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

I like how I was like I'm going to make time to tag and then everything happened all at once irl

[archademode]

Unworthy.

The word cuts through his armor like a blade, and even through the weighty barrier of thick metal his snapping against the dig of it is visible enough. No soot masks that simple truth, no posturing its guard.

"What would you have me do."

It is not an apology. Neither is it an excuse. There is a difference between opening either mind or heart to the concept of gentler comportment when in the presence of a fragile creature, and simply bowing his head to the idea that he must.

[poleaxed]

She immediately feels guilt for what she now realizes was a dirty move. How many times has she told Beth herself that Gabranth prides himself on his nobility, his visage, all the fancy things that encompass the simplicity of pride. How has Jone already targeted that, without realizing the full scope of it.

She's unworthy, not him. But she can't say that.

"You don't need to apologize or anything," Jone says softly. "Just... don't treat the girl like dirt under your heel. She has potential. Like to train her up like our Ben."

[archademode]

Against the pommel of his sword, his thumb scrapes an idle, stormy pattern. A sign of thought, when all else about him promises only stillness. They stand on the precipice of a city wall, caked in pitch and wreathed in the stench of smoke; there is no mistaking this for the grander channels of Archades, made golden in waning light.

He is free, then, to think if he cares to. To disagree, if he wishes to.

"If this is important to you, I shall see it done. Her existence shall be upheld by the pillars of my own patience— but do not ask me to train her."

[poleaxed]

"I wouldn't," Jone says, frowning. Something troubles her in the back of her mind, something mingled with fear. She hates fear, hates fearing anything, so she tosses her body on the pyre, so to speak. Anything to stave off that soul sickness. "Why do you so prefer him over her? She tries, at least. Doesn't have to be cajoled into caring whether she lives or dies in a bloody war."

[archademode]

"Tries?" It is not scoffed. He does not scoff. But the affront is there all the same, simmering in blood that never truly cools. In fury that only pauses, never wanes. "What has she tried to accomplish? Abandoment? Ignoring the needs of the current moment and all its consequences in favor of sating her own petty emotions?"

When he inhales, his chest rises, filling with heat unbidden.

"Benedict disappointed me, true, yet he did not let it stop him from confronting a dragon. Your would-be charge withdrew from twigs. Leaves."

[poleaxed]

"Not gonna argue with you about what a girl did, alone, when you frightened her," Jone retorts. "Not fucking picking between you."

She purses her lips, thinking. The idea has crawled into her head. She won't know peace until it's slithered out her mouth. She bloody hates this feeling, like every word is fire. Used to make her feel powerful. Now it's just a poison needing to be expelled.

"It's 'cos he's from a good family, innit." She looks up at Gabranth, though she doesn't want to. "He comes from something, even if it's Vint shite."

[archademode]

Bile begets bile. Anger to anger— so on and so forth. Basch had ever tried to warn him of the cycle he himself forged from the decaying ruin of Landis, yet even now, even here, after countless lives lived and lost, it persists. Self-destruction as much his body as the marrow locked tight within his bones.

"Mind yourself." He warns, though the entirety of its reach is toothless. Pure habit, rather than distilled purpose.

"At first, such thoughts did leash me to his side. That is true no longer."

[poleaxed]

It's what Jone wants to hear, and also not. She needs to know if he's the sort to seek higher born pastures, if she's just some passing amusement until a fine lady says the right words to him. She knows how easily that can come to pass. She's been in just that position, many a time.

"Would you be kinder to Beth, if she were gently born?" Or me?

[archademode]

He needs time. He takes time. No more than a few seconds, though the span of their weighty march stretches out so long that it might instead feel more akin to minutes, air gone acrid for more than just the smell of doused flames.

Perhaps she already knows the answer he means to give, by then.

"...yes."

He'll not lie to her. Not to spare her— or himself— from the welling pain of simple truths. Were she higher born, drawn from more than just the edges of decay, he would have lowered his head to her at first meeting. She could have thrown rocks, words— pulled at the fringe of his cloak if she cared to, and he would have endured it all with quiet, seething patience, for that is the measure of his oathbound praxis. The confinement he'd sworn himself to.

That he maintains even now.

"But kindness is not the same as respect, Jone."

[poleaxed]

Jone listens to the quiet, and it speaks the answer before Gabranth does. She's surprised not to meet it with despair. Instead, it's just the quiet everyday disappointment the world brings. She doesn't care if Gabranth respects Beth, just so long as he doesn't leave the girl terrified. She does care that Gabranth is vulnerable to the rich.

Like she was.

"Came from poorer stock than the girl," Jone murmurs, "you saw where I grew up. Knee deep in shite, every day, barely any food. I don't expect your kindness or your respect. But if you're the sort to grow tired of my... fucking... unrefinedness, I'd prefer to hear it now."

[archademode]

"Listen to me. Mistake none of what I speak." There is no softness to be found in his voice— gauntleted hand seizing her wrist in demand, leaving paler traces of contact over soot-marked skin. Like the streak across his pauldron, they are a testament to touch.

"My loyalty lies with those whose decisions alter the very foundation of this world. Whose birthright affords them such privilege. I am content to be their shield, I am satisfied to kneel." One side of a blade's edge, of the scale that balances the focus of his conviction. There is no shame within it, and he'll convince himself of nothing else. He has lived too long to change now.

And yet.

"All that I have to give otherwise, be it respect, devotion— myself, divorced from the purity of purpose, unarmored— that is a gift I grant not to status, but to the one I deem worthy of it."

[poleaxed]

Can she believe him? Does she have any choice? Not to do so would be cowardice, and in the face of fear, again, she throws herself on the pyre. Jone leans into him. She gets yet more soot in her hair as she hides her face in the topography of his armor.

"Alright," she says. "I won't make you reassure me again." Briefly, just for a moment, she presses her lips to his helmet, in the same place she once did when they'd first met.

She regrets it almost immediately, tasting ash, and coughs a bit. "Ugh, a dim blighter, I am. Eugh."

[archademode]

He is far from finished. There is more he would say, her wrist still snared within his grasp, pulse beat faintly present through the coarse leather of his glove—

But she then kisses his helm and reels from it, coughing under the otherwise steady flow of breath, and the noise that escapes from beneath metallic hollows is a higher scoff of a thing. The closest to a laugh he's yet to manage, though no doubt eclipsed by her own audible disgust.

In its wake that his hold on her recedes, traded instead for a tug of his helm back across his shoulders— swift in the way that only precision itself can evoke— chasing the bitter taste of ash with his own mouth. Stern. Insistent— and then done, his previously unmarred face now graced with inky streaks.

He snorts through his nose, just once. Shaking his head to dislodge the scent. The taste.

Wretched, all of it.

[poleaxed]

Jone is left feeling hollowed out in the wake of that unexpected kiss. She has to consciously realize her eyes are closed in order to open them. She feels as though a candle has been lit within her, slowly smoldering, filling her up with heat. She looks at him, and she

pushes the feeling down.

Jone breathes through her teeth. "Beth also said," she whispers, "there's an abandoned house not far from here. Don't reckon I could convince you to use it with me, but I'm half tempted to try."

[archademode]

"...we were meant to be patrolling the wall, as I understood it." Spoken as he flexes his lips, knowing he cannot wipe them for how it will only worsen the mess he's made of his own face, already drawing his helmet up to be replaced.

And then, with an overwhelmingly dry touch of scrutiny:

"Why did she suggest this place to you."

[poleaxed]

Jone shrugs. "She was trying to be nice. She saw our tents next to each other, and made a guess."

She reaches up to unbutton her gambeson, so she can take a handful of her clean undershirt. "C'mere, off with the helm."

[archademode]

There is a bitterness to his exhale. A stubbornness long-steeped and undeniable. For his helm— only just fit back into place— for the benignity and affection shared between Jone and Beth, and all the enmity he has yet to bleed from himself.

Past instincts and urges grind against present desire like shifting earth. Like gritted teeth. He is not Basch fon Ronsenburg. Merciful, patient, kind.

Yet for the life his brother could not lead, he does try.

His helmet is drawn away once more. Stern set features resigned to the fate of being brushed at, scrubbed— whichever she deigns to inflict upon him. Her touch is ever welcome; it is not the part that grates against his tolerance.

That comes next.

“I shall stay with you there, if it is what you wish. But we must complete our watch— and I would first speak with the girl.”

[poleaxed]

She tries to blot away the worst of the soot, taking advantage of the six inches she has on him. She resists the urge to kiss him again, not wanting to lean so heavily on his patience.

"We'll complete the patrol," Jone says. "I can help you with Beth-"

A call rings up from the watchmen on the wall. Fire, fire! Jone turns just in time to see an image of pure flame, shaped expertly in the mode of a Tevinter Serpent, rush toward them on the wall.

[archademode]

“I do not— “ His argument is cut short, the throaty catch of his would-be protest overwritten by shouts of nearby alarm. His hands are occupied, clutching the contours of his own helm, and were there more time, he would curse himself for his own carelessness—

But of course, there is no time.

In a split-second of decision he tears himself from her touch, shoving her away with a singular, merciless kick against the brace of her own stance— his heel to her shin, cruel and digging.

His confession had been true enough. He’d treat no noble so wretchedly, and here, now, such hesitation might come with lethal cost.

For her, he’ll take no such chances.

[poleaxed]

Jone clatters to the ground, taken entirely by surprise. She'd seen the flame, but hadn't expected this rush of action. The flame serpent spirals through the air, sending waves of heat as it sails past them- toward the city within their walls.

Jone will have time to be angry later.

Scrambling to her feet, she begins to rush to the new fire springing up in the sea of tents and wood houses they protect. "Real tired of this!" She manages to bark out a curse as she rushes toward stone steps.

[archademode]

A stray line of spent flame trails itself between where they’d been standing, the heat of it broiling, hot enough that it remains briefly trapped beneath the confines of his helmet when he rushes to fit it back in place.

From there, he turns, intending to offer his hand to Jone— only to see her already upright, tearing past him in a quickened blur.

His tongue meets the back of his teeth when he grunts a furious, wordless assent at her back, trailing down the stairway as nothing more than a clatter of metal against metal— her strange, malformed shadow.

[poleaxed]

The flames hit refugee tents the hardest. Firing blind as they are, Vint mages are never sure what they'll hit, but this was a lucky one. Already, people rush from the flames, calling back at whoever they can't account for. Jone can't help search now; it's too hot. Instead, a water line forms, and she adds to it, hands passing buckets of water to and from a well.

This procedure has become almost a habit, in the past few days.

[archademode]

She takes her place in line, smoke already thick in the air, interwoven with panic—

Gabranth knows where he rightly belongs. In that line, assisting first with the matter of dousing the flames from a reasonable distance, providing a clear path of escape for those trapped within, or lost in confusion. Time is of the essence, the longer this takes, the more will be wounded— or worse.

Instead he moves to her shoulder, his voice low. A murmur only she will hear.

“Forgive me.”

Indiscretion is, after all— much like cruelty— a matter of necessity. And she had not forbidden him from it.

It is difficult to miss the sight of him when he cuts a path into the burning encampment: dark armor, swords drawn together to form precisely the weapon that always precedes casting, the way a clock’s limbs stretch upwards towards the exact same spot before it rings, without fail. Those blades laced with ice, water that coalesces into steam within heat, doing far more to douse flame than the intermittent splash of filled buckets— though the sight of it, blatant and harsh, is exactly as magisterial as one might expect. Unnerving in an already tensed situation.

He won’t be favored after this. But there will be souls left alive to dislike him. Therein lies the difference.

[poleaxed]

Everyone stops to watch them. Jone is one of them. Eyes wide in shocked amazement, she can't look away. He's so achingly beautiful, displaying such magical intensity, power wholly under his command. She loves him, and in this moment it hurts, because she fears for him as well. It won't take long for them to turn against him. He looks so suspicious.

Jone knows what she must do as well.

Hooking her fingers in his armor, she begins to draw him away. Her voice is low, her eyes don't leave his helm. "Come with me," she says, "now."

[archademode]

“It is not finished— " is the counter he offers, against the pull of her arm, the space that surrounds them thick with pale smoke from smoldering work, as ashen as the two of them.

But realization sinks in not long after, and the gravity of her presence runs stronger than just the hold she keeps across him.

The ice fades. His posture relents.

Perhaps it is fortunate so much is obscured by the blaze and its weighty smokescreen. They might slip away unseen, if the right route is chosen.