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

[heorte]

She's right. Ellis does let her.

There's a split second of hesitation, where he stalls over what to do with his hands, trying to decide what Jone will welcome in this moment. But inevitably, his arms lift, circle her shoulders, hold on to her tightly.

The silence of her reaction wards him off voicing any attempts at comfort. Instead, despite the wear on his own body, he tightens his hold on her, lets her turn her face into him. The only sound is a soft hum, not quite a tune but meant almost to hold place for what Ellis feels he should be trying to say to her.

It's not your fault.

[poleaxed]

She hasn't been held-- with only intent to comfort-- in... a very long time. The uncounted years bring a much more selfish sorrow. What sort of creature would she be, if she had known such kind people when she was younger? Would she still be a monster?

And then there is the child, who will never get to find out what they are.

Jone sits in silence, held fast in something like trust. The silence is deafening. To be content with that, as she assumes Ellis is, must be like having a home to miss. An entirely different breed of person, better and truer and more kind. She envies him his peace.

"Should've stayed with you," she says. "Can only save one."

Selfishly, she's fine with that being Ellis.

[heorte]

Peace. What is peace?

Ellis' hand rubs wide circles across her back, over and over. Is it a good that he feels so little? Muted resignation instead of devastation? There is something so admirable in Jone's grief.

"You've done what you could. More than I could have," he tells her. It's not enough. He knows how those words land, how often he's felt them ring hollow. "And it's no small thing."

Even if he weren't so battered, Ellis wouldn't have been able to summon the kind of strength Jone carries in her blood.

[poleaxed]

Peace is something Jone sees in others and not herself. An always boiling vat of anger, she assumes the more melancholic are just peaceful. Even now, the impression gives Ellis' words more weight in her mind. She calms incrementally, having to fight less and less hard to keep from breaking.

"'Spose you'd know," she murmurs. She's not sure she believes it, but she wants to, for Ellis' sake.

Her eyes slide over the body near them. They slide away. Jone breaks from the embrace, and begins to pick up the child. They should get it to its parents, prepare it for the pyre, or just roll it into a clean pit. Disease is always a concern.

She can't say any of that.

"Y'know, I wanted to be a Warden, when I were his age."

[heorte]

Jone rises, and Ellis moves with her. It feels important to stay within arm's reach of Jone, even if the moment where she cares to reach out to him has passed.

He thinks to say Let me do it but maybe this will be a help to her, to tend to the child in some way.

"Why?" comes after some hesitation, unsure whether the question is prying too deeply. It's not really a surprising sentiment. How many Fereldans wanted the same? That Ellis had never been one of them doesn't change that.

[poleaxed]

Jone is horrified to discover how light the thing is-- she's never held a child before, she realizes. Penance, maybe, for being so poor a daughter that this is true. And irony along with it, discovering this so close to the sort of good Fereldan man she was supposed to end up with. And a Warden besides. If the Maker has any hand in their fates, he's one with a strong sense of humor.

She stands. "Wanted to protect the world," she says, "like the king. Or sort myself out, like Loghain."

[heorte]

As she straightens, Ellis' hand finds her elbow and holds there for a moment under the pretense of steadying himself. Richard's handiwork had turned the clock forward on his injury, but it hadn't erased it. Overexertion still has a price.

But it's not about that, not really. It's about some unspoken type of comfort, holding on to her in a way that makes it easy for her to tolerate.

"Plenty of people had similar reasons," he says finally, careful to talk around his own pessimism. "What kept you from it?"

Lack of Wardens at hand, maybe. It's a fortunate turn, as far as Ellis is concerned.

[poleaxed]

She stares at his hand. Physical comfort is not an alien thing, but it sometimes catches her off guard. She knows how to apply it to others, of course, but applying it to herself? At times the pretense of normalcy she strives-- and fails-- to present falters. How odd it is, that the hands of another can not only harm, but calm.

How fucking stupid she is, for finding that odd.

"Wouldn't join any club that'd have me as a member," she says, an easy, familiar joke, a placeholder when the truth isn't a consideration. Yet, the dead child in her arms is making it difficult to lie. She belatedly remembers to close his eyes.

Quietly, she admits, "piss terrified of darkspawn, I am."

[heorte]

Ellis' hand tightens slightly around her elbow as he looks up into her face.

"There's no shame in it," is immediate, sincerity in every syllable. "It's good sense to be."

Is the implication that most Wardens don't have good sense? Maybe.

"You don't need to be a Warden to do any part of what you wanted," he presses, which is maybe the more important point. He wants to take the child from her arms, tell her to leave this part to him. But it's late to shield her from this. He can want to, but it comes to nothing.

[poleaxed]

They walk through camps of refugees, and Jone's eyes shift over them. Do any of them look like they're searching for someone? Do they have that particular expression of worried parents? Would she even know what that looked like?

Ellis might. She doesn't ask.

"Maybe," Jone admits, "but get paid for it? Heroing is free, living ain't." Another long sigh, pulling up the truth. "'Least, that's what I've told myself. What would you've done, if not for the griffons?"

[heorte]

The Wardens are incidental. The question of Ellis is always: What would you have done if not for the Blight?

He's stayed close as they walk, attentive to her as much as to the people around them. (The sight of people shepherding bodies from the wreckage is not new to any of them either.) At the question, his face turns further away.

"I don't know," he answers finally, coming up short as he tries to draw anything worth saying out of that blur of agony between Blight and Joining. "I don't know that I'm made for anything else."

Once, maybe. Now? This is all.

[poleaxed]

Jone would, normally, place a hand on his shoulder. As it is, all she can do is elbow him in the arm.

"Please, El," she says, "we've already one Gabranth in this outfit. Try to have more hope than him."

Jone can't do much; she never can. But she'll have to try, anyway, to cheer a sorrowful heart. How many are there, now? Gabranth, Si, Ellis. It must be a very solemn thing, to feel so hollow.

[heorte]

Please sticks.

"Wardens aren't much for hope," has the cadence of a joke. Wardens, locked in an unending battle, what do they have to hope for? A good death, maybe, before they're dragged underground by the poison in their blood.

But for Jone—

"I'll try. Riftwatch makes it easier."

[poleaxed]

Jone's response is quick and thoughtless, catching the most surface thoughts skimming through her mind. "That's all Wardens are."

She looks genuinely shocked, and fights to hide it. "I mean- I know others are crooked, I-..." A sigh, thin and shallow. Disappointed in herself for being so... so much the creature she was. A child with no childhood.

"A Warden saved all of Ferelden," Jone says softly. "It may be that I'm daft and simple with it, but to me? All of that? That means something. He's king. And when you're about, I know things'll turn for the better."

[heorte]

What Jone invokes, quietly between them on the heels of such a loss, catches Ellis a little like a knife. The impact first, then the slicing pain after, both following int he wake of her words.

There are Wardens like that, like what Jone is describing. Is Ellis among them? No. Not him. The momentary twist of a smile is more bitter than it should be in the face of a compliment. (Undeserved.) But Jone doesn't deserve her faith shaken.

"You aren't daft," he tells her, easiest response first. His hand returns to her elbow, thumb pressing lightly over the bone as he speaks. "I want that, what you've said. To make things better."

It's their duty. It has always been, and it guides them still, as complicated and fractured as they've become.

"Maybe you see more clearly than I do."

[poleaxed]

They get to the mortuary tent, a little place where a crew of regulars have elected to try and identify bodies before they're burnt en masse. The one with a grand list of names asks if Jone wants to be listed as a contact, the finder of the body. Jone walks away without answering.

Back to Ellis, nearby, safe and calm. Kind. Jone hasn't earned it, but she'll take it anyway.

"I don't see more clearly," she says. She thought it over, in the scant seconds that transaction thought. "I see what I want to be true. I want to see you happy."

Since they're speaking in such truth, now.

[heorte]

It's not what he'd expected. He'd had a question ready, about the child, about what happened within the tent. Or a third question, unrelated, prevailing on her to help him back to the healer's tent. (He does not care to see a healer, but he cares that Jone's attention is somewhere other than on the child.)

But this—

What does happy look like for him? How does he find a way to that for her? (And when it's so undeserved, the last thing men like him are due?) He's not made for it.

"Jone," is what Ellis manages, brows drawing together as he searches her face. He doesn't know what to say to her. Slowly, he settles on, "You needn't worry about that. Not now."

[poleaxed]

Jone doesn't feel better. She won't for a long time, and nothing can really change that. She'll sit with this private shame for months, maybe years, and that's just a fact of life. You can't change it.

Jone learned to emote, which feelings to broadcast and which to hide, under a fist that was so big in those days, it blocked out the sun. It wasn't bad, when it hit her. It was worse when it hit others, and on those dark days, she'd do anything to cheer.

So Jone heaves a long sigh, and reaches out to snatch Ellis' ear like the older sister she never was. "You're supposed to say, 'I'll try! I want you to be happy too.'"

Her voice apes his, a softer accent born of the Bannorn. Her expression is jocular, almost kind, if not for the way the lines of her face pulled away from that.

[heorte]

The twist of her fingers hurts, but it's a familiar kind of hurt. No one's dragged him by the air in well over fifteen years, but he remembers it.

He reaches up to part her hand from his earlobe.

"For you, I'll try," Ellis tells her, obliging but still sincere. "Because I do want you to be happy."

Something he hopes doesn't hinge on whether or not he finds a way to achieve happiness. He's closer to it now than he has been before, surrounded by the chaos of Riftwatch and all the dysfunction of it's members. But he never quite forgets that it's all stolen. None of this was really meant for him.

"When this passes, I hope you will be," is quieter, but no less honest.

[poleaxed]

"I'm happy when all's at peace, and I have good drink and a comfortable bed," Jone says, making her way back to their tent. Ellis ought to lay down, damn him. "What puts you at ease?"

This is a cause, now, for Jone to march toward.

[heorte]

What is he to do with the question?

Ellis has fallen into step with her without question, taking for granted that they will remain in each other's company. (He doesn't care to leave her, however improved she seems.) But he doesn't exactly know what to say in the face of this line of questioning, this drawing out of personal happiness.

That hasn't been a concern in a very long time. Now he has to consider the little indulgences that have become habit during his time in the Gallows, and decide all over again how exactly he feels about having cultivated such things.

"You're going to laugh," he says, having pieced through all the things that came immediately to mind and settled upon something specific.

[poleaxed]

Jone sidles in closer to him, an arm reaching around his shoulder. There are times when reassurance is pointless, and so people must be throttled with her overbearing presence.

"Is it dirty novels?" She asks, "have you a fancy woman?"

[heorte]

A fancy woman. Ellis nudges an elbow into her hip, refuting the idea without further acknowledgement.

"I've a garden. And a few chickens."

A beat.

"And aye, it's been good to have spent so long in a place with a library."

Not that he's going to depress Jone with the contents of his reading list.

[poleaxed]

"Ah, farmer through and through," Jone elbows him back, mostly because she can. "That enough to look forward to?"

[heorte]

An oddly difficult question to ask a man who thinks very little of his own longevity. What happens after this war? He returns to fighting the one that's still waging, until it drags him down under the earth.

The garden and the chickens are not meant for him, not really.

"Aye, most of the time," is true enough for her purposes. "Is the comfortable bed enough for you?"

Jone, who wants to do good. Jone, who is so much better than she thinks herself to be.