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

[rowancrowned]

How often did drowning men doom their rescuers, Thranduil wondered, and spared thanks for Astarion clawing not at Coupe's feathers but Thranduil's clothes and armor. He and she had scouted together often enough that she was sure of herself and he sure in his read of her temperament and stamina. The reins were comfortable in his gloved hands, and he felt a solidity of purpose lost to him during previous weeks.

But then, there was the matter of their passenger.

"Stop thrashing," Thranduil hissed, looking over his shoulder. The wind was as likely to whip his words away the same as his braid, but the look would carry what conversation could not.

[illithidnapped]

It’s a look Astarion doesn’t see, cheek pressed harsh across the edge of Thranduil’s shoulder, his eyes pinched tightly shut, breathing only through the gaps between sharply cinched fangs with every flutter of broad wings.

Oh, normally he’d be coy about this. It’s an opportunity for closeness, for touch. An excuse to set his hands on a man as beautiful as starlight—

Only now his hands are clawed with fitful tension, and he couldn’t care less if he was groping the edges of finely crafted armor, or an old bog witch’s muck encrusted tit: anything, anything at all within his grasp is a bid at safety, however pitiful.

“You stop making it thrash about, and I’ll stop thrashing, and we’ll all live— ” he shrieks as they dip in altitude, voice high and digging, a breath of a gasp chased by a grimace as he fights to lock every bone in his body into place like a vice screwed shut.

“—happily ever after. Hells. Hells.”

[rowancrowned]

"Are you this pitiful on horseback?" Thranduil asked. He reached behind him, checking the buckles of Astarion's harness just to be sure he was actually secured, fingers briefly digging into the soft places between armor to really puncture his point and break through the hysteria. "Don't kick. She might think you want to go faster."

At least he wasn't affectionate for the Orlesian fashion for casual spurs--

"You have never been aloft?" Thranduil said, like he totally had stolen giant eagles for joyrides in his past life rather than being trapped in Elf Florida (feat. spiders), and had not merely stumbled into captaincy (?) of the griffon fortuitously named after a dear friend. "Are you to be my companion in all our scouting runs?"

[illithidnapped]

“— I have absolutely been aloft before, on something far larger and infinitely more secure,” unwilling prisoner, unwittingly transported, the experience wasn’t much of a wonder at the time, but Astarion at least has the memory of solidity in thrumming transit.

“And still we crashed, so you’ll forgive me if I’m a little on edge at the idea of trusting a creature like this to do any better.”

But those fingers of Thranduil's dig, and really, attention is attention: the catch of that contact pacifies the harsher edges of his fearful mood— though there’s no pulling fully back from the idea that his stomach is hovering somewhere well, well below them.

He doesn’t shiver in panic. Doesn’t thrash with every beat of those oversized wings. His grip is still harsh enough to be painful of course, but that’s just something Thranduil will have to live with.

“And I don’t bloody well know— I didn’t exactly have time to ask.” Murmured petulantly somewhere behind Thranduil’s shoulder, winding down with little (none) grace.

[rowancrowned]

"Something," Thranduil stressed, and to punctuate, laid a gloved hand on the someone's pelt. "This is natural to her. I would trust her far more than any machine wrought by the hands of Men."

The assumption drawn from larger and crashed. Such was the folly of mortals, et cetera et cetera. He let go of Astarion's harness and drew back his hand for the reins, such as they were. He gave Coupe her head, and relaxed his own posture, loosening his shoulders. Despite Astarion's clinging, he would model good behavior and hope it was mirrored.

Highly unlikely, but he tried.

"I am caught between the idea of requesting another, and being disinclined to inflict you on someone else," he said, conversationally. "Do you wish to make your case for either?"

[illithidnapped]

Inflicting. How dare.

He scoffs. He balks.

“How terribly unacceptable of me, not taking to this— this on my very first excursion.” For a moment irritation overtakes fear, and he pulls one hand away as he speaks to make one very sweeping gesture towards the whole of their positioning regardless of the fact that Thranduil can't see it. “You know when I first stumbled across the news of our given partnership I thought this would be pleasant. I thought I’d get to enjoy myself, the view in particular.”

“But now I’ve realized I can’t even satisfy myself on the luxury of looking at your face, considering where I’m seated, and you’ve more love in you for that bird than you do for the matter of compassion so—“ His grip narrows itself back into place, finding the edge of Thranduil's shoulder, his tone as bitter as spilt poison. “—no, my strikingly handsome companion. I’ve no case to make for myself. You do whatever you must, and I’ll do the same.”

[rowancrowned]

"Where did you expect to be seated, to be able to see my face?" Ever inclined towards a bit of flattery, and trained on Gwenaelle (and, to some degree, himself) to handle moods, he seized on this, shifting slightly in his seat to look over his shoulder.

These high spirits were much better than the fear and the thrashing, even if they were of approximately the same emotional level.

[illithidnapped]

"Why, in front of you, of course. Comfortably nestled in your arms, free to glance up as I please at the utterly divine angles of your jaw." There's something pacifying in the matter of consistent speech, though Astarion's own breaths strain between beats, still laced with faint tension. He is, to his credit, making a fair effort to trust they won't go spiraling to the earth below under the strain of a wing cramp, or a stray spell, or—

"I also imagined you'd have your hair down as well, all things considered. So you can imagine the full depths of my own despair at this moment."

It'd been a picturesque dream. Oh, impossible, of course: Thranduil's hair would undoubtedly cocoon itself across his eyes and mouth, whipping them both in the face for every updraft or downward current, but they could've come close enough, and he laments the loss of possibility.

Deeply.

"My heart's in my damned throat, my stomach's on the ground. And here I am seated at your back like an unwanted pack."

[rowancrowned]

"It would make a lovely portrait," he admitted. Level with the one that Solas had done. "A shame it cannot be."

Below them, the land rolled on without anything interesting, as it had for hours. Thranduil considered the horizon, with the sun sinking, and weighed rewarding his passenger verses pushing onward for another hour. He needn't have dug for the timepiece in his pack to guess the hour and how much time they had left.

Thedas had made him soft.

"Perhaps we ought to land for the night," he suggested, in the delicate way of giving someone else an out. "She is tiring."

There would doubtless be time for panicked and exhausted flying later in the campaign.

[illithidnapped]

"Please." Astarion urges, his voice instantly made feathering and sweet with reflexive knowledge of exactly how to make himself seem as innocuous as he might need to be to get his way. He doesn't choose it. Two hundred years have made that an entirely instinctive reflex.

The synaptic leap between want and behavior.

"A good night's rest will do wonders to ease my...delicate constitution."

[rowancrowned]

Now the griffon did dip, Thranduil wholly attentive on the matter of finding a good campsite among the trees. They might even risk a low fire, once it got dark, with the accompanying reward of hot food.

There was a small winding river, and a brief clearing, and absolutely no alarming ruins or cracks in the earth that would have almost certainly released darkspawn. The griffon landeded, and Thranduil was unbuckling himself from the saddle even before Coupe had all four legs on the ground, making pleased little chirrups at herself.

"Let me," he said, all solicitousness and even a brief smile, already going to undo the buckles that kept Astarion from falling to his death. "I take it you are not a wood elf."

[illithidnapped]

A wood elf. Oh. What a moment of taken surprise as Astarion— stuck in the midst of a pleased reverie at the direct attention of being ever-so-courteously unbuckled— considers anew his companion. For more than his face or bearing. More than the idea of being useful.

Are they kindred spirits?

“Correct. I’m certainly no tel-quessir, but obviously you knew that already. Are you from Faerun?”

And then something in his features twists warily— his stare runs cold, lips drawn into a narrow line as he pulls himself down from the saddle on his own rather than be ferried, pleasantness ebbing under the realization that if he is...If they are, then...

“Do you know Baldur’s Gate?”

[rowancrowned]

"No," Thranduil said, "- and no, again. Edhel, teleri in the older tongue."

He began to remove the packs from Coupe's harness, heedless of the distance between himself and Astarion. How curious, to see the core of the other elf, with no frippery around it. "Baldor," he said, testing it, but his accent changed the vowels in the same way it shaped his other words. "Is it a name? It is close to the word for prince, in a Mannish language from my home."

He found what he was looking for, draping the other pack over his shoulder, and bent to his knees to undo the girth of the saddle. "Is it the name of your home?"

pretend I remembered to include the sy- before tel-quessir in that last tag, nerd lore is exhausting

[illithidnapped]

For the first time since his own arrival, paranoia grips him again. The tingling dread he'd known deep in the dark, endless in its gnawing presence. He is lying, it whispers, hissing sharp within his ears.

—but then reason asserts, overriding habit. The hand near his dagger relaxes. His jaw unclenches. This isn't a game, and it isn't a dream to be woken from. Even if Thranduil was a creature from his own world, the fact remains that Cazador is far, far away— no doubt withering for his loss.

"It was, back before all this. Perhaps our people are some strange, distant cousins. Wouldn't be the first time we've fanned out across the realms." Even in the aftermath of tight-strung tensity, Astarion doesn't seem to fully snap back to pomp and circumstance; his tone is sobered, his stare level as he watches Thranduil busy himself with his work of removing tack in practiced pieces.

"I'm a high elf, technically speaking. Eladrin. In my own world we were well respected, sought after, dignified." One hand centers itself across the crest of his chest, fanning proudly across dark leather.

He neglects to mention his former status, just as he neglects to mention his vampirism. Some things aren't to be said without trust.

[rowancrowned]

"It is very likely, though our little cousins here have fallen far." He lifted the saddle off, taking advantage of some near convient branch to drape it over; Coupe immediately took advantage and shook herself wildly, little tufts of down floating through the air like dust motes. Headbutting Thranduil aggressively, she pecked at the pockets and pouches of his uniform, chirps growing demanding.

He pulled a piece of jerky from some inner pocket, and the griffon focused on it, suddenly freezing. He turned to watch Asterion, heedless. "How alarming, to come from such a place to Thedas, where one tends to find us in either forest or slum. Have you any woodcraft? I thought to ask you to start us a fire."

[illithidnapped]

“Most of them, yes. Maybe not all.”

He has someone in mind. The very picture of foolishness— and pride. But it's a thought quickly forgotten, his own hand falling away, and all posturing along with it: taken to surveying their surroundings with a quickly focused stare.

"More accustomed to having the supplies on hand rather than needing to gather them up myself like some sort of woodland vagabond— but yes. Give me a moment, I'll get something started."

It takes a little longer than a moment, in truth. In place of magic there was always parchment for the hearth back home, and here, with neither at his disposal, Astarion's forced to take his time weighing the properties of what surrounds them for a potential substitute. In the end, he settles on a mixture of stripped bark, dried leaves, and nettles. Quick to catch, and to burn. Aside from it, however, the best he outfits them with for wood are a few thicker, dry branches.

He isn't about to go hacking down a sapling with his dagger, after all. And truth be told, he's tired.

"What was it like for you? When you first arrived, I mean." Asked as he settles down in the dirt, satisfied with his work. Elbows across his knees.

[rowancrowned]

He tossed the treat in the air for the griffon rather than risk his fingers, and was proven right by how she snapped it up and settled down to gnaw. Thranduil paused to think, not to voice his agreement- not all indeed, Solas lingered in his thoughts- and nodded instead.

While Asterion worked, he unpacked, removing the bedrolls and checking the crystal for any messages of note, turning it over in his fingers before tucking it back into his pocket.

"Difficult. My cousin arrived before me, and had found herself in some trouble. Even among our own people, no one presumed to put constraints on her." Contemplation made him still, looking somewhere off in the trees, briefly unfocused before the moment passed, and he set back to work, finding the supplies and setting them on a cleared patch of ground. "She made it known that she was... powerful, and disinclined to be ruled. The Inquisition's response was to jail her. The situation was eventually deescalated. It was humbling to realize what position elves occupied here, and my own reduced status."

He weighed the canteens, and turned in the direction of the stream. "And yours? I regret that I was not there."

[illithidnapped]

"To— jail her?" He sputters, scoffing sharply through overlong teeth. Barbarism abound, it seems, and duly noted.

Still, the segue affords opportunity for both the balm of recline and sweeter subjects: Astarion sprawling across his own meager bedding, ankles crossed, smiling mildly as he swats at the air in dismissal— utterly accustomed now to the sound of a griffon nearby.

"Oh, sweet of you. But there's nothing to regret." It might not've been the most pleasant of arrivals, but Astarion is grateful to have been gathered up without much fuss or frittering. The safer waters of a skilled rescuer with a penchant for stewardship in blood.

"Not that I would've minded having you around, darling. Scenery improved, and all."

[rowancrowned]

"The experience was novel. She may have even enjoyed it, briefly. I went to every rift we had warning of to make sure any other elves would not make the same mistake, until I became Provost."

And now she was gone, and he was the only one from Arda left. But down that road of thought lay only ruminations about his own impermanence, and probably more about Gwenaelle. He let it be.

"Will you eat fish, or is that too undignified? The stream looked promising." After a moment- "I am not expecting you to catch your own."

[illithidnapped]

"Undignified? I—"

The thought is laughable for so many reasons, all of them unmentionable, and all so near to slipping out that Astarion has to work to catch himself: scoffing with an easy smile, folding a few tightened fingers across his side in lounging consideration.

"No, my dear. I’d planned on whittling away hunger with the last of my own meager rations, so a hot meal would make for a welcome change."

He could offer to help. To rise and lend a useless hand, or further nurse along their camp into something more comfortable. Hells, he could even keep watch properly, which is barely a breath away from what he's already currently doing. Instead he stretches out a little more bonelessly, rolling onto his back to survey Thranduil a touch more closely in the firelight.

The man is deceptively self-sufficient, isn't he?

"Do you always hunt for yourself? I never took you for the sort."

[rowancrowned]

"What sort do I seem?" Amused, and lingering, but not digging through the packs for fishhooks or line. He tucked the canteen into his coat. "I am a woodland vagabond, I fear, if from darker woods than these."

Less wise and more dangerous, but Thranduil doesn't repeat that salacious bit of gossip. Instead, he turned, not bothering to call over his shoulder. "I will return by sundown. Do not let her dig in the packs looking for food. She knows what no means, even if she pretends not to."

[illithidnapped]

The callback to Astarion's own wording doesn't inspire shame, perhaps unsurprisingly: he only smiles wider for it from his perch, grin gone lopsided enough to flash the edges of his own sharp teeth when he gestures— vaguely— as one might ever-so-graciously bow in dignified, honorable parting.

If one also happened to be laying down with a lone arm propped uselessly beneath their head.

"I'll keep your pet safe, and our rations as well. You've nothing to worry about— aside from disappointing me, should you come back empty-handed."

[rowancrowned]

The sun was halfway under the horizon when he returned, a few twigs snapped purposefully underfoot as an announcement. A louder one was the griffon squawking, rising from the ball she had curled herself into and kneading the forest floor with palm-sized claws.

He tossed a fish to her underhand- river-sized, wide and full of splintery bones- and she snapped it out of the air.

He had two more in hand, dangling by their tails, and these he offered to Astarion. "Gut and clean them for me?" he asked, presuming upon Astarion's squeamishness and ignorance when he'd done that much already, at the stream. The other elf managed to contort his face into the most interesting expressions.

[illithidnapped]

Astarion isn't much different: as the griffon unfurls herself, so too does he blearily unfold to stretch stiffened, sleep-touched joints— the very picture of a tireless guardian of a woodland camp.

One that's resting on the job, that is.

Only to be subsequently met with the gleaming, slickened paleness of a pair of fish right as the haze of sleep is wearing thin. Oh— he scoffs, upturned nose drawn high and away in a grimace from the sight of eyes as clear and unfocused as jelly pooling in a bowl, one hand already raised high as a barrier between them.

"No— no, thank you."

No thank you what, Astarion?

"I mean— I can't, that is. I haven't any idea how."