers, as well as slightly more frightened because this crisis isn't happening across a sea. But there will still be a fairly tepidly charitable response to the needs of incoming people, and those escaping Hasmal who are clearly of Tevinter origin will have an especially difficult time. Riftwatch's help will be needed in connecting the new arrivals with those who are willing to help them and aiding in the construction of some temporary structures and camps for those without other means of housing themselves.


• PREPARE FOR THE WORST: Riftwatch will be called upon by the Viscount's office to work with the City Guard to review Kirkwall's defenses, work on emergency upgrades, help man observation posts further afield to provide early warning of any imminent attack. For the time being, a regular rotation of Riftwatch members will be sent to keep watch at some of the further towers, since their sending crystals will allow them to pass along more information more quickly than the warning fires. There will also be a lot of discussion about how to handle a dragon attack--with the expectation that Riftwatch will take a lead role in defending against any such attack.

Elsewhere, Riftwatch will send teams to:

• STARKHAVEN: Believed to be the most likely next target for assault other than Kirkwall. Riftwatch will send a team to meet with current leadership to offer to provide mage support against a potential dragon attack, coordination of defensive efforts, and to learn how Starkhaven plans to handle Tantervale refugees.


• OSTWICK, MARKHAM, HERCINIA, ANSBURG, & WYCOME: Too far to have been directly affected yet. Riftwatch will send representatives to court to try to meet with leaders to discuss coordinating efforts across the region for mutual defense against Tevinter, encouraging them to raise soldiers, shore up defenses, and take in refugees.


• FERELDEN & ORLAIS: By the end of Week 3 it will be clear that what happened in Orlais and Ferelden is likely a diversionary tactic, meant to compel them to keep their attention at home rather than throwing too much of their weight behind assisting the Free Marches, but a few people will be sent to investigate the sites of some attacks for any evidence of how they were coordinated and to be sure further attacks aren't impending.

(OOC Note: For attacks in Ferelden and Orlais and for small villages around Hasmal and Tantervale, you're welcome to invent the names of these places and invent details of what exactly happened without checking in with us. If your character is from one of these areas, you're also welcome to say their hometowns or places they're familiar with were affected, as long as: (1) it isn't a place big enough to be on the canon map of Thedas and (2) if someone else's character is coincidentally from the same place, you check with them first.)



WEEKS FOUR & FIVE: THE MARCH ON STARKHAVEN

The situation in the Free Marches continues to deteriorate rapidly. With Tantervale now more rubble than city, nothing substantial stands between the Tevinter force in Hasmal and either Kirkwall, home of Riftwatch, or Starkhaven, the cultural and financial heart of the Marches. An advance on one or both of those cities is believed to be the next logical step, but nobody knows for sure which it's going to be or whether it's going to come in the form of an attack by dragon or just ("just") an army.

Reports from the Riftwatch teams in and over Hasmal at the end of Week 1 spotted signs of that army readying to move, and further griffon reconnaissance during Weeks 2 and 3 confirmed that with Tantervale out of the way the army is now moving quickly. Their path is clearly pointed east toward Starkhaven. Like Tantervale, Starkhaven is lightly-defended, much of its forces—along with its ruler, Prince Sebastian Vael—in Orlais with the Exalted March.

Help from elsewhere is unlikely to arrive in time. Those Marches who might have been best positioned to support Starkhaven in its time of need find themselves with problems of their own, as coastal communities in Ostwick and Hercinia suffer a rash of brutal and unusually well-organized pirate attacks. The port towns of Torbay and Ogwell near Ostwick and Noli near Hercinia take the brunt of it, sacked and burned by marauders. There are several attacks on shipping reported as well, with prizes taken from normally safe waters where the Waking Sea meets the Amaranthine. Both city-states have increased naval patrols and are now on alert, but they're looking outwards, not inland.

UNKNOWNS

How quickly reinforcements will arrive. Agents and Inquisition contacts in Orlais report that the Exalted March is now aware, and that there are urgent debates among the commanders about how to react. Prince Sebastian Vael is thought to be planning to return imminently, but precisely how long that will take—and how many men he will bring with him—remains unknown.

RIFTWATCH'S WORK

• SLOWING THE ADVANCE: Riftwatch will do its best to slow the enemy advance and buy Starkhaven time to prepare. Without the numbers to engage the host directly, teams will instead be tasked with making the journey as difficult as possible by creating obstacles along the way: think rockslides, blown bridges, washed out roads, felled trees clogging the river, sabotaged boats and wagons, and so forth. Traps or small guerrilla-style attacks may be laid at some of these points, but with strict orders not to risk it unless conditions allow Riftwatch the advantage to attack swiftly and then escape again. The goal is to harass and pick off low-hanging fruit, not get caught up in an unwinnable battle.


• PREPARING STARKHAVEN: Preventing an attack on Starkhaven seems impossible, but Riftwatch can at least help the city prepare for it. At this point a siege is the best option, but it will mean being (or at least looking) strong enough to withstand an initial assault. Top priorities are:
  
  • Reinforcing city defenses. These efforts were already underway by Week 2, but will become far more urgent, and leaders will be much more eager to hear from Riftwatch anything they know about the enemy forces.
  
  
  • Stocking the city. This includes bringing in supplies to prepare for the siege they now hope comes, whether by wagon or boat or griffon, and Riftwatch may even be asked to help negotiate with merchants and farmers to get deals done and goods delivered faster if possible.
  
  
  • Bolstering numbers. They need all the fighting manpower they can get, so Riftwatch will be helping recruit by explaining the situation, the context of the war, and encouraging anyone able to fight to help, and then transporting them from the countryside to the city walls as fast as possible. Bringing in fighting men means more mouths to feed, so Riftwatch will also be asked to help ferry vulnerable people out of the city to safety in other Marches. At first this effort will focus on the young and old with political importance, but it will be expanded (if Riftwatch pushes and also if they work fast enough to make it feasible) to include young and old of all classes.
  
  
  • Helping keep the peace and avoid a panic. Between the news of the on-coming army, the rash of high-profile assassinations (see below) and the horrific fate of Tantervale, the people of Starkhaven are understandably on edge. The mood in the city is one of barely suppressed terror, and city officials are anxious to avoid any incidents that might light a spark and distract from necessary preparations. Riftwatch will be asked to assist the guard in patrolling public areas where people tend to gather and help defuse situations, from breaking up brawls and preventing theft and hoarding of supplies to chasing off an obnoxious crier who won't stop stirring up fears with his vivid tales of how he received his scar at the hands of the vicious, unstoppable Tevinters.


• PROTECTING THE COUNTRYSIDE: The enemy journey through the Marches isn't as orderly as it was in Orlais. Parties of enemy soldiers and mages are veering south (occasionally north, into the strip of Marches before the Antivan border, but mostly south) across the river to attack travelers, sack villages, burn farms, and generally cause chaos. This will also involve periodic dragon attacks in the regions between Hasmal, Wildervale, and Starkhaven. These attacks are sudden and brief, hitting random locations, causing death and damage, and leaving as quickly as they arrived. Riftwatch agents traveling through the region for any purpose will need to be on guard, and teams will also be tasked to help patrol the countryside and major roads to protect against enemy attacks. Some teams may be stationed in towns and villages for days at a time, ready to respond to any reports of enemy attacks nearby and coordinate via crystal.

And in the midst of this work, there will be some additional specific missions:

• STARKHAVEN ASSASSIN: An assassin is stalking the streets of Starkhaven. Four prominent citizens have been murdered in the past two weeks, including two high-ranking guard captains, a celebrated knight who won the Grand Tourney not long ago, and Lord Kennech, a frontrunner to replace Lord Greer as regent. The murders have been brazen and bloody, not identical but each marked with the sigil of a prominent family drawn in blood, the first (over Lord Kennech) being the symbol of House Harimann, now most famous for having arranged the murders of Prince Sebastian Vael's family in a coup attempt in 9:31. The other houses referenced similarly have prominent betrayals and power-grabs in their history. No one is quite sure what any of it means, but it has certainly set the city even further on edge and has suspicions between members of the ruling class nearing a high. As a neutral party, Riftwatch will be asked to help provide security for potential targets.


• DRAGON TRACKING: Corypheus' dragon has rarely been sighted very far from him, and its presence in the Free Marches raises the possibility that he's somewhere nearby. A few different small teams on griffon- and horseback will attempt to track it to where it's resting between its excursions to terrorize the countryside, with the hope that Corypheus is there and this may present an opportunity to confront him directly with fewer fortifications.


• FIREBOMBING THE ARMY: As the army nears Starkhaven, another griffon-based team will make one last push to slow them down. The evening before they inevitably reach the city, the team will fly over their camp with mages, Antivan Fire grenades and breakable flasks of oil, and anything else they can come up with to rain literal fire on the Tevinter camps.

WEEK SIX: FALLING ACTION

The Tevinter force finally arrives at Starkhaven. After all the work to delay the enemy and speed preparations, the city is ready to hold fast against them at least until Prince Sebastian can return from Orlais with the army and (they hope) the Exalted March in tow. The Tevinter force, clearly still hoping to take the city before those reinforcements arrive, sets up camp as if for a siege but then launches a pre-dawn attack in hope of breaching the gates. This is repelled, but periodic assault (mostly magical) on the city walls continues—thus far with little effect.

Now that the enemy has arrived at Starkhaven, there isn't much more Riftwatch can do to help directly. The force is still too large for them to take on, and while they can get away with some limited griffon stealth missions in and out of the city, the large-scale operations of previous weeks are no longer possible. Prince Sebastian and the fastest part of his forces will arrive by the end of the week, and he will then take the lead in determining how to defend Starkhaven. He'll be happy to talk to Riftwatch about what they've seen and done in the interim and will be grateful for their efforts on behalf of his city. But there's a lot for him to figure out at present, and coordinating the type of smaller-scale work Riftwatch is best suited for isn't top of his agenda at the moment. Essentially, he'll be in touch.

RIFTWATCH'S WORK

All agents in and around Starkhaven are pulled back just ahead of the Tevinter force's arrival, along with any last group of vulnerable citizens they're able to get out. Riftwatch will continue to put more focus than it previously had on the Free Marches, with increased patrols and surveillance, and will keep an eye on the refugee situation as things develop. The enemy presence in the Marches will continue to cause trouble, with occasional parties of soldiers and mages marauding, posing new hazards closer to home than before that will periodically require Riftwatch's attention. And the situation in Starkhaven will continue to develop and may require more assistance in the future. But otherwise, it's more or less back to business as usual for now, just with a new set of issues added to the pile.

Comments

[nonvenomous]

“Do you?”

The look Silas gives her from trunk-level is only a little shady, mitigated by a crook at the corner of his mouth to match hers from a moment ago. But there are other things in this chest, beside the cage -- and beneath it.

It probably wasn’t the brains of the operation that Fitcher brained.

“We could use it to send a message.” He lifts the cage, sets it carefully aside while the raven ruffles and grawws, eyes rolled black to white. A set of leather armor follows, mottled and streaked with bird shit. A sword. A stave. “Do we think he could write?”

[unshut]

"Big fellow like that?" She glances to the man on the floor, and then back into the trunk. But all joking aside— "He'd written down the names of a few ladies from the local trade house on a pamphlet. So yes, I think so."

She has taken to dabbing at the bloody side of her face, smearing the red into pink and back into her hairline where it might mat more or less invisibly. Later, she will ask his opinion on whether she needs a few stitches whipped into her head.

"We'll want to take it with us before we send any message. Unless you mean to stay of course, but if you ask me the accommodations leave something to be desired."

This, as she gingerly eases herself down onto the lower corner at the foot of the collapsed bed.

[nonvenomous]

“If we take it with us I can arrange for Thot to follow it to its destination.”

A smaller box within the chest contains a few scraps of paper, ink, and a pen, along with wax and a simple stamp. One of the pages has additional names on it, and he hitches the little box up with him in its entirety as he creaks to his feet, winded again by the exertion.

“Here,” he offers, once he has the breath, the box passed from right hand to left for him to ask after the dabbed cloth, beam to speck. “You’re smearing it.”

[unshut]

"Ah, that's right. Your very clever companion," she murmurs, noncommittal on the subject of enchanted cat shaped beasties. But that is the extent of her commentary in the subject. She passes the blanket into his custody without quarrel in exchange for the box of writing utensils.

She doesn't pay its contents much mind however. Not for the moment. Instead, Fitcher simply tips her face up to assist in whatever efforts he might direct its way.

"There's a slip of roof beyond that window, but I think we're better off making our way down the backs stairs and slipping out that direction instead. You can take my cloak," she rasps, low voice very low. "That should cover most of the blood and save us sliding on roof tiles."

[nonvenomous]

Just outside the closed door, Thot the very clever companion flattens her ears at some unseen slight shared through the thin air between here and there.

“If you think it will flatter me.”

Silas is distracted as he says so, tilt for tilt in his lean to better see the source of the gore, gummed as it is in coagulation. A fresh application of alcohol thins the rest of what’s smudged around her ear and under her jaw -- he’s careful and precise, no trace of contact behind the cold, clinical scuff of the blanket.

There. He looks satisfied with his work, blanket kept to wring at his wrists, between his fingers.

“You need stitches.”

[unshut]

From inside his shadow, Fitcher's smile blooms. It's a cheeky thing, more comic than fetching.

"So do you."

[nonvenomous]

It is true that the bandaging around his arm is already blotched with crimson, color creeping outward thread by thread. Soon enough, he’ll be dripping again.

“Perhaps we can arrange for a trade.”

He does not smile back, trace humor kept to crow’s feet and a dramatic furl of the blanket as it’s draped back across the raven’s cage.

[unshut]

"Deal," she says, like it is something they might shake over.

Then with a acquiescing tip of the head and a scrape of boot heels, Fitcher shoves herself back up onto her feet. The mottled blue cloak, lying draped across a chair in preparation for this nonsense, is drawn free and tossed with some similar flare as the blanket over the cave about Silas' shoulders. From there, the burden is split: her ribs are in fine shape, so she is who hefts the cage with the scuffling bird up off the floorboards.

In the common room below, the song has tipped smoothly over from disparaging refugees into something about a miller's daughter and her propensity for grinding.

Once all is arrange and after plucking a few of the more conspicuous pieces of straw from his person, Fitcher lays her hand at the door's latch.

"Ready?"

[nonvenomous]

There’s an odd moment of him watching her as if through a two way mirror, pause opposite her preparations like a missed step. Out of rhythm, tension tamped down under a slow breath. He’s thinking ahead, perhaps, to their bloody trek through hostile territory.

But there’s nothing left for him to do while she collects the cage and plucks straw from his person.

Outside the door, Thot snuffs from the plane in a lick of dark vapor.

“Yes.”

[unshut]

"Cheers."

Just like that, they are on their way. Fitcher whisks unknowingly through the very spot upon which a cat shaped familiar once stood, and she leaves Silas to close the door behind them as she treads in the direction of the stairwell.

There are two in the public house-slash-inn. One leads directly down in the belly of the tavern house which fills the floor below. The other, a narrow switchback, is more subtle only by the merit of opening out onto the same floor via a small side doorway rather than masquerading at some poor man's version of a grand staircase. The difference is, in essence, a preference of degrees more than anything. At the bottom of this side stair, they find themselves at the margins of a boisterous crowd well into their cups.

At the bottom of the stairs, Fitcher immediately joins in on some repeating thread of the current questionable song—'Oh your garter's come untied, my love, fa-ra-la-diddle-a-day'—as she moves to follow the wall. There is a back corridor in this direction and a door leading to the back alley. They'd marked it when first observing the building. And in the guttering lamplight, the blood in her hair might be nothing.

It's fine.

[nonvenomous]

The fit of the door bolt to jam is silent, their easy tread down over old floorboards utterly unremarkable, if not for their sidewinding route and the blood-mottled blanket over the raven’s cage.

Nobody seems bothered.

He’s close behind, a sibilant murmur lost to the singing, the stir and pluck of his fingers a trick of shadow low at his side. The pain pounding up his arm to itch at his teeth dulls to a more remote ache; darkness smears at the fringes of his vision, threatening exhaustion. The wise thing would’ve been to heal himself immediately, before giving all of his blood to the floor and Fitcher’s first aid. His ribs will have to wait.

A terribly plebian problem to have.

It’s fine.

They’re leaving, hardly a glance spared for the pair sucking face at the head of the corridor. Outside, a waning moon is blotted out in part by smoke from a similar tavern in flames just down the main drag.

[unshut]

The night air is cool, a sharp contrast to the warm and dry heat of the summer day here at the foot of the Pillars and the edge of the plains. If not for the smoke and the leak of light from lanterns and windows, the sky might be clear enough to see by despite the narrow sliver of the moon. But here in the narrow back alley, they are shrouded in mostly dark as they go.

The raven under the blood mottled blanket rasps only a little, a single croaking squawk as they skitter away into the night; the sounds of ribald singing fades to an anonymous murmur and about them Hasmal promises to unfold like a paper city in an extravagant pop-up book.

At the mouth of the alley, she pauses not for the traffic but for him lagging behind by a half step. Does she recognize his pain specifically—any trace unsteadiness about his stride or way or going—, or just its general shape?

"Let's find an out of the way place, shall we?" A cheap room would be her preference, but given the nature of things—

She will settle for an appropriately discreet balcony or doorstep.

[nonvenomous]

His legs stick out too long past the tail of her cloak -- a heron with a blanket thrown over it and a bottle in hand, upon her turn to check, beak, crest and all. It’s not like him to stoop, either, but they are creeping, and he’s been slashed and crunched and stomped.

“I’ll cede to your expertise.”

***

One would need to have feelings at all to be sour about huddling down in an inn that’s half burnt out wreckage for the night, surely. There are darkened windows in domiciles all around this district. He keeps looking out to them even once he’s sat on the bed -- not through a window, but through a section of wall that collapsed out into the street below after the side of the building caught fire some days ago.

The bedding seems fine.

Excellent, really, for the price.

And they were given a lamp to take up with them, presumably to avoid falling through a hole cratered through the floor. Everything’s coming up Riftwatch.

[unshut]

The raven has been stowed in a structurally sound corner. Sitting on a low stool meant for a foot in the pool of lamplight, Fitcher is drawing out a length of thread from her sewing kit. The hooked needle through which it has been threaded is a fine, vicious thing but the motion of her hands is as easy as the twist of tobacco smoke which ascends from the pipe between her teeth, slithering into nothing on the cool summer air which drifts through the open section of the wall.

Her head has bled enough that it has stopped or dried or some combination of the two.

"I suppose you may as well do whatever it is you would," she says without looking up. A knot is tied into the delicate thread. "I trust there will be some tidying up after regardless."

There is relatively little she can do about whatever the brawler's stomping foot and crushing weight had done, now is there?

[nonvenomous]

“I think it looked worse than it was,” Silas says, as if she hadn’t been the one to bind the flay of meat parted over bone.

A joint is spindling smoke fine between his fingers; he’s slow to recall it after the prompt of her voice, and slower still to pinch it for a hit as he pushes to his feet. It’s easier to stand and reset at the foot of the bed with her footstool than it is to twist where he was sat.

Glass smashes down the street; there is an angry rise of voices, and he sets the joint at his lip while he unwinds the bandage for her to see. The peel of it is a noisy process: cloth grafted to hide, arm hairs stretched sticky in the lamplight when he twists the wound for her to better see while he works. It’s less grievous than she remembers, not quite as deep, and dry at the corners. But skin and muscle still pulls apart where it’s been slashed, in desperate need of stitching. Already, there’s a fresh well of blood pushing up from the gorge.

Elbow balanced to knee, he ashes his joint off onto the floor and looks to Fitcher for her judgment.

[unshut]

Her study of the limb isn't a cool, displaced thing. Rather she grimaces at the peel of half-adhered bandage, and leans a little forward to better observe the damage by the lamplight. Yet her spoken assessment, such as is it, is limited to the dispassionate:

"So it seems."

Fitcher flicks a glance up at him. She's no fool, Silas Lastname.

"Keep that bandage to hand if you please. I may need you to mop as we go," she says, straightening so she might refer to the little kit balanced on her thigh. A second length of thread is judiciously cut and laid inside the hinged top of the box where it will wait to be employed. They have some work ahead of them, don't they?

"Would you prefer I say something to distract you, or that we proceed in grim silence?"

Ha ha. Look, she can tell funny jokes too.

[nonvenomous]

He crooks sidelong at the mouth when she glances at him, nightmare-channeling scamp that he is, and nudges up the roll of his sleeve. There’s geometry to be done on the way to compliance: he has to hook the joint just so between thumb and forefinger, the sticky rag of the bandage wadded like a cloth against the butt of his palm.

“Given the option I would prefer to be distracted,” he says, and laughs, uneasy. It’s a little sinister, with elfroot to loosen up his chords.

A preliminary pass of the wadded bandage clears some of the coagulation off the edges. Helping.

“I hope it’s not too forward to announce now that I intend to share this bed with you.”

[unshut]

The first prick of the needle is for the flayed muscle and not the skin about it—an intermittent running stitch meant to tack both lacerated edges close but not cinch the muscle tight. Two sets of stitching, interior and exterior, will suit the thing best, and so that is what she intends to do.

(Fitcher is a dab hand with embroidery; which came first, do you think—this or that?)

"I should hope so," she says, bent low over her work. "I think if you took the floor we might not be able to get you up off of it again. To say nothing of the environmental hazards present."

Fitcher flicks him a look, eye bright and slanting hooked smile all cheek.

"You don't kick in your sleep, do you?"

[nonvenomous]

All traces of humor blanch from him at the needle’s first bite, sweat sprung up slick under blood, the missed beat of his silence telling on its own. He’s seen people look away and tries that now, only to swing his attention reluctantly back around after the next curl of the needle and the slither of thread after it, curiosity prickled with irritation for the need.

”Rrfh,” is the involuntary answer, stifled with an abortive flinch. He torques steady tension through the pivot of his elbow over his knee, muffling pain with noisier hurt. It doesn’t do much to mitigate the tremble through his wrist.

“Only if I'm kicked first.”

Late to recall the joint leaking smoke over his bandages, he raises it and inevitably smudges blood back into the sweaty quills of his beard, fully focused on her work. At least it’s his this time.

[unshut]

It takes both hands to do the work, but it's a simple thing to turn the lay of her wrist a little and set the side of her nondominant hand (the one guiding the thread, not working the needle) along his shivering wrist. It's too light to be meant as a restraint; reassuring, maybe, in as much as can be effected by a pair of hands currently inflicting a series of miniature stab wounds.

"Nothing to worry about then. I'm a very peaceful sleeper. Just a few more of these now," she says, gravel voice murmuring low around the stem of her pipe as she patiently places further tacking stitches.

"Did you know, I've been here once before. Hasmal." Bloody fingers leave fingerprints behind. "Slipped through on the way to a little village which lies in the foothills to the west. Less Tevene then, of course, but not nearly so scrubbed clean as the locals would seem to have anyone believe. This room is nearly as neatly appointed as the one I stayed in then."

[nonvenomous]

Only a few more of these and Silas nods in hazy agreement, held smoke let off late with a cough. He manages to suppress it until the needle has made its next puncture, lest he wind up sewn to his own pant leg. Still miserable in the face, but relaxing into the inevitability of the pattern. Pierce, tug, and pull.

He heads off an errant well and trickle with a press of the bandage while she speaks, sparing her skirt.

“This is the first time I’ve seen a city in the process of falling to enemy forces.” Maybe it’s the slight friction of the thread tweaking between muscle fibers that makes maintaining a positive attitude difficult. “What business did you have in a little village to the west?” he tries again, in better synch with her efforts.

[unshut]

Her low murmuring hum about the pipe stem is mild. "Hunting a wolf," she says, and places a last loose stitch into the lacerated muscle.

"It had meant to travel north, I think. But the season was poor, and the way through the mountains unpleasant enough that it had nowhere to go but down into the valley and cause trouble. I had meant to manage the poor creature alone, but when I arrived I found that word had traveled."

This Fitcher recites while selecting a short cutting of boiled bird's feather from her sewing kit. The needle is passed neatly through the shaft's hollow center, a knot made fast on the other side. Both needle and the stabilizing knot above the first stitch she'd placed are snipped free with a pair of small sewing scissors. The calamus end is left dangling at his wrist.

"There." She pats his knee; his trousers are ruined—what harm a little more blood on them? "You'll hardly feel the rest after that."

All the same, she pauses to smoke down some of the tobacco she has otherwise been allowing to simply burn. She is unhurried about threading the needle a second time.

[nonvenomous]

Goosepimples prick cold beneath her touch, and he looks to her while she’s working feather and thread, wary in the lamplight. It’s easy to see in the throw of his shadow across the ceiling, the far wall -- the uncertain pause of a nug who’s only just realized that the crocodile offering to carry it across the river might crunch its jaws around the back of his neck and pull it quietly beneath the surface, actually.

The pat at his leg nudges him out of it.

He nods, he puffs on his joint, he busies himself with putting it carefully out -- a familiar ritual, by now. She’s right, of course -- the last layer of stitches will hardly coax out a flinch. His hide is easier for the needle to get through, and his nerves are abuzz with endorphin warmth. And weed.

“Thank you.”

After a few days, the only evidence of her craftsmanship will be a long, angry scar, and the return of strength to all five of his fingers.

[unshut]

"I might embroider in a little rose here near the wrist if you like," Fitcher offers graciously as she she makes her last stitch in substitute for You're welcome, though the sentiment is more or less the same.

Snip, say her vicious little sewing scissors. Blood is cleaned away; the bandage is replaced. Why, with a new shirt and sleeve that falls to the cuff, no one one would ever guess that they have spent the evening killing a man. Isn't it amazing what can be obscured with a decent bit of sewing?

[nonvenomous]

Cold sweat still shines at his temples, but the worst of it has had time to air off his brow, out of his clothes. He has his joint to pack away in its case, and self-possession to probe back out with where he’d retracted all of his feelers in a full body recalculation.

There’s a lingering hum at his nerves that can’t wholly be attributed to pain, or fear.

“I’d hate to waste more of your thread than I already have,” he says.

“Would you like me to do yours?”