[ OPEN | PLAYER PLOT ] This is how it feels to take a fall

[illithidnapped]

WHO: Tiffany, Barrow, Astarion and...you??
WHAT: an assignment gone terribly wrong
WHEN: week 5, segueing into week 6 of the plot, just after dragon tracking concluded with a terrible, literal bang
WHERE: the most silent portion of the Silent Plains, nearer to Hasmal, and not far from Tevinter's very nicely constructed base
NOTES: cw for injury, darkness, being stranded, absolute idiocy | OOC POST: here

Previously: having successfully scouted Primus Taxarchis’ base in the Silent Plains, Tiffany, Barrow and Astarion make an unsuccessful escape under the fully alerted watch of the base’s active forces— provoking a near lethal counter attack that sees them crash landing not far away, and forcing the stranded trio to desperately petition for help.

That’s where you come in.




The ravine runs like a crooked gash throughout desert sands, deep and layered, sloping inward at an angle too steep to safely (or reliably) climb. Easy to spot from above, not as easy to get into without breaking an ankle or an arm, and impossible to freely clamber out of once inside: the stone is brittle and flaking to the touch, lean too much on it, and you’ll drop right to the earth along with it.

The caverns connected to it are far more accessible— the only downside is they’re labyrinthine in their knotted nature: it’s easy to reach an end too narrow to be traversed, or so broad that it loops back on where you’ve already been, descending downward in steeper layers, becoming a near honeycombed network at points.

Of course, you also might not be alone in the dark. This territory isn’t as unclaimed as appearances might otherwise suggest, factoring in proximity to the base the three had been previously scouting. Luckily no overwhelming force has been sent to give chase and comb the desert in pursuit, but that’s not to say there aren’t still eyes to be found in the depths of lightless pathways. Armor-clad agents working for the exact same reasons you are, their noses to the trail.

Well. Not the exact same reasons.

The temperature is freezing cold at night, and in the fuller depths of the caverns where light doesn’t reach, that’s a near consistent constant. Firelight might draw attention, for better or worse. Magic, too, and— despite earning the label of Silent— there is wildlife occasionally to be found. Proof of life’s perseverance even in the harshes of places, fleeting and skittish.

Or dangerous.

Whatever approach is taken, one thing is clear throughout: none of this is going to be easy.


[ooc notes:

-The trio rest at the very bottom of those lightless depths where they’d initially fallen, in varying states of wellness and action.

-they’re lacking in supplies, warmth, healing, mounts, protection, a way out— you name it they need it.

-time is a given: none of this will go quickly, so feel free to handwave or assume anything you need to to make your dream threads come true.

-this timeline wise takes place at the end of week five segueing into week 6, when Riftwatch forces are free to head home if they care to, but given that this is technically hostile territory between Primus Taxarchis’ base and Hasmal, it’s probably going to be a deliberate choice if your characters decide to come here.

-pls just don’t do anything to officially alert the nearby base in full, that would be Bad— and super difficult to do from a hole in the ground but mostly just Bad. Otherwise chase your bliss and make your wildest spelunking/survival/heroic fantasies a reality.

-ooc post is here, for all your delving needs and details.]

Comments

[broodypants]

The line goes silent, for a time. Fenris is making his way to the sound of the noise, the softness of a voice. Wouldn't it be easier, then, to keep talking? Fenris has never been one for the easy path.

He finds Astarion rather dazed. "You've ruined your frock."

[illithidnapped]

He hears Fenris first. A different sort of scuffing echoing along cavernous walls compared to the type he’s heard before, heralding trouble.

But dazed is right. Thinking clearly is for someone better off, and so he errs on the side of caution even after he smells the faintest touch of ozone in the air, fingers quick to reach for the hilt of his dagger, oversharpened teeth clicked together as blue seeps slowly into view—

And ebbs away the moment he hears that unmistakable voice.

“Never much loved it anyway...”

He isn’t upright. That might go without saying. Still settled in frigid sand to keep a clear line between irritant and injury— and to keep his own head, as far as blood flow and common sense are concerned.

Also, for what it's worth, great for playing dead.

“Almost thought you were one of them. One of these days...I’ll need to teach you a thing or two about subtlety.”

[broodypants]

"I am subtle enough."

Fenris crouches in the sand, looking Astarion over. How will he get him out of here? It will be slow and awkward, but that can be a better victory than rushed and vicious. Without waiting for Astarion's assent, he begins to pick the man up in a bridal carry.

"Hold still."

[illithidnapped]

In field treatment is a miserable thing. It does the job, but it could, all things considered, do a better job. His wounds are only barely closed. Only the worst of them stymied, the cloying rime that'd stuck fast mostly reduced now to fringe chill and stiffened frost. More than anything else, he just wants out.

To not be left alone in the dark.

Even so, the choked-off exhale that escapes him as he’s hefted up into sturdy arms is the only sign of discomfort he entertains, fitting his cheek to the uninviting lip of Fenris’ cloak-covered breastplate, eking out a space for himself to brace against movement.

“—not one for foreplay, I see.”

[broodypants]

"Very funny," Fenris says, unamused.

There is the matter of pain. Fenris doesn't like causing it unintentionally. He's aware Astarion is injured, that is the entire point of this enterprise. Fenris can't fix it.

Moving through sandy caverns, Fenris asks, "what are the extent of your injuries?"

[illithidnapped]

“Nothing to fuss over."

Fenris might dislike being the catalyst for further discomfort, but whatever jostling plays out is merely the segue between a despairing point A and a deeply desired point B: Astarion wants this. And if he needs to say as much out loud, he will.

If, that is.

"The bandages will hold, I’m sure— as long as you don’t start shaking me about like a fledgling gnoll by its withering scruff." In the meanwhile, consider him still deeply impressed those talons don’t ever seem to be anything but perfectly controlled. Not even biting into his skin as he rests heavy in their grasp.

"Trust me, it’s nothing compared to old scars."

He shifts his chin a little more, shutting his eyes in easing transit. Adjusting to it.

"And...for the record, you’re much warmer than frozen cavern floors."

[broodypants]

Fenris' elf-eyes glint in darkness, illuminating a familiar scowl. "Tell me where to avoid, at least."

Yes, he can see bandages, smell blood, hear Astarion's incessantly vague complaints. That does not qualify as the sort of detailed information he needs to feel secure in this endeavor. His gauntlets do not catch or tear, but they could be more exact.

Fenris could always be more exact.

"Is that supposed to be a compliment?"

[illithidnapped]

“...well it— hm.”

Yes?

Look, he isn’t at the top of his game right now. Obvious reasons.

At any rate, he leaps from his own fumbling pass at pleasantries onwards with the open segue, doing his level best to recall injuries he’d never openly glanced at— only felt. Brittle blows and clouded memory.

“Just avoid the front of my ribs. Fairly certain the spell struck diagonally in a downwards pattern. Retaliation, in a sense.”

A pause lingers before he adds:

“...how do you know which way you’re going?”

[broodypants]

Fenris privately considers this a victory, having gotten Astarion to answer a question in a fashion resembling straight forward. He keeps walking, footsteps silenced over soft sand.

"There is a legend, in Tevinter, of a noblewoman who rescued her love from a labyrinth using twine."

If Astarion focuses, he may be able to see the twine they follow, tied to outcroppings in the rock. If not, Fenris has just said something very nonsensical.

[illithidnapped]

“Romantic.”

His eyes aren’t perfect in the absence of light anymore, but he still holds an advantage over most mortal creatures. The thread is almost easily spotted once he bothers opening his eyes, clinging from rock to rock.

“I’d ask you to regale me...but I have a feeling you’ve just given away the whole plot.”

Even so. Curiosity never withdraws its hold on him:

“...what happens in the end? Do they make it out together? Live happily ever after?”

[broodypants]

"Her love abandoned her to join Andraste's horde," Fenris supplies. He did indeed give the ending away, but not the final details. "For her faithlessness, she was sacrificed to Dumat, the Old God of silence. In those times, it's said, He took the form of a dragon. To honor the god, she did not make a sound."

Quiet permeates the rock, the sand, even their echoes seem muffled. It is a fitting story in more than one way.

"The string is the only meaningful feature of the tale."

[illithidnapped]

“Doesn’t bode well for you, considering your role at the moment.”

He pulls in a breath, the sound of it loud enough to signal the very fledgling start of the thought that chases it— dull and muted in the lightless dark.

“But then again I’ve never been the devout sort— and I don’t think you would ever go down quietly.”

Or for a god, for that matter.

[broodypants]

"I abandoned the Old Gods long ago," Fenris says, "if I ever worshiped them to begin with. They don't seem to have noticed."

They're also dead, but that's hardly the point. Fenris trudges onward.

[illithidnapped]

"Gods don't pay attention to anything aside from their own whims. Not here— and certainly not in Faerûn."

Even curled listlessly against Fenris, greedy in how he leans to leech warmth as if it were blood, too ragged to fully form anything but flickering trains of thought, there's a sharpness to his assertion. To the way his teeth click when consonants catch.

"No, it’s the ones that want to be gods— they’re the ones that seem inclined to notice everything. And even quicker to try and ruin it. All for selfish, pointless ambition."

Scoffs Astarion, also possessed of tireless ambition.

But he’d argue that it’s different.

[broodypants]

Fenris allows one self-amused chuckle to break the silence. Like a popping soap bubble, it echoes off the cavern walls, before popping, muffled into nonexistence in the sand. "Your grievances with Corypheus only grow."

[illithidnapped]

Music to his ire filled ears. If his answer from earlier was Fenris’ victory, this one is his.

And for a little while, with the ceding admission of 'so they do', silence prevails. The sound of bare footsteps in sand, the soothing glow of azure markings in the dark, a touch more silver in their more docile state.

He’s thinking, and he isn’t thinking at all— the oscillating pattern of consciousness and drowsiness working him over in waves. And it comes to him eventually, carried by the current of thoughtful tides rolling in and out, the memory of something he’d tried to pin down earlier. To not forget, if the opportunity arose.

“...I owe you an apology.”

Sentimental when wounded indeed.

[broodypants]

Fenris lets himself bend to the peace of the moment. He checks, occasionally, that Astarion yet draws breath, but he isn't too worried. He doubts the man is capable of dying quietly.

He shifts when Astarion speaks, something nearing, but not quite, shock. His grip tightens. Still, his talons to not find Astarion's leg, his shoulder.

"How so?"

[illithidnapped]

He feels those talons jolt just so, but it’s all dulled sensation; his nerves too wearied to work up any amount of concern over something so faint as fleeting pressure in the cold.

It’s a wonder Fenris’ toes haven’t fallen off, but he finds himself often amazed of that regardless of the setting.

"I didn’t want to hear it when we first met. About your— markings, I mean." Fenris had thought it an obvious allusion at the time, but even the most obvious of signs need to be observed in order to take root. "You see I’d only been free of my master for a single day when I arrived here. Just one. And because I had no control of myself before that I..."

He stops— starts again— it isn't the hazy screen of a blood starved mind that's entirely to blame for how difficult this is for him to confess; he'd be a poor hand at this even with his wits about him.

"When you said your master had marked you, I set it aside. Ignored it. I thought you meant something more akin to my own scars, not— "

Not the vivid stripes winding bright across sharp features. Those strange patterns, so obviously unique to Fenris alone, now.

"So when I went to touch you and you recoiled, well." His breath is a low-stitched thing, catching softly against the roof of his mouth as he stares at nothing at all beyond a stretch of rock that looks exactly the same as every other one they've passed thus far.

"I was an ass."

[broodypants]

Fenris' posture relaxes. A lone chuckle, deep and muffled in the back of his throat, finds its way out. He shakes his head, making odd shapes in the moonlight. "That is what comes now to your mind?"

[illithidnapped]

"Are you— "

He bristles at the sound of that faint amusement, as much as he’s capable of bristling. It’s the best possible outcome, and yet there’s no keeping the embarrassment from trying to flush its way across his features, even without a drop of blood to give.

A short puff of air escapes him.

"Yes that’s what comes to mind. One of the healers— I."

How can he say I know what it’s like, and that makes all the difference? Maybe before Fenris was smiling.

Now he just feels stupid.

[broodypants]

And Fenris, spurred on by Astarion's evident distress, keeps on smiling. "I'm honored," Fenris says, voice dry, "you think so much of my feelings."

[illithidnapped]

“Right now I’m thinking a great deal about you at the bottom of this glorified ditch.”

No. Damn it. Wait— that’s not what he wanted to say. Come on, Astarion. Get it together. It’s not so hard to be decent for once.

yes it is

“Would you just shut up and let me finish—”

[broodypants]

"Of course," Fenris says, voice thick with repressed laughter. He continues forward, gracefully moving his way around the cave walls, so Astarion's head isn't bumped into rock. "Please continue."

[illithidnapped]

There’s a dull thunk of a sound when Astarion drops his temple back against the plating of Fenris’ armor. Apparently whatever Fenris tried to spare him, he does to himself in indignance.

There was more to be said. Something thoughtful. Permeating. Profound, maybe, by Astarion's standards.

In the end, after all that bluster, all he manages is a single, frustrated:

“—I’m...sorry.”

Spoken so deeply that the 's' in sorry somehow catches like a 't', for how much force he puts behind it.

There. Laugh all you want, lanky bastard.

[broodypants]

Fenris does not laugh. He doesn't think anyone's ever apologized to him and meant it so truthfully as Astarion seems to. The fact that Astarion clearly doesn't have to is irrelevant.

"You hold yourself to a higher standard than I'd thought," he murmurs. "Accepted."